271–280 of 308 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree that college is too expensive but I don't agree that the answer is to stop letting people go. You have to weigh the lack of debt and the "head start" against the fact that many doors will be shut to you without a degree.
Who said stop letting them go?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
while not necessary, college provides a social framework for many people. if i visit, NYC, SF, Seattle, Chicago, Boston, or DC, then i have alumni friends i can hit up and hang out with. I'm not sure how you could do the same without going to college
That seems like a pretty weak argument. Join a large church and you can probably meet people in every city too, and you won't need to take out huge loans to do it.
> Join a large church and you can probably meet people in every city too, and you won't need to take out huge loans to do it.
most people only go to their local church. Many people from my uni were from out of state
Most jobs don't require higher education. Most jobs that do require higher education don't actually make any use of the higher education. Are people who didn't follow the author up the ivory tower all failures who just fell through the cracks? What if some people are perfectly happy working in HVAC? These articles are always so condescending. The position that all people should by default go to college and that peopl…
This is a claim about the state of the world today. Can you make this claim confidently about the job market for the next 45 years? Can anyone? In the face of such uncertainty, which do you see is the most viable hedge: settling for a specific career based on a narrow set of skills, or using the time when the brain is most absorbent to be exposed to a broad range of ideas and people?
Your issues with higher education are valid. But they speak to the need to reform education, not encourage people to forgo it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can tell you this. We (the company I work for) would not hire you as a programmer. Without a CS degree. Now I'm assuming you did not go back to get a CS degree. If not you have now ruled yourself out of a lot of opportunities. Ultimately for reasons you mentioned which are anecdotal and intangible.
Well, that's all well and good. There are plenty of companies who do not feel that way (even though they almost all put a CS degree as a "requirement" in job listings). In fact, I've never encountered my unrelated degree being an obstacle. I have no idea what you mean about ruling myself out of a lot of opportunities for "anecdotal and intangible" reasons.
What I mean is the things you mentioned while I do not dismiss them and I believe you. That being learning an unrelated major helped you with learning something else.. Is not actually enough for tech companies to want to hire you. But because we place so much emphasis on the paper. You're over-looked. So what you feel is a higher-education strength is actually a weakness in the market.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who said stop letting them go?
At the very least you're arguing fewer people should be encouraged to go, are you not?
If you want to go because you have the resources and for every other reason other than I need to get a degree to work and live. Than have a blast.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you want to start working, and have the skills to do it, just start working! You could finish your entire cs degree part-time for less than the cost of one semester at Berkeley, via university of London ( https://london.ac.uk/courses/computing-and-information-syste... ) My daughter did this, started working at the age of 19 as a software developer, and is finishing her degree part-time. She should graduate when sh…
i don't know about the UK, but i know in the United States that "Computer and Information Systems" isn't as marketable as "Computer Science". Since most major tech companies know that CIS is for those who can't handle data structures and algorithms. But hopefully her 5 years as a dev could counteract that. If she switched to CS, then that would be a lot better
I actually agree with you that all other things being equal, it would be better to do a CS degree in the US - if Georgia tech did an undergrad CS degree for $8000, that would probably be a slightly better option. But they don’t, so paying $20000 which is the cheapest online CS bachelors degree I found in the US is not worth it vs the University of London for $8000 total (around $2700 per year for 3 years)
It’s also hard to argue that would be a major issue for someone who got their first software developer job without any degree at all :) So the real issue is can you get that first job without a computing degree? I certainly think you can, and for most people, the extra time and cost of a degree, and opportunity cost (ie not earning a paycheck) is not worth it - if you live in the Bay Area. I’m sure it would be much harder, but not impossible to get that first job elsewhere in the US or in the UK without a degree.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I would assume that the rural are rational to the same degree as anyone else, The rural have limited social interaction, leading to a biased worldview.
I have lived in a rural area most of my live and it's not about limited social interaction - it's the fact that international affairs don't affect us as much as it does people who live in cities. Therefore it's just not as interesting to people here.
After living in cities all my life, I moved to a small farm about a dozen years ago. I still keep track of what's going on nationally and internationally, but I've found that it simply doesn't affect me as much as it did when I lived in a city. I stress out a lot less.
Rural people think Trump's as much of an idiot as urban folk do: it's just that the media think we all love him.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
College grads do better then those who did not went to college - in terms of earnings, home ownership and just about any other stat I have seen. They do worst then grads of previous generation through. The worst off are those who took debt and then dropped out. Picking up grads as argument against college is odd, given that their results are not as bad as results of other demographic groups.
"College grads do better then those who did not went to college..." This is simply selection bias or survivorship bias: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selection_bias "They do worst then grads of previous generation though" Again, selection bias. Currently everyone except a limited few are encouraged to go to college therefore the effect of selection bias has weakened over time and current grads don't do as well as gra…
The parent argues that college grads made "poor investment" because "only 27% of college grads in America work in a job closely related to their degree, and 'The chances of finding a job related to your degree or major go up a few points if you move to a big city'."
That is ridiculous argument. That group of people is doing better then anyone else, whether they work in field they studied or not. There are many jobs that require you to have some college degree or related college degree and people without degrees wont get them.
If parent wants to prove that some people would be even better off without going to school, he should give us more (e.g. prove that these would be even better off if they did not went) or pick different group of people.
Otherwise it is just the usual misleading talking point based on wishful thinking and bias.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It depends. The best gun is the one you're most familiar with shooting. If the one you'll spend the most time shooting is an AR-15, then it's that one. So what you are saying is that banning the AR-15 shouldn't be problematic for people, because they can simply become familiar with other options like shotguns, making them the best gun for them? > It's also irrelevant. Home protection isn't the only reason you'd hav…
> So what you are saying is that banning the AR-15 shouldn't be problematic for people, because they can simply become familiar with other options like shotguns, making them the best gun for them? Why stop there? They can learn Jiu Jitsu and not need the shotgun! All things are possible when we are just speculating about how to take others' rights in theoretical scenarios we won't have to deal with ourselves. The AR-…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
i don't know about the UK, but i know in the United States that "Computer and Information Systems" isn't as marketable as "Computer Science". Since most major tech companies know that CIS is for those who can't handle data structures and algorithms. But hopefully her 5 years as a dev could counteract that. If she switched to CS, then that would be a lot better
More importantly, every “major tech company” uses technical interviews to assess for that knowledge, so those companies seem less convinced of the value of a degree called “computer science” vs one called “computing and information systems” than you are. So it seems unlikely that would be a problem assuming the degree actually covers data structures, algorithms, etc - which it does. I actually agree with you that all…
Biggest problem? The finance and HR department will use that as negotiation tactic against you to pay you less money.