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A Guide for Adults Going to College

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Re: A Guide for Adults Going to College

#211

Post by _emacsomancer_ »

whatshisface wrote: post #74
pooppaint wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are overgeneralizing. Also I quite enjoyed working with students about 14 years my junior, so that’s like just your opinion, man. (I also have a suspicion you’re much younger than me, which I find amusing). > I don't think anyone needs a degree anymore to get to where they're going. There are plenty of professions outside of tech where formalized education is held in the same regard as 100 years ago. The “times h…

> Good luck entering [...] academia without a degree. Given that a PhD is basically a training course on how to be a professor, I think that one might actually be fair. The harshest criticism of PhDs is that they are only vocational training for professors, even.

At least ideally, a PhD is a training course on how to do research professionally.

Re: A Guide for Adults Going to College

#212

Post by vba »

chrisseaton wrote: post #7

I went back to university as an adult with a mortgage, wife, daughter on the way, and I did an internship. Nobody seemed to particularly notice or care that I was older and I'm not sure it changed anything.

where abouts/uni? did you need to relocate? did your wife/funding get you enough to cover mortgage?

Re: A Guide for Adults Going to College

#213

Post by somberi »

I am hoping to hear suggestions or real-life experience of anyone who has gone back to do their Phd after turning 50. My wife and I, both professionally and financially settled, are looking to stop working at 50, and take up something close to our hearts, which will be our _second_ 20-year innings. We would like to start that innings with doing a Phd in that field.

We both have Masters and an MBA in our respective fields. The next innings will be based on our current experience (30+ years) and our education, but hoping to apply it in a macro, policy framework, for which will go back to study.

Re: A Guide for Adults Going to College

#214

Post by analog31 »

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…

Some people can do it, others can't. I would have had a very hard time coming up with the amount of sustained motivation needed to learn my college subjects on my own. I ended up majoring in subjects where the classroom setting was beneficial to me. I have also taught myself a variety of other subjects, so it varies from subject to subject for me.

The daughter of one of my friends had a baby at age 16, was allowed to graduate from high school early (i.e., kicked out), and got an online degree from a good university. She said the hardest part was the sheer boredom, sitting at home in front of a computer all day.

Re: A Guide for Adults Going to College

#215

Post by lsc »

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…

>If I could go back in time I would gladly borrow an extra $20k to go to a university from the beginning. Over the time scale of a lifetime, or even just a decade, that's not a lot of money.

The problem for me is that (like many people who didn't go to college the first time around) I didn't do particularly well in high school. And from what I've seen, the schools that won't hold my grades from 20 years ago against me are not better than the aforementioned community colleges.

Right now I'm doing a self-paced online thing... it's not better than a community college, but we will see how it turns out.

Re: A Guide for Adults Going to College

#216

Post by im3w1l »

gojomo wrote: post #76
jshowa3 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is many companies work off this legacy system and won't hire you without a degree. No engineering degree, no law degree, no doctor degree, no degree at all? No thanks. Of course I'm not saying there are other ways, but its very naive to think that you can get anywhere without one. Not only that, the "legacy university system" is a system that's big on research and has invented things like the very Internet yo…

Sure, but many of the best companies are deemphasizing traditional credentials, commensurate with the bloating of the the university system and the rise of other training/evaluation methods. With student debts and the rise of alternative tracks, we may be very close to a rapid tipping point, where the apparent safety of the traditional credentials – with stodgier institutions – collapses quickly. And, the university…

Well having those grad students as your TAs could be worth something.

Re: A Guide for Adults Going to College

#217

Post by watwut »

BeetleB wrote: post #190
watwut wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 automat…

I never encountered such people. I would automate anyway if it would affect me. Different companies have different dysfunctions I guess.

Except the manager, wherever I worked I had fixed salary and no special compensation for anything. Once in a while I would negotiate salary raise, but that is it. So it is kind of normal to me.

Re: A Guide for Adults Going to College

#218

Post by lsc »

"The other important thing to do is to help adults identify why they want to go back to school. If you can identify what it is that's motivating you, then that can be your rallying cry when you're starting to feel discouraged or anxious about starting school."

Lol. So I've been reading stuff about our ideas of free will; most recently David Orr's book on Frost; but the quote above really sounds like they're suggesting we decide to do something and then need to "identify what it is that's motivating you" I.E. to rationalize it.

I'm not saying they're wrong, it's just a funny way to put it.

Re: A Guide for Adults Going to College

#219

Post by docbrown »

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…

> - university professors are more selfish and self-serving

With respect to academia, this point seems to come up a lot, which is highly dependent on school, subject, etc. But in my opinion, a lot of times it boils down to a couple things.

1. Research is your main job. 2. becoming tenured is basically your get out of jail free card. without doing something /legally/ wrong or ethically wrong, your salary is basically guaranteed until retirement. at R1 institutions, your main focus is publishing work to gain tenure.

by mixing the above two points, you produce professors who “treats you like a child.”

Re: A Guide for Adults Going to College

#220

Post by CalRobert »

knicholes wrote: post #151
CalRobert wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

How did you and your wife take German from the same professor at the same time? Was he broadcasting his lesson, were you and your wife in the same location as the teacher, was the teacher able to duplicate himself, or is "at the same time" more of a "during the same semester" and not literally at the exact same time?

Professor used "she", btw.
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