only 26% of pop. has a 4 year degree!

[tdatk]

Originally posted by LubeMaster77
many responded before I could! The figuers are from 2005. I don't think they have changed significantly. Check out this chart:

Hmmm,
Using Mikes chart, I come in at the Doctorate level pay scale with only a HS education. I must be doing something right,tomorrow afternoon I am a guest speaker at a meeting with the directors and senior advisors of the local colleges in NoVA to discuss the future direction of their technical programs. IMHO it's about time they pay attention to the REAL needs of industrial engineering,real world skills, not paper.

[nostatic]

but there is a danger in that. If you teach to needs/skill set, then you are always chasing and risk training people that have skills but not the ability to easily learn new ones or transform themselves. That is part of the argument for a broad liberal arts education...that one never knows what the future will hold or the trajectory a person might take.

I know some narrowly trained engineers that are clueless about anything outside their field, and it greatly complicates the ability to do something useful.

[M.D. Holloway]

Originally posted by Rondinone
Not in the physical sciences. Many fields do require payment.

PhD work is funded by grant monies. I know folks with PhDs in everything from Art to Zoology and the only time any of them took out a student loan even was because they had mouths to feed and the TA position wasn't shelling out enough. Most of the good ones don't even TA they go straight to reasearch where the prof can use them like a vegas crack whore. Tuition is always covered.

The first year funds are normally covered by the school. The second on (and it can take 8 years BTW) is covered by your advisors grant money,

Masters work is different.

I don't know where the folks who paid for their PhDs went but something doesn't sound right.

[tdatk]

I think nostatic just called me narrow minded,clueless and useless...
Actually I applaud continuing education and a mild dose of liberal arts. The current system does not have a realistic grip on the needs of employers and the skill sets required to keep pace with the technological advancement of production equipment.

[Aurel]

Lube, you are correct that phDs are funded by grant monies, but the four year degree required to start a phD is not. This is why many students prefer getting a job after their bachelor, and reimburse their student loans and start making a decent living. In the contrary, many countries such as France or India have free education from the beginning. Thus, so many folks from these countries can arrive in the USA and do the paid phD research that americans do not want to do.

Aurel

[M.D. Holloway]

Originally posted by Aurel
Lube, you are correct that phDs are funded by grant monies, but the four year degree required to start a phD is not. This is why many students prefer getting a job after their bachelor, and reimburse their student loans and start making a decent living. In the contrary, many countries such as France or India have free education from the beginning. Thus, so many folks from these countries can arrive in the USA and do the paid phD research that americans do not want to do.

Aurel

True, nobody with any chops pays for grad school. I guess you could go for loan deferment after the bachelors degree and prolong the inevitable.

Correct me but the students who actually make it over here do so with some sort of scholarship that is funded by their gov, family money or private grant – at least that seemed to be the way they did it years ago.

I always thought the US has very similar programs. If you were good enough the study at Cambridge University, the Sorbonne or the Indian Institute of Technology then I would think that the US (or some grant or foundation) would cover you?

[Aurel]

Originally posted by LubeMaster77
True, nobody with any chops pays for grad school. I guess you could go for loan deferment after the bachelors degree and prolong the inevitable.

Correct me but the students who actually make it over here do so with some sort of scholarship that is funded by their gov, family money or private grant – at least that seemed to be the way they did it years ago.

I always thought the US has very similar programs. If you were good enough the study at Cambridge University, the Sorbonne or the Indian Institute of Technology then I would think that the US (or some grant or foundation) would cover you?

In the french system which I know best, college tuition is free for all, and there are aids for living expenses. The selection occurs during the cursus. Anyone can start a first year at the Sorbonne, but they won`t stay if they fail their exams, which are much harder to pass that in the US. In the US, since you pay for your degree, there is almost a guarantee to get it. In France, since it is free, the selection occurs during the cursus, and a large number of students are weeded out of the system after 1, 2 or 3 years. In the US, if you are good student, there are scholarships available, but it is not free for all in the first years.

Aurel

[M.D. Holloway]

Sad but true. Knowing that you would think more students would stay in the science and engineering courses!

I often tell students (and have witnessed it first hand by the students who listen); if you just keep at it and bug the prof you'll pass.

I had one student who as average but this kid must have called me three times a week not to mention all the e-mails. He was not stupid but rather nervous almost neurotic - no he was neurotic! However, he passed with a B. An honest B for the most part.

[snowman]

A free education is worth exactly what you paid for it!

I tell many students, especially those in the trades, like auto mechanics, that a degree is simply the fastest way to a high paying job. Overall that is correct, even for the professional degrees.

But most people do not NEED degrees to do their job, they only need the degree to Get the job. The degree is just one more filter for example like apprenticeship, which society uses to select qualified candidates for the available jobs.

Intelligence is no more a predictor of success than a degree is. For example I have a brother that scored the highest IQ ever tested in NY in his time. He is happy and a janitor at a major university. I have an old friend that probably qualifies as near dunce, yet he and his father, who is exactly like him, used to run a multibillion dollar company that is very successful.

I believe that a degree simply saves you a lot of grief in proving yourself. If your good you will succeed, period. If you also have a degree you will succeed much quicker and get more respect by the eggheads that think degrees are everything. IBM, XEROX and Microsoft are (or were) headed by people without big time degrees. Yet Bill Gates wouldn't consider hiring you if you do not have a degree!!!!

I have BSEE and MSEE degrees, with enough additional courses to have a couple of PhD’s. Yet I made much more money than most people with any of those degrees, why? Because people were willing to pay for what I know, period.

Since I have degrees in engineering, I also had to take all the fairy nice courses to Round out my education. The only thing this actually did for me was to confirm that most of these people are certified NUTS. I read over 500 books for a contest in 8th grade. The liberal arts nuts seem to think that reading a book expands your mind. I claim that reading is no differen't than watching a tv program and does nothing more to expand your mind than the tv program would. And I used to read at over 2500 wpm with 100% comprehension in the 8th grade, I also maxed out all the reading comp tests then at a level of sr in college, so you are going to disagree with me??

[thrown_hammer]

I prefer Charmin to a diploma...

[89911]

only 26% of pop. has a 4 year degree!

Are you sure those stats aren't seriously being skewed by the population below the Mason-Dixon line?

[JeremyD]

Originally posted by 89911
only 26% of pop. has a 4 year degree!

Are you sure those stats aren't seriously being skewed by the population below the Mason-Dixon line?

Only because us really smart folks figured out that we can make a living and live in a warm climate year round.

[Rondinone]

Originally posted by snowman
...I have BSEE and MSEE degrees, with enough additional courses to have a couple of PhD’s.

There are no courses between a masters and PhD. The PhD is trained to generate knowledge, but has no more classes than a masters.

[Rondinone]

Originally posted by LubeMaster77
PhD work is funded by grant monies. I know folks with PhDs in everything from Art to Zoology and the only time any of them took out a student loan even was because they had mouths to feed and the TA position wasn't shelling out enough. Most of the good ones don't even TA they go straight to reasearch where the prof can use them like a vegas crack whore. Tuition is always covered.

The first year funds are normally covered by the school. The second on (and it can take 8 years BTW) is covered by your advisors grant money,

Masters work is different.

I don't know where the folks who paid for their PhDs went but something doesn't sound right.

Not always. Many disciplines don't have the outside support for grad students. I have known several people, at good schools (e.g. UNC) that were not supported because they were in liberal arts disciplines.

I just picked out Columbia's school of social work as an example:

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/ssw/phdprogram/financial/index.html

[89911]

Originally posted by JeremyD
Only because us really smart folks figured out that we can make a living and live in a warm climate year round.

Come on Jeremy. Your not from there originally. Take a detour next time and find an out of the way town and spend some meaningful time with some locals. Then tell me the school systems and education are on the same level of the Mid Atlantic states. Me thinks anyone with money is sending their kids to private or Catholic schools to get around this.

[charleskieffner]

with 1300 some odd views..........quite a topic. well is it worth nowadays to get a masters or doctorate? i'm taking 6 months off and want to get my masters at my advanced age. why? because i do enjoy school, the people, and what i learn. but should you get a masters in what you enjoy or follow your 4 year focus?

i am the poster child for " should have finished my degree instead of dropping out" 20 some odd years ago. going back is a GIANT EXPENSIVE PITA! no 2 ways about it. but i figure since i have a head of steam built up, may as well get a masters. i dont have mommy daddy paying for it either. nor is work paying for it. it all comes out of the p-car spending fund.

since i graduated cum laude and the honors society does offer schlorships i was going to look into that angle for funding. but either way, there is a fine line btwn being over educated and under educated.

book smart doesnt mean your smart. and hands on doesnt mean your smart!

[pmajka]

I was given advice by 2 wise men who have now passed on.

1. The Greatest University is nothing more than a well stocked Library. So what is in your Library?
--Arthur J. Oscinsky

2. Are you STUPID? No, Then can you read? Yes, then there is nothing you can't learn.
--Benjamin Fogahrty

As a College drop out, i own my dream car (although its quite used, 130Kmiles), i can affort to heat my house, eat, and pay my wifes medical expenses.

I guess book learning is important. School is a place to learn for those not motivated to learn on their own.

[JeremyD]

Originally posted by 89911
Come on Jeremy. Your not from there originally. Take a detour next time and find an out of the way town and spend some meaningful time with some locals. Then tell me the school systems and education are on the same level of the Mid Atlantic states. Me thinks anyone with money is sending their kids to private or Catholic schools to get around this.

Oh I agree with you there - my kids are in private schools at least through 8th grade - and I have lived in Indiana, Ohio, Texas and California - My wife came from Missouri, so I first hand know that each place has it's pluses and minuses.

You pay one way and in one form or another.

[M.D. Holloway]

Timely article placed today on my fav website www.manufacturing.net!

The "L" Word
By Mark Gottlieb, Manufacturing.net
Manufacturing.Net - January 31, 2007

In one memorable episode of the 1970s television program “All in the Family,” the show’s lead character, Archie Bunker, lands in hot water for making a costly mistake on the job.

Bunker works as the loading dock foreman at Prendergast Tool and Die, a medium-sized manufacturer in New York City. In the episode in question, he is told by his superior to send a recently completed order to London. He promptly does so, shipping the product at great expense across the Atlantic to London, England.

Unfortunately, the order was meant for a customer in the Canadian city of London, just across Lake Erie in the province of Ontario.

In the context of the show, Bunker’s blunder was meant to be amusing. But his gaffe inadvertently highlighted a problem in American manufacturing that has only grown increasingly pernicious over the past 30 years.

According to “All in the Family’s” backstory, Archie Bunker dropped out of high school during the Depression to go to work and support his family. Poor old Arch could, therefore, be forgiven his ignorance of geography and the world in general. But how do we explain a similar level of obtuseness among today’s college graduates, including tens of thousands who come out of American graduate schools with shiny new master’s degrees in business administration?

The problem, in the opinion of most observers, is that too many young people now see education as merely preparation for their first job. As a consequence, they tend to focus their efforts on obtaining only the information they believe will be necessary to land that first position and propel them out of the starting blocks on the fast track to promotion. With only one goal in mind, few ever give thought to the long-term value of a broad and wide-ranging liberal arts education.

It should be no surprise, then, that although Archie Bunker never attended a university or graduate school, his predicament at Prendergast Tool and Die derived from the same three causes that today produce so many problems inside American companies large and small.

First, Archie’s immediate superior did not communicate clearly – either orally or in writing – the true destination of the completed product.

Second, Archie lacked knowledge of the broader world beyond his loading dock; he simply didn’t know that London, Ontario, existed.

Third, and most important of all, Archie lacked the imagination, intellectual flexibility and critical-thinking skills to question his boss’s orders or, for that matter, the logic of his own actions.

Archie Bunker was merely a victim of the circumstances in which he grew up. But no such excuse can explain the Bunker-like mentality of so many young people entering the workforce today.

Whose fault is it? There is blame aplenty to go around, from an increasingly dysfunctional American educational system to self-blinkered students themselves. But a big dollop of culpability belongs on your plate as well.

A recent poll among business leaders nationally revealed the contradictory nature of your expectations. Some 63 percent of you noted that many new graduates do not possess the skills necessary to compete successfully in a global economy. At the same time, however, a mere 33 percent of you placed a high value on critical thinking and reasoning abilities among new hires. Even fewer – a lousy 30 percent – saw value in oral and written communication skills. Incredibly, the paramount capability that business leaders sought among new additions to their organizations was a willingness to engage in “teamwork.”

This is a skill?

Fully 69 percent of the respondents to the survey thought it very important for a young person’s education to include both broad knowledge and an in-depth focus on a specific area. Yet when pressed to specify the most sought after skill among new hires, it turned out to be the ability to subsume oneself within a group, to turn off one’s critical faculties, to find common ground and cooperate with others – whether or not those “others” know what in hell they’re talking about.

A liberal arts education is, by its nature, interdisciplinary. Its multiple benefits include the accumulation of a wide range of knowledge, as well as analytical and communication skills. Above all, a liberal arts education promotes the development of intellectual flexibility, adaptability to change, critical thinking, creative problem-solving and a global perspective.

These are not the ingredients of “teamwork.” They are, however, the prerequisites of leadership.

So the next time you need to make a hiring decision, it might be wise to ask that eager-beaver, MBA-waving candidate if his or her academic experience is built on the unshakable foundation of strengths that only the liberal arts provide.

Being a team player is fine, as far as it goes. But, as a wise man once said, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”

That line, by the way, comes from an essay called “Self-Reliance,” which was written more than 150 years ago by a rather well-known fellow named Ralph Waldo Emerson.

“Well-known,” that is, to someone with a solid grounding in the liberal arts.

[charleskieffner]

good insight lubemaster!