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College has been oversold

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Re: College has been oversold

#161

Post by juiceandjuice »

philwelch wrote: post #130
[deleted] wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

Case in point, Andrew Mason, CEO of Groupon, what did he study? Oh yeah, he studied Music at Northwestern... I'm curious: where did Mr. Ponzi get his degree? Yes, it's pretty obvious that if you get into a name-brand university and manage to teach yourself marketable skills on the side, you can be pretty successful. What if you don't get into a name-brand university? You're screwed for life and your best shot at succ…

Andrew Mason also interned at Electrical Audio Studios.

Re: College has been oversold

#162

Post by ceol »

redthrowaway wrote: post #145
joshklein wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of things we do here would make them question our mental health. Say, pretending like you really need more than that $40,000 job the English major can get that lets him live in a small but safe apartment in a fine neighborhood (that has plumbing, electricity, and sanitation) in a non-center-of-the-world American city, and shop for all the groceries he needs in the market 10 minutes away. Anyway, for a community…

Except that the case of Jobs is a perfect illustration of the grandparent's point: he dropped out of Reed College because he couldn't justify the expense to himself. He audited the calligraphy class, and slept on floors and couches. So he didn't go $100k into debt to take those classes with the expectation it would land him a good job; he sat in on them because he was interested in them but recognized they were a bad…

I think Josh's point is that Jobs' success came from the inspiration he got from his calligraphy class— not an engineering degree. He was never really an engineer.

And I agree with him: many tech-oriented sites tend to think the only jobs that (should) exist end in "Science" or "Engineering". Does the entertainment industry not fuel economic growth? Would Netflix be popular if we didn't have movies and television shows to stream? Would smartphones be pushing the envelope if all they did was allow you to check your email and take calls? Do we not laud video games that have fantastic stories and artwork?

I've even seen commenters express superiority between the science degrees. For instance, "Computer Science isn't really a science. It's just math!" and, "You can't call yourself a software engineer! Real engineers get qualifications! Real engineers do something that can affect public safety!" are both common sentiments.

Why is this? Do these people really not see the importance of the liberal arts, even when their own work is heavily reliant on them?

Re: College has been oversold

#163

Post by phil »

joshklein wrote: post #142
cageface wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A degree in Philosophy or English, let's say, is a luxury that would be incomprehensible to many in the developing world. If I were to suggest to the Vietnamese I know here, for example, that they spend their tuition on something that doesn't directly correlate with a roof over their head or food on their table they'd worry about my mental health. Thanks to globalization that luxury is going to start to seem just as…

A lot of things we do here would make them question our mental health. Say, pretending like you really need more than that $40,000 job the English major can get that lets him live in a small but safe apartment in a fine neighborhood (that has plumbing, electricity, and sanitation) in a non-center-of-the-world American city, and shop for all the groceries he needs in the market 10 minutes away. Anyway, for a community…

Jobs made that point even more explicitly:

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l0f1ocmoGG1qz50x3.png

Re: College has been oversold

#164

Post by beambot »

jtbigwoo wrote: post #59
maratd wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Really, it's a cultural problem. No, it's an economic one. > I have a liberal arts degree from an "elite private university". Ok. Let's make the assumption that you're at least moderately intelligent and would be able to get a job for 40K from the bat. 40K * 4 = 160K College tuition is 40K itself at an "elite private university". Then you add living expenses, books, food, etc. and you have another 25K. That's 65K.…

You're working with the edge case in your example where a really smart person can get an amazing job right out of high school. It's more instructive to look at the average case: - In the current economy, the number of high school grads making $40k/year is vanishingly small. It's more likely he'd be making 25k or less if he has a job at all. - 25k for living expenses and books for a college student is way too high unl…

I believe his math was accounting for the 4 years of lost wages during college as an opportunity cost of $32k/yr * 4yr = $128k for a total college expense of $140k + $128k = $268k.

Now, if you could invest that money at 3% compound interest over 30 years, you're talking about $650k -- that's 33% of your final career totals. (When I do that calculation for my 10 years of BS+PhD engineering, its pretty dramatic!)

Re: College has been oversold

#165

Post by gaustin »

mahyarm wrote: post #150
gaustin wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're making $50k you're being screwed. I'm being screwed then. I have a CS degree and a business Masters degree. I'm a "senior" developer and make $55k. The primary employer in my area is the Montana State government. Programmer pay here tops out at about $60k/year. Low-end programmer salaries are about $35-$40k. In the private sector you'd be lucky to get $70k/year. My wife and I are thinking about moving, bu…

Move, work in the bay area, get that network and then move back. If you have a house in Montana, and family there, rent it out and get your family to help you manage it. Even if you have to pay $2000/month more in rent, which you won't, you'll still come out ahead. And you'll have better weather and cheaper airfare than Montana.

This is an avenue I'm investigating.

Just trying to find the right place to go. Right now I'm doing a software craftsman apprenticeship to increase the quality of place I can get a job. When that's done (it's a 20-30 hour commitment on top of a full-time+ job) in January, I'm going to get involved in some OSS projects.

The move is probably at least 6-12 months out.

Re: College has been oversold

#166

Post by ceol »

rwl wrote: post #116
Permit wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's about giving them the cognitive, rhetorical, and even emotional skills required to solve the hard problems that we face as a society. I suppose the counter argument is: Do you think individuals graduating in STEM fields don't pick up these skills? And if so, why are these skills limited to liberal arts majors?

> Do you think individuals graduating in STEM fields don't pick up these skills? That depends, I think, on what their program is. Many STEM programs leading to a Bachelor's degree are still liberal arts programs, in name and in spirit. Let's not forget that math and astronomy, at least, have been part of the conception of the "liberal arts" since antiquity. The idea that there is a sharp division between science and…

>I don't know, since I haven't gone through one of those programs myself, but I would bet that students graduating from such programs don't come away with the same kind of skills that a liberal arts education provides.

I would tend to agree with you here. STEM fields push logic and reason, but then you get students who look at the most practical solutions instead of the solutions that might not be as practical but benefit the most or offer an intangible benefit.

Re: College has been oversold

#167

Post by _delirium »

beambot wrote: post #164
jtbigwoo wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're working with the edge case in your example where a really smart person can get an amazing job right out of high school. It's more instructive to look at the average case: - In the current economy, the number of high school grads making $40k/year is vanishingly small. It's more likely he'd be making 25k or less if he has a job at all. - 25k for living expenses and books for a college student is way too high unl…

I believe his math was accounting for the 4 years of lost wages during college as an opportunity cost of $32k/yr * 4yr = $128k for a total college expense of $140k + $128k = $268k. Now, if you could invest that money at 3% compound interest over 30 years, you're talking about $650k -- that's 33% of your final career totals. (When I do that calculation for my 10 years of BS+PhD engineering, its pretty dramatic!)

That's assuming that an 18-year-old outside of the tech field could get a $32k/yr job to begin with. Looking at the unemployment rates for people without college degrees, there's a pretty large chance they wouldn't be able to get any job at all.

Re: College has been oversold

#168

Post by esrauch »

re_todd wrote: post #123
kabdib wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't get calculus until I went to a junior college. I think that JC cost me about $800 for a year -- living with parents helps. After a year at the junior college (which I define by "They had a little IBM mainframe, and punch cards") I was a lot more ready for the Large Cow College (30K students, much beefier mainframe with actual terminals for post-first-year courses). I'm convinced it's calculus that separates…

I don't know why more people don't recommend community/junior colleges. You can cut the price of education almost in half if you start out 2 years at a JC.

A couple of my friends went to a JC and went on to go to what I will define as "schools with recognizable names but not ivy league"-caliber 4 year schools and ended up getting less than half of their classes accepted as transferred largely due to technicalities.

They effectively had to go through 4 years of college anyway, they could have saved just as much by enrolling immediately and taking JC courses over the summers and graduated in 4 years instead of 5-6.

Re: College has been oversold

#169

Post by esrauch »

achompas wrote: post #119
nobody31 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So on one side you run a T-test to see if the correlation is significant. On the other side you have the ability to phrase it as a question in the same language as Aristotle.

So on one side you run a T-test to see if the correlation is significant. This is an incredibly gross simplification of applying statistical theory. I suggest you pick up some texts on inference, Bayesian stats, and probability theory to learn how stats != "running t-tests".

He was clearly just picking one useful tool that stats provides, not stating that it was the entirety of statistics.

I'm not making any statement about whether I agree with him, but if you disagree you will have to claim that he is cherry picking one useful and one useless skill, not just say that there is more to stats than t-tests.

Re: College has been oversold

#170

Post by esrauch »

tdfx wrote: post #68
yummyfajitas wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How light a workload do teachers need? As it stands now, full time teachers [1] work only 38.5 hours/week (on average). http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/03/art4full.pdf I'm not sure how increasing pay, further reducing work hours, and completely eliminating accountability will do anything other than buy teacher's loyalties in an election year. Incidentally, there is also little evidence that postgraduate degrees in e…

I wasn't implying that another 2-3 years of a graduate education degree would solve the problem at hand. Sorry I wasn't clear on that. My intended assertion is that the curriculum for an education degree should be the MOST challenging available, not a fallback for people who don't want to be bothered learning math and science.

You really think we need intelligent people to explain addition to 6 year olds and tell them not to pick their noses?
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