How educated are you?
- Thread starter JulianTrueFlynn
- Start date
PhD ... wouldn't call it a waste of time, and it only took me like a year to get over the fact that I'm probably never going to get a teaching position, but the good thing is that I got a big research grant after I graduated that wiped out all my debt.
Now I make an okay living with my info products, but working on pumping up the volume because some things are slipping and it's not a comfortable feeling.
That said, I might pursue a "proper" academic position again in the future. A lot depends on what it is and under what circumstances. I never could stand the politics of people who cling like flies to the assholes of different philosophers as if any one line of thinking has all the answers, but there are ways around these people. There are always ways ...
But to sum up, my opinion is that on the one hand, university is a virtuous cult. On the other hand, it's pure evil. Both sides operate on the fact that they mostly take advantage of young minds who cannot yet think critically about what they're getting into and are constantly sold on the lie that degrees = jobs.
I'd bet that universities would increase their success if they just said: come here to learn some stuff and surrender the result to your own passion.
Now I make an okay living with my info products, but working on pumping up the volume because some things are slipping and it's not a comfortable feeling.
That said, I might pursue a "proper" academic position again in the future. A lot depends on what it is and under what circumstances. I never could stand the politics of people who cling like flies to the assholes of different philosophers as if any one line of thinking has all the answers, but there are ways around these people. There are always ways ...
But to sum up, my opinion is that on the one hand, university is a virtuous cult. On the other hand, it's pure evil. Both sides operate on the fact that they mostly take advantage of young minds who cannot yet think critically about what they're getting into and are constantly sold on the lie that degrees = jobs.
I'd bet that universities would increase their success if they just said: come here to learn some stuff and surrender the result to your own passion.
What a great thread. How edu-taining!
I have always been good in school and love the learning environment. An Associates and then BA on my Dad's GI Bill (he passed in March and was a 100% disabled vet), I was able to get better paying jobs where I could use my talents and abilities, which always felt like fun instead of work. Very rewarding.
I was always technically inclined and the BA was in RA/TV, which I ended up teaching tech skills in all the jobs I had in that field. Which has brought me nicely into the Digital Age. However, I did feel the need to go back to school later in life, because getting a job had completely changed.
Now I have a MS and am loving all the interactive and engaging technology, I just might go for the Doctorate in I.T. There seems to be a need for techs who can teach. And, I'm a natural. A career test I took straight outa high school said I should be a teacher. I said, "What kind of a career is that?". And, went into Radio/Television when Dallas was considering itself The Third Coast. It was a lot of fun.
But yes...the student debt thing has followed me throughout the higher levels of my education. Debt and survival are what keep me working. This line of work is where I naturally thrive and the money is definitely making it all possible.
Enjoying furthering my education in Professional Learning Communities like this one. The School of Experience!
I have always been good in school and love the learning environment. An Associates and then BA on my Dad's GI Bill (he passed in March and was a 100% disabled vet), I was able to get better paying jobs where I could use my talents and abilities, which always felt like fun instead of work. Very rewarding.
I was always technically inclined and the BA was in RA/TV, which I ended up teaching tech skills in all the jobs I had in that field. Which has brought me nicely into the Digital Age. However, I did feel the need to go back to school later in life, because getting a job had completely changed.
Now I have a MS and am loving all the interactive and engaging technology, I just might go for the Doctorate in I.T. There seems to be a need for techs who can teach. And, I'm a natural. A career test I took straight outa high school said I should be a teacher. I said, "What kind of a career is that?". And, went into Radio/Television when Dallas was considering itself The Third Coast. It was a lot of fun.
But yes...the student debt thing has followed me throughout the higher levels of my education. Debt and survival are what keep me working. This line of work is where I naturally thrive and the money is definitely making it all possible.
Enjoying furthering my education in Professional Learning Communities like this one. The School of Experience!
I just received my B.Sc. in Pharmaceutical Sciences last month.
A license in pharmacy is very lucrative when paired with an entrepreneurial mind and skill set. Very happy with the decision although I won't be making use of it for a while yet.
A license in pharmacy is very lucrative when paired with an entrepreneurial mind and skill set. Very happy with the decision although I won't be making use of it for a while yet.
Wow congrats man. I think it would be a great experience to go to Stanford just for the interaction with other smart people. What did you study?
It looks like Google has been reading this thread.
After years of looking at the data, Google has found that things like college GPAs and transcripts are almost worthless in hiring. Following these revelations, the company is hiring more and more people who never even went to college.
In an interview with The New York Times, Google's Senior Vice President for People Operations Laszlo Bock revealed that the number of degree-less hires has trended upwards as they've stopped asking for transcripts for everybody but the most recent graduates.
"What’s interesting is the proportion of people without any college education at Google has increased over time as well," Bock said. "So we have teams where you have 14 percent of the team made up of people who’ve never gone to college."
Google hiring non-graduates - Business Insider
After years of looking at the data, Google has found that things like college GPAs and transcripts are almost worthless in hiring. Following these revelations, the company is hiring more and more people who never even went to college.
In an interview with The New York Times, Google's Senior Vice President for People Operations Laszlo Bock revealed that the number of degree-less hires has trended upwards as they've stopped asking for transcripts for everybody but the most recent graduates.
"What’s interesting is the proportion of people without any college education at Google has increased over time as well," Bock said. "So we have teams where you have 14 percent of the team made up of people who’ve never gone to college."
Google hiring non-graduates - Business Insider
dropped out of high school sophmore year, didn't get a GED. Instead I got an education:
While my friends finished high school i fielded leads i generated from NASA, halliburton, the crew of the matrix 2 movie and the lebanese army, made a 12k pay day at 19 years old and learned how to broker heavy equipment. I thought grass was greener in mortgage. I starved as a loan officer, I couldnt sell an option arm, they were shit loans our office was just scamming people with. I learned to starve and pass out after a month of ramen in the shower etc. I moved to a direct lender, on the wholesale side, moved up to secondary marketing(placing paper on the secondary market) underwriting to countrywide, bear sterns, lehman brothers, credit suisse, gmac credit, impact, nomura, the wintergroup, hsbc ..... and I think some others. I coded their guidelines in a way complex excel spreadsheet lol. launched SubprimeAlta.com January 7th 2007. I quickly hired and trained 7 commission-only account executives to sell "the best program available" our spreadsheet. People loved it, we had a shitload of loans and we all thought we were getting rich. And then guidelines began to change weekly, which required that any loans sitting on our warehouse line (90 day) needed to meet new stipulations. This continued until the underwriting guidelines changed daily and then suddenly loans we had funded were not worthy of any investor on secondary to buy.
Subprime crash. I took 30 days off work and learned php/mysql, made a youtube/myspace clone that couldnt possibly scale with serverside video encoding and everything. Feeling free and kinda new, I moved to colorado springs and started growing weed, I learned everything about it.
after this I ranked #1 for seo los angeles for two years doing shit you guys never talk about, have done contract work for harvard university, united nations, fox news, spinning, next day flyers, the happy movie, sugardvd and i have a track record of excelling.
last year i was director of seo for pinnacle cart, was offered 80k/yr - 120k/yr by other less interesting companies but took 50k/yr +stock options at pinnacle with the expectation i could change the cart.
long story short, ive been self employed for 12 months, have had 2-12 employees at a time [all outsource] and am working on another saas platform. im 30, what ive learned is i have to control the show, other people will fuck it up.
friends that went to college and graduated high school drink beer, watch football, hate their jobs, are working on their first divorce. im happy with my decisions.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIoIvC8StEs]SubprimeAlta.com Automated Loan Pricing - YouTube[/ame]
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCsQ-owjMJ0]video 2010 04 22 22 51 29 - YouTube[/ame]
talking to the self obsessed idiots at harvard was interesting and validating
this was early, shortly after this coalition was pegged to #1 for all web design/seo terms.
anyways, you guys can call me Dr devknob since i have a doctorate in cutting through bullshit and taking an education everybody knows couldn't be given. and getting lucky.
this helped me more than anything. I was 13 years old, a random kid taught me PRINT, CLS and INPUT and i decided to learn everything about qbasic. the first websites I made were for weekend hosts at kfi am 640 (largest am station in LA) for free. I had no idea what I was doing, just ask.
surprisingly, even though my mom knew i could program, after i dropped out of high school she was dead set on getting me into truck driving school. lol. nobody pushed me into this computer stuff. all i know is my dad locked me out of my brothers computer, i found the password and "hacked" it. I think that hooked me.
despite everything, im not where id like to be.
While my friends finished high school i fielded leads i generated from NASA, halliburton, the crew of the matrix 2 movie and the lebanese army, made a 12k pay day at 19 years old and learned how to broker heavy equipment. I thought grass was greener in mortgage. I starved as a loan officer, I couldnt sell an option arm, they were shit loans our office was just scamming people with. I learned to starve and pass out after a month of ramen in the shower etc. I moved to a direct lender, on the wholesale side, moved up to secondary marketing(placing paper on the secondary market) underwriting to countrywide, bear sterns, lehman brothers, credit suisse, gmac credit, impact, nomura, the wintergroup, hsbc ..... and I think some others. I coded their guidelines in a way complex excel spreadsheet lol. launched SubprimeAlta.com January 7th 2007. I quickly hired and trained 7 commission-only account executives to sell "the best program available" our spreadsheet. People loved it, we had a shitload of loans and we all thought we were getting rich. And then guidelines began to change weekly, which required that any loans sitting on our warehouse line (90 day) needed to meet new stipulations. This continued until the underwriting guidelines changed daily and then suddenly loans we had funded were not worthy of any investor on secondary to buy.
Subprime crash. I took 30 days off work and learned php/mysql, made a youtube/myspace clone that couldnt possibly scale with serverside video encoding and everything. Feeling free and kinda new, I moved to colorado springs and started growing weed, I learned everything about it.
after this I ranked #1 for seo los angeles for two years doing shit you guys never talk about, have done contract work for harvard university, united nations, fox news, spinning, next day flyers, the happy movie, sugardvd and i have a track record of excelling.
last year i was director of seo for pinnacle cart, was offered 80k/yr - 120k/yr by other less interesting companies but took 50k/yr +stock options at pinnacle with the expectation i could change the cart.
long story short, ive been self employed for 12 months, have had 2-12 employees at a time [all outsource] and am working on another saas platform. im 30, what ive learned is i have to control the show, other people will fuck it up.
friends that went to college and graduated high school drink beer, watch football, hate their jobs, are working on their first divorce. im happy with my decisions.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIoIvC8StEs]SubprimeAlta.com Automated Loan Pricing - YouTube[/ame]
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCsQ-owjMJ0]video 2010 04 22 22 51 29 - YouTube[/ame]
talking to the self obsessed idiots at harvard was interesting and validating
this was early, shortly after this coalition was pegged to #1 for all web design/seo terms.
anyways, you guys can call me Dr devknob since i have a doctorate in cutting through bullshit and taking an education everybody knows couldn't be given. and getting lucky.
this helped me more than anything. I was 13 years old, a random kid taught me PRINT, CLS and INPUT and i decided to learn everything about qbasic. the first websites I made were for weekend hosts at kfi am 640 (largest am station in LA) for free. I had no idea what I was doing, just ask.
surprisingly, even though my mom knew i could program, after i dropped out of high school she was dead set on getting me into truck driving school. lol. nobody pushed me into this computer stuff. all i know is my dad locked me out of my brothers computer, i found the password and "hacked" it. I think that hooked me.
despite everything, im not where id like to be.
consider what else it might tell your employer. idk, ive hired maybe 15 americans in my life and none of them were college grads as far as i can recall. i remember college grads being the most pathetic candidates, the last one with a full portfolio of wix websites.
- Youre not a natural born genius, otherwise you wouldn't need the crutch
- You might be gullible, after all, you fell for everybodys bullshit about college
- You're just a baby. Compared to all the dropouts, your experience in an office is lacking
- From what I've seen, you probably think all those frat parties and the piece of paper in your hand makes you important or valuable beyond the reality. You're a 90 day temp that better fuck or walk or its hit the bricks pal [gggr]
- From what I've seen in the past, you probably don't have a sense of urgency - in tech a lot of people don't, its fucking annoying
- Did you know Google exists? Do you know how to learn new things on your own without hand-holding?
- Must not be a go-getter. Go getter go and get what they want and shitcan distractions, bullshit and other non-necessities
- Might be a bigger pain in the ass than I want, after all, this list is pretty fucking bad and unless im hiring a physist or rocket scientist.....hell id probably still rather hire somebody that just really loves physics and rocket science
- If your degree is relevant to this job - Why did you need any guidance? Isn't this what you wanted to do? Maybe its not, and I want long term people that love what they do because only they can produce what I need
- Where is the initiative? Logic? Is this person capable of analyzing data, making a decision and then implementing?
- Does this person now require a tutor to learn anything new or will they just learn it? Is there a weening time between the decade+ of dictated instruction before this pup can teach itself new tricks?
just sayin
Jeeze, the sentiment towards college students/graduates in this thread is now reaching critical mass.
Where the fuck else was I supposed to go to get hands-on experience in a Genetics research laboratory, again?
I mean, you can bucket people and generalize all you want - but that doesn't make your generalization anything more than a self-developed stereotype based on your own (relative to the millions of students/grads out there) remarkably limited experience with this group of people.
Where the fuck else was I supposed to go to get hands-on experience in a Genetics research laboratory, again?
I mean, you can bucket people and generalize all you want - but that doesn't make your generalization anything more than a self-developed stereotype based on your own (relative to the millions of students/grads out there) remarkably limited experience with this group of people.
And what do you currently do for a living that pays the bills?
I remember my dad got asked to speak to the local high school once, so he accepted. Fucken guy just stood up there in front of everyone, and told them the truth. He told them only about 10% of people end up in a job they went to college / university for, so don't worry about it too much. Funnily enough, the school never asked him to come back, lol.
I think there's a lot of hate because college dropouts/people who never go face a lot of scrutiny by people who say how important it is, especially in high school. I know I still get looked down upon by some peers/older people because I dropped out and I'm more financially stable than them.
The only reason I'm not working in a lab right now is because I literally do not want to. I have and it's just not something I enjoy doing on a day-to-day basis and being an entry-level lab employee is all of the grind of IM with none of the payout.
I took on about $2K in debt total and have always intended to use my undergraduate as a stepping stone for a Master's/PhD in a more specific field. It was never supposed to land me the job of my dreams because that's totally unrealistic for the work I want to do later in life.
My education was a pretty sound investment in doing what I want to do later in life. Just because there are a bunch of idiots sinking $30K into a Liberal Arts degree with no plan moving forward is in no way a reflection on colleges or universities - it is a reflection on that person as an individual.
These posts about college graduates being lazy, unmotivated or unable to function as an autodidact (hilarious coming from people who have never had to learn OrgChem from an ESL speaker) are nothing more than dropout hubris based on a relative lack of inexperience with the group as a whole.
Judging college graduates for going to college is the exact same thing as judging a dropout for not going to college.
It's ignorant and based in ignorance.
its a broad brush i paint when speaking specifically about my industry. If you went to college for programming or web development, you probably are not very good at it or don't enjoy doing it. Genetics researchers, scientists of various varieties, doctors, lawyers etc, sure. But if a coder thought it was necessary to go to college..... how do you even conclude this would be a good idea given the years wasted in school? Even so, im sure if someone specifically wanted to work for Goldman Sachs as a trends forecasting programmer or whatever, I wouldnt be surprised if it REQUIRED a degree. It isnt anti-grad sentiment, the list above is the straight facts the way I see them looking at a child, freshly spit out into the world at the age of 25 over the desktop of a startup that thrives or dies, things I have to consider because all of that shit is a liability. Im speaking from the "im a computer nerd, we make sites and code shit" fishbowl.
not judging, but im not gonna deny any facts, take unnecessary risks, and ive watched other people come to the same conclusion. its clear to me that in my industry, a degree is a joke, we wouldn't even look at them although perhaps a degree in finance may be interesting, if somebody understands probability theory or any other incredibly useful concept its always interesting.
and on second thought, the 1 degree id probably weigh in favor of the applicant, statistician / mathematician
not judging, but im not gonna deny any facts, take unnecessary risks, and ive watched other people come to the same conclusion. its clear to me that in my industry, a degree is a joke, we wouldn't even look at them although perhaps a degree in finance may be interesting, if somebody understands probability theory or any other incredibly useful concept its always interesting.
and on second thought, the 1 degree id probably weigh in favor of the applicant, statistician / mathematician
experience. hilarious coming from people who have never had to hire people - look lol. dont get your panties in a bunch, but college grads - in certain fields - should take the negative light a degree might shine on them into consideration. even if that sounds insane.
are you a web developer? if you'd like to do a little experiment, put out 2 job ads. one that requires a 4 year degree, and one that requires the person loves coding and drinks a shitload of mountain dew.
before hiring anyone, im sure you'll likely see what im talking about. I have put out ads, asking for people that have been broke and starving before, dropped out of high school or college. If im hiring for sales, marketing, tech, etc I just want smart, imaginative people that are hungry (have seen bottom), motivated (maybe they are from a poor family, that would be fantastic, its ideal), and love what they do.
are you a web developer? if you'd like to do a little experiment, put out 2 job ads. one that requires a 4 year degree, and one that requires the person loves coding and drinks a shitload of mountain dew.
before hiring anyone, im sure you'll likely see what im talking about. I have put out ads, asking for people that have been broke and starving before, dropped out of high school or college. If im hiring for sales, marketing, tech, etc I just want smart, imaginative people that are hungry (have seen bottom), motivated (maybe they are from a poor family, that would be fantastic, its ideal), and love what they do.
Most of you know my story, because I've already discussed it here years ago. Graduated HS in 93. Did couple years of community college, but changed majors and didn't transfer to SDSU until 96. Worked full time while trying to get my Criminal Justice degree. Ended up just bailing on school in 99 and worked in the auto industry for 10 years. Quit my job in 2009 and started working on the interwebz. Reapplied to SDSU in 2010, at 37 years old, and got my BS in Criminal Justice a few months before my 2nd child was born in 2011. So there you have it. Am I educated, hell yes. Long before I ever went back to get my degree.