[EastCoaster]

This is a very interesting thread.

But isn't this degree or no degree thing a direct reflection of what we expect from our kids from the start? Society as a whole? I mean... we can divert into the stick and ball sport subject (I prefer soccer if it has to involve a ball) but....
Everyone gets to have an "at bat"..... we don't keep score..... everyone wins.......
This is what we show our children about "competition" from a young age? Being your best? Yet, there's a whole other discussion about what the same stick and ball sport "heroes" show our kids... that it looks like it's an easy ride to "get there". Our kids are unable to deal with rejection.... LOSING.

This rolls over into acedemia.

I have a few friends who are teachers. Elementary, Middle, and High School.....Most of them REALLY care.... and yet deal pretty much with what has has already been posted.....

We are a society that has come to expect mediocrity......degree or no degree....

 

[DirtyMike]

This is a very interesting thread.

But isn't this degree or no degree thing a direct reflection of what we expect from our kids from the start? Society as a whole? I mean... we can divert into the stick and ball sport subject (I prefer soccer if it has to involve a ball) but....
Everyone gets to have an "at bat"..... we don't keep score..... everyone wins.......
This is what we show our children about "competition" from a young age? Being your best? Yet, there's a whole other discussion about what the same stick and ball sport "heroes" show our kids... that it looks like it's an easy ride to "get there". Our kids are unable to deal with rejection.... LOSING.

This rolls over into acedemia.

I have a few friends who are teachers. Elementary, Middle, and High School.....Most of them REALLY care.... and yet deal pretty much with what has has already been posted.....

We are a society that has come to expect mediocrity......degree or no degree....

Thank you for the sports comparision...... If My kid loses at sports I wont coddle him with well its just for fun, everyone wins crap....... I want to know that In that situation they can be taught to drive to get better.

Guess thats why I dont have kids, I want to be able to say my kids won, your lost... I want to be able to see my kids lost, and teach them drive and ambitiont o push harder to do better, Truly it does start here.

 

[EastCoaster]

Expected that type of response when I posted.... Guess that I could've brought my point across a little better... like one poster said, I cobbled together a bunch of thoughts.....
My last sentence in my post says it all.... and maybe I should've left it at that.
But, until you actually have a kid, STFU about what what you "would do"......
Apologies to the OP.... Not trying to derail the thread.

 

[DirtMcGirk]

I've often wondered if anyone even checks the background of most people who put "BA/BS" on their resume. Honestly, once you get past the $12 to $15 per hour mark, most people just assume, perhaps wrongly, that you have a degree. Do employers check this?

When I first went off to college, I wanted to drink, play rugby, ride my bike, and hammer everything with two breasts and moderately warm hole. I was in no way ready to actually learn. And two years later when the rugby team got kicked off campus, my ways caught up to me. Found myself in the Army, and that smartened me up pretty good and quick. When I got out four years later, I had a degree and a Masters, and a lot of respect for earning that.

It just doesn't seem that way now.

If I had it all to do over again I would have learned math and science.

 

[ruralrider]

To me college seems like it is much more of a business than school. I know all to well of people with masters that aren't even working on the level that their degree dictates they should have. I personally believe it is how you present yourself and your core work ethic that will be much more important to an employer. I think a degree just gets you noticed initially. Once someone gets into a possible career path they will need to re learn everything that they had to beforehand anyways. I personally am en route to an associates degree, I will see how far that can get me.

My hopes are that an associates would be able to land me a decent job with plenty of room for moving forward with an employer that actually realizes the effort I put into my days there. So to answer the question, I don't think a degree has been cheapened. A degree has been over valued for some time now. You will learn more about a certain career by actually being involved in one. Its a real sh*t situation for someone with a decent degree today without real experience since seemingly no prospective employer wants a fresh grad. You are either "overqualified" or underqualified due to lack of experience.

Yet companies have total idiots as CEO's who screw the company and a lot of people over constantly. My opinion is you cant go wrong with someone who is willing to learn and correct their mistakes regardless of experience, versus taking on someone who has an over inflated view of themselves that cant admit or see their mistakes. Rant over

 

[DirtyMike]

Expected that type of response when I posted.... Guess that I could've brought my point across a little better... like one poster said, I cobbled together a bunch of thoughts.....
My last sentence in my post says it all.... and maybe I should've left it at that.
But, until you actually have a kid, STFU about what what you "would do"......
Apologies to the OP.... Not trying to derail the thread.

Trying to put to words what I feel about that statement. For the most part I would agree with you for most people who pass the words "would do, if I had a kid". I come from an old school type family, I guarantee I can raise a child better than half the nitwhits out there. I am alo a very large part in the raising of my neices and nephews, teaching them stuff just like what you said. Being an example that if you want something you have to work for it, its not going to be given to you.

For the record I don't think you cobbled a bunch of thought together, I think you really did hit the nail on the head as to were it really is starting.

 

[AngryMetalsmith]

Sarah Palin went to college, five of them I think, and she can't even read a newspaper.

 

[Westy]

How does that compare to the cost of education to get the MS/PhD? Of course if your employer paid for it that's a different story.

I can only speak of techincal fields but most MS students are funded through research and pretty much every PhD student. Tuition and health insurance is paid for with a small stipend that places them in abject poverty.

I am actually back at school to get my MS in Mechanical Engineering. Not so much for the advanced degree but because I didn't really work as an engineer for the past 10 years and wanted to get back into a technical position. To do that I really needed an updated education. I didn't see the point in doing anything other than building off of my BS. It has been rather difficult as I pretty much forgot everything I did in undergrad. Things have changed so much in the past 15 years I think a sharp high school kid would have been better prepped than I was. I've been busting my ass and doing well, starting to feel like I have caught up to my peers.

I have been in a position to hire engineers in the past and now I would have to say I would give preference to someone with a higher degree. Not because of what they were taught, but it is an additional filtering process. Getting a 4 year degree requires you to be smart or hardworking, to go further you must be both.

 

[Krzr3000]

with advances in technology, such as google, college degrees mean nothing any more.

I had the same thought in my first year or so of college when i was blasted with dumb gen ed classes. The only info that stuck with me from those classes is the same amount of info i can get from wikipedia. But its really not the case, and its kind of a silly claim. We do have access to information like never before, but it does not replace being tested and having to prove research and claims to your peers. Its a tool and is changing the way college works but having access to information does not replace an academic environment.

 

[zdubyadubya]

How does that compare to the cost of education to get the MS/PhD? Of course if your employer paid for it that's a different story.

What Westy said... if you are a white US Citizen (not Asian or Indian) and want to do Engineering, the whole shebang is paid for, plus insurance benefits and a stipend (~30k).

 

[I Are Baboon]

Speaking as a hiring manager, let me just say that being able to use Google is not the same thing as earning a college degree.

 

[ICEBALL585]

Speaking as a hiring manager, let me just say that being able to use Google is not the same thing as earning a college degree.

So you're saying that my degree in google searching is useless now?!? Damn

 

[Polandspring88]

Speaking as a hiring manager, let me just say that being able to use Google is not the same thing as earning a college degree.

Good thing I never strayed from AskJeeves.

 

[DirtMcGirk]

I still use Encyclopedia Britanica.

 

[TheMontashu]

Fact is that our education system has truly gone to ****.

I dont care what grade somoene is in these days, You hear parents blaming the teachers for their mkids **** grades all the time, you hear of more and more being taken away from thr teachers all the time, teachers cannot control their own class rooms anymore due to fear of the students parents friggin sueing them or the school.

Problem with this is that the students don't do a damn thing in school anymore. They are not pushed, nor made to complete anything by their parents and teachers cannot do anything about it. Sadly the parents are quick to yell at the teachers that it is the teachers fault. It truly is the parents fault, parents that expect the teahers to raise their kids for them.

The kids hit the colleges and trade schools with the same attitude, do enough to skim by and mvoe on. I am embarrased by the output of my tradeschool these days. Seriously the kids they are calling graduates are a joke, the kids dont put crap into it anymore and come out just as stupid as they went in.

Sadly this is the way it is these days, too many kids are being taught that everything should be given to them, and nothing needs hard work to get. I am about to start school again myself, and Let me tell you I am going to put everything I have into it.

Truth. Too a point.
The blame lies in 3 places. Parents baby the hell out of their kids and think they can do no wrong. My dad was a high school teacher, and would get yelled at regularly by failing kids that literally did no work (in wood shop mind you) Kids are flat out lazy, I know kids who cry and moan about some 4 hour retail shift, much less going to school. Lastly our schools are under funded, and well terrible (especially in California) I graduated high school with a 2.4 and literally missed half the class days my senior year. The classes are dumbed down to the dumbest kid in class, and when you have a kid in the regular 12th grade English class who has just been passed along and can barely read, the standards end up a JOKE. As soon as I got to college and there wasn't dumbed down busy work I started going to class every day and doing very well.


Not all schools in all fields have gotten easy. I can tell you my friends getting technical degrees are working their asses off, as am I. Fully half my calc class last semester failed, and I spent close to 30 hours a week making sure I got the B that I did. I'm also over 3 weeks without a day off, looks like Sunday will be the first one since school started.

That being said, for every kid like me getting a real degree, I know 5 that are art, theater, of psych majors or some sorts. They don't understand what it is to actually have to do work in college, they piss and moan about the 5 pages worth of papers per week they have to write. It's kids like these that make degrees worthless. In reality though, it just helps me, less competition for when I'm done with school.

 

[bean]

I'm always skeptical of claims about the decline of schooling and parenting. They're not often accompanied by any sort of objective measures. Nearly always there seems to be a whole bunch of nostalgia and a lot of forgetfulness about how awful things used to be (even if they continue to be awful now). It usually just sounds like the usual, "Kids these days" rants, all while more people around the world are enjoying better, longer lives than at any point in history.

There have always been ****ty parents, they were just ****ty in different ways. The same goes for teachers and students.

I doubt that people are learning less in college now than they used to. But because so many more people are going to college, it's certainly going to make the degree less exclusive.

Ignoring the fact that a college degree allows you to meet the minimum requirements for some job, I don't think they're usually worth what people are paying for them. I would like to see more apprenticeships, internships, shorter programs in technical schools, etc. Things that will help people acquire real world experience in things they are interested in doing without acquiring a bunch of unnecessary debt.

 

[binary visions]

Ignoring the fact that a college degree allows you to meet the minimum requirements for some job, I don't think they're usually worth what people are paying for them.

I agree with this and I think a major contributing factor is that people aren't having an honest discussion about what they hope to gain out of going to a particular school. It has become a competition: apply to the best schools you can get into, accept admission to the best one that accepts you, then figure out how to pay for it later.

That's just not an appropriate way to approach it. When you buy a car, you don't go to the bank, take out the biggest loan they'll approve you for, and then buy whatever car spends all of that money. You look for what you need, what you can afford, and purchase appropriately.

Sometimes, expensive schools are worth it. If you are a dedicated engineer and you can get into MIT, maybe it's worth taking out those loans against your future. The majority of people, though, don't go to college with the drive, focus and plan necessary to make $100k or more in loans worthwhile.

There are affordable state schools, affordable community colleges. If you don't know exactly what you want to do, and aren't going to a school that is particularly suited to that goal, why spend the money? Taking a couple years to feel out your options in a cheap state school or community college is far cheaper than spending 5 years at NYU and graduating with a degree in sociology because those were the classes you liked best, along with $120k in debt (as one of my old coworker's daughters did).

 

[conor]

I have basically bull****ted my way through 4 years of what is considered one of the harder degrees(BSc Comp Sci), mainly abusing google. I can't imagine how hard college actually was in the days before it.

 

[KavuRider]

That's just not an appropriate way to approach it. When you buy a car, you don't go to the bank, take out the biggest loan they'll approve you for, and then buy whatever car spends all of that money. You look for what you need, what you can afford, and purchase appropriately.

But that's what most people do. When they purchase anything.

Agreed on all the other points.