Joined Oct 2003
L10: Grand Master
Forum Thread
are you happy with your decision of college/major?
January 28, 2012 at
08:26 PM
in
Chat
Slickdeals
https://slickdeals.net/f/3876914-Are-you-currently-working-in-the-field-you-graduated-from
i got the idea from this but i'm also bitter about what the perception vs reality is between colleges. in california.. the general thought is you go to a cal state if you can't go to a uc. my sister went to the best uc she could get into (at the time) and hated every minute of it. i went to a uc and hated the major options. after completing the sequence and talking to friends i know i made a horrible mistake.
also, if you're not doing something that requires a degree...maybe its better you just get an associates/trade school cert and avoid the huge debt collge has
edited to say.. this is mostly 2000 + era when the cost of a degree is so large, any college degree won't pay off. it used to be you can get anything and make more than a high school graduate. now paying tons for just the sake of saying you have a degree from a "good" school doesn't pay off.
i got the idea from this but i'm also bitter about what the perception vs reality is between colleges. in california.. the general thought is you go to a cal state if you can't go to a uc. my sister went to the best uc she could get into (at the time) and hated every minute of it. i went to a uc and hated the major options. after completing the sequence and talking to friends i know i made a horrible mistake.
also, if you're not doing something that requires a degree...maybe its better you just get an associates/trade school cert and avoid the huge debt collge has
edited to say.. this is mostly 2000 + era when the cost of a degree is so large, any college degree won't pay off. it used to be you can get anything and make more than a high school graduate. now paying tons for just the sake of saying you have a degree from a "good" school doesn't pay off.
117 Comments
Your comment cannot be blank.
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
Oh and to answer the question, yeah I'm happy with my major. No I'm not doing anything with it now and it'll probably be worthless by the time I do, lol.
college tuition has ballooned with benefits dwindling IMO. reputations aren't worth near enough unless you get a network to go with that has little to do with the education you receive.
If it wasn't so easy to get loans, the escalating cost of college would ease at least somewhat IMO (
Our let you kiddies carry on your discussion.
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
Also, I probably would have gone to school for something different if I could have, like digital photography. I just thought it would be better use of my money to go to school for something more lucrative and then just have photography as a hobby.
Never !
I could not imagine u as anything but an accountant!!
Actually I would love to go back for art...but I can not afford a good art school. And marketing is more practical in my current field.
A degree in art is about two things. You will learn the technical aspects of the medium you choose (camera, throwing and firing clay, etc) but the biggest aspect is that, you learn to think outside the box. You learn to be creative in your thinking concerning any thing you do. So, while the professors are instructing you, it's really up to you as to how you apply that knowledge and how deep you reach to express your thoughts. The cross applications are phnominal because you take problem solving to the next level.
college tuition has ballooned with benefits dwindling IMO. reputations aren't worth near enough unless you get a network to go with that has little to do with the education you receive.
I'm satisfied with my decisions. I took a double-major in English & Government, and a minor in Philosophy. I would've majored in Philosophy but my folks weren't too keen on paying for a private school degree in a "mostly worthless" discipline. Not that English & Government are much better!
But I wanted to write (still do) and political science interested me. I'm very happy with my liberal arts education, which I realize opens me up to some ridicule from people who consider liberal arts "soft" and less-than-worthwhile. I'd argue that broad exposure to the whole range of human experience has been more valuable (to me) than a nose-to-the-grindstone focus on hard sciences. Then again, I'm pretty much shit at math & science - they don't interest me so I don't apply myself.
I went to school with a lot of people who took tons of psychology & sociology classes & a lot of them aren't using those degrees at all. Hell, I'M not using my B.A. for much (although I do spit out a mean company-wide memo in record time!) working in IT. Still, to me it's experience over certifications and degrees every time, especially knowing what I know about my industry and how easy it is to get lots of pieces of paper saying you know how to do things you've never actually done.
What's been most useful to me is the breadth of things I was shown in school: I took a course on the history of Canadian literature, for instance, with a brilliant professor who taught us as much about the country's past as he did about its authors. Then again I'm a strong believer that the art a society produces says as much about its people as the things those people write down to pass along to future generations.
All of that said: I've never taken a physics class in my life, nor any advanced math past trigonometry (in high school, and I cheated my way to a passing grade by being the teacher's aide and grading my own homework), so I'm deficient in a lot of places that might help me today (as a homeowner, if nothing else!). I'm working to supplement my education using resources like Khan Academy... and I credit my liberal arts education for showing me HOW to learn.
Basic logic classes showed me how to think critically and evaluate arguments. Sociology classes showed me how people manipulate each other using INvalid logic and emotion rather than reason; religion and philosophy classes helped me understand why those (sometimes irrational) ideas gained momentum and popularity - and my government classes taught me how groups of people used those tools to gain power and influence the world. Those things mapped directly into history classes that informed how we behave today... so I think I got a good foundation upon which to build a well-rounded mind. And THAT is very important to me.
tl;dr - yep
I'll finish my degree with about $25k in debt. More than I would like but still not too bad for an Engineering degree.
I'll finish my degree with about $25k in debt. More than I would like but still not too bad for an Engineering degree.
Oh well though, in this tough economy, I'm thankful that I have a job. Good luck to you in your job search
I'll finish my degree with about $25k in debt. More than I would like but still not too bad for an Engineering degree.
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.