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Were it not for college, I probably would have dropped out of highschool and enlisted, not because of any reason other than following what seems to be my calling (I've always had good grades and I don't aspire to earn more than I need).
College is definitely doing me a service that I didn't expect, despite costing me $25000 a year (I have faith that I can pay off those loans in due time after graduation). It's plain to see that college isn't for everyone. there are a lot of people here, paying more than I am, scrapping the bottom of the tank, with no career goals or aspirations. College is seen as just another stepping stone, after which many students are left asking, "what now?"

Developed countries around the world hatched an idea a couple of decades ago. They realised that with automation taking a lot of jobs away from manufacturing, and the rest moving to countries with lower wages, they needed to build an economy that could sustain high wages. Looking around, they noticed that university trained professionals like lawyers and doctors earned lots of money, and so they decided the answer was to make lots more people go to college.

The problem, of course, is that when you have the top 5% of people go to college, then you double admissions... well the people ranked in the 6-10% group aren't as gifted by definition. When you keep expanding the admissions to get down to the people ranked 25-30%... then you're looking at investing $100,000 or more in training people who aren't your best and brightest. And ultimately you only need so many people in each sector of your economy, add more trained people and you don't necessarily mean there will be useful sectors opening up for them to work in. This means you either gets lots of people with a degree and no use for it (how many liberal arts people end up using not one part of their degree in the job?) or worse, you get a sector bloat as it expands with loads of new skilled professionals without doing anything more useful than it used to (finance in the US has bloated from 3% of the economy to 8% in a generation, and is anyone getting double as much useful banking today than they did 25 years ago?)

So there's a growing amount of talk that the next sensible step forward might be to stop growing our universities, and pull back enrolments... but of course this gets shouted down with claims about becoming stupid, and how education is the future blah blah. But that kind of thing can only last so long, before people start to realise that the vast money pumped in to our universities could instead be put to expanding new tech industries that might actually produce a real, sustainable economic future at high wages.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I figured I would have finally gotten a date........

If it makes you feel better

I have been shot down by more women in college than I could count. Luckily less laughed at me than were polite. I do take satisfaction in this.

I've dated my girlfriend for over 3 years before we had sex, and in that time frame had quite a few prostitutes who offered without charge. (un)fortunately They all looked like rotting roast beef.

Basically my sex life is the equivalence of the Cleveland Browns.

You know what the sad part is? in high school my friends and I use to talk about how much sex we were going to have when we went to college.

Did not happen. It did not Fahkin happen.

College sucks, puberty sucks. Life sucks.

My advice? take up a contact sport so the pain can be redirected.

If I could do things over again, I would try to make a living as a plumber, carpenter, or electrician. I'd probably be making substantially more money with infinitely less bureaucracy.

And if those late night movies are to be belived, more lonely housewives

 Ouze wrote:
If I could do things over again, I would try to make a living as a plumber, carpenter, or electrician. I'd probably be making substantially more money with infinitely less bureaucracy.

Yep. Do whatever is out of fashion at that point in time, because you'll be really nicely placed when it turns around.

When I asked my Dad about what I should do, he told me when he looked at what he could do, he got told there's lots of jobs in geology, so he should study geology. Of course, that's what everyone got told, so he was one of hundreds who studied, and by the time they all graduated they were competing for a handful of jobs in an industry that was by then in a contractionary phase. So after a few pretty crappy paying jobs that kept him miles away from his young family, he went back to uni and when he got told 'don't do economics, the fields got no credibility and no-one is hiring anymore' he went and did that. Was one of a handful of graduates and got snapped up quickly, and got his pick of jobs for the rest of his career.

I was going to do IT until I spoke to the councilor, who said 'IT is the growth industry, we're growing our enrolments by hundreds each year' and so I stayed the hell away from that - and by the time I graduated the IT bubble had popped and graduates were finding it near impossible to get a job.


But I realise now I was a little too narrow in how I thought about it, I only tried to figure out what kind of white collar job was the best pick, and didn't even consider that perhaps some blue collar jobs might be even better. Afterall, they've been even more out of fashion for even longer, and somehow manage to stay out of fashion despite being scarce and therefore paying very nicely.

Going to college/university isn't necessary but a degree does make you more desirable.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 kronk wrote:
We're on the road to having a shortage of electricians, plumbers, and other valuable trade skills. The ones that we'll have can charge what they want, if not already.

Im likely to kill myself as an electrician, I eletrocuted myself making toast. But my friend did recommend becoming a systems engineer and working on machinery making 70k a year.

I would like to point out that, as a construction electrician, you would be exposed to live voltage very infrequently... Damn near never.

We aren't on the road to having a shortage of skilled tradesmen in this country, we have one right now. In fact, it's been a serious problem for the construction industry for 10+ years (at least as long as I've been in, which is going on 13 years).

College is definitely not required to get an honest job and make a respectable living. Typically, apprenticeships cost very little to nothing on the part of the apprentice (my five year apprenticeship was $500, paid in $100 installments over the course of the apprenticeship), you get hands on experience on the job, and best of all, what you learn matters because you use it to make your living with the added benefit that what you learn can never be taken from you. I've been a union steamfitter (industrial/commercial heating & cooling, refrigeration, process piping, etc.) for almost 13 years and I have a great job, I make awesome money, I have good health care, and I have a solid pension. There is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of by deciding to make a living with your hands.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 kronk wrote:
We're on the road to having a shortage of electricians, plumbers, and other valuable trade skills. The ones that we'll have can charge what they want, if not already.

Im likely to kill myself as an electrician, I eletrocuted myself making toast. But my friend did recommend becoming a systems engineer and working on machinery making 70k a year.

I would like to point out that, as a construction electrician, you would be exposed to live voltage very infrequently... Damn near never.

We aren't on the road to having a shortage of skilled tradesmen in this country, we have one right now. In fact, it's been a serious problem for the construction industry for 10+ years (at least as long as I've been in, which is going on 13 years).

College is definitely not required to get an honest job and make a respectable living. Typically, apprenticeships cost very little to nothing on the part of the apprentice (my five year apprenticeship was $500, paid in $100 installments over the course of the apprenticeship), you get hands on experience on the job, and best of all, what you learn matters because you use it to make your living with the added benefit that what you learn can never be taken from you. I've been a union steamfitter (industrial/commercial heating & cooling, refrigeration, process piping, etc.) for almost 13 years and I have a great job, I make awesome money, I have good health care, and I have a solid pension. There is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of by deciding to make a living with your hands.

I often times regret not doing that. There's a lot to be said for doing a job that has real, tangible creation as a part of it.

It really depends on your field.

In my field, I would always be hit by a roadblock eventually if I did not attain a degree. I was earning significantly more than the average without one, but my advancement would stop eventually. That was my motivation.

Everyone else in my family is also very well educated (Several MDs and PHDs,no one less than a masters) I didn't want to be the only one without a degree either.

I will echo what people are saying about "Getting one that counts" Engineering fields are always looking for workers.

The military is also a great way to go. If you pick the correct job, you can accumulate experience while working your degree. This can transfer to an outside job with 4+ years experience and a Degree, so you are already looking better than a lot of applicants right out of college. Not to mention zero debt from college.

If you are a Texas Vet, you can pretty much have your school paid for all the way through a Masters if you go to a public university.

 cincydooley wrote:
I often times regret not doing that. There's a lot to be said for doing a job that has real, tangible creation as a part of it.

Yeah, that's a good point - there's also that 'I created a real, physical thing today.'

I often joke that I collect info and report on that to people who use it to manage staff who in turn manage staff who teach kids who will one day go out and create real, physical things. I'm five steps removed from people who actually make things.

Ninjacommando wrote:
A cheaper method is to get a 4 year degree online with University of Pheonix or any of the other programs.

If your goal is a piece of paper, maybe. If your goal is a piece of paper that means anything to any reasonable employer, stay the hell away from online universities. University of Phoenix, and other for-profit online schools have the worst reputation and the least valuable degrees that you can get.

hotsauceman1 wrote:Im close to a bachelors and still not a single piece of debt to speak of.......Whenever I tell anyone that they get mad.

I'm more mad that you're close to a degree in anything and haven't figured out how to use apostrophes when you type. There's a reason that a college degree isn't worth what it once was, and that's that they don't seem to be teaching the basics anymore. Spelling, punctuation and grammar matter. The fastest way to not get a job is to have a poorly written resume. Hiring managers have hundreds of resumes to go through to fill positions, and anything that lets them weed out undesirable applicants helps them out.

"You don't do things right once in a while; you do them right all the time." - Vince Lombardi. Sure, this is just a forum, but get it right here, and you'll get it right when it matters.

Don't bash History degrees! It's a common misconception (at least here in the UK) that History graduates end up as History teachers and little else, just as many graduates get jobs in the civil service, the media, as researches or do a conversion degree and work in law.

Is it necessary? That entirely depends on what career you want aspire to, what skills you gain from a certain degree and if there are other was of obtaining such skills. There is no simple answer.

I know one guy with a History degree. He's a seasonal worker at Walmart.

Definitely not for everyone, and there's no shame in not having one. I've probably found more shame in my fine arts degree than anyone for not having one at all.

In highschool, I had the talent and encouragement to go towards engineering, but I had absolutely none of the interest.
I wanted to work in a visual field, but something that could be useful and earn some money, so I decided to go for a BFA in New Media.

It was an unfocused education at best, and a glut of lazy students with no direction or desire to improve themselves and a complete inability to take criticism (which was also partly the professors' faults, since they were, by and large, too scared of hurting anyone's feelings) which only went to dilute the experience further.

I know I've got a fair way to go before my skill set becomes employable to the level I want it to be, and worse yet, I've managed to teach myself more in the past 6 months than I've learned at university in 4 years.
I feel I'd be a lot further with not only a much more focused curriculum and professors, but also with a much less diluted base of peers.
Too many people are getting into college and university for things they really shouldn't be in. I shouldn't be spending my last year working on projects with people who can barely function with the most rudimental of roles, they only serve to hold the rest of us back.

I would rather die with no prospects than live a life of debt and disappointing mediocrity. Your entire existence is a pointless as the grass that gets cut every friday, might as well live your life doing whatever the heck you want than feeding into fake obligations society puts on you.

That's all fine and dandy, up until you realize just how much starving sucks.

 Fafnir wrote:
That's all fine and dandy, up until you realize just how much starving sucks.

Thats why you've gotta try to find the middle ground. Did I grow up wanting to spend my life forecasting the weather? Nope, wanted to be a paleoanthropologist.

That's not very realistic though, and I still managed to find a job that I enjoy doing, while being able to provide for a comfortable living.

 djones520 wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:
That's all fine and dandy, up until you realize just how much starving sucks.

Thats why you've gotta try to find the middle ground. Did I grow up wanting to spend my life forecasting the weather? Nope, wanted to be a paleoanthropologist.

That's not very realistic though, and I still managed to find a job that I enjoy doing, while being able to provide for a comfortable living.

This is true. Which is why I completely gave up on engineering near the end of highschool. After a few classes based upon it, I figured I'd have hung myself before I was 40.

There's a lot that can be said for getting a job that affords you the free time to pursue your own interests outside of it, even if the job itself doesn't align with your personal interests, but it can't be something you detest doing. That's a recipe for disaster.

You have to be smart. Look at what college is going to cost you, especially if you cannot afford it without loans. Look at what types of jobs and how many of them are out there and what they pay in the field you want to study.

You mentioned getting an art degree and being a cartoonist because 'they make bank'. I submit SOME cartoonists 'make bank' and not many. And that the art degree as an investment does not have good odds of paying off, especially if all you have is a bachelors and you do not have connections with an animation studio where you are assured a job.

We push college on everyone and then allow them to take on huge debt while pursuing degrees that they enjoy getting but are essentially worthless. Yet there is no 'lie' involved. The info is out there, YOU decide your future.

Loans are the big problem. If they were handled like normal loans where the lender had to assume the risk a lot less of them would be passed out. Who in their right minds would loan someone graduating high school with a low B or high C average 200K so they could pursue a degree in English LIterature? There is so low a chance of that person being able to pay off that debt under most loan conditions that the loan would never be given.

The lie is the one students tell themselves. "Sure I'll be able to get a job with my bachelor degree in photography that will enable me to pay off 150k in debt".

College is not for everyone nor should it be.

 kronk wrote:
We're on the road to having a shortage of electricians, plumbers, and other valuable trade skills. The ones that we'll have can charge what they want, if not already.

Agreed. College is not for everyone. HOWEVER, skills are required for everyone who wants to not be working at Tacobell (now with more cat). If you don't go to university you need a good technical degree of journeyman training.

Frazzled fully supports the German system of education.

 Piston Honda wrote:
Basically my sex life is the equivalence of the Cleveland Browns.

It was great 50 years ago, before it actually mattered?

As to the college is not for everyone. I agree, I think your classmates were pricks to get indignant about it, and I'm sure a few of them are upset that their choice was being questioned.

Also sauceman, you are keeping the poor down by asking those questions, so keep on keepin' on

 Madcat87 wrote:
I don't think the problem is that we are telling people you must get that piece of paper to succeed, I see the problem is we are telling people that getting that piece of paper is the only way to succeed. My problem was that during high school I had it drilled into me that I only had 2 options, goto UNI or get an apprenticeship and do a trade. After a few years I found that my desired career had so many different paths to get into it and I found the one that best suited me.

Another part of the problem is approaching a college education as just a piece of paper or a check in the box required to get a particular job.

 Frazzled wrote:

Frazzled fully supports the German system of education.

This.

The US education system needs to be fixed in every which way, college shouldn't be forced on people, especially not on teenagers who really don't know any better, and there should be a "recognized" alternative available to those that choose not to go for higher education (like a system of trade schools/apprenticeships or what have you, a lot of people don't pursue those avenues because they aren't necessarily aware of them). If I was a little more mature when I graduated high school, knowing what I know now... I don't necessarily know that I would have gone to college, aside from the whole military officer angle.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
But Dakka, this site has taught me alot.

Am I the only one terrified by this?

No, college is not for everyone, but the opportunity for a college education should be open for all that want to pursue it.

I have a college education but am in a position (Construction Superintendent), where most do not. My pay started higher then most, but over time it's the knowledge of the job that matters, not what you learned in school.

The most important thing that someone can learn in college is HOW to learn. I studied Structural Engineering in college, I haven't designed anything since I left.

 sebster wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
If I could do things over again, I would try to make a living as a plumber, carpenter, or electrician. I'd probably be making substantially more money with infinitely less bureaucracy.

But I realise now I was a little too narrow in how I thought about it, I only tried to figure out what kind of white collar job was the best pick, and didn't even consider that perhaps some blue collar jobs might be even better. Afterall, they've been even more out of fashion for even longer, and somehow manage to stay out of fashion despite being scarce and therefore paying very nicely.

I remmeber just befor ethe recession seeing lot's of newspaper articles and discussions about Plumbers, Electricians, and and Construction workers were needed as the demand was outstripping the prospective graduation rates. Then, the bubble burst and the great recession struck. Suddenly, all those same people who couldn't keep up with deman were out of work and getting foreclosed on themselves.

Face it, in the future their is no stability. Be ready to switch skills sets and get training multiple times as the average person changes fields 7 times in the their life.

It's not "needed" strictly speaking to find way of supporting yourself, though it can certainly help. However, so can other things and there are lot of variables and context to consider for each individual. I'll say that college has a lot of value in providing a reliable and straightforward way of increasing exposure to a broader set of ideas. The general education requirements of getting my college degree exposed me to a lot of ideas I probably wouldn't have otherwise sought out on my own. Some of those ideas were very important in prompting me to do deeper investigations on my own,with some becoming fairly important in shaping my current world view.

I think on the whole we're all better off the more of us have more reach into broader topics, and a college educations are still the best proven ways of facilitating in that. In general I'd always recommend someone peruse college than not, provided the economics of it don't make it entirely unfeasible for them.

 Matt1785 wrote:
No, college is not for everyone, but the opportunity for a college education should be open for all that want to pursue it.

I have a college education but am in a position (Construction Superintendent), where most do not. My pay started higher then most, but over time it's the knowledge of the job that matters, not what you learned in school.

The most important thing that someone can learn in college is HOW to learn. I studied Structural Engineering in college, I haven't designed anything since I left.

Pretty much this. I studied Industrial Engineering, I'm working as a Construction Estimator/APM, the money is more than what most in this position get starting out, but its almost 20k less than what I should be making if I were in a position where my degree was relevant (meaning that to me, right now, my diploma wasn't really important).

For me, college was not the direction my life was going to take. If I had gone to college I would have just majored in Art and almost been in the same spot I am in now, just more in debt than I'm in now.

I got a job at a library without having to be a librarian and am often referred to for my knowledge of world music, dance, and costuming.

I am known in specific communities around the world, been featured in art galleries, and have been interviewed for magazines.

I am knowledgable in several forms of Middle Eastern, and Romani, dances that there is no formal education for except to learn it from the source.

I have performed in different countries.

I share all of this with my wife who teaches dance and puts on two successful shows a year that will draw people in from other countries.

I was able to achieve this without a degree.

Yes life is hard, especially as an artist, but you know what, same is said even when you have a degree.