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A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

theatlantic.com

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Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#481

Post by P_I_Staker »

nevertoolate wrote: post #473
sp527 wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’ve been working since the 90s and are only making $200k/yr in tech (less than the total compensation of some new grads going into FAANG), then you’re actually a case study on behalf of the value of a (good) CS degree.

Funny to read about these salaries from Europe, where you can hire two pretty GREAT programmers from that money. For me it doesn’t tell anything about university degree AT ALL.

OP's perspective is clearly very skewed, even for the USA. $100-150k is considered absurd compensation for most of the country that isn't silicon valley.

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#482

Post by subjctvtime8 »

sp527 wrote: post #455
subjctvtime8 wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t get a CS degree. Just started programming when I was 8 or 9. I’m in the $200k/yr, house paid off, never had college debt, and 23 year-ish of gains in stocks following a “buy and hold” approach since the 90s. Apple at $8-$9/share right before that iMac was a good call. I also have deep and engaging conversations with mathematicians and physicists. I’ve tutored them in odd math they’ve simply never encountered…

If you’ve been working since the 90s and are only making $200k/yr in tech (less than the total compensation of some new grads going into FAANG), then you’re actually a case study on behalf of the value of a (good) CS degree.

Well, I don’t live in SF. Salaries are relative.

Those grads haven’t been offloading overvalued investment properties bought in the 2010s. That paid off much cheaper properties from the mid-00s, which are much closer into the urban hub. Curious to see how much they’ll be worth as the move to rebuild the urban area as live/work/retail structures replace the houses there now. Even if this bubble bursts, they’re paid off (as well as the house I live in).

I don’t make as much salary, but did mention I’ve been their stock. FAANG is making me rich otherwise.

Given my more “midwestern” cost of living, I could probably retire. But again like I said I’ve been coding since I was a kid. It’s like speaking English and making a PB&J for me. I’d be doing it anyway. It’s like free money without the Silicon Valley bullshitshow.

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#483

Post by willcipriano »

pyuser583 wrote: post #450
linuxftw wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We should talk about free college education or heavily subsidized one It already exists. It's called the internet. You can learn almost everything you need, and in much greater detail, than a traditional 'higher education' offered by a brick and mortar institution. The problem is only convincing the gate keepers.

That is simply untrue. You cant learn, for example, advanced cryptography outside a classroom.

Applied Cryptography[0] is available for $18.97 for a used hardcover copy on Amazon. The only thing that doesn't come with that a classroom does is someone to hold you accountable to read it.

[0]https://www.amazon.com/Applied-Cryptography-Protocols-Algori...

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#484

Post by LeanderK »

diebeforei485 wrote: post #371
vaidhy wrote: post #339

I have been reading through the comments and I am very curious about a few things - 1. What "bullshit" degrees people are talking about? Are they the liberal arts studies? If so, as a society do we not see value in the fine arts? Expertise in music, language, anthropology, history, etc do not necessarily lead to a well-paying job.. but they give intellectually satisfaction in and of itself. 2. IMHO, the pay you are l…

The arts (orchestra/symphony, opera/musicals, etc) are a luxury good. There is a small, niche market for these things, mostly centered around certain cities - so we can only have so many artists. The mass arts that the masses can afford to consume (TV, streaming music, and movies) are by definition based on popularity, so we can only have so many artists. I don't know why we fund so many people's arts degrees. We nee…

> The mass arts that the masses can afford to consume (TV, streaming music, and movies) are by definition based on popularity, so we can only have so many artists.

maybe it's a bit los in translation for me, but I wouldn't consider those things really art. For profit gigantic corporations don't produce art. I would say that most art is inherently not able to be a mass-product and therefore every city etc. needs its own art-scene.

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#485

Post by LeanderK »

renewiltord wrote: post #405
vaidhy wrote: post #339

I have been reading through the comments and I am very curious about a few things - 1. What "bullshit" degrees people are talking about? Are they the liberal arts studies? If so, as a society do we not see value in the fine arts? Expertise in music, language, anthropology, history, etc do not necessarily lead to a well-paying job.. but they give intellectually satisfaction in and of itself. 2. IMHO, the pay you are l…

The market already takes care of all of these things: 1. Society does see value in arts and rewards them commensurately. But democratic access to the arts means that those who are regarded good by the many are rewarded by many and those who are regarded good by the few are rewarded by few. Nothing seems wrong about this to me. Free people give Kanye more money than Killswitch Engage. And as for the liberal arts, if y…

in many societies not the market itself, but the government shoulders a big share of the costs for the arts. Societies came to the conclusion that they need to publicly fund the arts in order to give everyone access to culture and not turn it into a luxury commodity. It's astonishing how much many things like entrances for museums, theatres and art installation would cost if they would need to pay for themselves. Many would not, or hardly able to pay such a premium price, shutting them off from the culture that defines the societies themselves.

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#486

Post by gamechangr »

tenderfault wrote: post #210

and No college degree is a guarantee for a Bad life. nothing hurts us more than the lack of (higher) education. kids, stay in school.

That's exactly the kind of thinking that makes this discussion interesting.

Why do you hold that view?

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#487

Post by biophysboy »

throwawaygh wrote: post #258
biophysboy wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sometimes a self-taught person comes along with a genuinely impressive project, and I push hard to hire those folks. But for the most part it's silly little single-person-project web apps and such. In your view, what distinguishes the former from the latter? CS is not my primarily skillset, but I do know "how to program". And, because I'm a grad student, I want to do something with a very high impressive:time ratio…

> In your view, what distinguishes the former from the latter? Hard to give a generic answer. Basically, anything that makes me say "yeah there's no youtube tutorial for that, no public github repo you could copy ideas from, and you had to have solved a lot of difficult gritty problems in creative ways to get it to work". For that reason, A lot of the most impressive projects I've seen demonstrates the potential of a…

Thanks for the ideas. I'm well into a physics phd program, specializing in biophysics. I want to work in biotech/pharma afterward, so I want to "prove my skill" with R/Python/C++. Trying to find a doable project that overlaps, that doesn't just seem like one of the genomics/bioinformatics practice problems.

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#488

Post by bhupy »

lozaning wrote: post #426
simplify wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm implying that these things are affected by your credit score.

Cash is King If you've got an 800 score and no money, no one will give you a loan. If you've got a trash credit score, but an extra $1000 that isn't going to loans, then you can 'afford' to get fleeced on 36% 72 month auto loans for 7 years until your credit is rebuilt.

Depending on the market, I can’t imagine it being easy/straightforward for someone with “trash credit” to find a landlord willing to lease an apartment at the market-rate.

That $1000 is likely getting spent no matter what, either in repaying loans, or paying a premium over the market rate to get a landlord to agree to lease you an apartment instead of someone with an 800 score.

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#489

Post by pyuser583 »

willcipriano wrote: post #483
pyuser583 wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is simply untrue. You cant learn, for example, advanced cryptography outside a classroom.

Applied Cryptography[0] is available for $18.97 for a used hardcover copy on Amazon. The only thing that doesn't come with that a classroom does is someone to hold you accountable to read it. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Applied-Cryptography-Protocols-Algori...

One could memorize Applied Cryptography, and still not be qualified to create a new encryption algorithm. That requires advanced education.

Additionally, Applied Cryptography is an outdated (“classic”?) book. It’s most recent introduction clearly states this, and refers the reader to a different book (“Cryptographic Engineering”) for more current information.

Can you give me a bibliography of books readable by a person without an advanced degree, that would teach them how to create brand new, secure fully homomorphic encryption algorithm?

Edit: my spell checker changed “homomorphic” to “homophobic!”

Re: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

#490

Post by alimw »

P_I_Staker wrote: post #479
andreilys wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"1. What "bullshit" degrees people are talking about? Are they the liberal arts studies? If so, as a society do we not see value in the fine arts?" I don't see value in graduating with 6 figure debt for those degrees. In the words of Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting: “You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for $1.50 in late fees at the public library.”

Yeah, that's my stance too, even though it can come off as arrogant. The way I'd put it is "don't finance an education that won't get you a good paying job". I know some of these degrees can get you a foot in to a job that doesn't pay crazy well, but is fulfilling... That's okay too. It's also okay if that's your passion and you get someone else to pay for it.

Regardless of any impact on employability, it's pretty clear how society as a whole suffers when large sections of the public are so ill-versed in the general state of human knowledge that conspiracy theories flourish among them.
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