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  1. #1
    Ze NinjaSYXX
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    colleges/institutes need some help

    Ok, i've missed a couple of college semesters because i've been working here and there, then i started to realize that college isn't really for me. This is more or less due to the fact that i'm taking classes for no reason, because i see no point in taking english classes and humanities etc to go towards my degree (Computer Tech, networking tech).

    So i've been thinking of checking out an institute that is geared directly towards what i'm doing, hopefully finding a place that'll give me my cisco and A+ certification. Also since i like cars and working on them i was thinking of going to a mechanics institute and getting my degree in mechanics possibly as well.

    Any opinions? criticisms? I kind of wish to know if there's anything i should look forward to, if it is a good decision, i know the commercials i've seen seem like a scam but i want to know if any of you have had any first-hand experience and if it is the right thing to do.

  2. #2

    Re: colleges/institutes need some help

    There's more to life than working the 9-5. That's what the rest of the classes are for.

  3. #3
    Nidhogg
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    Re: colleges/institutes need some help

    Quote Originally Posted by divisortheory
    There's more to life than working the 9-5. That's what the rest of the classes are for.
    Thread over

  4. #4
    I'll change yer fuckin rate you derivative piece of shit
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    Re: colleges/institutes need some help

    Colleges are supposed to help generate well-rounded individuals. Institutes are job-training schools. If you only care about your field, go for the institute - although do some research to make sure that the job you actually want (what was it, computer cyborg mechanic?) is available with a degree from an institute.

  5. #5

    Re: colleges/institutes need some help

    Just suck it up and get your degree at a real college. It's a shitty situation, but I'm pretty sure if a buy with a few certs under his belt won't get chosen for a job where the guy has a BS in computer engineering or computer science.

  6. #6

    Re: colleges/institutes need some help

    For most people college is worthless, and having a BA/BS or whatever is really not going to help you much getting a job after you finish paying $100,000 (or more) for college. Trade schools are a good value on the other hand. However, it would be in your best interest to do some interning while you take a few classes. Having job experience is worth a lot more (for most jobs) than a piece of paper saying that you stayed semi-awake through 4 years of classes.

    I would like to temper this by saying that there a number jobs that do require you take years of college to excel at (for instance, I'm trying to get a PHD in Psychology so I still have another 3 years + of school). However it does not sound like you are looking into a line of work that requires extensive college.

    If you like working on cars then you will need a certification in mechanics to do that for a living. Depending on where you live, you can often get these certifications at a local JC or by signing up for one of those 16 month degree places. Basically if you are not going to a top 10 - top 25 school it does not matter at all where you get the degree / certification.

    I can't stress enough how valuable interning is for your career. My father has a number of friends that own their own companies / have a net worth between 10-100 million, and I've heard from them in person that they would rather take someone who interned / worked in the field for 4 years rather than someone who just came out of a top college.

    Hope this helped and good luck ^_^.

  7. #7
    The Optimistic Asshole
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    Re: colleges/institutes need some help

    I did my CCNA and A+ in high school. They fed me some bullshit about a $50,000 a year potential with those certs. I went to college after high school for pre-law and didn't do a damn thing with either of those certifications.

  8. #8

    Re: colleges/institutes need some help

    The above poster is right about the interning thing, although I disagree with the statement that college degree's are of no value.

    True the little piece of paper itself is of little help when getting into your field as it is best to continue on for a masters, specialty or phd/md level of education for real occupational benefits. And people will probably disagree with my next statement, but those are probably also idiots who did/do nothing at school but party and bang hot bitches instead of actually learning and developing the bits between your ears. Those other classes are designed to give you a rounded education. Don't like those lit and english classes? Good luck getting a good job that pay's better than minimum wage if you can't articulate and write properly. Wanna work in any kind of customer related field? Those intro to psych or biology classes will help give you an understanding of peoples behavior and how to manipulate that to your advantage.

    Plus, you can get a great deal of knowledge about your specialty. I agree that not all classes are beneficial as most teachers don't understand how to relay information to people in an interesting way, but that is still a free period of time with no worries and next to no real responsibilities to improve yourself on an educational level, making connections with people via interning opportunities, getting to know professors in your field who can offer excellent recommendations for jobs or post-graduate schools.

    If all you care about is your 9-5 then as someone said go for the institute and get the knowledge you need with a certificate with less value than a degree. If you want to give yourself a well rounded education and a lot of options when you graduate, go to college and get a degree. And to anyone who say's that there are no options when you graduate, just cause you didn't make the right connections doesn't mean they weren't there to be made.

  9. #9
    Ridill
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    Re: colleges/institutes need some help

    Quote Originally Posted by scrockstar
    For most people college is worthless, and having a BA/BS or whatever is really not going to help you much getting a job after you finish paying $100,000 (or more) for college.
    I don't think I quite agree with that statement. For the vast majority of the people I met in college, including myself, a degree is essential. In fact, when I applied to take the Civil PE exam this fall for my professional engineering license, among other things, they required 4 years in an ABET accredited college for that particular discipline of engineering, as well as having your EIT certification, plus 4 years of practical experience under the supervision of a professional engineer. In place of the degree and EIT certification, they did allow some substition of experience in the field, however you would need 12+ years of experience to qualify for your professional license in that case.

    A friend of mine is a biology major who is now in medical school. From what she tells me, her degree is a requirement as well for the program she's in, which is in turn a requirement for her field.

    Another friend of mine is in school to become a high school teacher and possibly a college professor at some point, and says that they need a degree. He also said he'd need a PhD before he could teach at a college.

    So, I'd say for most people, college is extremely valuable, and even required.

  10. #10
    The Optimistic Asshole
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    Re: colleges/institutes need some help

    You can be a substitute teacher on 2 years of college (at least in KY). Most states require you pass the Praxis (I or II) (which has an absurd 90%+ pass rate) before you can begin secondary teaching. I dropped law for secondary education. Anyway, I think (am fairly sure) that teaching requirements change from state to state.

  11. #11

    Re: colleges/institutes need some help

    Not only will it definitely help your earnings potential having a 4-year degree, it will also help in the near certain situation where 10 years down the road you're sick of doing the exact same shit and want to do something else for a while.

    Most importantly, it will also help with that thing you do while you're not at work. You know, your daily life. I can't imagine how pathetic I would feel to open the Economy section of a newspaper and have no fucking clue what any of that shit means, then toss it to the side and open the up the Arts & Humanities section and realize you don't give a shit about any of it, toss it to the side and open up the Politics section and once again have no clue what the hell it's talking about, then come to the realization that you really don't know anything about anything except for how to put a computer together like legos.


    Quote Originally Posted by Tyche
    You can be a substitute teacher on 2 years of college (at least in KY). Most states require you pass the Praxis (I or II) (which has an absurd 90%+ pass rate) before you can begin secondary teaching
    Pretty sad considering that less than 10% of people I went to college with who were doing education had the slightest clue what they were doing.

  12. #12

    Re: colleges/institutes need some help

    I guess you guys did not read the 2nd part of my post. I'm not saying that college is worthless or a degree is worthless. I'm saying that the number of people that get a degree and use it for something the above 2 posters mentioned are the minority. There are jobs that require a degree / you can greatly benefit from having a degree, but the idea that the media / schools shove down your throat that having a degree gives you a better job / pay is BS. It may have been true 15-20 years ago but it is no longer the case.

    How many people do you know first hand that got a degree and then did not use it at all? Degrees do not get you hired over someone without a degree anymore for a wide verity of jobs. Most empolyers look for people with 1. Good verbal communication skills 2. Good written communication skills 3. Work experience. Having a degree does not even make the top 10 for most empolyers.

    I want to stress that I am aware that many jobs you need undergraduate / graduate degrees to obtain, however the number of these jobs are far outweighed by the number of jobs that do not require you to get a degree.

  13. #13
    Ridill
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    Re: colleges/institutes need some help

    Quote Originally Posted by scrockstar
    the idea that the media / schools shove down your throat that having a degree gives you a better job / pay is BS.
    It does, as long as you get your degree with a purpose and career goal in mind, rather than simply getting any old degree in something because you didn't know what to pick, and assuming you magically get paid more because of it.

    In other words, if someone goes to college just to go to college, they'll end up like you describe, and likely never use their degree. If they go to college because they know exactly what they want to be doing, and treat it as part of their career path that they've planned out, then chances are pretty high that the degree will help versus those who skipped that step.

  14. #14

    Re: colleges/institutes need some help

    Quote Originally Posted by scrockstar
    How many people do you know first hand that got a degree and then did not use it at all?
    Used the degree, or used the knowledge? I don't know anyone who has gotten a degree and not used the knowledge for anything.

  15. #15
    Ridill
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    Re: colleges/institutes need some help

    Quote Originally Posted by divisortheory
    Quote Originally Posted by scrockstar
    How many people do you know first hand that got a degree and then did not use it at all?
    Used the degree, or used the knowledge? I don't know anyone who has gotten a degree and not used the knowledge for anything.
    I know my stance is with a degree being important, but on that note, I have to admit that (aside from qualifying me for the job) the biggest thing college did for me was familiarize myself with the field so I actually know what the fuck people are talking about. I've used very little of the actual knowledge that was taught, that wasn't taught again on the job. A lot of things (at least in my field) are specific to who you work for and what jurisdiction you're in (city/county/state), so they like to re-teach you everything anyway.

    So it wasn't the knowledge itself, per se, but the familiarization with how everything works, the lingo, general processes, etc. that stuck with me. Everything else was taught on the job as you go, since they don't expect you on your first day fresh out of college to jump right in and start engineering things.

    Now, some might suggest that familiarization process could take place without college just by interning or apprenticing. However, at least in my case, they expect you (and even the interns) to have basic knowledge and familiarity with the subjects at hand and don't want to teach *everything* from scratch. e.g. if you want to become a mechanic, and you already know the basics of your car, then I'm sure there's several mechanics out there who would take you under their wing and train you. If you wanted to become a mechanic, and don't know anything about anything that's under the hood, and you've always just taken your car in for oil changes and maintenance and don't even know where the windshield wiper fluid goes, then I doubt as many mechanics would want to train you then.

  16. #16

    Re: colleges/institutes need some help

    Yea, my comment was not limited to on-the-job things though. I learned a lot of things in my economics, political science, art history, and english literature courses that I apply in my everyday life. My degree was in Math but I find myself as a software engineer, yet I use math all the time in my daily life. I may not find myself proving that my office is a connected 3-dimensional space, but nonetheless the critical thinking skills were indispensable. On the other hand, I find myself lacking a lot of computer science concepts that you don't really get through training, but you really need to have studied the theory for. These are everyday things that people talk about on the job, and whenever they're mentioned I nod my head in agreement, then later on go back and spend some time learning them.

    In pieces, everything can be learned after the fact. But on the whole, people who have the degree will just know more shit than someone who doesn't, hands down. And in the end, the person who knows the most shit wins. But as I mentioned in previous posts, college is not just about learning skills for you to apply directly to your job. If the only thing you care about in life is chugging along at the old 9-5, then you're probably going to have a very boring and unfulfilling life.

  17. #17
    Sea Torques
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    Re: colleges/institutes need some help

    Quote Originally Posted by archibaldcrane
    Colleges are supposed to help generate well-rounded individuals.

    Except most of them dont, colleges are about the bottom dollar. They say they will teach you to think for yourself but in fact they just want you to read out of a book and tell them what it said. It's not really the teachers fault so much as it is the ciriculum(sp?).

  18. #18
    the whitest knight u' know
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    Re: colleges/institutes need some help

    You'll realize putting up with the tedious busywork was worth it when one day you find yourself getting paid too much money to do something you already enjoy.

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