How Often Is a Degree a Negative
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Anyway, many top Universities are still at the cutting edge of research in modern technology, so if you want to operate at that level I still think they are the places to be. I work in SMB which isn't generally cutting edge so it would be of little use to me. But if you want a career at CERN or NASA I imagine a good degree is essential for most
Universities are good for doing research. I agree. That doesn't mean that they have good educations. A major US university became famous when they said they had no mandate to educate students and that students only existed to fund the researchers. So that's why that is the way that it is.
Yes, CERN or NASA. But those are very, very rare programs and I bet even there there are other ways in that people just don't talk about or try. But you are talking about tiny pools of government jobs. If you want the cutting edge of IT, universities are nowhere to be seen.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
@Carnival-Boy Rankings don't mean a thing. I know many people going there and who have went there recently. It's a party atmosphere now. and most all professors are just giving easy A's since the students were able to get it to the college.
I attended the college ranked #1 in the world for my program and all but one program that they had when I was there. I dropped out because the educational experience was so poor. We blew the doors off of any Ivy League school when I was there. Not only were we top ranked in educational value, we also had the highest SAT average of incoming students and were the most selective - accepting only 300 each year of 17,000 applicants and because of the kind of school it was only the very elite even applied. Getting into Harvard or CalTech or MIT was considered trivial by comparison. And still, the education wasn't only mediocre.
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There's a guy on SW who constantly speaks up the college to an insane degree, and I've gotten into it with him several times over several topics, even in PM. His views of programming as well are super idealistic and don't really fit reality, and instead fit more what college teach about how things are supposed to be done, than the actual sausage-factory manner that goals actually get met. He's a smart guy, no doubt, but he's super idealistic and I think that's what happens with too much college and not enough experience, speaking of on another thread a while back I recall he and @scottalanmiller got into it because he was saying he deserved an automatic management position because college gave him experience and taught him everything he needed to know, even how to manage people, deal with unexpected issues, etc. I jumped on there too, but since then he hasn't learned anything new in that area it seems.
Aside from that mindset, another I've run into, especially on SW (I run into the above everywhere) is the whole ITT Tech thing (including similar schools), I even had one guy on there threatening to kick my ass because I told him that school was a waste of time and money. The sad part is they actively pull from armed services members as well. There's no reason a crappy college should cost $480 per credit hour, when you can go to a community college and get a more respectable degree for $80 - $150 per credit hour (depending on where you live). Hell, I paid $520 or so when I went to Columbia in the late 90s, and that's a much more respectable school and yet doesn't cost much more than crappy ITT Tech or any other similar school. And yet, if you bring this up, especially on SW, you'll get railed with people saying you're wrong and that having their degree wasn't a colossal waste of money.
One guy even asked what sort of "magical school" cost less than $400 per credit hour, and the answer is a state school, a community college, etc. He never followed up, but from the context I recall he seemed to think college prices in New York were the only prices, but that's typical, as I recall from living in New York, people there don't even tend to realise the rest of the country even exists most of the time.
I've also talked about on SW that if I see they got a "degree" from a place like ITT Tech or ITT Tech, and don't seem to have any experience at all, I'll automatically throw their résumé in the trash (or the metaphorical digital trash). I'm not the only person that does this either, a friend of mine will only hire ITT Tech people at minimum wage, if at all, and he's got loads of them.
Something that strikes me about ITT Tech commercials and IT is that they promise an entry level position, well shoot, you can get that without any college at all, and without wasting the damn money, just don't bring that up to people on Spiceworks, lest they threaten to kick your ass for it.
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@tonyshowoff said:
One guy even asked what sort of "magical school" cost less than $400 per credit hour, and the answer is a state school, a community college, etc. He never followed up, but from the context I recall he seemed to think college prices in New York were the only prices, but that's typical, as I recall from living in New York, people there don't even tend to realise the rest of the country even exists most of the time.
NY is actually pretty cheap. I did my degree in NY and it was trivial to pay for while going to school while working minimum wage style jobs (grocery store cashier, hotel clerk, etc.) Not as cheap as some places, but only a little more for a globally recognized degree.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@tonyshowoff said:
One guy even asked what sort of "magical school" cost less than $400 per credit hour, and the answer is a state school, a community college, etc. He never followed up, but from the context I recall he seemed to think college prices in New York were the only prices, but that's typical, as I recall from living in New York, people there don't even tend to realise the rest of the country even exists most of the time.
NY is actually pretty cheap. I did my degree in NY and it was trivial to pay for while going to school while working minimum wage style jobs (grocery store cashier, hotel clerk, etc.) Not as cheap as some places, but only a little more for a globally recognized degree.
What sort of magical New York is this you speak of?!
People like that only speak from their personal experience and apply it to the rest of the world, if he spent a boat load on college, he assumes that's the only price you can spend on it. Also buying cigarettes and milk in NY sucks, and btw that's all I eat.
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@tonyshowoff said:
What sort of magical New York is this you speak of?!
I went to SUNY Monroe Community College and SUNY Empire State College. Both were super cheap. My wife went to SUNY Geneseo. Not quite as cheap, but still quite affordable.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@tonyshowoff said:
What sort of magical New York is this you speak of?!
I went to SUNY Monroe Community College and SUNY Empire State College. Both were super cheap. My wife went to SUNY Geneseo. Not quite as cheap, but still quite affordable.
I went to Columbia, was not cheap, thank god I made a lot of money off porno, because for a long time I was still paying a lot of debt off for a degree in nuclear science I've never even used.
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Empire State College used to brag about being the lowest cost, accredited university in the northeast US.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Empire State College used to brag about being the lowest cost, accredited university in the northeast US.
I have an Israeli friend who went there. I don't go to a school unless it costs a ton of money and gives me bragging rights, he said smugly.
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If people are going to go to school. NTG pretty much always recommends Empire and a BA in a liberal program.
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@scottalanmiller said:
only the very elite even applied. Getting into Harvard or CalTech or MIT was considered trivial by comparison.Blimey, where was it?
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
only the very elite even applied. Getting into Harvard or CalTech or MIT was considered trivial by comparison.Blimey, where was it?
LOL, Flint, Michigan! It used to be GMI. It was a pure engineering school set up by the big US companies to train the best engineers. It was GM, Ford, Chrysler, AT&T, UPS, Exxon, Mobile (they were separate then), and tons of other Fortune 100's private engineering training ground. It was sponsored and hosted inside GM's heavy truck facility in Flint in the middle of Buick City and the big sponsors provided all of the money, equipment, professors, oversight, etc. It's job placement was above 99% (only those who didn't want jobs didn't get them back then) and they were the highest average income for graduates of any undergrad program in the nation. They did school year round, three months class, three months working with a sponsor, three months class, three months working with a sponsor. No breaks, only five days off a year. The undergrad program was five years long and accepted transfers from only RIT, no other college, and RIT credits were taken at 2/3rds value (RIT is where I am now doing my Master's.)
It was a crazy school. But because it was the school built by the biggest engineering houses to be their own engineering training ground it was driven hard to be the best. Imagine if Microsoft, Google, Cisco, Oracle and fifty other top software firms got together and built their own software engineering college with no outside input and no budget constraints. They'd produce a school that no one else could touch. That's what this was like and it had a nearly 100 year tradition behind it.
Two of GM's top CEOs came from there. The big Sloan-Kettering Cancer Research Center in the US is named for two of the graduates.
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My dad was ranked top in his field when he retired and was also the youngest engineering that Eastman Kodak had ever hired (when he started.) My dad got to work on the manned space program and on spy satellites and those weren't what he considered major achievements. And he didn't manage to get into GMI - which had a lot to do with why I was so intent on going there.
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I still have a scholarship to the University of Rochester. It's unlikely that I will ever use it though by the time I paid for room & board it's not worth it (the scholarship requires on campus housing)
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@thecreativeone91 said:
I still have a scholarship to the University of Rochester. It's unlikely that I will ever use it though by the time I paid for room & board it's not worth it (the scholarship requires on campus housing)
Room and board in Roch-cha-cha is like free. You have no idea how cheap life can be till you live in Rochester.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@thecreativeone91 said:
I still have a scholarship to the University of Rochester. It's unlikely that I will ever use it though by the time I paid for room & board it's not worth it (the scholarship requires on campus housing)
Room and board in Roch-cha-cha is like free. You have no idea how cheap life can be till you live in Rochester.
Lived in Rochester for awhile. This statement is very true. It is comparable to living where I do now... except with better internet access and a smaller house.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@thecreativeone91 said:
I still have a scholarship to the University of Rochester. It's unlikely that I will ever use it though by the time I paid for room & board it's not worth it (the scholarship requires on campus housing)
Room and board in Roch-cha-cha is like free. You have no idea how cheap life can be till you live in Rochester.
The University charges around $15k per year for room & board
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@thecreativeone91 said:
The University charges around $15k per year for room & board
Oh, that's not room and board. That's just another way to charge you for attending the university. They are still charging you to take classes there, they are just calling it room and board so that they can claim to give you a free ride. That's BS. That's like McDonald's claiming that French fries are a free gift, but require that you only get them in a combo meal.
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Actual cost of room and board in Rochester is far less than that. You can get an apartment there for $400 or less.
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Seriously you could live here for less than $2k a month that would include going out to eat a ton, eating really well and entertainment.
