Just Say No To College

[Matt1970]

Ironic, these 2 threads in one day. It is safe to assume you just don't get it.

"Low-Wage Jobs Cause More Problems Than They Solve"
"Just Say No To College"

 

[Pr0d1gy]

You are more than welcome to sponsor a college student or two. Better yet, pick a few that have no ambition in life other than to smoke pot and play xbox all weekend. tell them after 6 years they need to be done with college. Watch society blossom.

Why the contempt for those you view as lacking ambition? Did you ever consider those people realize in order to be ambitious that they would have to compete with, and thus be around, fuckwads like you which to them would be like having to eat shit soup all day long. I can imagine just being in the same room with you, to them, is like choking on an idiot sandwich.

I can certainly understand where "they" would be coming from.

 

[CycloWizard]

I just went through college. Unless you are getting a highly technical degree, you're paying the "college" to force you to learn and study.

You can learn anything nowadays on the internet and dummy books. Seriously. You can learn literally everything. All college does is force you to actually do the studying. So most students are amassing 100k debt just because they don't have the motivation to self-learn.

I would have been better off spending my last 5 years self studying the field that I'm at now. But some companies might not have taken me seriously.

Companies need to start changing their stance on college. College DOES NOT mean capable workers. Some of my peers went through college and know next to nothing. They are dumber than high school graduates because all they did was party and get Cs in class. Companies need to understand that some people are self-taught and they are actually highly skilled at what they do because they have an interest in what they taught themselves.

This is true to some extent. Universities are increasingly very expensive credentialing services which essentially certify a graduate skillset to potential employers. However, you will never get the same level of understanding teaching yourself engineering that you will gain from a university experience because of several factors:
1. group work
2. accountability (shown to be a critical component in late-adolescent learning)
3. expert instruction
4. immersive learning

There are very few people capable of becoming worthwhile engineers without these ingredients. This is why MIT can safely put all of the course content online for free: even if you "learn" all of it, you will never get as good a job as you would have had you actually gone to MIT to learn the same material.

 

[soulcougher73]

I think it will be the next bubble. Too expensive for the benefit/or non-benefit it produces.

 

[Munky]

Man, you find a way to blame the "elite" for just about anything. Might as well go full tard and say "republicans/conservatives/1%-ers" since that is the gist of all your threads. Unfortunately it seems like you haven't been keeping up with reality, because government intervention is the reason college costs an arm and a leg these days. When bleeding heart equalists push their agenda that everyone deserves to go to college, and to pursue their dream job however dumb and useless it may be, and hand out government-backed loans to anyone with a pulse, the skyrocketing college prices are a direct result of such idiocy.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

Companies need to start changing their stance on college. College DOES NOT mean capable workers. Some of my peers went through college and know next to nothing. They are dumber than high school graduates because all they did was party and get Cs in class. Companies need to understand that some people are self-taught and they are actually highly skilled at what they do because they have an interest in what they taught themselves.

The company for whom I work does accept work experience in place of a degree. The position I hold requires a BS degree in electrical or mechanical engineering. I did not attend college and joined the Navy two years after I graduated high school, the skills/knowledge I gained in the Navy (12 years) secured the first position I had with this company. Much of my knowledge is self taught via experience in the field (18 years), many engineers with the company both senior and junior ask for my input on projects as they know I've worked with the equipment/steam plants and understand operation of both.

 

[OverVolt]

Man, you find a way to blame the "elite" for just about anything. Might as well go full tard and say "republicans/conservatives/1%-ers" since that is the gist of all your threads. Unfortunately it seems like you haven't been keeping up with reality, because government intervention is the reason college costs an arm and a leg these days. When bleeding heart equalists push their agenda that everyone deserves to go to college, and to pursue their dream job however dumb and useless it may be, and hand out government-backed loans to anyone with a pulse, the skyrocketing college prices are a direct result of such idiocy.

I agree but where to go from here? Everything is full-retard.

 

[Engineer]

Ironic, these 2 threads in one day. It is safe to assume you just don't get it.

"Low-Wage Jobs Cause More Problems Than They Solve"
"Just Say No To College"

It seems that you don't get it. Everyone is not cut out to go to college (nor can they afford it) and the only jobs that are available to them are costing more than they are worth. As long as we keep destroying the foundation, the weaker the building will be until it falls. Until we get wealth creating, good paying jobs back, we're in for a downward spiral. There is no way around it.

 

[kache]

The company for whom I work does accept work experience in place of a degree. The position I hold requires a BS degree in electrical or mechanical engineering. I did not attend college and joined the Navy two years after I graduated high school, the skills/knowledge I gained in the Navy (12 years) secured the first position I had with this company. Much of my knowledge is self taught via experience in the field (18 years), many engineers with the company both senior and junior ask for my input on projects as they know I've worked with the equipment/steam plants and understand operation of both.

So the solution is not "take loan and go to college" but "enroll"?

 

[NikolaeVarius]

Calc we dipped into in HS, and uhhh not sure where you went, but they all touched on English, History, social science, normal science, and all the other standards of HS. Fluid Dynamics? Yeah, you're definitely off into the 2nd - 3rd year.

No. second semester first year, took fluid dynamics classes.

Only classes I thought were useless were calc 1 classes. Statics/dynamics classes were pretty damn hard.

2nd year was massive loads of fluid dynamics, dynamic structures, Diff EQ, and such.

 

[DrPizza]

Or maybe some just know that there still is a very large advantage to attending college and getting a degree. While I certainly agree that it is not for everyone there are many key points to consider:

Jobs for a bachelors degree or higher are up 2,000,000 since 2007
Jobs for HS or less are down 5,800,000 since 2007

7.8M jobs is a significant gap that obviously favors those who go to college

Employment growth of Bachelors degrees or higher is up 82% since 1989 while HS or less is down 14%

You will also earn nearly 2x more than a HS student - on average.

http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/CollegeAdvantage.FullReport.081512.pdf

Is this to say you can't succeed without a college degree? No. Is this to say that a college degree will magically make your life better? No. It is merely to point out that getting a college degree can and does still confer a great benefit over not getting one

The part I bolded is where the bullshit begins. High school students aren't very good at understanding averages of averages. They fail to realize that a trade: plumber, electrician, linesman, mechanic, etc., will make 2 to 3 times what someone with a bachelor's degree in psychology, sociology, gender studies, etc., makes. They're told that statistic over and over until they believe that college automatically equals earning more, and non-college automatically equals earning less.

 

[Ausm]

Yes, yes, you have lots of friends that majored in Psychology, English, History, <Insert worthless degree>, don'tcha?




Everything related to jobs goes back to supply and demand - the very principles that this economy was based on that liberals still can't grasp. Millions people working at retail shops getting "abused" with minimum wage for a skill-less job? THATS UNFAIR! Well - thats because there are over 9000 of you, and much less of other positions. People need to get off this pedestal of "I'll do whats fun / what I enjoy / what I can do" and move to "What does everyone else demand?"

You better double up on your meds buddy.....

 

[brandonb]

Hahaha - are you saying you are lying on your resume about having a degree? Or inserting some BS as a substitute for it?

Not that I can blame you, the fact that all resume's go through HR to run a program to check it for key words is stupid in the first place. When it comes to something like... say... virtualization. You can have shitloads of experience in VMWare, but they are looking for Microsoft Virtual and immediately deny yours, regardless of it being same skills

Yes, I lied. I say have a 2 year technical certificate from some community college nearby. I was unemployed for 2 years after I was laid off from my first job (after 6 years) because I didn't list anything for college.

During that time, I was only called once by an employer. And it was with an HR person. I didn't get pas the first round of phone interviews because I didn't have Oracle SQL experience. I only knew Microsoft SQL and had 6 years of experience at that time with the product. They didn't know the SQL portion of these products is pretty universal and I tried to explain it. And after explaining it for a few minutes she just goes "So you don't have any Oracle SQL experience?" I said "No... I do not." and got my reject letter a few days later. So yes. It was much like your VMWare situation.

Once I added my 2 year technical certificate to my resume and started submitting them to companies, I was hired within a month.

 

[Matt1970]

It seems that you don't get it. Everyone is not cut out to go to college (nor can they afford it) and the only jobs that are available to them are costing more than they are worth. As long as we keep destroying the foundation, the weaker the building will be until it falls. Until we get wealth creating, good paying jobs back, we're in for a downward spiral. There is no way around it.

Nobody said everyone should go to college. But when we openly push for people to not go to college then we are surely headed in the wrong direction. And when the OP and the like say not to go to college, then bitch about low paying job, it just shows they have no clear message. You might as well advocate people not wear sunscreen and then bitch about all the sunburns.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Yes, I lied. I say have a 2 year technical certificate from some community college nearby. I was unemployed for 2 years after I was laid off from my first job (after 6 years) because I didn't list anything for college.

During that time, I was only called once by an employer. And it was with an HR person. I didn't get pas the first round of phone interviews because I didn't have Oracle SQL experience. I only knew Microsoft SQL and had 6 years of experience at that time with the product. They didn't know the SQL portion of these products is pretty universal and I tried to explain it. And after explaining it for a few minutes she just goes "So you don't have any Oracle SQL experience?" I said "No... I do not." and got my reject letter a few days later. So yes. It was much like your VMWare situation.

Once I added my 2 year technical certificate to my resume and started submitting them to companies, I was hired within a month.

I was just using virtualization as an example - I run into the SQL one all the time, I just said fuck it and put both on my resume. It's a fucking SQL query, there is NOTHING different. It's like saying "Well, I see you have experience in notepad, but how about Wordpad and Microsoft Word?"

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

You better double up on your meds buddy.....

You easily come off as the one of many currently sucking on the government teet :sneaky:

But nice arguments on my post - oh wait...

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Fascinating thread... Almost makes me believe in synchronicity... Here's the analysis I read this morning - and probably quite an objective view, given that it comes from outside the U.S. : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20154358

 

[Engineer]

Nobody said everyone should go to college. But when we openly push for people to not go to college then we are surely headed in the wrong direction. And when the OP and the like say not to go to college, then bitch about low paying job, it just shows they have no clear message. You might as well advocate people not wear sunscreen and then bitch about all the sunburns.

Nobody said everyone shouldn't go to college.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Just Say No To Liberal Arts College

FTFY

 

[Matt1970]

Just say no to college. You will have the rest of your life to regret it.

 

[SheHateMe]

My liberal arts degree is going to make one rich someday.

 

[BoberFett]

I never went to college (and barely scraped by in high school with a low B average, never did homework but I aced tests) and make $95K/yr as an IT manager, plus I'm being eyed for the Director position after my boss moves on. I'm probably biased when I interview, but I don't give a damn about degrees on someone's resume. I care about what they've done in the real world. Have you completed successful projects? Can you think outside the box? I've seen great employees without a degree, and I've seen horrible employees with degrees. If you're straight out of college and asking me for a job, then you're going to get low entry level salary until you've proven that you can actually do something worthwhile. The way they give them away nowadays (with a qualifying purchase of $100K or more) degrees aren't worth the paper they're on. Companies would do well to start judging based on things that actually matter rather than a college degree. Of course that's just me.

 

[BoberFett]

The part I bolded is where the bullshit begins. High school students aren't very good at understanding averages of averages. They fail to realize that a trade: plumber, electrician, linesman, mechanic, etc., will make 2 to 3 times what someone with a bachelor's degree in psychology, sociology, gender studies, etc., makes. They're told that statistic over and over until they believe that college automatically equals earning more, and non-college automatically equals earning less.

You should be a math teacher.

 

[OverVolt]

Today's assignment, calculate the cost of an iPhone over 4 years including the interest on student loans.

 

[dmcowen674]

Ironic, these 2 threads in one day.

It is safe to assume you just don't get it.

"Low-Wage Jobs Cause More Problems Than They Solve"
"Just Say No To College"

There is no assumption that you don't get it.

When are you leaving the country?