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A Guide for Adults Going to College

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Re: A Guide for Adults Going to College

#181

Post by repiret »

CalRobert wrote: post #132
two2two wrote: post #63

I'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…

Thank you!!! I spent way too long getting a useless degree in physics at Cal Poly SLO. They wouldn't let you switch majors (because every 17 year old knows what they want to do with their life) but it turns out changing schools is tough when your grades show you've hated your major the last 2 years. The best thing I EVER did was sign up for classes at Santa Monica College after getting my Bachelor's. They're fantasti…

It’s not impossible to switch majors at CP SLO. My wife was a physics major at CalPoly SLO until she got tired of being the only girl in all her classes and switched to biochem.

Re: A Guide for Adults Going to College

#182

Post by wwweston »

two2two wrote: post #63

I'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…

While attending a private university, I found professors who treated me like an annoyance, a child, and an adult. I had professors who were poor instructors, and professors who were great.

Since leaving university, I've found many situations where neither degree nor education matter much... and some where it did.

I'd believe many community colleges are underrated, and the modern university system has a lot of flaws and ways in which it poorly serves its participants (faculty and students alike), but the value in a specific path of participation seems a lot like a YMMV kindof thing.

Re: A Guide for Adults Going to College

#183

Post by btach »

theparanoid wrote: post #15

I'm switching careers from tech to nursing. Being older--mid-thirties--hasn't been an issue. It helps that healthcare has less of an age bias than computing.

Interesting. I've been looking at doing the opposite. I've been a RN (mostly ED) for several years. I mostly enjoy it, but it can be pretty stressful sometimes. I started going back to school at a local CC taking math and EE classes last summer when feeling pretty depressed and burned out (getting out and using a different part of my brain, throwing myself at something challenging that's not work has helped tremendously in that part). As far as any age bias, I definitely have not noticed any where I work - I have several co-workers in their 60's and there is no typical age of new hires.

Re: A Guide for Adults Going to College

#184

Post by jm__87 »

twoquestions wrote: post #19
chrisseaton wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't see a business owner tolerating someone with age but not experience But why would they care if two people have the same experience but one is older? What difference does it make that they wouldn't tolerate?

From what I've read here on HN (and other places), even with experience, ageist bigotry is a significant impact on people's careers, I can only imagine it's worse sans experience.

So in my own experience, older colleagues can usually bring two things to the table regardless of relevant work experience: maturity and responsibility. This isn't always true (I've definitely had some older colleagues who are exceptions to this rule), but I think probably your average 40 something is more mature and more responsible than your average 20 something. More importantly, if someone went and did this degree in their 40s, I know they are doing it because they really want to follow the career path that the degree leads to, not because they chose this academic program at random at the age of 17 or 18 because they weren't sure what they wanted to do.

Re: A Guide for Adults Going to College

#185

Post by wpdev_63 »

gowld wrote: post #131
wpdev_63 wrote: post #86

I don't understand why anyone would consider going back to college when there's very legitimate online course options that cost a fraction. Look through edx.org and see for yourself. Remember there's no guarantee that going back to school will net you the job you want but it's a guarantee that you will go into crippling debt that will follow you for the rest of your life. Unless of course your company is paying for y…

Where are the lab classes in edx? Where are the vocational courses in edx? Where are the teaching assistants and the study groups? Where are the 12+ course bachelors-degree curricula?

Imagine the person smart enough to substitute each of those things with something freely available. Just imagine.

Re: A Guide for Adults Going to College

#186

Post by hoorayimhelping »

CalRobert wrote: post #132
two2two wrote: post #63

I'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…

Thank you!!! I spent way too long getting a useless degree in physics at Cal Poly SLO. They wouldn't let you switch majors (because every 17 year old knows what they want to do with their life) but it turns out changing schools is tough when your grades show you've hated your major the last 2 years. The best thing I EVER did was sign up for classes at Santa Monica College after getting my Bachelor's. They're fantasti…

Thank you for this post! I just moved to Santa Monica from the NYC metro area and I've been looking for a place to take classes.

Re: A Guide for Adults Going to College

#187

Post by barry-cotter »

dawhizkid wrote: post #48

What is the consensus on coding schools in 2019? I'm looking at app academy and lambda school.

https://twitter.com/austenallred/status/1082363551178665985?...

There are multiple companies whose engineering headcount growth YOY is bigger than the total number of annual CS + bootcamp grads in the US.

Yes, there are a lot more engineers coming on board now. But the growth in demand is mind-boggling.

https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1082101947795091458?s=21

In case you were wondering whether the engineering hiring market was slowing down, here’s Amazon deploying probably every YC company combined on one product: https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-says-it-has-over-10-000-...

Re: A Guide for Adults Going to College

#188

Post by zoom6628 »

Shout out to massey.ac.nz which is one of the very first universities world wide to have serious 'extra mural' programme. They have decades of experience and everything is tuned for the working adult. For anybody in any country should seriously consider. They have extramural students from all over the world because you get world class staff, from a world class university, at NZ prices.

Anybody in US should seriously consider it an option for higher learning.

FYT i did a post graduate Diploma in QUality Assurance with specialty in software engineering through Massey with course work done 1993-95 and finally delivered my project in 1997 after changing countries and jobs. Cant praise them enough.

Re: A Guide for Adults Going to College

#189

Post by bsder »

twblalock wrote: post #98
two2two wrote: post #63

I'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 did my first few years of college at a community college and my experience was that the college had to be very strict about attendance and dropping students who didn't show up. Frankly a lot of them were stoners who were only in school because their parents would cut off support if they dropped out. The professors were underpaid and many of them didn't care -- some did care and were excellent teachers, but a lot of…

> The professors were underpaid and many of them didn't care -- some did care and were excellent teachers, but a lot of them were bitter about their career outcomes and just went through the motions.

Given how little it pays to teach in a community college, I'm surprised there is any teacher who didn't care.

Re: A Guide for Adults Going to College

#190

Post by BeetleB »

watwut wrote: post #148
BeetleB wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The fact that it’s a 4-year slog is one of the factors that make university degree holders earn premium in the labor marketplace — conscientiousness, conformity and consistency required to slog through 4 years needed for school to certify it send employers a strong signal that you’re the kind of person who will do their job well. In my career, everyone I've worked with had at least a Bachelor's. Most had a Master's…

I don't want to work again with people who literally hate boring tasks, because when they can't automate them, they just don't do them of half ass them. I don't particularly love those tasks either, but having to do them all because the alternative is to let project fail is something I don't want to go through again, ever.

I wouldn't want to work with them either.

There is a middle ground between the extremes :-)

I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want to work with people who insist on doing the same work manually that takes an hour, that could be scripted to take 2-3 minutes. And then they oppose your writing a script to do it. And I'm sure you wouldn't want to work there if your manager tells you that it would be awesome if you can automate it, but please understand our compensation policy will not allow us to reward you for increasing the team's productivity.

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