Get a degree they said, it would be helpful they said

If she gets her associates or does the prereqs at CCCC she is automatically accepted to both schools among others (UNT, TWU, etc).

Focus: I've got a degree in environmental science which has absolutely not helped in my current line of work. Once I get my own business going in November it will come in handy though for testing water and soil etc.

 

Focus: I have a BA in Pols and IR from Victoria University Wellington, which in practical terms was 12 hours a week, 26 weeks of the year for three years. I now work as a manager (promoted up) at a media intelligence company, and I guess the degree helped me learn to type quickly and gave me some time the piss around without my parents being bothered too much.

Alt. Focus: The more useful part of university was the other stuff I did. In between getting shitfaced on a Tuesday and knocking out the occasional 2000 word essay I worked part time and was involved in clubs like UN Youth (yeah, I know), a conversation program teaching foreign students English and was involved in a local body political campaign with a friend that was interesting but put me off my then path of doing something political. Ultimately it was one of my best friends I met through these things who put me onto applying for the job I've got now, so there was that I guess. I think the BA was a line on my CV and that was it.

Alt. Alt. Focus:I want to say I'd do a proper major while having just as much fun, but realistically I was dumb as fuck with zero work ethic, so this would never have happened. I'm content with the outcome I have now.

 

Focus: I currently have an undergraduate degree in Creative Writing as well as a Masters in Education and I'm working towards my English as a Second Language certification. I am currently employed as a substitute teacher.

Alt-Focus: I think having a college degree shows employers that you are able to commit to something for 4 or more years. While the amount of money spent to show your dedication is outrageous, I'm under the impression that it's difficult to find any job without some sort of formal post-secondary education.

Alt-Alt-Focus: If I could do it all over again, I would have learned German because that seems to be the only teacher anyone in the surrounding area needs. I also would have started getting a shit-ton of certifications before Pennsylvania's department of education decided we can only get certified in certain things without going through program.

 

Focus: Do you have your college degree? Higher than that? Just high school? What is your field of work? If you have your degree, does it relate to your job? If it doesn't relate, is it still useful?
I do have my college degree, a BA in Biology. Started in 2002, graduated in 2009. Finances and a clusterfuck of a home/personal life were the reasons I did not finish in '06, but what I tell employers (and can prove if necessary) is that I never stopped attending classes by enrolling at the CC part-while working part-time at a science related job. As Bewildered can tell you though, graduating with that degree isn't enough, you must have strong grades (3.2/4.0 would be starting) and then go on specializing because the field itself is so broad. I did not have that and while it wasn't a killer, it definitely slowed down my path.
For jobs, I worked at a small company where I created the controls for QA techs at pharmaceuticals to train on, QA in food manufacturing, and Research Tech/Lab Manager in academic research.
The last job I was published in journals, presented at conferences, and applied for grants; I liked it a lot but academic research does not pay (30k starting, 1% raise each year) and the main source of cash, government grants, is being drastically reduced. I now am enrolled in MS program getting my RN license. Full disclosure, I was working in research because I wanted to get into healthcare as either an MD or PA. This program was a backup and I'm loving it because the rigor of it keeps me on my toes and I feel as though I will be able to hold my own with NP's, PA's, and MD's going forward (and any other practitioners I left out) when discussing patient planning.

Alt. Focus: What is your opinion on the practical usefulness of college degrees? What about the recent trend toward people going to trade schools instead?
College degrees are what you make of them. I am of the opinion that college teaches two things regardless of your major: critical thinking and time management. Getting your degree means that you have developed those skills to a point where employers aren't going to be wasting their time training you. Jon Stewart and Mike Rowe have similar opinions on the economy and careers and that is that the chief export of America is work. Instead of finding what fits you, find where you fit and show that you can make your superiors money. If people are going into a trade because they want to develop a skill which will be in demand and can help provide the comfort they desire in life, then go for it. Just don't get pissed if a guy who doesn't know all the details of your work but does know how to effectively implement your skills to complete a project is directing you where and when to work later on; that's what he/she learned how to do.

Alt. Alt. Focus: If you could do it all over again, what would you do? What would you major in? Would you go to trade school instead? Just start work straight out of high school?[/quote]
I would do the same thing, but would find a way to switch brains so that I could better handle all of the extracurricular nonsense.

 

1) Untrue. Safety is paramount on all the jobs you make the big bucks on. They employ people who's whole job is to walk around and make sure you're following their Nazi-esque safety rules. You fuck up once you're banned for life from the site, no warning. The days of fly by night safety policies and companies factoring in one worker related death per million dollars on the bid are long gone.

2) Possibly true. I've worked in down town Montreal and Vancouver making a good salary but I've also worked 400kms north of the nearest town. When you're working in the middle of nowhere they will usually fly you home for a period of time after working so many weeks. I've seen people work:

7 days on/7 days off
14 days on/7 days off
14 days on/14 days off
21 days on/7 days off
21 days on/10 days off
21 days on/14 days off
28 days on/12 days off

It all depends where you work and their niche is. The company I work for specializes in problem solving. I fly into a spot whether it be a data center, mine, oil rig etc and work my ass of until the problem they called us in for is fixed. I've been home in a day but I've also has jobs last two months. It's the luck of the draw.

 

It might not be as dangerous as mining in Burkina Faso, but construction has chemicals that are utterly awful to inhale for long periods of time, moving equipment that can crush you without making a wet noise, and a number of dangers to your back, knees, hands, wrists and eyes. Safety is a priority, but it's an inherently unstable environment filled with dangers. Also, the day-to-day safety isn't really as big of a deal as the long-term safety. I know a lot of guys in their 50's whose backs are simply spent from construction in their 20s.

That's the main reason I chose white collar work. I am warm, dry and comfortable year round. I appreciate blue collar guys, but that's not something you can really do in your 70's. My last job had a VP who was 77 and going strong, earning money like he distilled it in his basement.

 

I was a political science major and actually do work in politics. I worked for a state legislature and now work for a company doing governmental relations. Even though my degree is directly related to my career, I can honestly say that nothing I learned in college relates to the work I've done. If you want to work in politics, most people usually intern for an elected official or work on a political campaign. Yet not a single class taught political science majors how to run or work on campaigns, how to draft a bill, or how important constituent work was. I learned this all through internships. It would have been nice if college actually taught you how to perform the jobs you are getting the degree for.

 

It all depends. I grew up in Wisconsin and UW notoriously caps in-state admissions, usually at a HS by HS level. So if you're a bright kid from an average HS, then you should be fine, but if you're at a good, competitive HS like I graduated from, its suddenly alot tougher, like my sister who was originally denied while meanwhile not only getting accepted into comparable schools like Indiana and Illinois, but having minor scholarship offers from them. I imagine UT is similar, but probably a bit stricter given its only 8-10K kids bigger than UW and Texas is MUCH bigger than Wisconsin. But, with all those flagship schools of big university systems, if you go to UT-(fill in blank), and do decent your freshman year, you can transfer in without an issue. I think you needed a 2.5 to transfer with little hassle to UW. All the UT kids I've worked with in advertising and now CPG have been really bright. I have a ton of respect for the university as well.

 

I have a BS in Accounting and most of my career has been in auditing. You can't get far in this career without one because of the professional certifications either required or encouraged. It is a generally stable career field. I'll probably be doing it for as long as I am able to work.

If my kid aspires to some major that won't translate into an almost guaranteed job potential - like my field or engineering or whatever - then I am not sure what we'll do. I don't think I want to foot a bill (or saddle her with one) for something that has such poor return on investment.

 

I have a BA and an MA in Biology (concentration in Ecology). I work in the environmental field.

What seems like years ago now, my degree was directly related to my job, and actually used the technical material I learned in college on a daily basis. Now, I'm involved in management and sales, and my degree rarely, if ever, relates to my projects. Despite that, I loved studying bio, and would do it the same if I had to do it over.

 

Penn State was similar to this when I came out of HS. They treated you like you were in some sort of academic farm system. The school would accept you, but you'd have to do your first year or two at one of the many satellite campuses before getting accepted to main campus. Depending on your major and academic standing, you might only spend a semester at State College and it wouldn't surprise me if you could graduate without ever having to take a class at the main campus. I know a lot of folks with degrees from Penn St who spent very little time on main campus.

It was the primary reason I decided I didn't want to go there. It would've been the cheaper option, but I did not want to live at home while going to college. I knew I'd spend more time skiing/hanging out with buddies from HS instead of going to class/studying.

Instead I went to VA Tech and came out of a reputable engineering/technology school with a degree in history. It worked out well and I did use my degree more than I thought I would while on active duty in the Air Force, but since I've been out I have found it limiting. I have a lot of technical 'knowledge' from my work experience, but I don't have the college degree to back it up. If I could go back and do it over again, I'd get a degree in a technical field.

 

Focus: I graduated college in 2011 with a degree in marketing and entrepreneurial management and since have done sales and some marketing. I was hired by my current employer right after graduating and haven't had a day of unemployment since I was 14. I also have a very small business on the side but that is mostly unrelated. My girlfriend got her Master's in Accounting and CPA and has done taxes in a top 4 firm since.

I went to a business school with some recognition at a huge university (Minnesota) and in contrast have a coworker on my team who went to a small state college, so to an extent one could question whether the additional cost/work was worth it. However I was initially considered for two positions at the company, and there may be a marketing research position for me soon.

The entrepreneurship degree doesn't directly apply to my job but came into play because the classes and professors seemed interesting and the entre club was awesome. In addition my own business is based on a hobby I'd been doing for a couple years before even starting college and talent I gained outside of school. You could say I traded some of my social life in college in order to begin learning a trade. I'm still learning that stuff through the internet, books, and persistent trial and error but have taken some steps towards more formal education. I spent almost $3k last year to attend a seminar (well worth it) and will likely take trade or community school classes locally within the next 5-10 years to learn milling machine and lathe operation. Maybe CNC too? Gunmaking is nowhere near as profitable as other trades and while I could pursue it as a full-time career, I am strict about not relying on it for my income today. We'll see. Part of why I'm sticking with sales full-time for now is because I wrote several business plans for various gunmaking ventures through my entrepreneurship classes, and everything pointed towards it being one very tough business to make money in. My professional mentors would agree. Regardless I'm glad I have *some* trade skills in my deck, in addition to the university degree.

Alt-Focus: I think a degree, at least from the business school I went to, is what you make of it. In practical terms while you don't need a degree to do daily sales tasks like make a ton of cold calls or emails, or be convincing/persuasive, my job directly entails additional skills like statistical analysis and marketing research that I learned in school. I'm have just enough skills with MS Excel to stand out a bit and can name specific professors who forced me to learn that too. Those skills could carry over to other careers. I did two internships with small businesses during my last two years of college and my real-world experiences in them were very influential. I saw how all aspects of a business ran together (or didn't) in addition to gaining references that helped me get my job today. I doubt I could have had those learning lessons without going to the school I did.

Alt-alt-focus: Sometimes I wonder what would have happened had I attended a gunmaking school and taken a different career path, but I'm pretty satisfied with what I'm doing today and my outlook for the future. I just wish I would have taken college more seriously at first. I spent a semester on academic probation and the only time my cumulative GPA went above 3.0 was after my last semester. I ended up with my internships and job but was passed over for a lot of opportunities because of that stupid number. I also had to take some additional summer classes to make up for fucking around earlier and am paying additional loans for them too. Having to do the "victory lap" was preventable and nothing but frustrating and expensive.

 

I have a B.S. Degree in Business Administration, Marketing. I've used it since I graduated and have found different things have come in handy throughout my career. While it is a more general degree, one of the upsides is that I can pretty much apply it to any job. Having said that, because it's not specialized, my pay didn't start out as high as say, computer people. But it was enough. I went to a state university and when I was done was only about $8000 in debt. I paid for my first semester through piddly scholarships that add up quickly. And because my mom is an idiot when it comes to numbers and realized when she was switching banks that she had thousands more in there than she knew, she paid for my second semester (seriously, I tried to balance her checking account and gave up when she subtracted $100 incorrectly). The rest I did in student loans and working. I moved off campus my Junior year and only paid $650/semester. Cheap. Nice place too.

My oldest is off to college in the fall. People keep asking me if I'll be sad. I'll miss her, she's a great kid. But I'm really excited for her to experience college and have fun. She has the rest of her life to work, so I want her to enjoy it and meet lots of new people. Her major will be Digital Forensics. She's always been into computers and NCIS type of stuff, so hopefully it will be a good fit for her. She is going to a state school and got a scholarship as well, and it's one of a few colleges on the East coast that offers that major. They had someone that graduated that looked at Bin Laden's computer. So hopefully she'll stick with it as it is a supposedly up and coming field. When she picked her major we tried to steer her towards something that would be viable when she graduated and also something she loved. It's not that we didn't want her to pick something she had no interest in, but what good is a graphic arts degree if people can design their own stuff? Hell, I do it for our Meet Programs and I'm as base as base can be. Plus I can always ask her.

If I had to do it all over again, if I stayed in Business, I would switch to Management. Not a major difference, but I wouldn't have to do some of the stupid marketing campaigns that I hated. I also thought of maybe nursing as they seem to have a lot of options as well.

And bewildered--a lot of private schools have endowments that they offer since they are competing with state schools. I'd be shocked if she had to pay the full $40,000 year to go there. I don't know of anyone that goes to a school in that price range (I know quite a few) that has paid more than $25,000. Still a lot, but not as crazy as the $40,000 and she could possibly get more. Just something to look into.

 

Focus: No college for me. I'm currently working IT. I'm lucky in that IT hiring people are way more interested in real world experience as opposed to a diploma. However, certifications are not only great ways to increase what you make, but a lot of technical positions are starting to require you have at least something. While I'm glad I'm not thousands of dollars in debt, buying study materials and paying to take tests can add up.

Alt. Focus: I'm living proof that a college diploma isn't necessary, but it seems that white collar jobs that don't require a degree are fewer and farther in between. I read an article basically saying that hiring managers crap all over people in their 20's and 30's due to a perceived lack of work ethic. I would assume that having a diploma, regardless of what it is, would go towards mitigating that horseshit opinion.

Mike Rowe has been a big proponent of getting people back into the trades due to so many jobs being available. These aren't ditch digging jobs either. The problem is that 30 years ago, people that worked those trades wanted their kids to work in an office so they wouldn't have to work their asses like they did. That sort of stigma is hard to overcome, even when people are making anywhere from $40,000-$60,000 a year off the bat. I'm of the opinion that any job that pays you enough to live on your own is a good job.

Alt. Alt. Focus: I wish I had gone to college. Not because of a degree or anything, but for the life experience. I lost my virginity when I was 25. While I can't guarantee I would have been able to get laid, I can guarantee I wouldn't have waited to try until my mid 20's to take my dick out of the packaging.

 

I think there is a lot to be said about the feeling you get from being able to fully support yourself. Especially when its your first place on your own. Yes, paying bills sucks, but that's the real world. But you know what doesn't suck? Coming back to YOUR home after a long day, taking off your pants as you walk in the door and sitting down with a beer. No roommates to worry about. No parents to nag you about shit. If you want to watch that Law and Order: SVU marathon all night, go right ahead you rape-loving sicko. You've earned it. Seriously though, the dignity you earn from being able to support yourself in the real world through hard work and sacrifice is a great feeling.

 

I did some research and saw that, yeah, they had endowments and grants and all the like for their students - but it still came to 18-23k a year. For four years. I still can't legitimately encourage my daughter to do that. I just can't. Perhaps it's the white trash in me, perhaps it's the backwoods upbringing. I don't know. I just know that the idea of graduating college in that much debt for a degree that wasn't going to be super kick ass awesome.

She's got other options - including going to Hawaii for two years and staying there and going to school, or going to Korea for three and teaching English while living with my brother. So there are things on the table. But - I'm not paying for her school, and taking out those kinds of loans seems like a horrible idea.

 

Not sure what the degree was or if you mentioned it, but I think its important to let prospective students where they will stand upon finishing. Especially if its a soft degree that doesn't have an immediate real world application. If they get a bachelors in something non-essential, they will be able to get basic office jobs like someone with an associates or even a high school diploma will. Only they will have all the debt. You have to be school-driven to go for the long haul into a masters and probably a PhD to find some sort of applicability to general liberal arts degrees. An exception to this would be if you have some crazy connection in the job world that could hook your fresh grad up with a sweet job. All that aside, I say push trades and specialty education because that's where the jobs are and where they will always be. Some of those places might even pay for someone to go back to college as long as they commit to a certain amount of years afterward.