Is College A Waste Of Time And Money?

[squeezyjohn]

Yes - I know. We've got loads of universities based on that model since deregulation back in then late 1990s

Frankly it's a cynical move on the part of the government designed to reduce the youth unemployment figures and stimulate growth in the financial sector by making the concept of debt seem normal for all generations passing through the system.

[Thunder_Snus]

That is absolutely not the case in the UK ... but I think the degrees in this country are becoming more and more like your definition.

The university degree system was set up as learning for the sake of learning and the betterment of knowledge for the good of the country and the world in general ... I cannot imagine how much more ignorant of the world around us we'd be as a race if it wasn't for academia and universities. It was never intended to be a piece of paper that entitled the owner to a job!

The problem is when you apply capitalist principles to academia then it can never function in the same way as it was intended. Every student has to "perform" and there has to be some kind of tangible recordable results seen for the money invested. The idea of having to pay for your own further education is a ridiculous way of going about things - it excludes all the academic talent from poorer backgrounds fulfilling their potential. And in the long term society loses out.

University should be what it was when my parents studied their degrees ... something funded by the state and only possible to get in to if you were in the top percentage of academic talent. Why? For the same reason you would expect your state to hire the best people for any other job with public money. Don't get me wrong ... I'm a massive fan of non-academic skills and crafts too - and that's what I've ended up doing for a living and no university degree could prepare you well for the majority of jobs! But when you consider that most major breakthroughs in the 20th century in science and engineering came not from results-led, sponsored positions - but as accidental consequences of learning for the sake of learning and experimentation then I predict that we're at the end of a great era.

That college now is a joke and a bought piece of paper to add to your resumé is a sad reflection of a purely business and money led society.

Colleges here in the US atleast have almost nothing to do with higher learning. Sure doing nothing will get you a C, but unless you get stuck with an actual professor you will never fail a class. It's really discouraging to study hard all semester and come out with a 99.8% in a class just to find out it was curved so that someone with an 82 also go an A. Most people consider attending class 50% of the time as hard work and an ok thing to do.
There are definitely good universities here that stick with the classical model of what higher education is, but for your typical state college or Uof? college is basically just an excuse to relax for 4 years and build up debt to avoid getting a job after graduating from high school.

[Thunder_Snus]

Mathematics is a pre-requisite for engineering, so you would need to take math as well. Physics also plays a role, so add that on. Maybe chemistry (depending on your path), but I would highly recommend taking it whether it's a requirement or not (it serves as a great lesson on precision, reactions, and other things).

Still Crow, the courses you need to get an engineering degree...that's the math classes...engineering classes...physics and possibly chemistry should total 2 maybe 2.5 years. There is just this other stuff including history, possibly foreign language, english, psych, and possibly more depending on where you go that are nothing but a ploy to make you pay more money.

[squeezyjohn]

College is a joke. A degree is largely a bought piece of paper that gives you access to the help wanted ads; an unreasonable newspaper subscription. Everyone wants a degree for positions that don't require one, and expect individuals to take up the burden of training that should be performed by the corporations.

That is absolutely not the case in the UK ... but I think the degrees in this country are becoming more and more like your definition.

The university degree system was set up as learning for the sake of learning and the betterment of knowledge for the good of the country and the world in general ... I cannot imagine how much more ignorant of the world around us we'd be as a race if it wasn't for academia and universities. It was never intended to be a piece of paper that entitled the owner to a job!

The problem is when you apply capitalist principles to academia then it can never function in the same way as it was intended. Every student has to "perform" and there has to be some kind of tangible recordable results seen for the money invested. The idea of having to pay for your own further education is a ridiculous way of going about things - it excludes all the academic talent from poorer backgrounds fulfilling their potential. And in the long term society loses out.

University should be what it was when my parents studied their degrees ... something funded by the state and only possible to get in to if you were in the top percentage of academic talent. Why? For the same reason you would expect your state to hire the best people for any other job with public money. Don't get me wrong ... I'm a massive fan of non-academic skills and crafts too - and that's what I've ended up doing for a living and no university degree could prepare you well for the majority of jobs! But when you consider that most major breakthroughs in the 20th century in science and engineering came not from results-led, sponsored positions - but as accidental consequences of learning for the sake of learning and experimentation then I predict that we're at the end of a great era.

That college now is a joke and a bought piece of paper to add to your resumé is a sad reflection of a purely business and money led society.

[Crow]

If you want to be an engineer can't you just take the intro course then the courses after that. Instead of taking intro to engineering along with Medieval Europe, Western Roman womens literature 101-107, meteorology, and German.

Mathematics is a pre-requisite for engineering, so you would need to take math as well. Physics also plays a role, so add that on. Maybe chemistry (depending on your path), but I would highly recommend taking it whether it's a requirement or not (it serves as a great lesson on precision, reactions, and other things).

[sirloot]

yes

[Thunder_Snus]

I went through the same thing, i.e. taking courses that had absolutely no relevance to my major. I agree that it's a pain in the arse for degree completion (and it's also a pain on the wallet).

However, I opted for classes that interested me. Learning German was fun, and I loved chemistry (so much so, that I want to learn more about chems).

You're right in saying uni doesn't fit every career path (there are better options for those in certain occupations)... But when it comes to science/engineering, uni is the path to take.

Yes some things are definitely worth doing in school but even then. If you want to be an engineer can't you just take the intro course then the courses after that. Instead of taking intro to engineering along with Medieval Europe, Western Roman womens literature 101-107, meteorology, and German. The whole 4 years thing just seems to be a tradition that these places try to keep in force with random shit. The classes I NEED to take to get my risk management degree is about 6 classes REQUIRED, and 2 math classes needed for 2 of those. So in total I NEED 8 classes. I could do that in 2 semesters. So why am I going to be going into my 5th year of college in August?

I took 4 classes a semester while working 24-30 hours a week. Gave me great balance with finances and schooling but still. Like you said crow you can always take classes that interest you, I took German, but that was an extra 800$ each semester for something I didn't need. They set up the 6 classes I need to take to be prereqs to each other so after i got done with 2 years of university wide mandatory i would need another 2-3 years just to get those 6 extra classes taken care of. And even then as they raise the price of tuition they lower the quality of professors. I had to drop my economics major when it was damn near finished because they replaced all 8 econ professors with 4 budget professors who gave most of the lecture in Greek because THEY DIDNT KNOW ENGLISH. I'm paying 10k a year to take classes i primarily don't need taught by people who don't speak one of the 1st-20th most common languages in the US. And you had to take the classes with one of the 4 greek-only speaking professors because the other 2 they hired wanted you to spend time, effort, and have the expertise of a current PHd student for a simple intro level course.

[wa3zrm]

The Myth of Working Your Way Through College

A lot of Internet ink has been spilled over how lazy and entitled Millennials are, but when it comes to paying for a college education, work ethic isn't the limiting factor. The economic cards are stacked such that today’s average college student, without support from financial aid and family resources, would need to complete 48 hours of minimum-wage work a week to pay for his courses—a feat that would require superhuman endurance, or maybe a time machine.
To take a close look at the tuition history of almost any institution of higher education in America is to confront an unfair reality: Each year’s crop of college seniors paid a little bit more than the class that graduated before. The tuition crunch never fails to provide new fodder for ongoing analysis of the myths and realities of The American Dream. Last week, a graduate student named Randy Olson listened to his grandfather extol the virtues of putting oneself through college without family support. But paying for college without family support is a totally different proposition these days, Olson thought. It may have been feasible 30 years ago, or even 15 years ago, but it's much harder now.
He later found some validation for these sentiments on Reddit, where one user had started a thread about the increasing cost per course at Michigan State University.
MSU calculates tuition by the "credit hour," the term for the number of hours spent in a classroom per week. By this metric, which is used at many U.S. colleges and universities, a course that's worth three credit hours is a course that meets for three hours each week during the semester. If the semester is 15 weeks long, that adds up to 45 total hours of a student's time.

(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...

[Crow]

That's a good point crow but there are definitely better methods. If you graduated high school what would be better, going to school for 4 years in which half of your classes won't be related to what you want to do and then atleast another 2-3 classes unrelated to it as well. Or have an employer in a certain field in a certain company train you at just say minimum wage for 1.5 years. You actually are earning money instead of spending it and you are being molded to do exactly what you want to do. I just don't see the point in spending 4 years to be an accountant when someone can just teach you how to be an accounts receivable guy in 6 months and just cut out all the bullshit.

I work for a major insurance company and their biggest gripe about new hires from the local university is that one professor there teaches things one way...another professor teaches it a different way.......and we do it a completely different way from both. If i wanted to know more about the Greek empire I would read on my own (which i do.) And if I wanted to know more about psychology i would read about it as well. But it is a huge waste of time making me take a class about it for several semesters when it is completely unrelated to what I want to do.

I'm currently stuck in this trap for another year until graduation. All employers want to see a degree no matter what it is in and that just seems to be a huge chunk of time to say yes I have a degree when someone could have just given me minimum wage or even nothing to teach me the tricks of the trade for a few months.

I went through the same thing, i.e. taking courses that had absolutely no relevance to my major. I agree that it's a pain in the arse for degree completion (and it's also a pain on the wallet).

However, I opted for classes that interested me. Learning German was fun, and I loved chemistry (so much so, that I want to learn more about chems).

You're right in saying uni doesn't fit every career path (there are better options for those in certain occupations)... But when it comes to science/engineering, uni is the path to take.

[alopezg1]

Most people just lie anyway ..... i do . I have a degree in comparative literature apparently . I went for about six weeks then
decided it wasn't for me . It's a permanent feature on my c.v. though .... shit , i even give myself honors

[alopezg1]

certain things require a good deal of training . Medicine for example; i would feel very uncomfortable
going in for surgery knowing that the surgeon was just going to wing it on things he'd picked up along the way
from the people who hadn't died. Also things like architecture and civil engineering - buildings not collapsing on people
seems to be something of importance.

[Thunder_Snus]

Uni's not a waste of time if you're majoring in science (and you apply yourself to the challenges). I can't speak for other majors, but when it comes to science, it's time and money well-invested.

That's a good point crow but there are definitely better methods. If you graduated high school what would be better, going to school for 4 years in which half of your classes won't be related to what you want to do and then atleast another 2-3 classes unrelated to it as well. Or have an employer in a certain field in a certain company train you at just say minimum wage for 1.5 years. You actually are earning money instead of spending it and you are being molded to do exactly what you want to do. I just don't see the point in spending 4 years to be an accountant when someone can just teach you how to be an accounts receivable guy in 6 months and just cut out all the bullshit.

I work for a major insurance company and their biggest gripe about new hires from the local university is that one professor there teaches things one way...another professor teaches it a different way.......and we do it a completely different way from both. If i wanted to know more about the Greek empire I would read on my own (which i do.) And if I wanted to know more about psychology i would read about it as well. But it is a huge waste of time making me take a class about it for several semesters when it is completely unrelated to what I want to do.

I'm currently stuck in this trap for another year until graduation. All employers want to see a degree no matter what it is in and that just seems to be a huge chunk of time to say yes I have a degree when someone could have just given me minimum wage or even nothing to teach me the tricks of the trade for a few months.

[piks101]

Well does depend on the degree. Unless science, engineering, or accounting to name the ones that come to mind, it does not seem that most degrees are worth the investment.

[Burnsey]

I think your right Crow....we are educating plenty of engineers and scientists who are taking their education back to their home country, no direct benefit to us after collecting tuition........Liberal Arts people, we got plenty.

[Crow]

Uni's not a waste of time if you're majoring in science (and you apply yourself to the challenges). I can't speak for other majors, but when it comes to science, it's time and money well-invested.