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A Guide for Adults Going to College
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Re: A Guide for Adults Going to College
#62How does this fare in cultures where there are no second chances, like many places in the US? My gut says this is a scam.
> ...no second chances, like many places in the US
citation needed.
Re: A Guide for Adults Going to College
#63I'm a returning student about to complete my degree at the end of this year. I went to an art school for a few years out of high school and ended up in customer service positions with some great companies. I didn't want to continue in customer service, so I decided to go back to school. Started with two years at community college, and now finishing up my last two at university.
Some insights I picked up along the way:
- community college have great professors
- community college treats you like the adult you are
- community college is underrated
- university treats you like a child
- university professors are more selfish and self-serving
- university is busy dealing with so much extra-curricular stuff that most adults don't care about, it makes you question your decision
- Different "schools" within the university do things differently
- as an adult, it sucks to work in groups with young students
- I picked up way more knowledge in the "real world" than I realized as a lot of what is being taught is redundant
- there should be 4 semesters a year, not 2, people should graduate in 2 years, not 4+
At the onset of this journey, I was enthusiastic to learn, but along the way I've been beat down to just wanting to get "the piece of paper" and be done. It's been a long three years and each day forward is increasingly difficult to stomach since I realized I can learn all of what is being taught to me faster on my own.
I don't think anyone needs a degree anymore to get to where they're going. However, it does make it easier depending on one's path.
Re: A Guide for Adults Going to College
#64Re: A Guide for Adults Going to College
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do interns in technology jobs do low status jobs either? My experience is interns usually try the big cool new ideas, because it frees up the regular people to bring work to production and it doesn't matter so much if the interns try something and it doesn't work?
The primary goal with interns in tech is to convince them to work at your company post graduation.
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Re: A Guide for Adults Going to College
#66Recently on Hacker News there was a top voted article in which the economist Nassim Nicolas Taleb made the point that a lot of small bets have a higher expected value than one very large bet. But the argument has interesting implications for education. The same reasoning implies that 4 degrees of 1 year should have more payoff to society than 1 degree of 4 years. Likewise, society would benefit more if you got 12 degrees of 3 months each. I wrote more about this here:
http://www.smashcompany.com/philosophy/nassim-nicholas-taleb...
Re: A Guide for Adults Going to College
#67I'm a returning student about to complete my degree at the end of this year. I went to an art school for a few years out of high school and ended up in customer service positions with some great companies. I didn't want to continue in customer service, so I decided to go back to school. Started with two years at community college, and now finishing up my last two at university. Some insights I picked up along the way…
>there should be 4 semesters a year, not 2, people should graduate in 2 years, not 4+
Could you provide some more details about the community college curriculum you are talking about? To my knowledge, the local community colleges offer what is essentially the first two years of a university education, with a reduced emphasis on your actual major.
>each day forward is increasingly difficult to stomach since I realized I can learn all of what is being taught to me faster on my own.
This means that you are not taking advantage of the resources available to you. Typically, the advice to people with energy left over after classes is that they should contact the labs at their institution and become miniature grad students. You also should try to register for graduate level courses, talking to whoever is in charge at your institution if necessary. Universities offer many avenues for gifted students that want to do more work than everybody else, and I would say that fact is the main thing that separates them from community colleges.
Re: A Guide for Adults Going to College
#68I'm a returning student about to complete my degree at the end of this year. I went to an art school for a few years out of high school and ended up in customer service positions with some great companies. I didn't want to continue in customer service, so I decided to go back to school. Started with two years at community college, and now finishing up my last two at university. Some insights I picked up along the way…
I agree that many college degrees seem to take far longer than is actually necessary, even technical ones at good school. The result seems to be that you can graduate with acceptable grades in 4 years, having spent maybe ten hours a week on school related activities.
But.
I feel that this should make it easier for an adult that would like to keep their job/income while attending school.
I also agree with most of your other gripes, having seen them at the large state school that I went to, but our neighboring state university (still a high quality school) was well known as a commuter school and went out of its way to accommodate adults. In essence, I don't think that your experience necessarily has to be universal.
P.S. Working in groups with young students is terrible even if you are a young student, and the only way I ever found to alleviate that was to select courses that were infamous for their difficulty. Easy class? Worthless group. Very hard class? Useful people that can be trusted to accomplish their part on their own time without supervision/hand holding.
Re: A Guide for Adults Going to College
#69Mid 50's here. As my kids are hitting college age I'm starting to get the itch to go back and complete my degree. My company has a facility near Cal Poly, where I went, and I drive by on my way in and out of town when I go onsite. Really don't know what to expect, figure I'll just wander on campus and stop by the admin building and see what they have to say. I'll bring my old student ID with me, just in case.
I'm a fair bit younger than yourself, but I did that recently at U of Toronto.
So I don't know if this anecdote helps, but I've been out of school for a few years now since I last attended—
I had to set an appointment with an administrator/registrar who wanted to discuss what I've been doing (work history, bit of life history—but these were more for their understanding than formally required), but ultimately the process for me, should I decide to move forward was:
* re-register (a quick form and small fee)
* the usual rigamarole— get my new student ID, register for courses when available, and carry on.
It was remarkably simpler than I thought it would be—even with the potential for switching programs and internal schools altogether.
Re: A Guide for Adults Going to College
#70I'm a returning student about to complete my degree at the end of this year. I went to an art school for a few years out of high school and ended up in customer service positions with some great companies. I didn't want to continue in customer service, so I decided to go back to school. Started with two years at community college, and now finishing up my last two at university. Some insights I picked up along the way…
> there should be 4 semesters a year, not 2, people should graduate in 2 years, not 4+ Could you provide some more details about the community college curriculum you are talking about? To my knowledge, the local community colleges offer what is essentially the first two years of a university education, with a reduced emphasis on your actual major. > each day forward is increasingly difficult to stomach since I realiz…
You're correct -- community college courses were "core" or "foundation" prior to the major. What I was attempting to suggest is 16-week semesters are too long (CC and Uni) and feel unnecessarily long for most subjects.