Iregret not getting my PhD when it would have been easier. Now as I approach retirement, teaching in my golden years will be limited to high school science.

I've got a BS in Philosophy and Psychology, and an MBA with emphasis in labor relations and statistics. I'd do it over in a heartbeat. The education has definitely helped my career, and the memories are priceless. Like the time Doug tried to ride an Elk after a Rocket Fuel Party.

My experience with tech school, exactly the same. Learnt more in my first week in the field than in 18 months in tech school, and never once ever had any employer ask(or care if i mentioned it) about my assoc. degree in auto/diesel technology.

College= total waste of a vast sum of money to feed my political opponents my money.

Bro, honestly, jobs don't even check or ask about a degree. I know several people working in various fields with nothing but a photocopied/photoshopped degree.

College is IMO one big scam.

I just recently looked into some art programs(yes, i am an artist too), and was horrified to learn that they all make you take the full boatload of college courses. Math, history, english, etc, etc.

WTF does any of this have to do with drawing/painting?

NOTHING, it's about lining the school's pockets with cash. I told them to pound sand. I'm going to look into rental property purchases instead.

It has everything to do with it. An artist that doesn't have some understanding of math, history, etc will likely not be an artist.

College is not the only way to gain knowledge, but it can be important for many. And it isn't just about learning facts...

1). You can get all the education in the world and still be a college educated idiot. Not to be or sound harsh but they are out there, (I've worked with far to many). With your education get practical experience also. You'll not only benefit from it you'll also gain the respect of your peers.


2). An engineering degree would open a whole new set of opportunities for you. You could get a job doing just about anything.
Personally I don't have a degree but am doing alright for myself. Close to a six figure income, company car, etc. As with Jeff I don't have regrets but would have gone onto college had the circumstances been different when I was a young man.

3). One more thing... enjoy your youth!!!!!!!

Silly, i've been painting and sketching for decades(though i lost the fire about 8-9 years ago, and am now just considering getting back into it), had a few works in the Philadelphia Art museum (HS days), and i've never taken a single college math class. History= equally irrelevant. English and language classes= equally irrelevant.

These things have -nothing- to do with art. Hell, they have less than nothing to do with art.

All one needs to be an artist is paper, pencil, eyes, a soul, and inspiration. And nothing else.

Nothing.

Spending time around other artists and learning their techniques would be useful, which is why i was interested, but again- this has nothing to do with a general college curriculum.

It is a TOTAL money grab, and nothing else.

You completely miss the point. Higher education is both about opening your mind and learning skills.

In any top-shelf job worth having you will constantly need to demonstrate an open (ie., sound) mind and relevant skills.

I would encourage any young person to challenge themselves as fully as possible in university, and to acquire the best possible academic grounding for the career you want to pursue.

Being a charlatan with a photoshopped degree is a pretty stupid career plan IMO.

Hi Scott, i have two BS's (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science), two MS's (same) and an MBA - would highly recommend getting as much education as you can, you won't regret it! I learned a lot just by being in an academic environment, not just being in classes. most importantly, take classes that you enjoy. good luck, Evren

That isn't true, especially with the sciences. Now don't get me wrong. I'm no proponent of college for the sake of just going. Isn't it the, as I say above, college educated idiots, that has our country in the pickle it's in? But for the sciences you have to have a higher education. Where are you going to learn such things as, the density of steels, molecular biology, etc and be able to put them to use. There is a whole world out there to explore. But an education without common sense is useless as tits on a bull.

Job market sucks right now. Get your masters and an MBA. Maybe in 2 years, the job market will be better.

I agree with that, too. Hey, if you can get the money for school w/o mortgaging your entire future, I'd grab as many brass rings as possible.

Yeah...but Evren got all these degrees from that well known papermill, that school for boneheads. M.I.T. I mean, how good can that school be? They don't even have a football team!

Both my children are smart, perhaps very smart if you include work ethic and common sense.

I have planned for their college with conditions. They can seek their muse as long as they get two degrees: One in their as yet to be decided major and one in business or finance.

Or they can pay the freight, get a scholarship or decide not to go to college.

i dont think a master's in civil would be time/money well spent. personally, i dont know of anyone with one..well, one, but she went into business.

i have two degrees...my second is a BS in civil engineering. it aint sexy, but it is steady. in this climate, my wife thinks it is pretty sexy.

I don't think you'll get into Haas' MBA program without at least a few years of work experience. Same for most any top-drawer program. So save that degree for later.

Otherwise, this is the time to pursue your interests, and if that means engineering then go get that BS degree.

You have a PM too.

my g/f who is an artist who has shown around the world, would violently disagree. Of course college isn't necessary, but to say that math, english, history are irrelevant to art is ridiculous. One cannot be an artist in a vacuum. While you don't need necessarily take a math class, an understanding of algebra and calculus can open up artistic opportunities and approaches. For instance in my g/f's current installation, she spent time reading up on quantum mechanics in order to conceptualize her pieces. And she in fact regrets not taking more science classes when she was in school.

You are focused on technique. That is not what art is about. It is part of it, but not nearly all of it. You might want to take some art history classes to understand that ;)

A degree GENERALLY opens doors. A truly motivated person can go just as far (if not further) than their degreed counterparts without one, but this is typically not how it works. A corollary is that a degree does not guarantee anything - there are plenty of degree programs (and schools to peddle them) that are utterly worthless in preparing students for any sort of "real" career that won't require two or three supplemental jobs flipping burgers in order to not starve.

However in general I find that you get out of your degree programs what you put into them. Within certain constraints (like the current economy for example). Plenty of people out there with "good" degrees out there sitting around out of work going broke. It's not always that way, but ultimately I think the degree means far less than the individual person.

I do agree with sniper to a point too - there are TONS of schools out there that are just degree factories. If you can write a big enough check, you'll get the degree. No matter what. They'll make sure you get it. Schools don't actually fail anyone anymore (very few). I know several people at the undergrad and graduate levels that should have been booted after one semester but went on to get degrees. By contrast, I knew very skilled, talented and dedicated guys that had to quit because of money concerns. It's hardly a perfect system.

A degree these days tells me that so-and-so was able to write enough checks to get through the program and was willing to attend classes for four years. That's about it. I don't read much more into them. I'm much more concerned with "can they write", "can they spell correctly", "can they do math correctly without a calculator" and "do they understand basic concepts of logic". If so, they're teachable. If not, they're not and as such, they're basically not employable, typically.

Yeah right. Try this in law or medicine or engineering for example and see how far you get.

One can open their mind FAR better in the REAL world than they can in some little liberal dream world afaic.

Yet the charlatan with the photoshopped degree will make just as much as you- faster- and without wasting $100k and facing 10 years or more of loan payments. (BTW, i do not do this, but i know a lot of people that have/do)

Let's face it, if you actually learned anything in college people wouldn't be able to pull that little game off, would they? The fact that any schmoe on the street can photocopy a degree and still hold and even excel at the job is proof positive that college isn't teaching you anything you need to do the job that you cannot get in a mere few weeks/months of OJT to begin with.

For some areas- medicine, engineering, chemistry, etc, sure, you need it. But for most fields? Total waste of money. I honestly learned more in one week working in a shop than i did in 18 months of tech school.

A few years ago i was going to go for MSCSE and several tech guys i knew told me it was a total waste of money, and that the things you'd learn are useless in the field, and that i'd learn far more working at a place like comp useless or equiv than i would ever learn in one of those computer schools. IOW, it was no different than my experience in the auto/diesel field. I paid $10k + to learn, essentially, nothing that i could not have learned in a few weeks of OJT.

That's the reality of the situation. I know it's not going to be popular with the "higher education" lovers here, but it's the truth.