NOTE: Lethn's brain intentionally left blank... In other words, without the capability of getting a serious degree, throw stones instead. This ("college bad") is his main drum on ET.
I majored in business, then took 7 weeks of computer classes and went directly into a computer job. Most of the stuff you learn in college you forget, anyway. It's a waste of money. They should shorten it for most professions, but, unfortunately, companies love to see a degree on your resume.
You do realize that engineering programs grade on a curve these days, don't you? My roommate in college, a Chem-E major, once showed me a quiz that he scored 14% on. Guess what grade he earned on it? A "B". And this was UW-Madison, not Podunk State.
A broad college education, along with one's capacity to adapt and learn, is more important than ever. As a practical matter, I would have HR do an initial sort of resumes into two stacks. The stack without a degree is placed in the cylinder shaped file. There's a nice self-filter as well. A person who believes the 'case against college' should continue believing this. The price of a four year education, net of whatever grants, is peanuts compared to the value path it enables for a reasonably intelligent person.
I think it would be interesting to know what those who argue against college do for a living? and what were their average grades and SATs in high school?
we got the same "sink or swim bitches" spiel when I started as well. fukn eng dorks lol. The school I attended was uber competitive to get into and we still found a way to weed out about 30% of the class by the time grad hit. Of course there's always the luck/timing element. I remeber when I was a frosh and the hot prog was Comp Eng and Comp Sci and the old faithful Chem & Mech weren't nearly as 'sexy'. This played out during job placements as well with RIM and Nortel giving every pimple faced dork $30/hr in 1st year to download Napster and tug it at their desk. I was in Chem Eng, oil was $20/bbl and most industries were in a holding pattern - refiners would have a giant 10-15 year gap with no intermediate experience level personnel, i guess it was the holdover from bad recessions of the past. Fast forward to graduation time in 2004 ----- tech bubble has busted and the oil & gas industry is blowing up and has an insatiable appetite for new grads (in Canada anyway). I'm not going to hate on the artsies even though 90% of the ones I dealt with were tards. The sad reality was engineering girls were a) few and far between b) ugly c) pwning the supply/demand relationship and therefore scoring an extra 3-4 points on the 10 hotness scale from desperate eng nerds ........ I wanted no part of that racket ---- arts girls were more likely to get drunk and fuck on a whim
the best college is a $4k /y ($20k for 4) respcted community college like Baruch in new york, best return for its value. I went to a retarded private college, for a year, cost me like $15k for the first semeseter before i gave it the middle finger. That was in 1999. I would only go to college again to pickup women
Is this deja vu or has this exact thread already been done? With the same title and all? Here is the deal in a nutshell. If you are going to enter the job market, a degree is a huge advantage. If you want to be successful a college education is somewhat of a advantage for the right person, and can be a huge set back for others. If you are not submitting resumes the education can be had "good Will Hunting" style, and the attributes that help people succeed are not included in a college education.
yes it was. The deal also includes, what kind of job is only a HIGH SCHOOL grad going to get in this post--manufacturing world? Every wise employer will take a college grad over HS grad at a similar price. Math, communications, brains will even win out in construction and blue collar jobs. HS grads are going to be in a world of hurt in this post-Bear/Lehmans world, already factoring in that before, College grads earned 50-80% more, and have had half the unemployment rate. They will fight with students and retirees also clamoring just to get jobs at 7-11 or Burger King. See Detroit after collpse of car industry? That is the future of the HS grad competing against the educated.
Thats exactly why the government should not be giving loans/grants to people for college. A degree is has almost no value anymore. If everyone stopped going to college, then those who paid for college out of their own pocket would have degrees that were worth something. I remember my ex-girlfriend about 17 years ago got her Bachelors in Psychology. The jobs that were out there for her were social worker type jobs that paid $6 bucks per hour, just slightly more than min. wage. In fact...she didnt get her first job that paid over 10 bucks per hour until about 4 years or so after she graduated. Last i heard she was working as a manager in an office which had nothing to do with her degree.