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I cannot afford to go back to engineering school

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Re: I cannot afford to go back to engineering school

#211

Post by ingrid »

nabnob wrote: post #74

I'm slightly confused about the logistics of this because I also attended Carnegie Mellon and received around $20k in financial aid per calendar year (grants and Stafford loans combined), and my parents made over $100k. If this isn't too intrusive - how much were you making when you received $16k in financial aid vs. $104? Are you only including grants in this amount, or does this also include low-interest student lo…

I was actually at Pitt not CMU. I was not working when I received $16k, although I did do a work study position that year. My income to get $16k in financial aid because I had an income of zero. I had one grant in the 2011-12 year but for around $200.

Re: I cannot afford to go back to engineering school

#212

Post by graycat »

gems wrote: post #174
graycat wrote: post #155

Point 1: Likely what you want to learn you can learn well without going back to school. Indeed, at a high end research university, it is in effect or explicitly assumed that you can teach yourself. If you are in software, then likely you are heavily self-taught. Well, being self-taught in nearly all parts of academic engineering is easier than in practical software if only because in nearly all of academic engineerin…

About point 2 and point 3: the quality of the undergraduate education is considered in applicants to top schools. Like I said before, there is definitely a standard of rigor that you don't experience at every school. As soon as you decide to optimize for financial cost (picking the cheapest school, doing community college), you've already placed on a burden on yourself.

A graduate school will be eager to forgive the first two years in a community college given what else I assumed: A four year college for the last two years, glowing recommendations from professors, and excellent GRE scores.

That a guy started at a community college and ended up with excellent GRE scores is an impressive 'trajectory', and mostly good graduate schools will be sufficiently impressed. The graduate schools are hungry for highly motivated, good students and will want to grab what I described.

Re: I cannot afford to go back to engineering school

#213

Post by graycat »

sillysaurus wrote: post #179
graycat wrote: post #155

Point 1: Likely what you want to learn you can learn well without going back to school. Indeed, at a high end research university, it is in effect or explicitly assumed that you can teach yourself. If you are in software, then likely you are heavily self-taught. Well, being self-taught in nearly all parts of academic engineering is easier than in practical software if only because in nearly all of academic engineerin…

graycat, would you mind putting an email in your "about" section of your profile so I can contact you? I have some questions about trouble I'm running into in regards to some of the examples you presented.

You first, and I'll read your "about" and write you. For now I'm trying to remain anonymous on HN. I may not be able to help you much in academics since I quit being a college prof long ago and am now a solo founder of an information technology startup.

Re: I cannot afford to go back to engineering school

#214

Post by graycat »

gems wrote: post #195
Peteris wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is false. I studied Maths at Cambridge and learned some courses completely on my own.

It's false that any of what I said can be true for some (or many) students? How do you determine if you're one of those students?

I was addressing the money issue and tacitly assuming that they could do the work. For just a Bachelor's and then just a Master's in engineering, they have a good chance of being able to judge correctly if they can do the work.

Re: I cannot afford to go back to engineering school

#215

Post by patio11 »

chernevik wrote: post #81

Are you a US citizen? If so, write your Congressman. Write the rep for the University's district, your home town rep, and the senators of both states. Make the letter one page, and attach a narrative with the gory details and figures. Give them details on how to contact the financial aid office, the dean's office, and any student ombudsman. The idea here is to capture attention (short, punchy letter), provide all the…

My brother used to work in constituent services. This is spot on.

Re: I cannot afford to go back to engineering school

#216

Post by graycat »

gems wrote: post #184
munin wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pretty quick to dismiss community college. I took lower division classes at one, my math classes were taught by PhDs or people with three decades of math and statistics experience. The rigor was pretty good, I transferred to a very good school from the community college and was well prepared.

1. The point was "there is a standard of rigor that you don't experience at every school". I could have used anything as an example. It doesn't matter that I picked community college. If you agree with that statement, then do you disagree with the conclusion: that once you go down that path, you the student, have a burden to explain to everyone how the quality of education compares with the best? Technically, yeah, I…

The OP was asking for an engineering degree; there the math is powerful support but only support.

Sure, the first two years at Harvard can be something special, especially if the student uses AP or tests out of the standard first two years of ugrad school. E.g., Harvard's Math 55 taught to freshmen at least at one time used Halmos, FDVS, Rudin's 'Principles', and Spivak's 'Manifolds'. That's usually junior or senior level stuff.

I know one guy who went to Harvard and as a sophomore took a reading course from A. Gleason. So, if in the next two years he knocked off one of Hilbert's problems, like Gleason did, then he could also become a Harvard 'Fellow' and skip a Ph.D.! But, again, we're talking engineering, not being so advanced as a ugrad that really should end up with a Ph.D. in math instead of a Bachelor's.

What's so wrong about just taking the first two years of college as just the usual first two years? A CC can provide that. A CC can use a good calculus book; when I took calculus, I used the same book Harvard used; that is, Harvard was willing to teach a calculus course, just calculus from just a common book, to I don't know who took it. Given the book and anything like a competent CC teacher, the Harvard course doesn't have much room to be better than a CC course, especially if the student followed my recommendations on self study before the course.

I know; I know; maybe the freshman English lit course at Harvard is taught by a Nobel prize winner in literature and can provide some astoundingly profound insights into Henry James and, thus, change the lives of the students. I'm not impressed.

You seem eager to "pay a lot" for the first two years of college.

Re: I cannot afford to go back to engineering school

#217

Post by gems »

gems wrote: post #174
graycat wrote: post #155

Point 1: Likely what you want to learn you can learn well without going back to school. Indeed, at a high end research university, it is in effect or explicitly assumed that you can teach yourself. If you are in software, then likely you are heavily self-taught. Well, being self-taught in nearly all parts of academic engineering is easier than in practical software if only because in nearly all of academic engineerin…

About point 2 and point 3: the quality of the undergraduate education is considered in applicants to top schools. Like I said before, there is definitely a standard of rigor that you don't experience at every school. As soon as you decide to optimize for financial cost (picking the cheapest school, doing community college), you've already placed on a burden on yourself.

I reread this branch and thought it sounded awful. What I meant to say is that if you optimize for low cost, you're limiting your choices to schools that lack the reputation. I don't know very many schools that have both (maybe some state schools). And yeah, this results in having a burden to defend yourself.

I wish I could delete the rest of this branch.

Re: I cannot afford to go back to engineering school

#218

Post by Daniel_Newby »

hga wrote: post #168
jrokisky wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm wondering what the parent meant when they said that their parents were unwilling to help. Does that mean that they would not cosign for a private loan?

If you're referring to me, yes, they totally rejected cosigning a private loan. My school had its own independent program for this, and their credit was not exactly a problem (that year their main band issued them an unsecured note for more than 4 years of the total costs; ironically to set up a computer system, the brand of which I researched and specified as about the last thing I did before going to the university…

> The system assumes good will on the part of parents, and pretty much has to, to avoid free riders.

That's the second time I have read this lie in this thread.

Firstly, state governments are bound by the equal protection clause to ignore the assets of relatives (and all similar irrelevancies). They do just fine not soaking people for their ancestors wealth.

Secondly, university costs are in a financial bubble, for the exact same reason as house prices in 2007. The bizarre funding schemes and underwriting are a temporary state of financial cprruption, not the natural order of things.

Thirdly, the free rider problem only applies to zero sum games. If FedGov stopped blackmailing parents, it would not be education that collapses, just the bureaucracy grown fat on the back of ill gotten money.

Fourthly, to the extent that higher education is a zero sum game, that problem is trivially solvable by funding it with taxes. If higher education is a profitless necessary evil, like street construction and dog catchers, it should be funded the same way.

Re: I cannot afford to go back to engineering school

#219

Post by Daniel_Newby »

susi22 wrote: post #114

I consider myself very lucky. I did my undergrad and never struggled with money. My parent never supported me with a dime since they didn't have much. I didn't have any scholarships. I saved up some money from high school and used that for the first year of college, then started working as an co-op. How did I do it? I went to school in Germany. That's also where I'm from. Back then there was no tuition and I only pai…

Germany is über authoritarian, and the authorities are selected to be fairly intelligent. They tend to solve problems with elaborate, well thought out plans. (Sometimes based on mistaken assumptions, like energy policy.)

America is fairly democratic. We do not have plans, we have slogans that appeal to the dumbest 51% of the population. The problem is emotion-driven electioneering, and mass protests would only make it worse.

Re: I cannot afford to go back to engineering school

#220

Post by stiff »

gems wrote: post #205
stiff wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I self-studied some amount of pure mathematics, having only an undergraduate CS degree and while having a 40 hour a week day job, and while it's definitely harder and slower than learning it at a university, it's not unrealistic. If you look hard enough, there are books with proof-based exercises with answers in the back (example proofs) that you can use to check your understanding (Spivak's Calculus, books from Spri…

It's unrealistic because I really think you need the social aspect of it: collaboration and criticism. I didn't say you can't learn something on your own sometimes. Also lots of people have convinced themselves of lots of silly things. You can probably find dozens of papers from people with bachelors in math (or no degree) claiming they have solved P=NP. A lot of these turn out to be completely bogus, but the authors…

What are you exactly claiming then, what would it mean that mathematics self-study is "unrealistic"? There is certainly a danger in not seeking external validation of your work (or denying it), and being at a university is very nice for getting that. But with some motivation I think you can get the knowledge equivalent of an undergraduate degree in mathematics by self-studying in maybe twice the time it would take at an university (I am speaking from personal experience and assuming full time job and having some life, and that you don't have kids yet). You can get feedback on the Internet as well nowadays, or seek university-level tutoring. And there is no shortage of people with degrees doing faulty P=NP proofs either.

Again, I agree doing it at the university is more effective way of doing it, and if you have the possibility to do it, good for you! But most of us can afford to dedicate at most 5 years to studying full time, and than other responsibilities kick in and you can't do it anymore. The majority of your life all the new knowledge you get will come from self-study. So you better learn to do it.

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