I disagree for the most part, as there are some people who just have a very hard time with intensive reading and retaining knowledge, mainly because they didn't start as a child and are only now beginning to catch up. A person like me on the other hand can just coast (and I did) because of how knowledgeable I am and because I paid attention and took notes in class. And for whatever reason, it's very easy for me to latch on and dissect ideas to find out their meaning. Some have a hard time with that and do nothing short of literally trying to just trying to memorize certain concepts, which is different than actually grasping them. In previous generations, I would agree but now, particularly with good parenting and good pre-secondary schooling, it's easier to develop deep thinkers independently. This is in part because of the technological leap since anyone can now have access to all kinds of material that requires them to think and ask questions. You can, for example, find lectures of various people in various fields on a site like Youtube and some of these experts will also give their opinions on shows that may appear on a learning channel, which may in turn lead you to read any book they've written. I'm saying, in other words, that it is easier to become a knowledgeable, deep, analytical person without formal education than at any time in history. I've formulated this opinion on the fact that some college graduates I've met, even with multiple degrees, are pretty ignorant or arrogant about their opinion but get looked upon as experts because of their education (which is partially fair). Meanwhile, though it is certainly the exception to the rule, I've met 9th grade/high school dropouts in recent months that are extremely bright. This one guy I met could do math the old fashioned way without a calculator with ease and talked to me about some philosophical ideas and even blew me away to some degree with his ability to reason and analyze. He makes $33/hour by the way. He may be an exception to the rule but it shows me that, beyond certain fields which require you to be guided by an expert to truly grasp, formal education is becoming somewhat irrelevant in determining who is truly knowledgable and intelligent. That said, there's something to be said for having some proof you can show to employers that you are that smart and thus formal education is the best way to provide that. But it hardly tells the whole story.
As Steve Job said "I don't want that flaky degree of yours" ... I agree while some value should be put to college education, college or not is not everything. That said, I do not agree some of those parents telling their kids that college may not worth the tuition and therefore not to go. I think college education is still essential. To the contrary, I would tell my kid if he were to go to college right now, don't half-ass, study extra hard to get that degree, making sure the substance of education counts. Good or bad, which school you go to, what degrees you have will still be one's name cards to open doors high school graduates will not. I don't see that change soon.
If you go to college, imo, at least go try and get a degree in a legitimately hard major that can if nothing else serve as a backup plan. Addressing some of the wrong reasons people go to college for: -You can always party with people your age at home or move close to a college campus. -You can always do it with girls your age at home or move to an area where there are lots of girls your age. -You can always support your favorite college sports team while working at Wal-Mart from age 18-22. -As corny as it sounds, you can always start your won fraternity/sorority and drinking buddies club like Al Bundy (Ed O'Neil) on Married With Children. -Unless it's a field like nursing that really requires supervision, expertise and hands on experience, you can always read about whatever you want at home, watch videos of experts, attend college lectures, e-mail college professors and experts, even read college textbooks, etc... at home without spending thousands of dollars to get a degree. The fact is that with rising cost of college, the debt people get in to try and graduate, the amount of college degrees flooding the market plus the credibility of simply having one going down, it's far more important to be on the cutting edge of things than to just turn into a robot and just follow generic advice without thinking about it. This isn't 1850 where education was limited and the major universities had both a wealth of literature and teaching compared to the average population, who were mostly in rural settings with no formal education (ironic I say that in this thread). 10-50 years ago, going to college was on the cutting edge and was pushed because people noticed those who had degrees made more money. Now they aren't so rare and the field of candidates has been watered down, with employers now discovering that a college degree doesn't necessarily mean everything. Going to school could be on the cutting edge but that depends on who you are and what you're trying to do in life. And the thing is that college isn't going anywhere, so why rush into it at 18 unless you have a great plan and are beyond motivated? That's why I loathe pressuring kids into school at 18 whether or not they know where they're going. I know I'd have been much better off and grown more had I just gotten a retail job at 18 and tried to work my way up and learn about life than go to college, where I didn't do anything but study what I wanted anyways since I don't need a classroom setting to inspire me to learn. And now I ironically have got at least three disciplines I'd go to school for now that I've been away from school for a few years. That not to mention, there are limited amount of jobs at age 18 (give or take) that you can make thousands of dollars in (around here, plant work for example).
Can't pigeonhole all college education in one lump. Can't even say BS degrees are better than BAs. Some people take law or philosophy and are crazy smart. I have a BS degree that I've never used professionally and only when I want to feel smart with random snippets I still remember from cramming... I like this I like this alot too. What differentiates college from taking classes online or in JC is the company that's there and the company you keep. You get to realize that you're not the highest mountain anymore or that there are others just as smart and capable as you. Does that motivate you to try harder and up your game? Or do you completely rebel and blame it on mommy daddy issues when you piss it all away on drugs and parties at the expense of getting a good grade? btw, if you can transfer out of JC to a top 50 university after two years of hard and independent work surrounded by peers with low expectations, you ****ing earned that college degree. Again, the main difference is that if you're choosing a cupcake major for what amounts to a piece of paper, then you get what you put in. I recognize the dissonance when I mentioned that I didn't use my degree, but I didn't find passion in the career choices my degree had. I enjoyed taking elective courses that I wanted to take more than the core classes I was forced to take. Unfortunately the majors held by the electives...History, Sociology Philosophy, and foreign lit didn't seem to have a career potential of making more than 60k. So I made a money decision and hunkered down on some of the most grueling science courses some could take. Those courses are the real deal. Does it take book smarts to get there? Not necessarily. Call me chauvanistic but some students I thought who weren't bright were able to pull off med and technical degrees that I never had the patience or drive to learn. I found out that I couldn't grasp the details in a night's cram session as easily as I could tear apart some pop sci book from Hawking. It was those people who realized they needed to prepare and break it down, get help or form study groups who made it. Other cheated through manipulation, negotiation, quid pro quos or did it outright. While that sullied the pure pursuit of knowledge, they earned the paper like everyone else. A paper that signified that one had the skills to perform some capacity in society...(Pretty sick when you think about it, but the system has made it this far and hasn't changed much to prevent it) So book smarts only gets you half way there. Hard work defines a bulk of the people who made it. One likes to think genius as some gene given by God to smite the rest of us with the shame of stupidity, but genius can be attained through hard work and practice. That much has been proven. I just don't feel like doing it... And it's that hard work that some degrees signify and distinguishes them from most of the dropouts who had potential but never forged it into anything worthwhile. They probably posted in that "I am Royce White" thread. Such a shame that they out thought themselves in attempt to outwit the game but have played it to lose. In hindsight I should've taken comp sci, but I hated debugging and didn't see a future of writing code in C++ and spending 75% of my time debugging it. Kinda ironic I'm doing some of that now, albeit in an entirely different social capacity.
I'd have to know what it was like in the past. That question would be better answered by a 50-60 year old who went to college 30-40 years ago and re-enrolled recently. I'd presume that because it's easier to access information, especially at the last minute, thanks to technology and the leniency of administrators and educators to pass people to protect their school's rating (and thus increase their pay and status) that college is easier. But that question is better left answered by someone whose been in multiple eras or who has worked in that field for some time.
You're absolutely right. Here is the problem though. We want to blame income inequality because the lower class doesn't have means to get an education. There is a bar set and only so many people are allowed to cross it. The harder we try to fit more people across, the more unequal it becomes. There was a time when a basic 4 year degree and some ambition was plenty enough to get ahead in life, but that is no longer the case. Instead, we have everyone trying to get a degree, going into debt, and not getting a decent job. We have schools like Devry and University of Phoenix that are near useless, and people are going into tens of thousands in debt for low quality schools. Now its about going to a prestige college and networking with those people. The lower class can not afford this schooling. In the past, ones ambition can more easily take them further. You can still do it if you have the intelligence and ambition. The income inequality is dividing further because people are going deeper into debt to get the same jobs that did not require a degree in the past. Once youre in the cycle, its hard to break, especially when you can't discharge that student loan debt.
The reason so many here on clutchfans don't see the value in putting the work into getting that education is that they are already geniuses with everything figured out.
I hear you and agree with you on many points. But I don't know why you said college education is a waste and people can do just as well w/o it. From my experiences, only in a limited number of fields like computer programming, a college degree is not necessary. Microsoft was hiring kids out of high school and we had a few senior programmers w/o college degrees in our company. But most other fields still require college degrees: I don't think one can be a lawyer w/o first getting a college degree (I believe it's required under ABA and BAR), CPA, or many other professions that need licenses to practice. The economy is tough right now, so to me, there is more reason to study even harder in the college than previous generations. You and I see the same problems, but looks like we have different conclusions. On the point of getting some job experience before go to college, not a bad idea, but not necessary IMHO. I worked part time throughout college to pay for the tuition. I learned a lot from those experiences and matured a lot. If there is a mind to mature, a kid will mature anywhere, not necessarily to get some work experience first.
Get it and follow your muse. If you don't have a calling towards a particular nerdy specialization, make sure you learn how to think and how to communicate. If you can think and communicate, you have as much flexibility as you'll need. Nobody ever lays on their deathbed and says Man, I'm glad I did something I didn't really want to for the bulk of my life because it allowed me to buy more stuff.
Sure, but what's the alternative though? Get rid of colleges once and for all? Mao did that, and the result was disaster. I don't think you are proposing that. We already have affirmative actions, need-base scholarships, tax breaks. Not as drastic, but works to some degree to wrinkle out that ineqaulity. At some point, you just have to a pick a system to live with. Absolute eqaulity is inequality, and it has been proven we humans are not capable of managing that.
Exactly, not everybody is made for electrical engineers, nurses, programmers ... Take prc1's exampel, that kid did stage managing, would he be happy if he got stuck with being electrical engineer. Well, a good friend of mine graduated from college and didn't know what to do with his B.A. degree 10 years ago. So he painted house (not artist type, just straight labor type) for half of a year and traveled around in South America and South East Asia for the rest of the year. He did that for almost 8 years. One day he figured he has to change and lo and behold he took lsat, got a good score, and got in a nation's top law school with scholarship. He is now a practicing attorney in California serving small businesses leveraging his experiences as the painter. Life is a process and everyone should get a chance to figure out what he/she wants to do with it.
If you guys haven't seen the documentary Waiting For Superman i suggest watching it. It's a depressing film about the American education system its current statof paralysis. There's talk if emulating Germany's apprenticeship system and the future heart of the debate should lie on maintaining our current system of free thinking and personal enablement or using the apprenticeships to consign a persons life to a stable workforce in society
^^^ Needless to mention he is so well-rounded with street smarts he accumlated over those years through varied experiences. All of his customers love him.
On the education system, I remember watching a segment on 60 minutes showing many high skilled jobs are not filled here in the US b/c people are not good enough to take those jobs. That is really concerning. Something has to be done on that end in the system as well.
I kind of chuckle at this because it serves to point out the sense of entitlement that corporations have WHY SHOULD WE HAVE TO TRAIN OUR OWN WORKERS!!!!!!????? THEY SHOULD BE POURING INTO US READY TO GO!!! So I find them saying such things to be a lot of bull**** They just don't want to invest the time/money in an employee then watch them walk away . . . . primarily because they want someone they can short change and easily replace Rocket River
