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So, college?
- Thread starter wild4oldcars
- Start date
Learning comes from many sources, takes many forms and covers many areas of life and experience.
Balance, to achieve your goals, is the key to making it an experience that will broaden your mind, brain and experience.
You are there for you and to embrace a unique experience which will equip you to move on with the next stage of your life.
Life has lots of aspects, learn and experience as much as you can to equip you for as many as possible.
College is an experience, not a classroom.
(This is my reflection on my experience, YMMV)
Balance, to achieve your goals, is the key to making it an experience that will broaden your mind, brain and experience.
You are there for you and to embrace a unique experience which will equip you to move on with the next stage of your life.
Life has lots of aspects, learn and experience as much as you can to equip you for as many as possible.
College is an experience, not a classroom.
(This is my reflection on my experience, YMMV)
I didn't see anything in the two posts you quoted that were mutually exclusive/contradictory. I agree with both posts.
This is SO TRUE! Nobody gets a well paying job with a degree in humanities, or women's studies, or undifferentiated liberal arts. Whatever your degree, minor in business. The management classes alone would be of value.
Yeah OK, you can find a well paying job in a college or university teaching others about humanities, or women's studies or undifferentiated liberal arts.
Or you can find a job in an unrelated field (see: me and millions of others)
Yah - myth. This is what I meant when I said you have to differentiate between the content of the courses you're taking and the skills you learn by taking them. There are all kinds of business majors whose skills at writing, communication, or information analysis absolutely suck. I know, I teach them. There are plenty of history majors who can size up just about any situation or load of information and rapidly sort out exactly what the issues are and what's going on, and communicate that to others clearly and vividly. I know, I teach them too. Any particulars of the office operations they can pick up as they go quite quickly. There are some fields - medicine, engineering, maybe a couple of others - where the actual skills are so specific you have to major in them in college. There are many many career options where that's not the case. A broad education, a strong skill set, and learning how to learn will take you much farther than a narrow training in how to do one job that new technology makes obsolete two years after you graduate anyway.
When you work, work hard. When you play, play hard. When doing one, NEVER even think about the other.
Don't just chase money with your choice of major. There are a lot of extremely well paying, incredibly dull jobs out there. Writing software code for example pays very well, but you will be sitting in one spot all day staring at a screen, and find yourself reinventing the wheel a lot. I hated every second of it, but it paid well.
You are going to encounter a lot of people with backgrounds and opinions that are very different than yours. Pick your battles wisely. People are going to say things that will just flat out offend you, learn to get a thick skin.
As long as you have a degree that gives you a career making enough money for you to live the life you want to live, you've been successful. Unless you plan on teaching, a bachelors should cut it, MBA if in business. You don't need a masters or PhD to do excellent engineering work for example.
The person claiming to have it all figured out never does.
Learning how to solve complex problems (regardless of nature) is way more valuable than memorizing information out of a book. Hands on classes that use case studies are the best to take, seek those out. Take classes that prioritize project work over test scores.
Don't just chase money with your choice of major. There are a lot of extremely well paying, incredibly dull jobs out there. Writing software code for example pays very well, but you will be sitting in one spot all day staring at a screen, and find yourself reinventing the wheel a lot. I hated every second of it, but it paid well.
You are going to encounter a lot of people with backgrounds and opinions that are very different than yours. Pick your battles wisely. People are going to say things that will just flat out offend you, learn to get a thick skin.
As long as you have a degree that gives you a career making enough money for you to live the life you want to live, you've been successful. Unless you plan on teaching, a bachelors should cut it, MBA if in business. You don't need a masters or PhD to do excellent engineering work for example.
The person claiming to have it all figured out never does.
Learning how to solve complex problems (regardless of nature) is way more valuable than memorizing information out of a book. Hands on classes that use case studies are the best to take, seek those out. Take classes that prioritize project work over test scores.
I have had some properly wacky professors, even one old dude who wore as skirt and tights (no, it wasn't a kilt).
I had the pleasure of being lectured and running a teaching lab with a phenomenal academic during my MSc and PhD. He didn't like lecturing, I may not be a psychologist but the guy exhibited a number of autistic traits, at the very least he was an extreme introvert. But, the mention of laser systems, and he's be off. Had more patents than most academics have papers. His base knowledge was mind boggling, you couldn't help but be awestruck. I have worked with a lot of academics, a lot of international experts and a good number who literally wrote the book on a subject, but he's something else.
Certainly someone that - from a lecture - you wouldn't think much of him, but one-to-one it was a truly humbling experience.
slobake
resident ... something
There are several companies that promoted me to management mostly because I am a hard worker and have good communication skills. I reached a certain level of management and couldn't past that because I didn't have a college degree. My co-worker who has a degree in music was promoted. You see it happen all the time, companies don't care what your degree is in as much as they care if you have one.
I have a question for those of you who know a lot more about higher education than I do. Do you think there is a lot more to college than preparing for a career? I think that at one time universities were a place you went to become a more rounded person. Is that true?
I have met many "successful" people who were miserable. Right now Robin Williams comes to mind. Would things be different for him if he had learned more about being a human being and dealing with life's struggles?
First time caller long time listener, I'll take my answer off the air.
slobake
resident ... something
I've been in higher ed for 35 years. Here's what I told my daughters before they went to college:
To PASS your classes, do the following:
1) SHOW UP. Attend every class, every day. You can't succeed if you don't show up. Most of what you need to know will be discussed. You paid for the class - go to it!
2) TAKE NOTES. The physical act of note taking aids memory. This also means you don't spend class time surfing the web or on Facebook. To take notes, you have to pay attention.
3) Before every test, READ YOUR NOTES. You will remember a lot by reviewing your own notes.
4) DO THE WORK. You'd be amazed how many people don't participate in group work, and never turn in written work, even if they've done most of it. Inconceivable!
Now, to do more than pass:
5) READ THE BOOK. If it's not in the lecture, it's in the book.
6) Treat your studies LIKE A JOB. You're paying a lot of money for those classes - treat them seriously.
If you're in some programs like Engineering or Statistics, you'll have to work harder than this - but the first two years in most 4-year programs are general classes, not highly specialized ones. You have time to learn that as you go.
The rest is details like roommates, social stuff, etc. Many students get in real trouble the first semester because they go a bit wild being away from home. Be moderate!
To PASS your classes, do the following:
1) SHOW UP. Attend every class, every day. You can't succeed if you don't show up. Most of what you need to know will be discussed. You paid for the class - go to it!
2) TAKE NOTES. The physical act of note taking aids memory. This also means you don't spend class time surfing the web or on Facebook. To take notes, you have to pay attention.
3) Before every test, READ YOUR NOTES. You will remember a lot by reviewing your own notes.
4) DO THE WORK. You'd be amazed how many people don't participate in group work, and never turn in written work, even if they've done most of it. Inconceivable!
Now, to do more than pass:
5) READ THE BOOK. If it's not in the lecture, it's in the book.
6) Treat your studies LIKE A JOB. You're paying a lot of money for those classes - treat them seriously.
If you're in some programs like Engineering or Statistics, you'll have to work harder than this - but the first two years in most 4-year programs are general classes, not highly specialized ones. You have time to learn that as you go.
The rest is details like roommates, social stuff, etc. Many students get in real trouble the first semester because they go a bit wild being away from home. Be moderate!
That's a great point slobake. A big problem in our economy is companies insisting on having a degree just to give you a job. Quite frankly, most jobs don't need degrees and the only time you actually need the degree is to keep your resume from getting thrown in the trash. Companies require it though, a lot of times they don't even know why.
I was always paid less than my peers for doing the same job, just because they have a higher level of education than me. Paid less even though I outworked them and got better reviews. They had book knowledge, not practical knowledge. I always met with important customers, was the guy that flew to the customer site to fix a hot problem, and they sat in the lab drinking coffee, making more than me, with the same job title. My peers could not configure their own test racks, I did a lot of that for them, it was kinda sad how useless some of them were.
I was always paid less than my peers for doing the same job, just because they have a higher level of education than me. Paid less even though I outworked them and got better reviews. They had book knowledge, not practical knowledge. I always met with important customers, was the guy that flew to the customer site to fix a hot problem, and they sat in the lab drinking coffee, making more than me, with the same job title. My peers could not configure their own test racks, I did a lot of that for them, it was kinda sad how useless some of them were.
Is anyone else struck by the irony of so much disdain for the humanities...on a forum populated by musicians?
All the advice in the world is pointless if we don't know the subject.
To the OP:
Why are you going to college? What are you studying? Big school, small school? What's your background? What do you expect? Introvert/extrovert? Do you want a life that proceeds in a fairly orderly fashion, or do you enjoy some chaos, some discovery? What do you love already, what do you hate?
All the advice in the world is pointless if we don't know the subject.
To the OP:
Why are you going to college? What are you studying? Big school, small school? What's your background? What do you expect? Introvert/extrovert? Do you want a life that proceeds in a fairly orderly fashion, or do you enjoy some chaos, some discovery? What do you love already, what do you hate?
Or more generally be real carful who you trust with your future.
This is a very good specific example.
