My college education was excellent but it has actually made me less employable.

/philosophy major

It appears as though it's saying a BA is a waste of time, not college in general. Big, big difference.

I tend to agree. Advanced education is really only necessary for the careers absolutely requiring specialized knowledge such as law, medicine, engineering, and accounting. For the most part, college degrees are a basis for rationing out the limited number of middle-class jobs available. And that basis tends to make middle-class status more or less hereditary (although there are slackers such as myself who experience downward mobility and ambitious members of the lower classes who manage to move upward).

My college degree is BS

Yeah, but no. College is not a job training program. What cert is going to show the breadth of a liberal arts education?

Get back to the factory floor, plebes.

...and how is education supposed to make me feel smarter?

Great way to dumb down the populace.

Undertoad: College is not a job training program.

Wrong answer. Report to the re-education center, consumer.

Phew. Thank god I'm in engineering, then.

/Approves

FTA: "Most important in an increasingly class-riven America: The demonstration of competency in business administration or European history would, appropriately, take on similarities to the demonstration of competency in cooking or welding."

Looks like the author and editor got a "certification" in journalism.

/Though I agree with the article

This is a HORRIBLE idea for one simple reason. That job you're training for? It might be gone next week. It might go overseas, or it might just go away.

The point of a college education is to teach you HOW to learn and HOW to think. Something you don't learn in high school.

But, you know, I'm workin' on that MFA because my lit degree is worthless. Just for full disclosure's sake.

Undertoad: Yeah, but no. College is not a job training program. What cert is going to show the breadth of a liberal arts education?

Ok, so you're posting this from your mom's basement and collecting unemployment or disability? I'm sure you or whoever paid for your education is just thrilled carrying all that debt so you can work at AM/PM.

No, no, no. The purpose of a college degree is, and always has been, a method for the "haves" to keep from giving jobs to the "have-nots." Now that the have-nots are going to college in record numbers, the haves will simply require more and more levels of education or construct some other expensive barrier.

Hell, I didn't even bother graduating HS and got a GED instead. Everyone was like "ohhh no.... you'll FAIL at life". Well I'm certainly not rich, but 192k a year isn't doing too bad. Hell, I make more a lot more money than most people with Masters and PhD's I know.

Duke Phillips' Singing Bears: This is a HORRIBLE idea for one simple reason. That job you're training for? It might be gone next week. It might go overseas, or it might just go away.

The point of a college education is to teach you HOW to learn and HOW to think. Something you don't learn in high school.

But, you know, I'm workin' on that MFA because my lit degree is worthless. Just for full disclosure's sake.

Don't go to vocational school for anything in a computer related field. You'll be outgeeked within a week.

Try something like plumbing. Some shiat just can't be outsourced.

"You're laborers. You should be laboring. That's what you GET for not having an education."
-Real Genius

(hehe)

Duke Phillips' Singing Bears:
The point of a college education is to teach you HOW to learn and HOW to think. Something you don't learn in high school.

in theory, yes. in practice 90% of college education is basically a poor form of certification anyway. having a BA is enormously important for getting jobs, as TFA say. don't you think a lot of people are just in it for that?

If you go to a nice school, college can give you a leg up. It can also give you an opportunity to get some experience in before you graduate, breaking the cycle of "you need experience to get hired but you need to get hired to get experience." I worked for $7 per hour in a bioengineering lab during undergrad, and that did more than anything else to help get my career on track.


This is especially important since my grad school wants me to choose between paying them $5000 per semester and working for peanuts for them and still owing them over $1000 in "fees" (i.e. tuition that they've renamed something other than tuition so they can charge more without admitting it in their promotional materials). Thanks to the experience I already have, I was able to choose to work for several times what they wanted to pay me, and I don't even have to grade homework anymore.

Field experience, anyone?

rcain: Hell, I didn't even bother graduating HS and got a GED instead. Everyone was like "ohhh no.... you'll FAIL at life". Well I'm certainly not rich, but 192k a year isn't doing too bad. Hell, I make more a lot more money than most people with Masters and PhD's I know.

no offense but...do you often tell people how much you make?

GoDeep: rcain: Hell, I didn't even bother graduating HS and got a GED instead. Everyone was like "ohhh no.... you'll FAIL at life". Well I'm certainly not rich, but 192k a year isn't doing too bad. Hell, I make more a lot more money than most people with Masters and PhD's I know.

Stop selling crack.

/$192k a year as what?

As an Internet Rich Guy, cousin to the Internet Tough Guy.

lokidecat: "You're laborers. You should be laboring. That's what you GET for not having an education."
-Real Genius

(hehe)

Awesome throwaway line by Jerry.

Danger Avoid Death:
Don't go to vocational school for anything in a computer related field. You'll be outgeeked within a week.


True. I've never met an ITT grad with a solid grasp of discrete mathematics. Those guys can crimp some mean ass cables though.

The sheepskin is not just for birth control:




You can also roll a big-assed doobie with it.

FTA:
Outside a handful of majors -- engineering and some of the sciences
Stopped reading here.

/Guess why?
//Hint: I'm not a pastry design major.

GoDeep: /$192k a year as what?

I'm an independent web services architect/developer, $125.00 an hour and work from home/cafes.
Pretty sweet if you ask me, it's something I actually enjoy doing.

Hi. 8 years resulting in a PhD representing.

I am a lecturer/(assistant professor)I won't disagree that there are a lot of people in university now who probably shouldn't be. The fact is not that it is the gold standard: it's just that a lot of kids don't really know what they want to do in life. A degree is a great way to put that off for 3-4 years. Plus 1-2 if you do a masters.

The problem is that we don't do a good job of explaning what a degree is for. As people have already said here, it is to teach you how to critically think so that employers can then use those skills and then mold you in the way that they can.

I don't think anyone could really say that they came out of university thinking EXACTLY the same way as they did when they went in. If so, they wasted the four years - it's not the university's fault or the system.

My brother the electrician will make a lot more than I ever will. Still, it's nice to have a 5 month vacation every year.

FTFA:

"Even a degree in a vocational major like business administration..."

BUAH HA HA HA HA HA!!! I just laugh-snorted my water.

Next time I run across an MBA type, I get to remind them that they went to vocational school.

My own BS is BS. Really. A BS Physics and an apron will get you a job waitressing... if you have waitressing experience.

But seriously, I will say that while I do agree that a degree is NO indicator of vocational aptitude (even after med school and law school, you STILL have cert tests to pass, people!), certification programs do not teach you how to think or problem solve in the general sense, and this is not a good thing to espouse - a population less prone to critical thinking than we already have? Yikes.

Now, an AS requirement with a professional cert? Best of both worlds.

So, what is the solution? More of expanded magnet schools in high school level?

newmoonpuppyhead: no offense but...do you often tell people how much you make?

Not really, but I do get asked about my finances quite a bit like "how much did you pay for x", so often in fact, I think nothing of discussing money. I wasn't trying to brag, as I said, I'm not rich and I do know people who make my income look like a peasants.

The point I was making was that the system as it is in which youth often equate a degree to a later paycheck is a sham and you can do as good or better on your own.

not true for any profession which actually requires a wide range of fundamental skills, like advanced mathematics, sciences, etc. as a software developer I can tell you easily:

certs => dumbshiat, best suited for reinstalling windows
bscs degree from no name school => probably dumbshiat to good
bscs degree from good school => probably good to great

if you have certs and a non-cs degree or degree from no name school, I will probably throw away your resume. I've never found ANYONE with heavy certs on their resume to remotely know anything, even the things they are "certified" in. another red flag is a foreign CS and a no-name MSCS. you'd think with a masters degree in CS they might have to actually learn something, but apparently a lot of no-name schools will just give them to you.

newmoonpuppyhead: rcain: Hell, I didn't even bother graduating HS and got a GED instead. Everyone was like "ohhh no.... you'll FAIL at life". Well I'm certainly not rich, but 192k a year isn't doing too bad. Hell, I make more a lot more money than most people with Masters and PhD's I know.

no offense but...do you often tell people how much you make?

If I made 192k, I'd farking lead off conversations with it.

I think going to (liberal arts) college was more than an academic education for me.

You go away to school and are forced to live in very bizarre conditions with a lot of weird kids, and you either get along with them or you're pretty much ostracized.

I studied abroad and learned to deal with shiat in a large foreign city. You have to be on your toes or you get robbed on a bus like one of my classmates did.

Not everything I learned is useful--who needs to know about John Dos Passos in the real world?--but it was enjoyable, and the interactions with people and the expectations of teachers are what I learned from.

I'm heading to law school in two weeks. Does my BA in English with an thesis on early 20th Century British Humorists really qualify me? No, but I'll learn something.

eddyatwork: My college education was excellent but it has actually made me less employable.

/philosophy major

Eech. You're right. I practically want to put you on my ignore list. ;)