EPTUniversity A neccesity? - Page 8
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tofucake
Hyrule19188 Posts
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pHelix Equilibria
United States1134 Posts
On January 06 2011 06:17 Empyrean wrote: You could have wasted four years of your life getting an art history degree when you could've been working, and then graduate with an unemployable degree while being mired in student loan debt. So, college is a gamble? =o | ||
Empyrean
17031 Posts
Not if you choose an employable degree. | ||
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c0ldfusion
United States8293 Posts
Guys, OP is studying comp sci - where I think the decision is pretty cut and dry. So, to the OP - If you want to be a premier software engineer at a big firm, you'll need the theory taught in a rigorous 4 year program. Even if you want to start your own firm, you'll find possible business partners and possible investors during your years in school. | ||
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eth3n
718 Posts
What the fuck do those people from the other 90% of schools do? LONG STORY SHORT, DONT GO TO LAWSCHOOL IN AMERICA UNLESS ITS YALE/HARVARD/STANFORD (i wouldnt even go to columbia [#4]) | ||
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Mortality
United States4790 Posts
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justle
United States174 Posts
I graduated in May from San Francisco State University. I was one of the lucky graduates who got a job in my field of study (electronic media) right out of college. A college degree is a requirement for most entry-level positions in offices. The reality is that when upper management positions at corporations are posted online in my industry, 200-300 qualified applicants (with college degrees and tons of experience) apply for every single one. The saturation is even higher for entry-level positions. Without a college degree you don't stand a chance. Even with a college degree, your chances are very slim unless you've accrued internship experience, freelance/industry experience, and graduated with honors or with some kind of recognition. There is hope, but it starts with a college degree. Use college as an opportunity to learn your craft (at least the fundamentals), gain real world experience via internships and freelance projects, and make valuable contacts that you will be able to work with in the future. | ||
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justle
United States174 Posts
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Deja Thoris
South Africa646 Posts
On January 06 2011 06:33 eth3n wrote: I have a commendable undergraduate double major, I am currently in a top tier law school (USA), I will likely be 250k in debt with very little chance to actually even FIND A JOB and practically no chance to pay it back. Note, there are over 200 (not including correspondance/online) law schools in america, and I am in a law school in the top 10% of all of those, at the top of my class, with great accolades, and I will not be able to find a job. What the fuck do those people from the other 90% of schools do? LONG STORY SHORT, DONT GO TO LAWSCHOOL IN AMERICA UNLESS ITS YALE/HARVARD/STANFORD (i wouldnt even go to columbia [#4]) Network more. Most doors in my life have opened through who I knew, not what I knew. Of course you need the right credentials but when the employer knows you from golf or being in the same club or whatever, it certainly distinguishes you from generic wonderboy candiate #37. (Although having said that you need to get your foot in at least one door to start the process :/ ) | ||
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Inside.Out
Canada569 Posts
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teh leet newb
United States1999 Posts
On January 06 2011 07:49 justle wrote: Also, the school you graduate from rarely matters unless the person conducting the interview graduated from there as well. Since everyone who you will be competing with will have a college degree, all that matters is that you graduated from an accredited university. More important is your work/internship experience. Have fun in college, but work hard! Also, not true at all. Lots of top tier companies only have a pool of 10-20 universities that they recruit from. Going to a school not on that list just makes your chances so much slimmer. Not saying it's not possible, it's just a lot harder. On January 06 2011 08:46 EcstatiC wrote: there was a season of 'The Apprentice' where they had college graduates v non-graduates, and it was basically even all the way through, with the 2 finalists being one from each side. The non-graduate contestants on the show represented some of the brightest, most hard-working, and lucky people from the "non-graduate pool". Most people will never end up like them. | ||
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Igakusei
United States610 Posts
On January 06 2011 07:49 justle wrote: Also, the school you graduate from rarely matters unless the person conducting the interview graduated from there as well. Since everyone who you will be competing with will have a college degree, all that matters is that you graduated from an accredited university. More important is your work/internship experience. Have fun in college, but work hard! This is more true in some fields and rather false in others. Take law, for instance, as posted just above. Law is stupidly competitive because there are far more law school seats than profitable lawyer positions. The top 10% of lawyers make bank while the bottom 90% fight for table scraps. If you go to (and do well at) a top law university, you have a much, MUCH better chance of networking with successful lawyers who can get you an internship at a successful law firm in your chosen field (and thereby increase your chances of being in that top 10%). If you go to Podunk law school in rural Mississippi, you're going to have to claw your way up from the bottom on your own unless you already have a network via your family or something. That said, this is mostly true for graduate degrees (like law and others) where your undergrad experience basically exists to get you into a good graduate school. Going to a top undergrad *can* make you more competitive, but if you get a 4.0 at a small underfunded state school and do very well your GRE/MCAT/LSAT/etc you are still easily competitive for top 5 graduate programs. | ||
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Krallin
France431 Posts
You've got to realize that higher education is not only about the courses, it's also about the people you'll meet, the support you'll receive from alumni, the help your university will provide you when it comes down to finding an internship or a first job. Well, at least, that's how it is in the best schools in my country, but I think that there wil be similarities to a certain extent. | ||
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jimminy_kriket
Canada5525 Posts
Don't be fooled and think that people who don't go to university are all dumb and unhappy. There are many high paying and satisfactory jobs out there that require no educational achievements whatsoever. For example, I have always thought you need to go to university or college to find a good job and be "successful" because that is basically what high school teaches you. I went to college last year, and it sucked. I hated it, because I didn't choose a field I was actually interested in. I chose something I thought would look good on a resume and pay well. That all changed this summer when I got a job at a bee farm. I thought I was going to hate it, hard labor all for nothing but money - a dead end job. Boy was I wrong. It was the most fun/satisfactory job I've ever had. We got tons of exercise I haven't had in ages. We never took work home with us, when it was done it was done. Worked extremely flexible hours - if I was going to be drinking the night before work I would just tell my boss and we would start an hour later. It was amazing. And the best part of it was how relatively easy it was for the insane amount of money it produced. Over the course of the summer we worked about 6 hours almost every day for about 3 months. It's alot easier than it sounds. And for just that little bit of work, my boss would bring in over $100,000. $100,000 for three months of work. That is the kind of shit you dream about when you go to university. And then he has the entire winter, 8+ months, to do whatever the hell he wants. And there are tons of jobs like this. We would take the wax from the extracted and broken bee frames and sell it to a guy who melted it down and sent it to the states. You know how much he brought in each year? Close to a million dollars my boss told me. Just for melting down wax, because there just wasn't anyone else around that did it. And I guarantee you he didn't go to school for that job. You just gotta find something you like that not many people are doing yet. Whether its through university or not, I'm sure there's tons of stuff out there that you would like. | ||
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Empyrean
17031 Posts
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Frits
11782 Posts
Ofcourse in holland you can do fuck all all your life and still reach a point where money never is an issue unless you want to make a shitload of money, in america things are different obviously. | ||
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GreatFall
United States1061 Posts
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Nevermind86
Somalia429 Posts
Think about how much time you dedicate to extracurriculars and just wasting time. At least 25 hours/week I'd say. Cut in on some sleep and you're set. If I-Bankers can work 80-100 hours a week, you can probably push yourself through a full-time job and school if you try hard enough. This guy just described the history of my life, I'm going to tell you why this is completely wrong, okay here I go: When I was 18 years old I had a job as an assistant computer technician, I was making good money for my age but also I had enough free time to hang out with my friends, practice judo/jiu jitsu and play a lot of wc3, at some point I even became pretty good at that game. I consider myself a smart person, I knew that if I kept putting dedication to my job I could become really good at it, save some money and end up running my own business in around 3 years, that could have been a good path in life. But my family and especially society sells an idea of "succesful man", as an old fat dude in a suit saying he's important. I wanted big things back then, so I decided to go to university to become a lawyer, but because it was really expensive I had to work in a full time job all those years. I became a good friend of one of my professors, he knew about my dedication, so he helped me get a full time job in a big lawfirm before graduating. It was like a dream. In reality it was exhausting, working there sucked any life I still had left, my day would be wake up 6:30 am or earlier to be at work at 7:30 am, get out of work at 6 pm, then go to university until 10 or 11 pm, and repeat. Weekends were just sleeping too much and too much internet. Here I am now, I'm 25 years old, I graduated as a lawyer finally in august 2010, the lawfirm offered me a job as a fulltime lawyer there since I've worked for them for already 2 years. Finally I could have my big fucking audi in no time, think about it, it's a fucking audi!! I decided to quit the lawfirm after a few months of taking people's houses for not paying their mortgages, if they had kids or not, if they were sick or not, if they were crying or not it was my duty to take their houses because the banks CEO's need more money. I look back at my years in the university and all I see is I never had a real girlfriend, never went to parties worth remenbering, my vacations was staying home because university is too expensive rather than traveling through europe or argentina or whatever. If you ask anyone which years of their life were the best ones, we can be sure everyone would agree about being 18-25, but I completely wasted it, if I could go back in time would I do it completely different? I'm pretty fucking sure. | ||
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Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
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Retgery
Canada1229 Posts
It all depend son what you major in, as someone said before: If you go for an arts degree or something your not gonna get very far. It's always good to go for an business degree, or engineering tech degree. If your really smart you can make it as a Doctor or Engineer | ||
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