Who here did NOT go to college?

Back then you could actually get a job in "computing" without going to college.

Sometimes I wish I had, but I was too 'young' really.

Saying that, I still have something of a hatred for students - an irrational jealous streak a mile wide that makes me fume. Living in Oxford, this is something of a problem. However, the more i talk to students, the more I realise that I pwn them all, so it's all good. My one remaining chip, clinging resolutly onto my shoulder, is finally slipping away. Around 2010 I'll be fine.

I think it's because of jealousy - as I say, it is with me. Because I'm aware of it I don't let it affect me, but I think that's what it is in 90% of cases.

going and leaving is >>> going and failing and failing and failing and failing and failing and failing and failing and going back again, and not facing the fact that you're 150K+ in debt

Once again, my post has little point other than to bring to everyones attention how stupid I am.

Whoop de doo. College.

Not to mention that there's a certain stigma attached to not going that could hurt you later.
Indeed, that's just loathsome... I'll actively frown upon anyone who does this to me in the future, not out of condescension but in reaction against their disdain.

also, do you hate fun?

xpost

I thought that was funny because at my school we've got two courses about consumerism, one in sociology and one in religion. Not that that's shaking up the social order or anything, but it's not classics.

(xpost - Maria makes the point more clearly, by example, that it might help him to know what he's talking about before he makes a decision based on his own knowledge)

jaymc, in that segment I was referring more to primary education; I should have specified. gabbneb, that basis would be insight, and whether or not it is keen or misguided would be up to one's personal interpretation. You can dismiss it and you really wouldn't be wrong.

I went to a small liberal arts college, and I feel like I learned so much, both inside and outside of the classroom, just about life and ideas and people -- stuff that was rarely just a means to end, and that I wouldn't give up for anything now. College can be a hothouse for this kind of fantastically intense learning and growing, both intellectually and socially.

Of course, there is always the question of $$$.

xpost - Ian sounds like he's 'interested in learning' to me, too - but not necessarily the kind of learning facilitated by a classroom. (there's also the insinuation there that he needs to look at college again because he's 'interested in learning,' and wouldn't be learning unless he goes to college)

Very true, but it's not that I'm convinced learning wouldn't occur in a college. Instead, I'm fearful that being swamped by the five-pronged attack of studies, debt, the influence collegiate culture, student poverty, and the possibility of such a busy future will make me bloody off myself.

Most colleges these days you can study whatever you want to study within reason. I think mostly it's about the value you place on learning. And sure, you could get most of the reading in a library, but the intellectual interaction isn't so easily duplicated. Like most things you get out of it what you put into it. Definitely not for everyone, though. The other thing is, you can always go later in life.

How would I not be learning when it's possible to find so much to absorb as, well, seemingly everything becomes increasingly available? (That's not rhetorical, I'm honestly curious.)

I live in a massive university town and its influence here is practically inescapable, but that's not my only reference point at all, not in the slightest sense.

yes, you get out of college what you put into it. but it's a rare person who can learn as much on their own as they could with the right instructors and colleagues. i think ian's problem is that he just hasn't found the latter yet.

(xpost - so you live in a university town. perhaps you are ascribing the character and culture of that university to universities in general? this is very probably a mistake, especially as, if i recall correctly, you live in a state that does not have any great universities.)

what does a high school textbook have to do with college? you by and large don't read textbooks in college humanities/social sciences. and there are many who would say that you are more likely to wax poetic about Sandinistas in college than about Shakespeare.

Yeah, I'd like to know if this is true, Ian. One of the exciting things about going to college for me, though, was precisely that opportunity to interact on a more intellectual level than in high school.

When I apply for jobs nobody even looks or mentions where I went to school and what I studied.

But I know if it wasn't there, on muh rez, they wouldn't hire me.

I loved college so much. My best and favorite classes were ones that had nothing to do with my major. I feel like I learned a lot and don't regret taking them.

Just like week had a phone interview for an educational consulting job and one of the reasons they called me was because of my interdisclipinary honors major nearly ten years ago in college. It impressed them.

'classroom'? how about "the kind of learning facilitated by" discussions around seminar tables, or even in professors' offices? sure, there's a fair amount of learning on your own (or in groups) outside of classes held in big lecture halls. but if you could do it all on your own, why would anyone do it?

There are a couple of different universities/colleges here. I've endured watching my mother progress through community college and then through university and she still takes the occasional class (she plans to go on to grad school once my younger brother's completed middle school). She's also worked at several different departments for the aforementioned university (right now she's currently at Graduate Studies; before that, Anthropology and two different Women's Studies programmes) and she tells me all about what she's experienced through the day. However, these are not my only vantage points, as I wouldn't make such a decision on such a limited basis. I've maintained contact with many friends in various colleges throughout the country. My last relationship was with someone at Sarah Lawrence who wants to go into the film school at NYU and so I heard all of her stories and I actually visited the campus as well. I decided at thirteen that I didn't want to go to college and so members of my family have sent me all sorts of books about colleges in trying to convince me otherwise. So, while my viewpoints on the institution maybe Americentric (although I'm very fond of reading about Situationist exploits in France), it's not solely confined to my particular community.

If you think you can be happy at 35 doing the EXACT SAME CRAP that you're doing right this minute, if you're not afraid to go over the hill as a video store clerk who moonlights as a security guard, don't go to college.

Yes, higher education is a racket in a lot of ways. But ANY degree is better than none, and you reap the benefits later in life, not sooner. Also when you're 18-22, that's the one time in your life you're going to be best equipped to tolerate other 18-22 year olds, so now is the ideal time to take classes and get that BA over with. Otherwise you end up hating the shit out of a bunch of other people's children while they waste your time asking unbelievably stupid fucking questions.

Uh Tom, I'm not sure this was the best example. If I ever make that kind of money in my life, I'll be baffled and elated.

and Tom, I don't know if that is true, my old manager didn't have a college degree (and she was a big head honcho with an advertising agency).

You don't have to be over 22 for this to be a typical experience.

For the record, my non-college educated boyfriend has a decent office job with one of the world's largest computer manufacturers and is making the same salary I've averaged with my high honors college degree. Definitely not begrudging him since I loved going to college but just saying it is possible.

Everybody says shit like "If I ever make $95K that'll be so awesome! Oh my god!" More to the point, ignore the figure, and think about sitting at that level for the REST OF YOUR LIFE, never advancing and never getting into different work because you're only employable at that level for certain jobs.

(I also know a man who is a big honcho at an ad agency who never completed his degree, but his story is basically the same as the one Rufus 3000 gave, and yeah, 20 years makes a big difference in the jobs marketplace. 20 years ago community college was a fine thing)

Tom, WTF, making $95k for the rest of my life would be amazing!

I like my job, and I think the fact I went to university makes me good at it. Not as a result anything I learned academically (I took two separate years out of my education), but the *growing up* I did whilst getting my degree was instrumental in making me the person I am today, moreso than my degree which isn't worth the paper its written on.

I agree with this too! But at the same time I have a different perspective -- for me, the important stuff, besides friends etc. is my writing. I engage with that haphazardly but I still do, because it's how I would like to be, however in a low-level way, remembered. Still, though my roof-over-head job is not the core of my existence, it is still important precisely because, well, roof over head -- and more money on a regular basis would allow me to do many things I like, such as travel, more readily, not to mention an eventual purchase of a place perhaps. It really all depends.

Of course, if someone paid me $95k to do it, I wouldn't say no.

But yeah, I mean, I got a B.A. in English, so therefore I'm qualified to be a copy editor, which I mostly see as a decently paying job with good benefits so that I can write and make music and do other fun stuff on the side. But how I approach all that fun stuff (esp. writing) is definitely a result of the experiences and opportunities I had in college.

Especially not my ability to construct a coherent sentence...

ian seems to see college as an obstacle to amusing himself, rather than an opportunity to do so (or a place to learn how better to do so), especially in ways he might not have imagined.
I know it's possible to do that, but to pay so much in order to amuse yourself and experience the wonders academic blackout? Ouch.

I will always remember you, Ned!!! And I will tell your tale to my children and they will tell it to theirs!!!!!!!

yes, Ian could go back to college. but he shouldn't imagine that doing so would be easy, especially if:
a) what he does in the interim is held against him in seeking admission to a school that will be rewarding
or
b) he does not himself make choices that make it far more difficult, i.e. having even fewer assets/lower credit, greater family responsibility, etc.

this does sound like it might be an extreme version of the opposition to general education/core curriculum-style learning. but even if Ian were right about the value of the substance of Great Books, he should consider whether he's wrong about the process of their being studied by a group of people who might not choose to do so on their own. also, while Ian's obviously not unintelligent, there's a difference between being intelligent and being informed/educated. even if you disagree with the content of what other people think you should know (as many who read Great Books in college do), there is value in studying that content in a situation that encourages rigor, especially if you want to challenge it.

...New School?

Well, thats where I was planning on taking my summer course.

And you are?

with the exception of one of the film classes that i fell in love with last semester, this is so OTM.

i'm going to college because i know what i want to do and it involves information and skills that i'd be hard-pressed to learn outside of a university setting, i think. college is very often a drain and i learn a lot of stuff that promptly leaves my head the moment i exit the classroom and that i never bother with again, yes, but if suffering through it means that i'll have the degree i'll need to get the job i want, then bring it on.

(i understand this may very well be just as naive as ian's viewpoint, but i'm keeping my game face on as i've got a very important job interview tomorrow, among other important priorities)

If the latter 'do it' means go to college - to get the sheepskin as a status symbol and to make it easier to find a job or move up the income ladder.

If the latter 'do it' refers to learning in itself - I dunno, the joy of knowledge? Presumably the same thing that motivates people to go to college now if you want to downplay the economic angle.

Do people really think the late-night talk atmosphere, etc. don't occur with people who don't get the 'college experience'? Or are they just not as special because it doesn't have the necessary intellekshul cachet?

Yeah, I found that strange. Some of the most thoughtful conversations I've ever had -- face to face, online, whatever -- have been with folks either that had never been to college or were only finally getting around to it.

Xpost -- but Jaymc does have a good point, it certainly can't hurt your chances!

Part of my problem with what gabbneb, especially, is saying is that it's based on an experience held by a few lucky individuals. It doesn't translate into reality for most teens.

And despite the fact that I taught in a low-income school (the one year I had to take out loans was a black out year for our state's teacher loan forgivness program) my wages were garnished b/c I couldn't pay back a student loan.

still loved it.

Bingo. This idea of college as some worry-free no stress zone is foreign to me. My first year at college is just winding down and, honestly, this semester has been a real low point in my life. It seems like no one has mentioned how completeley confusing it is to be this age.

It's kind of like "skip film school and just spend that $120k on your movie!" like the student/filmmaker is paying cash for tuition.

i'm not talking about "late night talk." i'm talking about serious seminar discussions (or, in the sciences, lab research) with well-prepared colleagues and tenured professors who may be the greatest in their area of specialization.

in asking why anyone would go to college when they could learn what they learn there on their own, i think i'm clearly asking why they would incur the cost. of course college is a relative status/income prerequisite (like, uh, high school), and a social experience, but do you recognize even a possibility that your it's-all-about-status/income (and you'd know how?) refrain might be full of shit?

some people don't need institutional guides or similarly-focused companions at this age, of course, and some of the institutions may not be worth the money. but why would you give up the potentially-unique opportunity to attend a good or great one?

(xpost - so you're saying, milo, that most people who work or support themselves in college don't enjoy it, or don't enjoy it fully? or that no one should go to college if it won't be worry-free? or that several or many years of paying off a debt is not worth a lifelong asset? or that no one who comes from meager means ends up paying off higher education debt through highly-remunerative employment?)

That's hopeful. I ended up at a state college despite getting in to much better schools because of financial reasons. Moving out of the dorms will probably be a good first step.

But the vast majority want to (using, say, Tom's example) break whatever economic glass ceiling they're facing (or in some cases to sustain their privilege). Your hypothetical example clearly points to this - you can learn as well outside of college as in it but you don't get the diploma and its economic and social benefits. So why do people go to college? Well, gee, lemme look at the variable there: oh yes, it might just be that diploma.

At the level above that - why do people go to Yale over State U? Cuz Yale's got status. Why do people go to Macalester over State U? Because Macalester has another kind of status.

Which isn't an argument for or against going to college (nothing I've said should be construed as a blanket attack on higher education - I liked and found useful some classes, hated and wasted my time in others, by and large preferred the people I've worked with to my classmates). It's an argument against pretending that college is a fairy tale world where everyone's experience mirrors a full-ride to the Ivies.

Now, are there people out there who would gladly sacrifice rock-solid financial stability in order to teach grad seminars on Holderin's poems or Rosenquist's paintings? Of course. But it's not a decision to be entered into lightly, considering the economic stakes, and it's perfectly reasonable to forestall education, especially of the advanced variety, if you aren't absolutely sure the risks outweigh the potential economic benefits or amount of personal satisfaction. Framing the question only in terms of "several or many years of paying off a debt" versus the "worth a lifelong asset" is a rather shallow accounting of assets and liabilities.

why do people go to Yale over State U? Cuz Yale's got status. Why do people go to Macalester over State U? Because Macalester has another kind of status.

yeah, and the faculties of these schools, their course offerings, and the gpas/sats/acts of the students (not to mention the social preoccupations) have nothing to do with it. and State U may well have more status, on these measures, than Macalester. or even Yale, in certain cases.

if you think that someone would turn down a full-ride at U. Conn. to go to yale -- and get themselves and/or their parents in hock up to their eyeballs -- simply b/c of yale's "faculty," then yer really out of it.

happens all the time, and not just to rich people.

I doubt there are many people who've made one decision at 13 and stuck with it.

obv, but i like my world-view and will defend it. and while he has a fair point, i want to make sure he considers all the angles.

A number of you responding act as if I've been purposefully stubborn about adhering to such a notion. It's not the case, but no-one's convinced me otherwise and I don't expect anyone to make me deviate from my opinion, nor am I even trying to make anyone convince me; all this reaction has been under the notion that my way of thinking is essentially misguided. I asked absolutely no-one to prove that college would be beneficial to me but it's rather unnecessarily exploded into a minor scandal because some feel unwittingly attacked by my initial post. (Mary's statement appears to be very on the mark in consequence.) This isn't to say I didn't know it would incite such an explosive reaction; on every occasion I've declared something of this sort it always has.

But when the man measured with the highest intelligent quotient in North America can live as a bouncer off of $6,000 a year, I do think these lofty pursuits and ambitions don't seem to be worth the effort anymore and aspirations of pursuing higher education in order to attain a career in order to experience success and prestige becomes ultimately trivialized. (Of course, IQ isn't an end all/be all, but one would conjecture that he'd be accomplishing something more prestigious than that.) The aforementioned man (Chris Langan) is even still trying to make a difference in spite of financial limitations, so he's not necessarily accused of wasting his life. I'd just prefer to be able to enjoy some sort of relative freedom (although what I do later on will almost certainly be limited to whatever confines I end up in, as I'm sure I won't be able to afford to travel or raise children, not that I'd want the latter) without having to work until retirement age for it only to be unable to enjoy myself as much as I would now due to not being in prime condition healthwise. I feel I'd be making the most of myself by opting to treat my conscience with more respect instead of having it nag at me at the end of my life for not making things so simple. A common complaint I've heard from the neighbours of my grandparents (the whole neighbourhood pretty much grew up together since the Sixties) is that they wished they wouldn't have worked themselves so much and that they think my generation should slow down and appreciate everything more. Anyway, the more I learn about deviating from a society-approved prescribed path, the stronger my convictions about my course become. I'm sorry if this doesn't seem to be accepted, but I'm not about to play a rousing game of brown-nose to anyone who disagrees. I can only explain myself in an increasing amount of detail in hope of being understood. There are admittedly things I'd like to do, such as writing short-stories and having them published in tiny little zines, but that's for my own amusement and I have no interest in converting what I enjoy doing into a sort of career (which has disappointed people I know personally, but I'm not out to appease anyone). If any of this fails me, I can always accept that I was incorrect, get over it, and move on. It won't trouble me to admit a mistake, no matter how large.

a typical boomer sentiment. and a good example of why non-boomers don't listen to boomers.

I don't think that could've consisted of my original post, jaymc. Eisbär, I know it's a "typical boomer sentiment" but I can't help feeling that they're correct. And they aren't baby boomers either -- these people were born in the Twenties and Thirties.

PS: Amy Sherman Palladino, creator of Gilmore Girls, did not attend college.

right, and i'm equal and opposite. but i'm arguing not just because i don't like your worldview, but because
1) it strikes me as misinformed, based on your admittedly brief sketch
and
2) you have a whole lifetime not to go to college. yes, you also potentially have a whole lifetime to go to college, but it will never be easier to do so (for most people) than it is now

but i'm not his parent -- it's his life!

The only reason I'm sticking this out at all is to basically get a piece of paper and prove that I can finish something. I've had some interesting classes with some interesting stuff to read but OTOH I kind of agree with what Ned said waaaaaay upthread--I'd have rather had the discussions, read the books, explored the subject without looming deadlines, the intrusion of people I dislike strongly, etc etc.

So, yeah, I basically kind of find myself agreeing with the no-college sentiment here, I kind of wish it hadn't gotten to the point in this country where you had to prove your worth in this fashion in order to get anywhere because I feel like that maybe has diminished the experience, because everyone (virtually) goes to undergrad so it's not like it's loaded up with people like, say, Sam who is there because she loves to learn and wants to explore all these different topics, it's full of a lot of people who are there because their parents say they must.

That is just my experience, currently. I could just be in the wrong field or something, but I feel like genuinely interested students are few and far between, even at institutions that are cannibalizing people's credit lines.

xpost yeah basically, and the fact that for half of the students it is more like MY PARENTS SAY I MUST HAVE A DIPLOMA and not even their own well-defined self-interest can't possibly help the situation.

Not to mention that there's a certain stigma attached to not going that could hurt you later.
Indeed, that's just loathsome... I'll actively frown upon anyone who does this to me in the future, not out of condescension but in reaction against their disdain.

-- Ian Riese-Moraine has a grenade, that pineapple's not just a toy! (eastern_mantr...), April 26th, 2005.

No offense, but get over yourself and go to college, dumbass. You can still do your Will Hunting routine once you have a BA, and you can do it in a more comfortable apartment as you'll be earning more than minimum wage.

-- Allyzay do not obtain to make download of yours MP3 (allyza...), April 27th, 2005.

Sorry, but this guys sounds too much like people I know, and, to some extent, me. Not going to college because you're not yet ready is one thing, but not going because of half-baked idealism is just stupid. There's nothing that you can do without a college degree that you can't also do four years later with a college degree.

and, to be fair, some of the DUMBEST and most POINTLESS classroom comments and discussions (both undergrad and in law school) came from the older students.

I'm speaking as a high school drop out who, at age 23, was making $25k a year more than my own father was making, and gave it up to go to college on the basis of little more than disliking the company I worked for and not being really bothered to go ahead and find another job. Laziness, malaise, whim, a drunken dare to apply to an Ivy League college: the reasons I went back to school. I don't really regret it (though being broke and really, really bored has made me think twice about my decision more than once) but OTOH I don't really have any great plans to get myself another spectacular job or really do anything at all once I'm done.

I am also aware that my experience isn't exactly "usual" but it's not exactly dream the impossible dream either. I mean, really, I think my mom said literally the exact same thing you said just now when I bitched out on school too. So I'm always a little wary of the idea that you CAN'T make something of yourself without going to college.

xpost Eisbär I've had the same experience with some of the older students--this is going to sound awful but it's usually the OLDER students who do this. Like, the 45 year old high school teacher who is coming back to school to brush up who felt the need to argue with the professor on EVERY SINGLE POINT in the class.

my 2 faves -- (1) my senior thesis class (on nabokov), we had this 50-something student who kept on bringing up gogol and other russian writers (other than nabokov) for no apparent reason -- he didn't last 2 weeks (thankfully). (2) 2d year evidence class -- after going over some caselaw on some point of evidentiary law, this 40-something chimes up "you mean, this is the LAW in the states?" i reply to my buddy sitting next to me, "no, lady, it's the law in POLAND -- what kinda question is this?" (i thought i was whispering it, but apparently the professor heard it and had a "talk" w/ me after class!)

I mean, he actually said "catastrophic catastrophy" which was kind of AMAZING. I mean his general points were all correct but seriously!

The other greatest dude is in one of my current classes, but he's not nearly as old, he's more around my age, and he insists on bringing up Napoleon every single day in discussion, which is kind of, well, strange. I mean the one discussion section that was about the Napoleonic wars, I can see that, but for like 6 weeks? It's a class about the demise of the Habsburgs!

-- rasheed wallace (kanestbkly...), April 27th, 2005.

I'm not exactly losing any sleep over it, believe me. But if the kid didn't want contrary opinions, he shouldn't have posted about it.

Ally: Of course *some* people make a great living, find total fulfillment, etc. without going to college, and many more DON'T do these things even though they got a degree. But my point is that the degree never hurt anyone, as far as I know, and it gives you more options. Why shouldn't he do it (if not now, then in year or two)? He sounds intelligent -- he can get a scholarship, maybe go to a good public so he doesn't end up in too much debt.

Anyway I got into uni to to a BSc, but wasn't sure what it was I wanted to do with my life, and to me university is a means to an end, so something like arts seemed pointless. I deferred, got a job in the publuc service, and never thought about uni again, as it wasn't needed.

I eventually went to TAFE (which is a kind of technical college, more practical) to do my professional writing and editing diploma about 6 years after that, it was great fun, and got me some good grounding in internet skills that have me the job I have now.

I may never be on more than 50k a year and I dont care - work's work, it isnt my life.

xpost my roommate and I are BOTH high school drop outs. You'll be amazed at the kind of riff raff the Ivies let in these days.

By the time I went to grad school I knew I wanted to do well and make an impression and so forth so I forced myself to speak up. I got used to it. Sometimes I even liked to hear the sound of my voice!

(this tends only to apply to IT, tho, obv it wont for doctors and lawyers and the like)

we finish high school the same time (12th grade, age 17-18).

i think that the distinction b/w "university" and "college" is that (a) "universities" do research, or organize the "colleges" that comprise the university (which was kinda how my undergrad university did things); and (b) "colleges" are more devoted to teaching. i could be wrong, though, or if the distinctions are correct then they may be inoperative nowadays.

Because he doesn't want to!

Also, I definitely think that people going to college later in life get lots more out of it. Especially the kind of people that wouldn't necessarily have thrived at frat parties in the first place.

In the college course I taught, a former nurse with two children decided to go to school and get her degree. It was inspiring!

I refuse to participate in classes. Rarely have I been graded down for it.

a college is an undergraduate school, sometimes but not always found within a research university that also includes graduate and/or professional schools. is there somewhere this isn't true?

re: the Ivies - do I dare bring up the distinction between undergraduate admissions and continuing education divisions?

The emotional investment that some posters seem to have in Ian's going to college or not seems entirely misplaced.

as opposed to my emotional investment in, say, Ernest P's 10 days in the Southwest

yeah, but whether he does or not will have less impact on his life

Because he doesn't want to!

Well hey now, I'm not going to force him to do it. But I think his reasons are ill-considered and not based on the realities of either college or life. It's his mistake to make though. He posted about it looking for either advice, approval, argument, or maybe just aggrandizement. I gave my answer.

There definitely are a lot of problems with the FAFSA, as Ally touched on. It's hard to paint yourself as a victim when you come from the American middle class, but that really is an area where you get the shaft. Not "poor enough" for aid and not "rich enough" to pay the bills.

well, bushco is working overtime to make that a reality in society-at-large -- otherwise OTM.

Sure--but considering that A) I am not enrolled in a "continuing education division" I fail to see what your argument has to do with jack shit that I've said and B) my classes are virtually all students of Columbia College and Barnard (though, yes, the CATASTROPHIC CATASTROPHE man was a continuing ed student), I am not entirely sure what point you're trying to make here.

xpost I have said before, with a lot of controversy that really seems inexplicable to me still, that the only people who benefit from the FAFSA system are people whose parents are upper-middle class to wealthy, while the poor and the lower-middle to regular-middle classes kind of get jacked over and over again. They really need to get rid of their ridiculous "dependency" rules (Hi. Make them compliant with the other federal definition of dependency, ie the IRS one), start adjusting it for cost of living from region to region, and definitely lower the EFC in general for people whose family incomes are under $60-$75k. I mean it asks how many people are in your family but it doesn't seem to actually care about that number, for example. I mean there's like so much wrong with it that it's not even funny.

So I dunno.

aren't the older students that were being discussed just prior to milo's comment typically continuing ed students?

So I dunno.

-- Trayce (spamspanke...), April 27th, 2005.

Well, the statistics go against your friends, at least in the states. I know people in both of those categories too, though. And I also know people in both of the inverse categories.

I won't get into the details, but the level of invasiveness of the financial aid office required to even have someone consider reclassing me as an independent student was stomach-turning and I ended up giving up on it and getting the damn loans.

xpost the "older students" being discussed, with the exception of my one single example of an obnoxious man in a history class, had nothing to do with the Ivies.

People I know who didn't go to or finish college hate their jobs, and hate most of the people they work with.

I went to college, am going to more college, I hate my job and most of the people I work with. The ones I don't hate I feel sorry for.

We all get paid basically the same.

Don't waste your time. Have fun.

tell it to milo

It's daycare for the binge-drinking set.

It's an overpriced racket and 80% of the institutions in the US need to have their programs stripped away, their faculties' tenures revoked, and all of their buildings post-1930 demolished, they look like minimum-security prisons.

It's a lot of horseshit and so are any hiring/promotion practices that rely on it to evaluate for "qualified people."

It's a mistake for most people, and the don't realize it until about halfway through. 124 hours, what do you get? Another day older, and deeper in debt, that's what.

God, fuck college. I hate this thread. Good night.

Some of the people I know who went to college now hate their jobs.

Others have really great jobs that they love, working at places like Village Voice, the Metropolitan Museum, MTV (not my personal choice, but he likes it), etc., or are going to grad school to study something they really like (law, their favorite period of literature, political science, etc.)

Some of my friends who didn't finish college still did ok, but none would be able to get jobs like the ones mentioned above.

College only seems like all of those things if you go into it with high-minded ideals about what it's supposed to be (which I did.) But if you can get past all your rage over how wrong your myths were, you can see that it's still worthwhile to go to college. You make friends and connections, take some interesting classes, have some fun along the way, and yes, get that piece of paper, overpriced or not.

And the use of the college degree as a measure of hire-ability is not entirely unfounded -- it shows that you can stick to/finish things, do work, manage time, etc.

Seriously though it was like all I could do to not shout "SAN DIMAS HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL RULES!" every time he brought up Napoleon. HE WAS A DICK!

-- jaymc (jmcunnin...), April 27th, 2005.

As I said before, and before that, and before that, there are exceptions.

This thread is kind of a minefield.

so i'm sorta sorry that for financial reasons i think i'm taking a year off after my MA and shopping around more before continuing on to the phd program.

you know that you just made gabb and ally snicker quite loudly there, yes milo? :-)

(p.s.: i RILLY hope that i DON'T come off like some ivy-pedigreed toff. pedigrees are for poodles, not humans!)

Golly Mr. Terwilliker, I'd like to "do work" or "manage" my "time", but I nevers went to no college.

Give me a break, that's crap.

These days, I'm continuing to go to school based on the assumption that there still is more of a job market locally for computer science-related things than there is anything economics-based, especially with what i specialized in, which was monetary policy. The local Fed Reserve is a minor one. There are lots of businesses out there that do require a diploma, that would appreciate some computer support. I've grown to love computers more than I love price indexes, for example. (And I used to looove price indexes.) I'm happy about doing this, even though, yeah, the FAFSA is INCREDIBLY screwed up.

Anyway, long story short: I've never gotten any bit of the "romantic" aspect of college life, but I'm still glad I went, and I'm still glad I'm going, because it's enabled me to be able to think over things at a level that I wasn't able to straight out of high school. And I don't really think the so-called "prestige" level of a school is what should count; what should count is a school's reptuation as far as their fields of study go, esp concerning your own particular field of study. I feel relieved I have a special piece of paper... packed away somewhere in storage. Just the knowledge that that's there makes the prospect of sudden unemployment not quite so nightmarish.

But, hey, whatever path you choose, right? It's up to the individual... ? Yeah.

wtf does anybody, even in dc, need more than $95K a year? that's a shitload of money. and management positions = mainly for douchebags.

Well put. Notie I'm staying wayyy out of it.

plus, dude, like i hate tarentino but there you go. a job doesn't always DEFINE you.

i hope you guys run down the working classes as your getting your depends changed by some "non-educated person" in a nursing home.

oh but wait, the bush family, nevermind.

xpost the above screed was not directed at ally, or anybody really

In my experience most of the video clerks have at least a college education, and maybe an M.F.A. as well. When I worked at a bookstore most of us had college degrees, some graduate degrees.

In my experience, the more education I get, the less likely I am to do anything corporate.

you people disgust me sometimes. there i said it. i honestly don't wanna be a jerk, but wtf. some people on this thread = scrooge before the ghosts visit.

in some professions, however, that's really low even when starting out. when classmates are getting $130K/yr. floated across their faces, you look like a sucker if you settle for $95K/yr.

SCROOOOOOOOGE. I AM THE GHOOOOOST OF COFFEE SHOP JOBS PAAAAST.

Stence is incredibly OTM all through this thread. The whole trick is to be good at something. BE GOOD AT ANYTHING. JUST BE GOOD AT IT.

"Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation."

That said, I had a good time at college, learned a fair amount and came out of it well equipped for a job. A shit-wage, entry-level job, but still a job in the field I wanted, which has turned into an enjoyable 13-years-and-counting career. I dunno, it's a hard call. A degree is a cultural pedigree, and some people I know without them have some serious insecurity about it. On the other hand, in the New Serf economy, most of us are gonna be watering lawns and trimming hedges anyway, so maybe it doesn't really matter.

when classmates are getting $130K/yr. floated across their faces, you look like a sucker if you settle for $95K/yr.

Yeah, that reminds me of a dickhead lawyer who lived in our building when we moved to New York a few years ago. I say "lawyer," but he was really a law-school grad looking for his first job. He was always bitching and moping about how no one would hire him. One day I saw him on the street and asked how the job search was going, and he said the only potential offer he'd had was for $75k a year, "And I didn't move all the way to New York to make $75,000!" At the time, I was working two jobs, both for less than $10 an hour, while looking for other work, and this guy was sitting scornful in his apartment all day (rent paid by his grandparents) and refusing to take $75,000. My sympathy was taxed. He left town about four months later, still bitching about what a horrible place New York is. One thing they don't teach you in them fancy law schools is NOT TO BITCH ABOUT MONEY to people who spend their days selling toasters.

uh xpost that's not to you gypsy mothra

i really dunno if yer referring to ME here, b/c (a) i certainly don't think that there's ONE TRUE PATH; nor (b) if there is, that my path is that ONE TRUE PATH (considering all of the zigzags along my path, that would be really absurd for me to do so). further, if anyone asked i'd ask them to think twice before following my path to anywhere (esp. not to law school or a legal career, which is easily MORE of a wankfest colossal waste of time/money/effort than undergrad and filled w/ MUCH nastier fellow-travelers).

all i suggested to ian -- and anyone else in his shoes -- is to CONSIDER college. i'm not saying that non-college grads are dumb, or can't get good jobs or that college grads are necessarily smartypantses w/ good rewarding jobs. but facts is facts -- you stand a BETTER chance of making more money and getting a better job w/ a college degree than w/t. doesn't make you a better or smarter person, but it does position you better for some things. that's all i've meant to say.

i did the coffeeshop job so i could buy records and beer and books. did we mention how that even if you get a free ride to a college ie. tuition, everything else is FUCKING EXPENSIVE?

"Hard Knocks" makes it sound noble or something. I'm a student at the U of Insecurity, Neuroses, and Fear. Still am.

word.

and in THIS NYC legal market, only a FOOL would pass up a $75K legal job. dumb motherfucker could just as easily be doing calendar calls for some shit-ass insurance defense or landlord/tenant firm for $40K w/ NO benefits for passing up such an opportunity these days.

Of course it does, but if I may recap here -- some people are saying, "So what?" and some other, more hostile people are saying, "Yeah, it positions you to be a boring, overpaid drone." And they all have points.

It's instilled. Like a habit of cleanliness or religion or something. That doesn't make it true.

kicked out of harvard twice:

for a while there i was making more money than my brother despite the fact he's a neurosurgeon (he's the one with the wife and house now, and i'm the one with jack - but that's okay like i said money ain't everything).

xpost - AMEN, ALLYZAY

I think this is directed at me, and I reckon it's not quite what I meant. I think I was referring to that hothouse atmosphere that college provides, where intellectual conversations are rampant and an essential part of that environment. Obviously, intellectual conversations occur everywhere, all the time, but I'm not sure they would've been just handed to me as readily and eagerly as they were in college.

haha But jack is most certainly nothing.

the one guy i knew named jack was a coke addict dickface

Intellectual conversation are, in general, amusement and nothing more.

this much is true: i-bankers are bigger douchebags than BigLaw attorneys. but probably not by that much (and if said BigLaw associate attorney becomes partner [a less-than-10% chance FWIW], then all bets are off!)

the shitty TV show of choice of me & my college undergrad buds was "knight rider."

In which you learned about the influential style of Michael Mann. That's education, son.

xpost also the sartorial style of don johnson. rawesome!

omg the stupid things we did at our "rigorous"* [to quote l3on botst3in] liberal arts college - soph year i set a car on firetell me statute of limitations on arson lawyer friend!

*on the wallet

Well sure, but that's not quite the same thing is it? You can't quite compare student loans and cheap student housing to suddenly trying to get an apartment and enter the workforce after highschool. I mean, I never tried it but I imagine the latter is a much harder life.

go to one trade school, kranz.

I already went to college, thanks. I don't understand what the difference is though. If you go to trade school you're still either living off of student loans or living with your parents right?

Gosh, really? If you really think that's what I was saying please go to one reading comprehension trade school.

College as vocational training, the way it's been warped and mutated since the post-WW2 GI Bill payouts and everything that's happened sinnce then, is just a racket. In many ways the system is still the same as it ever was, focused on training people to work in an academic environment, but now with the add-on cultural bugbears that come with being something that's seen as 'required' from HS grads instead of being something you choose to do or not do. There are millions of kids every year who get college diplomas that mean absolutely nothing other than they've attained journeyman level status at formatting documents according to this and that style guide, and this is seen somehow as a qualification by thousands of employers (incl. the US military, who sees it as a reason you should have shiny stuff on your shoulder instead of being a regular troop, hello bullshit with capital BULLSHIT).

College as training for more college = no other way to get there!
College appreciated on its own merits because of the unique experiences you can get there if you use your head, and as a limited tool for discovering your own talents and limitations in several disciplines of study = fine, but don't dream it's more than that!

College as vocational prep school where "liberal arts" is seen as a "worthless degree" by peers = a fuckin' travesty
College as class status signifier = a fuckin' travesty
College as prerequisite for "leadership" positions = ARE YOU JOKING MAN

Eventually the market for higher education is going to experience an "adjustment," I think, it seems like the collective student loan debt of the echo boomers will eventually start to really put a drain on the nation's economy once we're the majority of the people making money. The number of students enrolled in college is far too high for the amount of academic and scientific careers in the country, and hey, that's what college should be for, not EVERY FUCKING MAN ON THE STREET.

lots of people have said good things on this thread. I think though that we should go back to Mandee's one about the co-op bagger planning to go to grad school at NYU in "something" and make fun of people like that some more, that's what this is really about.

lollerin' & the wallerin'

College as vocational prep school where "liberal arts" is seen as a "worthless degree" by peers = a fuckin' travesty
College as class status signifier = a fuckin' travesty
College as prerequisite for "leadership" positions = ARE YOU JOKING MAN

most OTM thing ever posted ever by anyone ever

honestly back when i wanted to be a programmer i realized that a hardcore cs degree like i had was mainly good for a hardcore killyrselfwithwork type supah-intense job (but only with grad work added on), and that for lighter fare, a few technical certificates would in some ways have been better -- mcse, oracle, etc.

What I do think, is that here is a kid who might very well thrive in college, who is looking for a lot of the very things that college can potentially offer you, and is choosing not to go out of some self-righteous quest to prove that he's as smart and noble as Chris Langan. That's what I take from his posts. It's not a statement about college in general.

I could've just said, "I'm not going." Someone probably would've asked why, though, and would have considered it absurd and this whole process would have played out anyhow. I was answering the titular question; I don't think I'm correct in a universal sense as it seems to have been implied that I think I am, but to me it makes sense and I can justify it to myself. I was not aiming to be provocative (although I figured it would be considered as such -- say anything remotely counter-hegemonic when you're not preaching to a choir and you're bound to be attacked) nor was I seeking approval by stating what I thought. My personal opinion's not misinformed but rather alternately informed in a way that goes against a typical hegemonic order, and that's caused many posters to be riled up and passionate. I don't think anyone who has challenged me or agreed with me is misinformed in any sense. I've heard many of these opinions expressed before but some new perspectives/ideas/notions have emerged and for that I'm rather pleased and don't entirely regret (semi-unwittingly) starting all this commotion.

Well, not going to college places plenty of restrictions on your life too. There's no such thing as an unrestricted life. But you've obviously made your decision, and I'm not trying to tell you you're ruining your life or something like that. I think you might want to consider reevaluating things in a year or two. Good luck, whatever happens.

I'd like to say that I went straight after high school and, singing aside, really disliked about 75% of my college experience; it would have been much better for me had I actually worked for a year or two before I went.

me too. I think I've been getting gypped.

I got a summer job in a CVS distribution warehouse working 10 hour days and saved up enough money to pay the first months rent on a cheap campus apartment. I went in on it with a friend, hoping that within that month I would find a job and be able to support myself. Alas, the first month went by and I still had no job. My room-mate had to drop out of college when his mother took seriously ill, and unable to pay for the room myself, I was for all intents and purposes fucked. I dropped out of college just in time to get all of my money back, luckily. Technically I still owe the college 300 dollars for a quick loan they gave me for food.

anyway, i don't think going to college is a sole determiner of class status either. that's a complete fallacy, and i think a dangerous one (tho here it seems like self-loathing based on another fallacy, the "college boy"). lots of kids i knew in college were from lmc and working class, and some even poverty level households. aspiration to attain knowledge is not limited to the umc or middle class (esp. since more than a few of umc/mc and even super-wealthy kids i knew in college were lazy shits who didn't learn a thing). i think it's quite insulting to think that the only people who should bother going to college are middle class or upper middle class or the very wealthy. it ain't the 20s no more, folx.

that said, had a gone to a trade school i probably would've been solidly middle class, maybe even better off, thanks to unionized labor. plumbers, carpenters, construction workers, electricians et al. can make a fuckload of money. my great uncle was a plumber, retired on his union pension ages ago, lives in a bucolic and slightly boring middle class suburb of chicago. he's happy. and he was able to, thanks to learning a trade, provide for his kids. what's wrong with that?

do you think anyone here does think that?

and anyway sometimes being a snob isn't all that bad. look at all the good music i've bought on a chump's salary due to my music snobbiness! *groan*

I think in my heart of hearts I'll always feel the same "class" as when I grew up. I think poverty (sitting around with no electricity, eating groceries from the food bank poverty) can kind of brand you to where you are never able to think of yourself as anything other. I have to consciously remind myself that I'm not in the same perilous day-to-day state as I was when I was under-18.

(I did scan the thread, though, so I'm sure there's a post in there where someone says something like "Don't bother going to school; your kind was made for menial labor.")

depends. some posts i have gotten the former vibe, while the majority (i will emphasize this) have been the latter.

The people who fear student loan debts are just as obsessed with money as the materialistic collegiate strawman. If you're really happy living a simple life with modest financial means, then it shouldn't be that big of a deal if your student loans leave you in cripping poverty (which is pretty unlikely anyway). It's just money. You'll pay it off someday. You can't claim you have a healthy carefree attitude about money if you let financial concerns drive decisions about your education.

I see people saying that they favor a healthy carefree attitude toward work - don't get your BBA, rush into an MBA and start climbing the ladder, that you might work 70 hours a week and die of a massive coronary at 45.

CLASS OF '98 RULES

actually yeah i'd say overall it was great and i learned a lot not only about the world and other people and cultures and all kinds of things, but about myself as well. i wouldn't trade it, but that's just me. my friend who got kicked out 3 times thinks differently.

Oh, wait, human beings.

Your attitude toward material goods may change down the line, too. Sometimes those wide-screen plasma TVs look mighty tempting.

xpost - omg tom people are sensitive about money, class and other societal bullshit shocker!

oh wait, it already is.

FUCK YOU I DON'T WANT YOUR STRIVER LADDER BLAZER MONEY

LIBERAL ARTS = FAGS

DING DING DING

like I mentioned my boyfriend didn't go to college and now he really wishes he had. He didn't b/c he had a hard time in school (dyslexia and the like) and just didn't think he could do it. He spent his directly post-HS years skateboarding and working. Since then he's taken some classes at community college and has a very well-paying job at D3LL but now really wishes he would have tried for that four-year experience.

Your attitude toward material goods may change down the line, too. Sometimes those wide-screen plasma TVs look mighty tempting.

Shite, that's true, especially since I'm a pedestrian. Let's hope those injuries are enough to kill me if I ever want a plasma TV. Yuck.

(unless/until I inherit my mother's $40,000 debt from college loans and many many other things)

public loans for college are dischargeable upon death. you won't inherit any of yer mother's unpaid debt attributable thereto.

Because people can tell when I'm being earnest versus when I'm taking the piss, for seconds (mainly I think it's because people aren't desperately hoping I'm full of shit when I seem earnest).

THE DOLPHINZ IS SMARTEST THO. LISTEN TO THE DOOOOOLPHINZ.

Hahahaha there really should, Scott! You should subtitle it "DO NOT POST IF YOUR ARE A CORNY BACCALAUREATE FUXX"

well, dan marino IS smarter than joe montana but what's that?!?

so no? well that was a waste of a good joke then. allyzay's def smarter than me tho, i'll cede that regardless of prior employment.

but i was making a hitchhiker's guide joke. damn you for having your own individual response to what i wrote!

hstencil life story
may 1998 - graduated from college
june 1998 - moved to chicago, gets job working as telemarketer selling wine (NOTICE NOT AN INVESTMENT BANK)
july 1998 - quit telemarketing job since sucked at it, unemployed
august - september 1998 - gets job working as retail clerk at ch!c@g0 @rchitectur3 foundation and as seat vendor at wrigley field
october 1998 - seat vendor job ended as cubs swept by braves, quits job at c@f same month (it sucked)
november 1998 - unemployed until end of month when hired as transcriber at firm supplying broadcast transcripts to pr firms
may 1999 - quits transcriber job to work as copyeditor/graphic designer at real estate ad agency
may 2000 - fired from ad agency, immediately hired at real estate web site for customer service
september 2000 - quits real estate dot com to work at b@nk of @merica, i-bank division, as web site editor/general tech dude for training group (IE NOT A BANKER/ANALYST, DON'T EVEN PLAY ONE ON TV)
may 2003 - "laid off" from bank

there's a goldmine of comedy wealth in there!

The fact that my father went to 5 different colleges, has a degree in psychology I believe and currently does HVAC.

Bank loans were not a choice as we went bankrupt that year and I guess they don't like handing out money to people who do that so much.

Now I'm living a life very simmilar to what HStence talked about. Living cheap with eccentrics, all of whom are very interesting and smart, none of whom went to college. Course, none of us are getting paid. Except my friend who somehow worked his way up from Labor Ready in Newark (dont fucking ask) to a fancy computer job in Columbus Circle over the course of 4 months.

PS DAN MARINO HAS THAT AWFUL FAKE TAN PEOPLE.

PPS Ian, you're making the right decision.

I understand that college is for many an appealing post-high school alternative to REAL WORK and perhaps a means to get out of the family house and perhaps experience living in a different area.

I don't understand that college somehow confers a better standard of living upon the degree recipient. Statistically, this may be the case. College is humanities does not teach anything applicable to business--which is where most of the humanities graduates end up. Humanities degrees prize scholarship, research, and writing. The keys to succeeding in a business environment are mostly social. You have to know how to deal with boss, how to make the people you work with happy, how to pretend that you are happy. Most of the jobs that I have done with my college and graduate degrees have been glorified secretarial jobs. I did not need to go to college to learn how to fax, make copies, and answer the phones. I did need a college degree to get the job at the glorified prestige employer. If I had chosen to stay in such work, with the hopes that I would one day rise to a management position, my life would improve in that I would be the one telling the undrerlings what to fax, copy, and phone. Business, in my experience, is paperwork. People who work in business without any particular skills push paper.

Now, you need a college degree to go on to get another degree that will perhaps train you to do something more than this. Law school, medical school, etc. If you desire to be a professional this is the way to go. This thread is similar to the one where everyone told Maria she had to go to the most reputable school bc that would yield her the most job offers upon graduation.

College in the humanties really does not prepare you for the workforce, In fact, it is a nice respite from entering the workforce. Obviously, this had nothing do with people who know what they want to do and study computer science or so forth. These fields offer are applicable to the work force. College is sort of an anachronistic instiution that was developed for the wealthy to bide their time away in--a finishing school. It had developed into an accepted path for any high school graduate, where one will learn how to write and think, and have their horizons widened. Learning how to write and think does not prepare you for the workforce, In fact it probably dissuades. If you were to think about what you were actually doing in your position, you might question it, and that would not be professional.

Trade school prepares its students to enter the workforce for better than college does. You learn a skill, become credentialed, and go look for a job where you can complete that skill. Some post-collegiate programs are like trade school for the college graduate--business school, law school, medical school, journalism school, library school. These programs prepare you to get a job, yes. With the possible exception of journalism school.

One of best friends from high school went to two years of college and then dropped out. I never thought that he was wasting his life, or ruining his potential. He didn't want to do. If he ever does want to complete his degree he is half way there. He has since worked as a carpenter and for a printer. Another friend didn't graduate but put on her resume that she did. She has gotten great jobs in consulting and marketing.

A college degree is a an extremely standard thing to have. I don't understand why everyone thinks it is some magical elixir. It opens the doors into a sort of elite business world. If you didn't have a college degree and wanted to work in one of these glorifed jobs it would be hard to get them to consider you. It doesn't really do anything more.

Except of course teach you lots of intellectual things that have little to no practical application.

Another thing colleges offer is the exposure to interships. If you know what you want to do or get lucky these are very handy in getting employers in certain fields to notice you. Basically, if you know what you want to do college can help you get there. If you don't know what you want to do college is a good place to bide your time and learn a lot of stuff. For those who don;t know what they want to do a college degree isn't very handy, except for it provides them the oppurtunity to go to a graduate in order to hopefully find a way to make a living.

L-R: hstencil, gabbneb at the offices of the Washington Post

someone hasn't experienced first-hand the utter uselessness that is a law school's career services office, i see :-)

well, that's what I meant. Me, I never expected my college degree to be worth anything because, um, everybody around me (parents, teachers, peers) were all too happy to reassure me that was going to be the case. As such, I enjoyed my four years for what they were.

I'm sure this is nothing to do with the relative academic systems of both countries and everything to do with the fact that it is SO EASY to get into a UK university these days (provided you can afford it) that to be without a degree is tantamount to having leprosy in the job market, even for the dullest, and lowest-paid office drone jobs.

Also, the VV wasn't like this. They were pretty cool. But I wasn't full-time with them.

Doesn't Ian's attitude toward college boil down to not wanting to be part of the rat race and work hard for a big salary to buy useless junk? He's essentially saying that he wants to be free from the burden of materialism. At the same time he's voicing a very materialistic concern (I don't want to get too much in debt) as another argument against going to college. If you plan on dropping out of society why not go to college first, rack up a bunch of debt, then default on your student loans and go live like a hermit (not that I'm recommending this course of action). It just doesn't make sense to me to criticize people who go to college because they supposedly only "do it for the money" and then turn around and not go to college because of the money. Those attitudes are simply two sides of the same coin and both are placing the emphasis on money over education or personal experience.

I see people saying that they favor a healthy carefree attitude toward work - don't get your BBA, rush into an MBA and start climbing the ladder, that you might work 70 hours a week and die of a massive coronary at 45.

But the implication is that people do that for the money. It's not about the work itself but the material rewards. Are you implying that people who live in poverty aren't working as hard?

In that case, his only real option is to become an ascetic, monk, hermit, homeless preacher, etc. Living in this world and dealing with other people REQUIRES materialism, tho to varying degrees depending on the person and their proclivities.

the key is to make the center of your life something that is NOT based on the 9-5 "survival" ethic.

Exactly my point. Either way he's going to end up working hard at some point in his life, getting into some kind of debt, etc. In the grand scheme of things the big scary student loan debt is not really that big of a deal and I don't see how avoiding that debt is really much of a path to economic freedom.

I don't even get your point there, though - yes, fear of debt and disdain for climbing the income ladder are views about money. Neither of them still fulfills your strawman about people claiming to have a "carefree attitude about money." If anything, it makes more sense for someone who doesn't want to get an office job to worry about money and consumerism.

But the implication is that people do that for the money. It's not about the work itself but the material rewards. Are you implying that people who live in poverty aren't working as hard?
Yes, the implication is that someone rushing into an MBA and working long hours to climb up the ladder is in it for the money. Kinda like the implication of someone getting an MFA is that they want an easier entry into the art-world (or teaching art).

I assume by that last sentence you're just trolling.

Btw Ian, did you say your mom works at a college. You could go for free? Stop whining and enroll already!

J/k

OTM to the power of infinity.

Can it be like Ally McBeal? But with librarians?

Can we play the nippled one sometimes?

(I know *so* many people getting MLSs right now. Its really strange)

What? I'm saying that worrying about debt == worrying about money == you're already caught up in the whole rat race mentality you're trying to avoid! I don't think it's good for someone to be worried about debt already at age 18 and to use that as a reason not to go to college. That's all I'm trying to say.

(i am glad i studied fuck-off hardcore mathematics when i did cz i REALLY don't think i wd ever have gone and read up on that in my own time)

(two of my aunts just this week independently told me i shd cut out the smart-stuff critical blabber and write a comic novel)

I don't think I comprehend what a MLS program teaches you.

xpost - how to shush people, obv.

Seriously, I never worried about debt until I had some. I took a cue from my boyf at the time, who said, don't worry a college loan is like buying a car. But what if you have a college loan and you want to buy a car. That's like buying two cars is what he should've said.

if you do get an mls, it'd prolly be a bad idea to work for free public ones, because funding sucks in most parts of the states right now. but you can be a law librarian or corporate librarian or some such!

cars are more stupid and wasteful than an education.

so that means that the value of the college degree drops by 1/3 when you drive it off the lot?!?

Yeah, I'm really worried about the NYC libraries what with all the funding cuts. I wonder if people are on pay freezes:/

mary, PRIVATE SECTOR - no job-for-life guarantees, but getting paid until you get fed up with working for douchebags. it's a trade-off.

Well, the two aren't mutually exclusive. Anyway, my brain is fried today from working for the man too much so I'm not sure if anything I posted made a lick of sense.

I wouldn't buy in too heavily into that MLS--it's not just for librarians anymore rigamarole. Could be kinda like back when people tried to pretend that a law degree was a good basic grounding for anything you might want to do in life, besides the obvious.

rs larue/rockist scientist is a librarian in philadelphia -- he's been posting about how they're cutting library funding and closing branches of the city's libraries down there. caveat emptor wr2 the MLS.

generally, yes. federal stafford loans, though, are dischargeable at death = not a part of yer estate when you croak!

Hmm, not when you live in a place like Texas. Lack of a car probably limits your job options more than lack of an education does.

I've always wanted to go to grad school and have toyed with law school and the English PhD. But now, almost ten years after I got my BA, I know what I want to do: MS in Social Work. As soon as I'm done with the wage garnishment stuff I'm definitely looking into it. . .

I forgot, my one main friend who didn't go to college, she went straight to be a ballet dancer. Has done that, And now its 10+ years later and she's thinking of going to school now and becoming a teacher. I did notice a disconnect in talking with her about certain things, but I think this was due not to a lack of college education, but rather to a more general disinteret in a lot of things. For example, she had never heard of FALLING WATER, the house. And she had lived in Pittsburgh. I found that difficult to countenance. And she graduated like 4th in our class. So it was not a lack of basic intellegence issue.

Yes, even with the First Lady backgound as a librarian, W doesn't seem to want to offer the temples of reading much moolah.

college was a joke.

of course, my college was also a huge party school too tho... so ...

many good pals didn't go or dropped out and are just as happy as i am with the cosmos. hell, there are plenty of moments where i look at a couple of my cafe or comic book store workin pals with a fuckload of envy even.

and hey, there's nothing stopping me from dropping the computer thing... although, now i've got a family to feed. man, once you have the whole "family to feed" thing, everything fuckin changes.

all your base belong to us babies,
m.

Also, I think someone already pointed this out upthread but I'd like to expand: "material things" doesn't just mean having a Lexus and a Prada bag. Most of what a person spends in their life goes to things like housing and health expenses. Do you want to have kids? If so do you want to send them to good public schools? Well those neighborhoods with good public schools happen to be more expensive. Do you want to have health insurance, or are you willing to risk unpayable medical bills that could enslave you for the rest of your life?

I consolodated, but when it was like at 5% and they said it wouldn't go any lower. And as far as I know, you can only consolidate once, except for these people who are not with the govt keep trying to scam me into consolidating with them, but they scare me. If I go back to school and get more loans I can consolidate again, but who knows where the interest rates will be by then.

actually, i got this rate from consolidating. you aren't guaranteed a 3% rate -- when they consolidate, they weight-average the pre-consolidation interest rates to come up w/ the new rate. also, it locks you into that rate -- so that it doesn't become variable (e.g., you won't go from 3% one year to 8% the next).

On the contrary, I would consider a victory, like getting an education for free, like our friends over in Europe do.

No, I don't want to have kids. I would just have to spend all my $ to send them to college. Fuck that.

Matt, that's bcz nearly all the people you know are middle class!

i mean shit, most of the dudes i know who skipped college altogether also don't own computers at all and wouldn't be caught dead on the internet. and mostly just cause they've got surfing to do.
m.

I have no clue what I'm going to do after college, I'm just in it because there's nothing I'd rather do than spend my time gaining economically useless knowledge by reading and writing and talking about interesthing things. I am currently telling myself I will not go into business, I'll do grad school or Peace Corps or some other random kind of job, but I know that when I graduate I'll take what I can get. My debt shouldn't be too burdensome over a 10-year payback schedule at its current rate of accumulation....

the whole own your own business vs. work for a business in your trade debate is quite the conundrum. i personally don't like the business part, but dig okay my trade. so for that, even tho i know i work for a company that probably skims around $10-20 a hour off my rate, i gladly let that go. hell, i'm blessed cause i know guys where their company skims more like $100 of their hourly rate.

also Mary, group insurance. omg you want group insurance.
m.

If you just want a piece of paper so you can get employment look into a diploma mill. Most HR will never check to see if the college is accredited.

lake titicaca is in nicaragua, actually.

Why should people outside of the big cities have to put up with "less good" lawyers (I take it that's what you mean, Eisbar). Do they just not deserve the best the educational system has to offer as they have the audacity to live outside NYC?

candidates from 5 or maybe 7 law schools is not "the best the educational system has to offer."

not to mention that the overwhelming majority of legal work does NOT require an ivy league degree. that's how BigLaw gets away w/ fleecing its clientele!

i'd assume the same for business and law. just because someone went to harvard law means they're necessarily practicing exciting law, or worthy of the god-like status that such a degree confers in that world. Thurgood Marshall, one of the most brilliant American jurists ever, argued Brown v. Board of Education, arguably one of, if not the most important Supreme Court cases of the past century - and yet was denied admission to University of Maryland Law School. He got his degree from Howard, which given the context of the time, would have meant his resume would've been automatically thrown in the trash, if it was even sent (that's a simplification since there's a recruitment process at most big firms/hospitals/banks/whathaveyou - but you know what i mean).

and personally i've met quite a few mbas from the top 7s who came off to me as complete idiots, asking for help to turn a computer on (this in the years 2000-2003!), etc.

on the same token, there are also plenty of brilliant top-school lawyers, doctors and business executives. it takes a lot more than just a degree from a good school, and they'd be the first to tell you.

As far as the degree issue is concerned, im starting to realize that I fucked up not completing my education. I've been looking for a new job for basically a year now, and i haven't had more than 1 interview. And i aced the interview...but they hired the person with the degree. Right now I feel its impossible for me to get a new job without my degree. It sucks. Yes, I have numerous financial licenses but those can only take you so far...especially if you want to change careers. At this point, im thinking about picking up a trade or going back to school (which I hate).

Anyway, that's still a bit down the road for me (being a therapist) but I feel certain now that it's what I want to work for. (and yeah teaching kind of prepped me for the whole stressful job, low pay stuff. I think my liberal idealism offers me no alternatives)

coincidentally, i'm going to go to the same school that hstencil went to, so i find this thread particularly interesting.

Stence, I don't mean to pick on you. I think you're a really, really smart dude. And in fact many times I have thought about this hypothetical three-years-threatened Trivial Pursuit contest between us something to the effect of "oh man, he totally knows his shit, look out" -- but I want to take the opportunity now, perhaps because I have had a few, to say LAKE TITICACA IS TOTALLY IN SOUTH AMERICA.

sorry to belabor this point, as it has nothing really to do with going to college or not, but many MSWs have their own private practices, but it does not follow from that they have their own personal secretaries. I don't feel like the field really yields enough money for you to employ someone full-time, unless you are a major specialist/expert or something. anyway. . . . I'll be Sam's secretary when she becomes credentialled. I don't think there would be all that much for the other person to do, since it's mostly you talking to your clients all day long... I'm sure they might hire accountants and so on though for special projects.

! Miss Horsey already said way back where the Titis are

marissa, glad to hear you're going to bard. it's physically changed so much since i graduated (class of '98) that i can't imagine that it hasn't changed in other ways too. that's not a lament, i think i would rather go there now in some ways, in that the resources available are probably way better now (back then we didn't have shit). i don't know if it's the same, but i think it's very easy to get alienated very quickly from your classmates as freshmen - at least i did. honestly, the first two years were kinda lame: i felt like people around me weren't really doing interesting work, and felt sort of isolated from the rest of the world. that went away tho. i got better in my own work, i felt that my class started taking things really seriously (but were still fun) and started doing more things that would be impressive not just to other dumb bard kids but to people in the world in general, and eventually by graduation i felt things had really progressed to a point where i was sad to leave.

some profs i can recommend (if they're still there): richard teitelbaum (music), kyle gann (music), tom wolf (art history), peggy ahwesh (film), pete sourian (english), mark lytle (history), mya armstead (history), bob bilecki (music), thurman barker (music)

should i:

a) go back and get another bachelor's (in statistics)? (i'm a film major = total dead-end, career- and interest-wise. i also spent $0 on college the first time around; two years for something that'll pay off later isn't hard to justify.)

b) get an mls?

c) take a couple of editing/proofreading classes, take what comes after that?

mls = masters in library science.

personally i think further study is great so long as it leads directly to something that you actually want to learn more about or a career that you really want to do. just picking something that sounds semi-interesting for the sake of it might be a bit of a dud though, as it's hard to focus on something you don't care about all that much, and it's expensive and time-consuming. that's only my opinion though.

also i'm doing a second bachelors right now (i chose a bachelor in a completely different field over a masters in clin psych), i love it. dunno if that helps.

x-post, yes, the major con of going through all the math courses has occurred to me, but then, i never took them in the first place. maybe all this just sounds exotic and i'll hate it within 2-3 months. going to look in more detail before i decide, i guess.

DOES NOT COMPUTE

i liked college, weird transitional time but after freshman year almost 100% positive experience
actually went though intense nostalgia thing 2-3 years after graduation about the place, bizarre for someone 23 years old but it eventually faded and i moved on

i did not go to college

i think "smart" people who didn't do college or dropped out early are pretty interesting types, gives me perspective if my kids decide to skip college (altho the way college price$ are trending they may not have that option anyways)

'all this experience did was teach me how to steal a lot and how to engage with other people. oh wait.'

lol 'kids there are so many more interesting things to do than college - travel, get a job, pay yr own way through college'

this guy is kinda ott but he makes some points http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/01/10-more-reasons-why-parents-should-not-send-their-kids-to-college

3. Statistics say: College graduates make much more money than non-college graduates. Clearly anyone who states this has failed “Statistics 101” in college. We might know correlation but we don’t know cause-and-effect here. Since our generation (post-baby boomer) basically everyone goes to college except people who absolutely failed high school, then of course it makes sense that achievement-minded people make more money than individuals who are not achievement-oriented.

A better statistical study, which nobody has done, is take 2000 people who got accepted to Harvard 20 years ago, and randomly force 1000 of them to not go to college. Then, at the end of 20 years to see who made more money. My guess is that the 1000 who didn’t go to Harvard would’ve made more money. They would’ve been thrown out of the nest to learn how to fly that much earlier and a 5 year head start would’ve made enormous difference (I say 5 years because thats the average amount of time it takes to finish college. Not 4, as many think).

imo a prob w/higher learning usa is the credential aspect of an education is somewhat calcified and lacking in alternatives - like i remember hearing abt how some famous architect, maybe rem koolhaus, was gonna teach at harvard but then they found out he didnt have a degree since he came up through the apprenticeship system in europe so they got one of the associates from his firm to teach the thing instead - which is all just v silly - there really should be other ways to get into most fields than shelling out thousands of dollars to sit around classrooms and go to keggers - thats fun for some people which is fine - but i dont see why it should be the only way - i mean most people go into fields that have nothing to do w/their degree yet its still really important that they have that degree

ppl tell me i will never use anything i learn in college in my life ever

would be unfortunate if thats true hopefully at least all these math classes will help

history/politics classes are almost always useful imo, but then again you could read history books & not go to college

useful to poop on

i went to college but it was a complete waste of time except that, even though i had two jobs through most of it, i avoided having a 'real' jobs for 4 years. college in Australia is different from US college. you don't go in with that first year of extended high school and then try to decide on a major that you can change at will. aus has specific degrees in arts, science, law, medicine etc and you need to decide by 10th grade which of those will be your profession. at 14-15 y/o i had no clue. i remember tossing up between psychologist and mechanic. my father, who had been dead for 5 years by this time, had always encouraged me to be a scientist of some kind (he was a chemist so not such a shock) but i had ditched science in the 11th grade in favor of advanced ancient history and art. anyway, i ended up doing an arts degree majoring in psychology and fine arts and all i really did was play dr phil by pointing out the obvious for psych, draw a whole lot of naked people and bullshit through every artistic interpretation for fine arts. now i work in IT and im edging on a 6 figure salary so nothing i learned in college help me financially although i wouldn't have gotten into IT without the piece of paper so maybe college itself did? FWIW i finally worked out what i wanted to do this year and now its too late which makes me kind of mad tbh.

oh i did do neurobiology/advanced neurobiology in my last two years which i LOVED and which is pretty much the core of my career epiphany earlier this year. where else can you get a rat high on smack or drill hole in a guinea pigs skull or have your professor teach you how to make crack in the microwave? good times.

hmmm...i guess daddio was spot on afterall.

I went to college and was a complete waste at that time in my life academically speaking. Nearly every single thing I learned there I could have learned on my own. I transferred 1/2 way through which I mostly regret at this point. Wound up in a pretty severe depressive episode and basically just didn't go to two of my courses senior year earning me Fs in both and almost preventing me from graduation (previously high GPA made it so that the cum GPA did allow me to graduate). Grad school also turning out to be a waste but for other reasons. I don't know. I'm sure that for some college/university is an excellent learning experience but that was not my experience at all. I was way too young, had no idea what I wanted to do and was a lot more interested in having fun and lol discovering myself than I was in studying.

I think Joe is also otm about this:

A better statistical study, which nobody has done, is take 2000 people who got accepted to Harvard 20 years ago, and randomly force 1000 of them to not go to college. Then, at the end of 20 years to see who made more money. My guess is that the 1000 who didn’t go to Harvard would’ve made more money. They would’ve been thrown out of the nest to learn how to fly that much earlier and a 5 year head start would’ve made enormous difference (I say 5 years because thats the average amount of time it takes to finish college. Not 4, as many think).

I get really angry that people equate a college degree with intelligence because it's more often a measure of socioeconomic status than anything else.

On the other hand I wouldn't have the job I have no or the chance of getting the job I would like to do next without a college degree so in that sense it's certainly useful.

Oh and I basically didn't have the option of NOT going to college. My parents would have shit themselves and died if I told them I wasn't going to go. That said at the time I pretty psyched for it but more so for the young adult summer camp aspects rather than the intellectual ones.

On the other hand I wouldn't have the job I have no or the chance of getting the job I would like to do next without a college degree so in that sense it's certainly useful.
This is a biiiiiig "on the other hand", and speaks to accessibility of jobs that pay a living wage, and, and, and I have posted about this somewhere on ILX before (maybe even on this thread?) -- basically, I believe a college education should be (and, barring deep cuts to Pell grants, is) available to all people, not just the people whose parents can afford it and are mature enough to make something of their time there.

Before college I had this really intense desire to be this total autodidact polymath and I read & did shit that reflected that. I am a lot lazier in how I spend my free time post-college – I think it got rid of this really burning desire to prove I was fucking smart. I mean, that is a totally snotty teenage desire in a way but it did push me beyond my intellectual level of comfort & I find it harder to motivate myself to do that as frequently now. Whereas I have some friends who never did college & it's like they never lost that. Maybe I should work on just getting some self-discipline and recultivating that in myself but in a less showy way.

x-post Yes, of course, it's a huge on the other hand. Agree with you about affordability too of course.

I went to college and will rephrase what's been going around a lot on this thread. It wasn't "a waste of time" as though the waste was caused by someone else or a bad system in place -- what happened is that I wasted a very good opportunity. It's 100% on me.

Agreed although I think that the system is sort of bad in that the expectation that people further their education immediately after HS (which is sort of the general one, right?) results in a lot of people finding themselves in this position. I have absolutely no doubt that I'd have put in and gotten out 100% more from the whole thing had I delayed it by 5 or even 10 years.

Agreed, a hiatus year spent scrubbing toilets or doing something else difficult and menial betw HS and college would really change the effort level for every late-teen.

That's culture, not the system -- and it's a culture that not everyone shares, really. The colleges that are really in trouble now are the ones everyone assumes their kids will be shipped off to and magically turned into adults, the (relatively) expensive ones. Accreditation standards have changed, and people (students and their parents) are demanding more results for their money.

What has not changed is the value of college as an idea, and I think that's what's getting confused here. Just my $0.02 as an educator at the college level.

I have today off, though, and I'm going out to eat some Chicago dogs and window shop downtown.

xp oops

I think the best thing about college was that it got me over my crippling shyness and complete lack of self-confidence from high school. Being able to go from a horrificly stifling tiny public school in the middle of whitebread farm country to a place where I found lots of likeminded people that actually thought it was a GOOD thing to be intelligent and slightly nerdy was a huge eye-opened for me and drew me out of my shell. I think that was worth more than all the hours I spent sitting in lectures.

^^^ truth

What has not changed is the value of college as an idea, and I think that's what's getting confused here.

otm

In real life, the experience of "going to college" varies all over the map, from middle aged single moms getting bare bones post-secondary job-skills training at community colleges to party-hearty frat-boy "legacies" at posh ivy league schools, like GW Bush.

But, to me, the idea of college is a place where one cultivates knowledge, aiming only at an eventual mastery over difficult subject matter, without reference to profit, aside from the innate profit of knowing things. Granted, one may learn a great deal in isolation, given the right self-motivation, but a proper college experience should never stand in the way of this kind of self-education, but rather should support and enhance it.

^^ speaking only of the ideal here, btw.

considering how hard it is today to even get a shitty job w/ a degree from a not-bad school, I can't even imagine applying to jobs without one. I really enjoyed going to college where I did but would probably advise most hs kids to get the cheapest degree they can, unless they plan on going into a select handful of careers.

i can attest for not being able to get a job without a degree, blows ass.

depending on what you're looking for, though, you can get away with fudging on your resume

To play devil's advocate here for a second, I can also attest as to how hard it was to get a job while having two degrees from a state university. Obviously, due to the economy, I was looking outside my preferred field, but I was more frequently turned down for having too much education than not enough. Being too specialized can sometimes work against you if you decide to switch gears and need to start from the bottom.

I went to Arizona State for a little while, if that counts as not going to college.

yeah but I don't think people w/ just a BA generally have to worry about being 'overeducated' anymore.

i have two degrees, and what do i do for money? i have sex. i enjoy what i do, but at the same time, it can be a bit disheartening.

True, but it depends on what the degree is in sometimes. I'm not at all advocating a "poor me and my education" position at all, just pointing out that it was mad frustrating to be told you have too much education for a particular job.

(xpost)

lol, table

i mean, i've had the same problem. granted, i wasn't expecting people to hire me for some crazy swag job (i have a BA and a Masters in Writing, ffs), but even secretarial jobs have turned me down because i'm 'too educated.'

i used to carry several financial licenses, without those at the time I would have been SOL.

generally related anecdotal nugget: working in the recruitment field i have seen several times finalists for jobs who were absolutely perfect getting junked because they didn't have a degree. as far as i could tell there was no rationalization even attempted, it was just a box that HAD to be checked, to the detriment of the organizations in the end. i have wondered at times if some degree havers black ball not-havers purely for the temerity of having got along without one. i could believe it is some cases.

That said at the time I pretty psyched for it but more so for the young adult summer camp aspects rather than the intellectual ones.

― \(^o\) (/o^)/ (ENBB), Friday, April 22, 2011 8:44 AM (4 hours ago)

same here. And I'm pretty certain I would have been a much better student if I'd waited 3-5 years, as opposed to starting college at 17. On the other hand, I feel like the young adult summer camp aspects were very educational. I think I learned more relevant things from my extra-curricular activities than my academic life.

weird, I had no idea sarahel went to college

UC berkeley grads just get dumber and dumber, don't they? ;)

Yeah, I'd agree with that Sarahel.

Please note: I'm not saying that college is for everyone -- some people do not want to go, or they want to be entrepreneurs, or they are extreme autodidact self starters, they are extremely good looking/charming geniuses or w/e -- but for the rest of us, having a college degree is useful and helps us get in the door/past the bouncer. There's no denying that. There's also no denying that there are as many kinds of colleges (and college degrees) as there are high schools and people, for that matter.

Extrapolating generalities about college from our individual experiences is about as useful as talking about whether cilantro tastes bad -- kind of depends on your equipment.

Really what bugs me about college (trad college as most of you are describing it) is the TA/grad student-as-teacher model. I think that kinda sucks.

sometimes the grad students/TAs were better teachers than the professors.

it's only gonna get worse as it's a easy way to costs + even 'good' schools have no shame about doing it anymore

yeah i should have added "tenure system/research-focused professors being forced to do the lowly work of educating people" to that

I didn't really care whether the class was led by someone with a phD who had published blah blah blah articles/books or not. Some professors were/are just shitty teachers.

but yeah I see no reason why a 'professor' should necessarily be a better teacher, especially when it comes to lower level stuff. being smart doesn't = knowing how to teach, having an incentive to teach well

that's what i'm saying

incentive structure's a big deal: a, uh, friend of mine recently got tenured & he told me that teaching mattered barely at all; basically it was just a matter of how many & how good were his articles, as judged by his colleagues & by prestigious senior people in the discipline. He had to turn over his teaching evals for his tenure case but it wasn't a big part of the decision; as long as they didn't reveal a trainwreck, or at least a big trainwreck, that was good enough. Ditto for raises, promotions. This is at a big R1 state school, research-oriented i.e.

This guy's an awesome teacher I've heard (and his students say) because he gives a damn & he's got a knack for it, but you don't get paid for it. Which may be just as well, since we don't really know to evaluate good teaching either.

I am stealing this argument from somewhere, I don't remember where, but I think we'd be much better off with 'teaching oriented phd' and 'research oriented phd' being different degrees.

i went through a period a couple of years ago of really second-guessing everything abt my college career: the courses i took, the effort i put in, the job i worked, the friends i had. i think a big part of it was trying to deal w/ the loss of the xp like even if i went back to grad school id never be in the position i was @ 16, the idea that i could do ~anything~. & so i ended up thinking id 'wasted' my time bcuz i did x instead of y, but really it was a p worthwhile xp even the things that i regret have real value to me, or taught me something abt myself.

its weird (and sort of horrifying) to be in a position now where students ask me abt grad school & career advice & i have no way of telling them that - that it mostly all works out ok, that its harder to make truly bad decisions than they think it is - but i wish i could

it is really not hard to make bad decisions when money is involved, tho

I mean I feel like the overall we have a culture that screams 'college = good! more college = more good!'

i've had a couple awful profs but i've yet to have one who was awful because they didn't care abt teaching, mostly they were bad because they were old & incoherent or young & naive and assigned unrealistic amounts of work. but they're all still noticeably trying & caring. i've heard some terrible stories but attribute a lot of complaining to ppl expecting too much of the prof when ime u learn most from peers & in independently mulling over stuff. most times i was going to ask a prof to clear something up a classmate did first, or 15 mins poring over notes/textbook

but I met someone today who just finished a very costly history masters degree at Columbia and is about to teach English abroad. there are certainly bad decisions out there to be made. xp

= why there is more student loan debt than credit card debt in america

The notion of a teaching-oriented Ph.D. is weird; the doctoral degree, especially in its modern (i.e. 19th century German) incarnation, has been a research-oriented degree, and it's hard to see what you'd spend your time writing a dissertation on if you were teaching-oriented. I know there are education degrees but I'm pretty skeptical of those too: they learn to be good bureaucrats but the art of teaching remains that, an art.

I'd rather see the incentive structure blossom into different tracks. We tell this story that it's the researchers that bring in the big bucks, because they can get grants & because they bring prestige through the work which appeals to rich donors. But tuition/fees are also big bucks, and that's brought in by those who do the teaching. Those funds could be indexed to people who do a good job teaching...though again, the problem is measuring good teaching.

Euler- I guess you could call the degree something else, but I don't see why higher ed teaching should be limited to people capable/willing to spend years doing research. in some fields there might be financial logic to it, but in others - such as the humanities - I think it results in superfluous research and a poor use of resources.

Here's a try: why would anyone want to teach college, if not for the prospects of doing research, given how shitty the pay is? I mean: these are people who have the brains & work ethic to do most anything; why do it for average or just a bit above average wages?

aren't there plenty of tenured faculty at liberal arts colleges who live a nice life and don't spend much time or energy on research?

I mean I feel like the overall we have a culture that screams 'college = good! more college = more good!'

haha well thats probably because for a long time college did offer a good return on investment. the value of a BA is declining (i think) but its still there. & tbh job prospects are still p good for students that study engineering or the hard sciences.

Here's a try: why would anyone want to teach college, if not for the prospects of doing research, given how shitty the pay is?

srsly. haha my bf dropped out sophmore year & makes 4x what i make. also tbqh its sorta questionable how many students are that invested in learning so

Euler, do you have ANY IDEA how hard it is for most people with advanced degrees in the humanities to get teaching jobs? or earn a fucking living? i get turned down for HIGH SCHOOL teaching jobs, and my credentials, GPAs, and published work is pretty much aces.

*are pretty much aces. ooof.

so I guess the answer is 'tenure', Euler. we talked about this on the grad school thread and gf is about to start (she went w/ the 'top' one in the end btw) and I don't know if she would in a world where tenure didn't exist. job security and nice hours have a lot of appeal, maybe more than ever today.

iatee, there are older tenured faculty who meet that description, but they aren't being replaced with such people: at top liberal arts colleges you'll have to publish quite a bit to get tenure, and even at mediocre liberal arts colleges they're looking for researchers. I guess once you get tenure you might be able to stop doing research but lots of places have post-tenure review now; I dunno if that's the case so much at private schools, though.

xp Lamp: yeah, teaching, I've heard, isn't exactly a bed of roses: students complain about lousy profs but it's not like classrooms are full of lively, interested students, as this thread attests.

xp table: I know! Depending on what you mean by the humanities, though---English, for instance---you're already committed to a degree that doesn't line-up super well with ~career opportunities~. It's better in philo but that's b/c philo's like math, at least analytic philo, & so those grads can go off & do consulting e.g. for big bucks.

euler— yeah, re: the whole English degree not lining up with career opportunities. but i think that in the end, it should! so many people have no idea how to write a goddamn sentence and many will probably make more money in a year than i'll probably make in the next ten.

i have wondered at times if some degree havers black ball not-havers purely for the temerity of having got along without one.

short answer: yes

Thread is making this dropout feel unemployable. But then I do quite a bit anyway.

I felt pretty awesome when I worked my way up to my current job with several years of experience, and am feeling not so awesome now we've recruited two new people to the same post, both straight out of university. (Not very well-regarded universities either, but I know I'm a total snob for thinking that.)

Especially since I feel like all my mistakes get scrutinised endlessly, but these guys both said in the interview they knew things they turned out not to know, like, at all and everyone else just seems to find it cute when they don't know stuff.

Still, in the UK university just got 9x more expensive than it was in my day, and I've still paid off only a small percentage of my debts from a decade ago, so it's not really worth the gamble of going back and hoping I don't just go nuts again.

def. agree that taking (at least) a year off after high school -- i.e. living by myself, having some sort of job -- would have been a great idea, but i don't think i could have been convinced of it at the time.

it's kind of weird that you need "a degree" when obviously the quality of the education that produced the degree varies so wildly. there are good colleges and less-good colleges. there are motivated poor kids at crappy schools and half-assed rich kids at top-level schools. having a degree in general doesn't give a whole lot of information.

that said, it would make me vaguely wonder if someone had *tried* to get one and failed. because it's just not very hard to get one (apart from financial problems) imo. and apart from daredevil savants who work outside of the standard system -- of which there are certainly more than a few -- it does seem an inability to manage the requirements of college would not bode well for managing those of modern cubicle life etc.

i went to a "good" expensive school. i don't exactly regret it -- it was a great experience, although i of course should have taken better advantage of the opportunities -- but i'm sure it wasn't that much $ better than much cheaper schools. and it certainly hasn't boosted my future income, though that's no doubt more my fault than its.

I went but never finished due to getting married and having 2 kids over a very protracted junior+senior+co-op student timeframe. So 1980s superwoman engineering school+work+family mode collapsed into basic working mom around 1983/4. I have regretted not finishing occasionally - generally when I've been desperate to leave a job I felt trapped in and couldn't get even a call back on applications - but I also don't think my lack of degree has hindered me much. I know of one specific company that refused to hire me as an employee due to not being a degreed electrical engineer, but they had no problem paying my rates as a consultant when they needed help w/ something I'm an expert in. Granted, tech stuff is not a fair comparison to an English BA, and I was lucky to find a niche (at the time) area (industrial control communication protocols) I really enjoyed and excelled at, and was in a (lowly phone tech support) position to just start doing it, to the relief of others in the company that didn't want to deal with it.

I do wonder about that alternate universe where I did finish school, what would I be doing, etc. But not very often.

also the 'summer camp' angle was awesome. i grew up in a small town -- everyone in my high school had known each other since kindergarten or fourth grade -- and the lack of preconceptions my colleagues had about me was grebt

should have gotten laid more than i did, but o well

I'm kind of the opposite of this thread...I've never been out of education in some form since I was four: school -> undergrad -> postgrad -> postdoc. I'm quite happy with how things have turned out, and I've had the opportunity to move around and live in different places, but I'm certain I would have had a more varied experience and maybe picked up some important life skills along the way. Though I guess everyone ends up carrying not-quite-regrets and counterfactual questions, whatever choices they make.

my college experience is pretty weird. dropped out of an english major after 3 years, went to work and had successful careers in both sales and technology. got diagnosed with ADD in my early 30s, went back and got a biz degree after getting on meds.

my original transcript was a crazyquilt of A's, F's, and withdrawals, but I graduated first in my class second time around, which I attribute to a mix of maturity + the meds.

things worked out ok, but I do wish I had been on meds the first time around and finished my degree. not graduating was a sorespot for me for years.

That said at the time I pretty psyched for it but more so for the young adult summer camp aspects rather than the intellectual ones.

― \(^o\) (/o^)/ (ENBB), Friday, April 22, 2011 8:44 AM (4 hours ago)

id be amazing if it was standard for kids to travel for a year before college, the summer camp/maturing possibilities are like 1mx better than lol college, and depending where you went itd be a lot cheaper than going nuts in the freshman dorm - its imo somewhat a shame that most students arent really psychologically in the position to fully take advantage of what is a mind blowingly vast and profound historically unprecedented educational worldscape

and just my two cents ive done p well livelihood wise w/o an education - some of that is just luck and privilege no doubt, and some is being flexible and having willingness to educate myself and gravitate toward things i can do w/o a degree - but who knows where id be if i did go to school - its def something that shaped my experience - but it was also kind of choiceless cause i just did not have the discipline or desire to do the actual work of college at age 18 or 22 or w/e - now i have no doubt i could smash that shit nbd, but still i have no urge - maybe if i fell in love w/some field that required a degree - seems unlikely

yeah i was thinking abt this today & its an obvious irony that the higher you move up the economic ladder the less necessary it becomes to actually go to college - like i have a couple of high school friends who make really good money in real estate who never went to college but were able to buy their first rental property w/ family money

it occurs to me that if you ran a company in an industry that generally requires a degree for employment but doesnt really in truth need one to do the work that you could gain a competitive recruitment advantage by waiving that prerequisite

just to be clear as far as the privilege i was discussing, it wasnt like i got any money from my family starting out, theyre not rich, but i did have the luxury of knowing that if i ever was totally broke i could move back home or get a small loan or w/e, and then theres the other aspect where i wasnt expected to help support any of my family which people who come from more humble background often are - also i had a lot of connections just cause of the sort of scene i grew up in

i wish i was more mature & had a better work ethic to better take advantage of the mindblowingly vast & historically unprecedented educational worldscape but, like, i never had a work ethic or ever did homework all my life up until now, mb a real job would be a better way to learn the habit, but in some ways feel the relentless heavy intellectually exhausting workload u get in college is the best way because it's rewarding in a way i can't imagine most jobs are & i know some p lazy adults. like i feel p horrible abt myself whenever i hand in something half assed or do poorly on a test for being underprepared & each time the beatdown is a hard lesson

i might be more mature than the worst of ppl tho, idk like some ppl in my classes shop online and skype with their girlfriends during lectures

oh yeah ice crm i didnt mean to imply that just more that college is sort of abt 'access' - to networks, to skills, to resources - & that the better off your family is the easier is to aquire those things w/o going to college. & yeah even if your not from a 'rich' family i think just having the time/space to 'figure things out' is p valuable

yeah totally having time to be a lazy irresponsible fuck up working a shitty job is a p amazing opportunity, so long as you move on from there lol

yeah totally having time to be a lazy irresponsible fuck up working a shitty job is a p amazing opportunity, so long as you move on from there lol

― ice cr?m, Saturday, April 23, 2011 2:51 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest

i'm doing this right now even tho i graduated from college -- it is v helpful

its def interesting to look at the cultural privilege that an education can confer like even between diff tiers of colleges - a top liberal arts institution may provide you w/an equal or better by the books education than an ivy, but at the ivy youre going to rub elbows w/the masters of the universe, and even if none of those connections pays off in a literal sense you still got to vibe to how the upper crust just is - which is natural to them but can provide invaluable insight for ambitious people of more ordinary means

the only time i found school rewarding was was the semester where i had to save my ass from getting kicked out of school & in the summer when i'd take one or two classes at a time & could concentrate pretty heavily on those -- i convinced myself at various points that i would've been okay if i had to drop out, idk how true that is & mainly my motivation for not letting that happen was societal expectations & not wanting my mother to commit suicide

i do feel generally speaking that ppl i know that put more effort into school & doing well in school are doing 'better' than me atm -- but that prob says more about me than it does about college

"this board is now just a bunch of rich college kids"

yeah people who put more effort into things tend to 'do better', but hey not everyone can do better, that wouldnt make any sense xp

xxxxp You know, Tabes, you don't have to put both or either degrees on your resume and/or applications.

Man, we're all so lucky I'm not a mod. I would have changed this thread's title to "Who hear did NOT go to college?" ages ago.

whatever you say college boy.

i wouldnt mind teaching college and not doing any research!

research is hard

Here's a try: why would anyone want to teach college, if not for the prospects of doing research, given how shitty the pay is? I

Because, despite a strict curriculum, I still enjoy a certain amount of freedom? Also, I like teaching: the performative aspects, and also the thrill of watching a nineteen-year-old whose interest in writing waxed and waned but now, after taking the class, wants to take it seriously.

I only finished my masters degree last year: I put off writing a thesis for a humiliatingly long period. It got so that my employment prospects, especially in this economy, were beginning to disappear. I still have no interest in pursuing doctoral work, much less "tenure," but I see myself as an adjunct for the foreseeable future.

anyway i assumed this thread was being bumped for notorious butthead peter thiels new "project" to... i dont know. be loud?

Thiel’s solution to opening the minds of those who can’t easily go to Harvard? Poke a small but solid hole in this Ivy League bubble by convincing some of the most talented kids to stop out of school and try another path. The idea of the successful drop out has been well documented in technology entrepreneurship circles. But Thiel and Founders Fund managing partner Luke Nosek wanted to fund something less one-off, so they came up with the idea of the “20 Under 20″ program last September, announcing it just days later at San Francisco Disrupt. The idea was simple: Pick the best twenty kids he could find under 20 years of age and pay them $100,000 over two years to leave school and start a company instead.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/10/peter-thiel-were-in-a-bubble-and-its-not-the-internet-its-higher-education/

thiel thinks there is a higher ed "bubble" which is sort of hilarious nonsense. he also seems to think that convincing harvard students to drop out and a) take a big check and b) be mentored by rich successful people will somehow "prove" that college degrees are worthless. shakinghead.gif

My wife was an assistant professor at Ole Miss, tenure-track, but it was clear she wasn't going to get it because she hated research and loved teaching. After the last year before her tenure review, she said "it's been real, thanks," resigned and we went off to California where she taught at a junior college. She was a really good teacher, and her students loved her because she was the one who had the most enthusiasm for being in the room where they had to be.

A good way of putting it.

i dropped out of college to work in record sales and it's been real yo, but it would be nice to make some big moneys someday.

thiel thinks there is a higher ed "bubble" which is sort of hilarious nonsense. he also seems to think that convincing harvard students to drop out and a) take a big check and b) be mentored by rich successful people will somehow "prove" that college degrees are worthless. shakinghead.gif

the for-profit/online side is more of a clear cut bubble. for-profit degrees don't add a ton of value to the world and really only exist due to student loans / gov't money - university of phoenix had almost half a million student' last year and got $1 billion in pell grant money. gov't is finally paying a little bit of attention to this subject and squeezing some air out of it, but I think bubble is the right word.

bubble might be the wrong word for the non-profit side, also thiel's obv a dick, but I do think that the way we fund our non-profit higher-ed system is growing amazingly unsustainable. a college degree is a pretty complicated investment and it's really 'worth' a different amount to different people, but it's not worth...infinity...so the rise in tuition has to level off somewhere. but that's still not happening! not even in a gigantic recession.

but the student loan side of the bubble can't really 'pop' until people can default on their loans, so instead we'll just have a weird system of indentured servitude because for some reason we think it's fine to let 18 year olds take out 200k in loans for an art history degree from NYU but not for a house.

half a million students*

er until people can *discharge their loans, they pretty clearly can default on them

"i dropped out of college to work in record sales and it's been real yo, but it would be nice to make some big moneys someday."

brooklyn needs weed, dude. just sayin'...

http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/10/peter-thiel-were-in-a-bubble-and-its-not-the-internet-its-higher-education/

thiel thinks there is a higher ed "bubble" which is sort of hilarious nonsense. he also seems to think that convincing harvard students to drop out and a) take a big check and b) be mentored by rich successful people will somehow "prove" that college degrees are worthless. shakinghead.gif

― ban drake (the rapper) (max), Saturday, April 23, 2011 9:07 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

o jeez thiel is such a prick he also wants to build artificial pacific islands on which to found a tax free randian paradise, may he drown in his own hubris