2

5/1/2008 10:29:28 PM

ya don't need a college degree to do what joe#'s just did!

5/1/2008 10:44:43 PM

Quote :

"Flyin Ryan: If you want to go to college to learn about the French Revolution's impact on modern culture, the power to you, but I don't think taxpayers should pay for it. You can go learn about that at Duke or Wake Forest or Shaw or some other private college that costs a tankload of money. And besides, if you want to expand the wealth of human knowledge, you don't need college to do that. I love reading history as a side exercise, but I don't feel the need to fork out 30 grand a year to study it. I can just go buy a 400-page book on the Spanish Civil War and read through it. It's a lot cheaper and I'll receive just as much information."

So what you're saying is that you don't understand what "wealth of human knowledge" means...

Also, I disagree. What you're proposing would mean only wealthy folks would have the opportunity to learn about the Spanish American War in the classroom. The rest of us would be "cranked out" to work hard for industries and services. Some kid with out a lot of dough could have some epic contribution to make, but we'd probably never see it cause he'd be too busy getting "cranked out" of Flyin Ryan's Institute of Preparing to Make a Living.

5/1/2008 11:24:45 PM

Bottom line: While sitting in a class, ask who is there to make less money? I have done this on numerous occasions with the same result--nobody.

Do people want to feel generally more educated as result of their, well, education? Yes, of course. Do people want to learn something that they can take into the real world and use to earn money? Yes, absolutely.

The GERs are what should help create well-rounded students. The problem is that GERs have been applied improperly at many colleges, particularly in recent years.

Wikipedia.com actually has a pretty good summary of this:

Quote :

"In education, a core curriculum is a curriculum, or course of study, which is deemed central and usually made mandatory for all students of a school or school system. Core curricula are often instituted, at the primary and secondary levels, by school boards, Departments of Education, or other administrative agencies charged with overseeing education. At the undergraduate level, individual college and university administrations and faculties sometimes mandate core curricula, especially in the liberal arts. But because of increasing specialization and depth in the student's major field of study, a typical core curriculum in higher education mandates a far smaller proportion of a student's course work than a high school or elementary school core curriculum prescribes."

Quote :

"Amongst the best known and most expansive core curricula programs at leading American colleges are that of Columbia College at Columbia University, as well as the University of Chicago's. Both can take up to two years to complete without advanced standing, and are designed to foster critical skills in a broad range of academic disciplines, including: the social sciences, humanities, physical and biological sciences, mathematics, writing and foreign languages. However, other selective institutions have largely done away with core requirements in their entirety, the most famous being the student-driven course selection of Brown University. Further, as core curricula began to be diminished over the course of the twentieth century at many American schools, several smaller institutions became famous for embracing a core curriculum that covers nearly the student’s entire undergraduate education, often utilizing classic texts of the western canon to teach all subjects including science. St. John’s College in the United States remains famous in this vein."

Quote :

"Many educational institutions are currently trying to balance two opposing forces: On the one hand, some believe students should have a common knowledge foundation, often in the form of a core curriculum; on the other hand, others want students to be able to pursue their own educational interests, often through early specialty in a major, however, other times through the free choice of courses. This tension has received a large amount of coverage due to Harvard University's reorganization of its core requirements. For example, in 1999, the University of Chicago announced plans to reduce and modify the content of its core curriculum, including lowering the number of required courses from 21 to 15 and offering a wider range of content. When The New York Times, The Economist, and other major news outlets picked up this story, the University became the focal point of a national debate on education. The National Association of Scholars released a statement saying, 'It is truly depressing to observe a steady abandonment of the University of Chicago's once imposing undergraduate core curriculum, which for so long stood as the benchmark of content and rigor among American academic institutions.' Simultaneously, however, a set of university administrators, notably then-President Hugo Sonnenschein, argued that reducing the core curriculum had become both a financial and educational imperative, as the university was struggling to attract a commensurate volume of applicants to its undergraduate division compared to peer schools as a result of what was perceived by the pro-change camp as a reaction by 'the average eighteen year old' to the expanse of the collegiate core."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_education_requirements

5/2/2008 6:15:06 AM

I am glad some colleges accept people that didn't shine in High School.

I graduated from High School with a 2.3 GPA and my only extracrclr activity was marching band.

I graduated NCSU with a 3.7 and after only 3 year in the market place am making the same money (and earning more vacation) than my mom who worked for 30 years without a college degree (though God bless her for putting up with all the shit she did to put me through college).

If a kid thinks he/she can do better in college than they did in High School and a place like NCSU is good enough to accept them, then more power to them.

If you're wanting to protect "stupid people" from wasting their money, then you can consider yourself a fucking snob-ass busy body. Live your own life and leave me to live mine.

[Edited on May 2, 2008 at 6:37 AM. Reason : ``]

5/2/2008 6:36:20 AM

Quote :

"If you're wanting to protect "stupid people" from wasting their money, then you can consider yourself a fucking snob-ass busy body. Live your own life and leave me to live mine. "

amen

5/2/2008 8:12:50 AM

^^

but then what will the limousine liberals do to stay busy?

5/2/2008 8:31:06 AM

^Some of you are so interested in political baiting its absurd. Take the above for example. Why would liberal vs. conservative have anything to do with this? Wouldn't liberals be more likely to want everyone to go to college instead of restricting and making requirements harder? I could respect some people more if they were more focused on being consistent with their views rather that chastising a group without much basis for the mere purpose of seeking political debate.

5/2/2008 9:04:53 AM

Quote :

"So what you're saying is that you don't understand what "wealth of human knowledge" means..."

"Wealth of human knowledge" is not learned in a university. "Wealth of human knowledge" is learned from experiencing everyday life. Shakespeare would probably roll in his grave if he knew people today took entire classes devoted to his plays. He'd tell them, "just go watch the thing and enjoy it, the only reason I wrote these plays was to make money".

Quote :

"Also, I disagree. What you're proposing would mean only wealthy folks would have the opportunity to learn about the Spanish American War in the classroom. The rest of us would be "cranked out" to work hard for industries and services. Some kid with out a lot of dough could have some epic contribution to make, but we'd probably never see it cause he'd be too busy getting "cranked out" of Flyin Ryan's Institute of Preparing to Make a Living."

What epic contribution could this hypothetical kid have made that he couldn't if he hadn't have attended university? Enlighten me, cause you're caught on university being a philosophical undertaking instead of teaching one how to make a living and yet I don't know what contribution that person could make that would make a rat's ass worth of difference to how society functions. Building a bridge helps society by allowing them the freedom to live where they wish and not be bounded by geography cause the bridge allows the person to cross the river to get where they are going much faster. A revisionist claim to the meaning of the Spanish-American War does not help society significantly if at all.

And what is/was your major at North Carolina State University?

Anyway, the rich vs. poor argument, that's how human society has been since the beginning of time. The rich can enjoy their hobbies and pursuits (Paris Hilton). The rest of us have to actually work (most everyone reading this). Just cause society today has a width of a middle-class unmatched in the history of mankind doesn't mean the fundamental order of how the world works has changed from the 17th century to today.

If the entire reason for me to go to school was for a philosophical undertaking, my dad would have never paid for it. The only reason he paid for it was to set me up so I can do better in life. And if he hadn't have paid for it, I would have most likely just enlisted in the military, so I can do the service and then they can set me up for life.


[Edited on May 2, 2008 at 9:33 AM. Reason : /]

5/2/2008 9:19:38 AM

Again, the question is, what did college give you (other than the piece of paper) that you could not have gotten with 4-6 years of real world experience?

And as far as hypothetical kids contributing to society without going to college, history is full of examples of people who didn't attend higher ed or dropped out who have made huge impacts of society in many more ways than 90% of the people who attend higher ed these days probably do.

5/2/2008 2:30:04 PM

^Absolutely. My hypothetical kid is someone who attended college though (the Flyin Ryan Institute of Preparing to Make a Living).

Quote :

"Flyin Ryan: "Wealth of human knowledge" is not learned in a university. "Wealth of human knowledge" is learned from experiencing everyday life. Shakespeare would probably roll in his grave if he knew people today took entire classes devoted to his plays. He'd tell them, "just go watch the thing and enjoy it, the only reason I wrote these plays was to make money"."

You implied that somehow reading a 400-page book on the Spanish Civil War would expand the wealth of human knowledge. You don't know what it means. Just reading a book does not expand the wealth of human knowledge. And "experiencing everyday life" probably isn't going to either. Open you mind and think just a little bit harder on this one. I know you can get it.

Quote :

"Flyin Ryan: What epic contribution could this hypothetical kid have made that he couldn't if he hadn't have attended university? Enlighten me, cause you're caught on university being a philosophical undertaking instead of teaching one how to make a living and yet I don't know what contribution that person could make that would make a rat's ass worth of difference to how society functions. Building a bridge helps society by allowing them the freedom to live where they wish and not be bounded by geography cause the bridge allows the person to cross the river to get where they are going much faster. A revisionist claim to the meaning of the Spanish-American War does not help society significantly if at all. Anyway, the rich vs. poor argument, that's how human society has been since the beginning of time. The rich can enjoy their hobbies and pursuits (Paris Hilton). The rest of us have to actually work (most everyone reading this). Just cause society today has a width of a middle-class unmatched in the history of mankind doesn't mean the fundamental order of how the world works has changed from the 17th century to today. If the entire reason for me to go to school was for a philosophical undertaking, my dad would have never paid for it. The only reason he paid for it was to set me up so I can do better in life. And if he hadn't have paid for it, I would have most likely just enlisted in the military, so I can do the service and then they can set me up for life."

You pretty much made my point for me when you mentioned Paris Hilton.

Quote :

"Flyin Ryan: And what is/was your major at North Carolina State University?"

Education

[Edited on May 2, 2008 at 2:44 PM. Reason : sss]

5/2/2008 2:42:09 PM

my buddy was stupid as shit at high school

not stupid, but stupid AT high school

he graduated, went to GTCC for automotive, and last year built the first toyota nascar. hes making tons. its not how smart you are, its doing what you know you are capable of.

5/2/2008 2:43:49 PM

Great example.

There are tons of viable paths to success other than college.

Yet we frequently turn kids away from these paths when we insist that they follow a college prep curriculum before engaging in anything actually relevant to their aspirations.


And why the heck did someone bring up liberal/conservative? As stated, the opinion of this article is decidedly -not- liberal.

[Edited on May 2, 2008 at 4:33 PM. Reason : .]

5/2/2008 4:33:01 PM

Quote :

"And as far as hypothetical kids contributing to society without going to college, history is full of examples of people who didn't attend higher ed or dropped out who have made huge impacts of society in many more ways than 90% of the people who attend higher ed these days probably do."

What kid would need to attend college as opposed to attending college to make a big positive impact on society that would be negatively affected by not going to college as a philosophical undertaking? That was my point. You said some kid would be hindered by him not being allowed to go to college if going to college as a philosophical undertaking was a luxury of the rich. I am asking for an example of such a kid.

Quote :

"You implied that somehow reading a 400-page book on the Spanish Civil War would expand the wealth of human knowledge. You don't know what it means. Just reading a book does not expand the wealth of human knowledge. "

Reading a book does not expand human knowledge. Reading a book, grabbing some reasoning on what happened and why, and then forming an opinion expands my knowledge.


For everyone that disagrees with me on this, you're not changing my mind. There would have been no reason to go to college if it wasn't for the fact that I could get something out of it after I was done. Period. That's the only reason I went to college, and it's the only reason most people went to college. And seriously, if university is not supposed to prepare yourself for life, who honestly has the 4 years to throw away earning no money with no result afterward that is beneficial to the person's financial standing? The rich, which was my original point, someone has to pay for your college, someone has to pay for your housing, someone has to pay for your transportation, and someone has to pay for your food. And a person should be having a reason to do this for some end result.

If you're saying that should not be, fine then, you're saying that universities in their current form should not exist, and that is 99% of the American universities in existance.

"Expanding human knowledge" and all that bulls***. I do that everyday, I don't need university for that. I expand my knowledge when I read about Zimbabweans on a message board debating their next move on overthrowing Robert Mugabe from power. I expand my knowledge by figuring out how an engine runs on hydrogen. I expand my knowledge by debating politics with a friend who is from Scotland. I expand my knowledge by reading the causes and effects of Bush's economic policies on food and employment on an internet blog. And several, several other things.

If you think university is the only place to expand your knowledge, you're really doing nothing but limiting yourself.



[Edited on May 2, 2008 at 6:24 PM. Reason : /]

5/2/2008 6:18:54 PM

You have twice now dodged the question of what you got out of college that prepared you for your job / the real world aside from the degree that you can not get as well or better with 4-6 years work experience?

Quote :

"What kid would need to attend college as opposed to attending college to make a big positive impact on society that would be negatively affected by not going to college as a philosophical undertaking? That was my point. You said some kid would be hindered by him not being allowed to go to college if going to college as a philosophical undertaking was a luxury of the rich. I am asking for an example of such a kid. "

I keep reading this, but I honestly can't figure out what you're asking here.

5/3/2008 9:14:53 AM

^ This was your original statement.

Quote :

"Some kid with out a lot of dough could have some epic contribution to make, but we'd probably never see it cause he'd be too busy getting "cranked out" of Flyin Ryan's Institute of Preparing to Make a Living."

Give me an example of such a kid that could have some epic contribution to society but would be unable to cause he could not go to college as a philosophical undertaking.

5/3/2008 11:09:01 AM

How anyone could fail out of college is really beyond me.

I don't have experience in other studies (english, history, etc..) but ECE at NCSU was EASY. It required very little work and if you didn't even understand the principles you could have probably graduated based on pure memorization. I may not be dumb, but i'm no genius. So yeah, I don't see how it's possible to attend classes and fail so many you cant graduate.

5/3/2008 11:29:47 AM

I'll say that there is a huge gulf of knowledge between programmers who learned on the job and programmers who got a CS degree. In the real world, it's highly unlikely you'd be exposed to advanced data structures, algorithms, representations, approaches that would make it easier for you to solve a large number of hard problems.

If you aren't exposed to the theory, you won't even consider a whole class of solutions when you go to tackle a problem. I've met multiple non-CS guys who have been writing software for many years, and they didn't even know what a binary tree was. As a result, the software written by the non computer scientists is generally inefficient, poorer, and less maintainable. Non CS-degree people might be able to make fucking webpage, but they likely aren't going to come up with innovative algorithms that will make you millions.

(And I'm sure some dumbass is going to bring up some anecdote about the one guy who did well without a degree. Aside from being a logical fallacy, that's not the point. The point is a person with a degree is going to be better than one without in the same job in the vast majority of cases, even if the non-degree one starts out with more experience [not knowing a binary tree after 10 years??].)

I imagine that any technical major would be the same way -- you get wide exposure to the theoretical underpinnings of a field, which gives you the exposure, inspiration, tools, and flexibility to solve novel, hard problems in that field.

---

It seems another question is whether it's valuable for technical majors to study non-major stuff (spanish civil war). Just to name a few things, natural language processing, neural nets, genetic algorithms, and many graphics techniques were all heavily inspired by stuff people learned outside of the field. If you read papers on advanced CS topics, you'll often find that one or more researchers are longtime experts in a non-cs field that somehow is influencing the CS research. If having the millions of CS majors take universal coursework leads to 10 breakthrough approaches a year, then the field as a whole has profited and advanced.

(This same math applies to breakthroughs in any field/industry/whatever. A breakthrough by one person is worth more than the effort of millions. So, it's very important to put as many people as possible in a position to make a breakthrough in hopes that one of them actually does.)

---

Regarding the thread topic, i do think too many people try for 4 year degrees when a 2 year degree is appropriate. However, doing away with publicly financed 4 year, universal degrees and making everything a technical degree is fucking stupid.

[Edited on May 3, 2008 at 11:53 AM. Reason : .]

5/3/2008 11:32:07 AM

Quote :

"This was your original statement."

Not mine.

Quote :

"Give me an example of such a kid that could have some epic contribution to society but would be unable to cause he could not go to college as a philosophical undertaking."

http://youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

Quote :

"Regarding the thread topic, i do think too many people try for 4 year degrees when a 2 year degree is appropriate. However, doing away with publicly financed 4 year, universal degrees and making everything a technical degree is fucking stupid. "

I don't think I've seen anyone (in this thread anyway) think that we should do away with public 4 year colleges. The concern being expressed is that the 4 year college track is pushed far too much when there are many other paths to success. The result of this push is many people for whom there was little or no bennefit being substantially in debt, and a devaluation of the worth of a 4 year degree. There's also a substantial change in how a 4 year degree is given, thus changing the mission of the educational institution. There is a difference between training and education, and I certainly feel that it is a waste to use our universities for training rather than education.

5/3/2008 1:14:39 PM

very good article

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200806/college

pretty much the same thing as in this thread.

5/17/2008 11:34:55 PM

A degree is already ridiculously easy to get (minus financial aspects). Do we want to further convert Universities into diploma mills so that high school losers will feel better about themselves?

5/17/2008 11:56:55 PM

I wish I would have learned something cool like boat building.

college is lame

5/18/2008 10:54:50 AM

ahahahahahahahahahaha


'man other paths to success'

Motherfucker if you can't hack it at an english degree in four fucking years

Thats four years of reading shit that was written centuries ago

Then there's no fucking chance in our universe that you're going to hit it off as a success.

And don't even bring that weak ass 'but Bill Gates NEEEGGAAAA" shit here

Because dropping out of college due to a desire for doing something you love

and dropping out because you played too much fucking WoW

Are two different things.

If anything, college needs to be come harder

And cull more intellectually lacking kids from the system

Just straight up merc them, Micheal Moore on logic style.

Case in point:

half the 'college educated' mongoloids that post here.

5/18/2008 2:30:47 PM

they should move all the engineering stuff to a tech school.

5/18/2008 4:04:28 PM

Quote :

"The average person with a college degree will earn over a million dollars more than one without one."

There was some rather heated discussion about this statistic a while back:

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/04/07/miller

Some choice quotes:

Quote :

"College Board officials concede some of Miller’s points. They acknowledge, first, that the widely used million dollar figure is wrong, exaggerating the personal benefit to the average degree holder, and that there could well come a point, if tuitions continue to skyrocket, when the payoff of a higher education would fail to be worth it."

(this one is my favorite -- "we admit that the estimate is wrong, but we use it anyway")

Quote :

"Substituting some of his own assumptions for those used by the board — including six years of tuition costs (and hence two fewer years of work), private college tuition instead of in-state public tuition, etc. — Miller calculates his own college premium. “[P]roperly using the present value of the lifetime earnings, adjusted for the cost of going to college and the difference in the number of working years, and excluding those graduates with advanced degrees, calculated at the three percent discount rate used in the report,” he wrote, “produces a lifetime earnings differential of only $279,893 for a bachelor’s degree versus a high school degree!”"

Of course this is completely staggering -- if Miller is right and $280k is the lifetime earnings differential, then that only makes for a $7000/year increase (on average, assuming 40 working years). As opposed to, under a million dollar estimate, $25000.

Granted, I don't know who's wrong or right in this debate. Statistics and the assumptions underlying them are tricky. But there's probably some truth to the whole matter that bachelor's degrees are overrated. Some people here talk about the benefit their degrees have given them; but keep in mind that NCSU is a great school and mostly its entrants were already on "the right path." I am pretty convinced the top fifth of our high school classes would accomplish a lot anyway, arbitrary degree requirements from employers notwithstanding.

It's a debate worth having at least. Some people probably are better off in vocational schools. And colleges as a whole are _definitely_ better off without bullshit majors. For example: African-American Studies, Feminist Studies, etc. etc. Probably Communications too. And Economics (kidding!).

Also to the poster who commented on CS degrees and data structures: the tech industry is notoriously bad about measuring the productivity of individual workers, so without some good hard data it's hard to say if you're right. I agree that pointing to anecdotes of degree-less successes is a fallacy; but what is not, in my opinion, is that people who are very successful tend to be extremely self-motivated and will learn "the right stuff" on their own. Most CS isn't rocket science; binary trees certainly aren't.

5/18/2008 6:56:27 PM

PR is under comm and they make plenty of money

5/18/2008 7:03:01 PM