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This is something that is super-frustrating to communicate in these discussions. I end up talking with people from the previous generation a lot, and this is s

by Frondo 11y ago

This is something that is super-frustrating to communicate in these discussions. I end up talking with people from the previous generation a lot, and this is something I hear, "how did you not know that that was dumb and shallow?" Here's how: from grade school up onto high school, kids in my generation were told, by literally every adult around, "get a degree, it doesn't matter what in, you'll get a good job." The language never differed, there was never talk of trades, of military service, of starting a business, none of that. Every single adult and authority figure said the same thing. When you're young, even if you start questioning stuff like that, when everyone you turn to says the same thing, where are you supposed to go for other points of view?

mhuffman 11y ago
"Do what you love -- the money will come!"
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
WalterBright 11y ago
Isn't part of the point of college to no longer unquestioningly accept what you're told by adults? How can you go through 4 years of college and never even once google starting salaries in your chose profession? And none of your peers do either? And not notice any of the constant flow of articles on reddit and hackernews about this issue? This is neither unknown nor secret nor obscure knowledge. > Every single adult and authority figure said the same thing. Not me. I've said otherwise for 40 years.
- austenallred 11y ago
  I said, "to hell with this" and dropped out, so I may not be the best person to ask, but I think "common knowledge" is more difficult to question than most people think. Especially when you don't recognize it as such. Overall, the frustrating thing to watch is that the kids saddled with six figure student loans, a generic degree and no special skills were just playing by the rules. They were trying to find their passion and studying really hard just like good boys and girls should, then life kicks them in the teeth. I think people in college now are much more cognizant of it, but five years ago people didn't talk about student loans as much.
  - calinet6 11y ago
    Even five years ago, the student loans were significantly lower, right? I graduated 9 years ago, and I paid exponentially less. I can't even believe it when I see the tuition costs, even at my public university. I find myself wanting to continue to give people the same advice I received, the same advice that served me so well, and the advice I believe in strongly—go to college. It will make you a better person. You will become yourself there, and improve yourself and grow. Better, improved, grown, whole people are the ones who earn more money, but that's a side-effect, not a goal. But when tuition is four times what it was when I found that advice invaluable—it's much more difficult. Even in this thread I'm still giving the same narrative around the intangible and immeasurable value of a college education (I believe in it still, very strongly), but the cost is out of whack. This is what an economic imbalance feels like, folks. There's beginning to be a huge rift between the perceived value of a university education (invaluable, extreme, incomparable experience, must-do, must-have) and the price (extremely high). We cannot comprehend it. After all, who can put a price tag on being a better, improved, more whole person? Is it $20,000? Sure. What if we double it? $40,000? Sure, still invaluable. $80,000? Remains invaluable, intangible, unmeasurably important. $160,000? How can we deal with this? How can we put a price tag on a whole experience that remains, throughout all the number shifting, invaluable? Needs intervention. I still fully believe that the university experience is invaluable. But that's not the problem. The problem is that it's become overpriced because we are mentally unable to reconcile the immensity of its effect on a life with a single price tag. Thus, it is open to economic "play." So we rail against it and come up with alternatives, and rationalize that it's not as invaluable as we thought it was after all, and, well, why don't we take some parts here and connect them with this series of tubes and voila! This is the same thing for only a fraction of the price; why would you ever go to that big overpriced agglomerated monster anyway when you can get these results right here? All the while, I can't help but see holes in the real quality of the experience of growing up. You have to be smart about it, I guess. Clearly, there's a reason this is an argument, and not a clear-cut case of college being valuable so you should go do it, and the reason is a price tag. At least it's simple.
- Frondo 11y ago
  I'm not sure what your college experience (if any--I don't want to presume one way or another) was like, but I've had a chance to see it both from the science/industry perspective, i.e. the CS/engineering subjects, and from a language/art/music perspective (I myself have accumulated most of a couple of different degrees, in wildly divergent subjects, but not yet a whole one). Seldom have I ever had the conversation with anyone about, "what kind of job will we get after ___?" For me, it isn't so relevant because my tech background lets me make money pretty easily. For others, it seems like the focus is almost always almost exclusively on finishing the schoolwork. The schools themselves certainly never bring up the subject of any kind of career planning or job readiness, because that isn't really the role of the university--these aren't trade schools, after all. Maybe they should, but if everyone's making the same mistake, then I find it hard to say "everyone is dumb/wrong," with an implication that they should all just suck it up and deal with having made some mistake. I think it makes more sense to look for social causes for why everyone's making the same mistake, and find a larger-scale solution than individual suffering of consequences. As for this: "Not me. I've said otherwise for 40 years." I'm quite certain you weren't a part of the adult/authority figure group my peers and I had access to in the K-12 period of our lives. I find it commendable that you have said otherwise, but your ideas were absolutely not well-represented among the adults present in my generation's upbringing. So, it's great that you've been saying so, but not all that helpful in advancing the discussion.
  - WalterBright 11y ago
    > I find it commendable that you have said otherwise Please, google "starting salaries for majors". It's not any harder than that. The thing is, unless advice I give says what people want to hear, they don't want to hear it. The most unwanted advice I give is to stop blaming others for ones' own decisions. Take responsibility for them. It's actually quite empowering. When I went to college in the 70's, it was the custom for seniors to tape their job offer and rejection letters on their dorm door for all to see. You bet we talked about jobs after college. I specifically chose classes based on how valuable I thought they'd be to my future career choice, and so did plenty of others. For example, lots of students quite deliberately did double majors, such as: "AY for fun, and EE for money." This was decades before google. Everyone knew that there were no jobs in AY.
matwood 11y ago
> "get a degree, it doesn't matter what in, you'll get a good job." What generation is that? I was in college in the late 90s and growing up I was never told just go to college. It was always become a medical doctor or lawyer.

by Frondo 11y ago

mhuffman 11y ago

"Do what you love -- the money will come!"

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

WalterBright 11y ago

Isn't part of the point of college to no longer unquestioningly accept what you're told by adults? How can you go through 4 years of college and never even once google starting salaries in your chose profession? And none of your peers do either? And not notice any of the constant flow of articles on reddit and hackernews about this issue? This is neither unknown nor secret nor obscure knowledge. > Every single adult and authority figure said the same thing. Not me. I've said otherwise for 40 years.

austenallred 11y ago
I said, "to hell with this" and dropped out, so I may not be the best person to ask, but I think "common knowledge" is more difficult to question than most people think. Especially when you don't recognize it as such. Overall, the frustrating thing to watch is that the kids saddled with six figure student loans, a generic degree and no special skills were just playing by the rules. They were trying to find their passion and studying really hard just like good boys and girls should, then life kicks them in the teeth. I think people in college now are much more cognizant of it, but five years ago people didn't talk about student loans as much.
- calinet6 11y ago
  Even five years ago, the student loans were significantly lower, right? I graduated 9 years ago, and I paid exponentially less. I can't even believe it when I see the tuition costs, even at my public university. I find myself wanting to continue to give people the same advice I received, the same advice that served me so well, and the advice I believe in strongly—go to college. It will make you a better person. You will become yourself there, and improve yourself and grow. Better, improved, grown, whole people are the ones who earn more money, but that's a side-effect, not a goal. But when tuition is four times what it was when I found that advice invaluable—it's much more difficult. Even in this thread I'm still giving the same narrative around the intangible and immeasurable value of a college education (I believe in it still, very strongly), but the cost is out of whack. This is what an economic imbalance feels like, folks. There's beginning to be a huge rift between the perceived value of a university education (invaluable, extreme, incomparable experience, must-do, must-have) and the price (extremely high). We cannot comprehend it. After all, who can put a price tag on being a better, improved, more whole person? Is it $20,000? Sure. What if we double it? $40,000? Sure, still invaluable. $80,000? Remains invaluable, intangible, unmeasurably important. $160,000? How can we deal with this? How can we put a price tag on a whole experience that remains, throughout all the number shifting, invaluable? Needs intervention. I still fully believe that the university experience is invaluable. But that's not the problem. The problem is that it's become overpriced because we are mentally unable to reconcile the immensity of its effect on a life with a single price tag. Thus, it is open to economic "play." So we rail against it and come up with alternatives, and rationalize that it's not as invaluable as we thought it was after all, and, well, why don't we take some parts here and connect them with this series of tubes and voila! This is the same thing for only a fraction of the price; why would you ever go to that big overpriced agglomerated monster anyway when you can get these results right here? All the while, I can't help but see holes in the real quality of the experience of growing up. You have to be smart about it, I guess. Clearly, there's a reason this is an argument, and not a clear-cut case of college being valuable so you should go do it, and the reason is a price tag. At least it's simple.
Frondo 11y ago
I'm not sure what your college experience (if any--I don't want to presume one way or another) was like, but I've had a chance to see it both from the science/industry perspective, i.e. the CS/engineering subjects, and from a language/art/music perspective (I myself have accumulated most of a couple of different degrees, in wildly divergent subjects, but not yet a whole one). Seldom have I ever had the conversation with anyone about, "what kind of job will we get after ___?" For me, it isn't so relevant because my tech background lets me make money pretty easily. For others, it seems like the focus is almost always almost exclusively on finishing the schoolwork. The schools themselves certainly never bring up the subject of any kind of career planning or job readiness, because that isn't really the role of the university--these aren't trade schools, after all. Maybe they should, but if everyone's making the same mistake, then I find it hard to say "everyone is dumb/wrong," with an implication that they should all just suck it up and deal with having made some mistake. I think it makes more sense to look for social causes for why everyone's making the same mistake, and find a larger-scale solution than individual suffering of consequences. As for this: "Not me. I've said otherwise for 40 years." I'm quite certain you weren't a part of the adult/authority figure group my peers and I had access to in the K-12 period of our lives. I find it commendable that you have said otherwise, but your ideas were absolutely not well-represented among the adults present in my generation's upbringing. So, it's great that you've been saying so, but not all that helpful in advancing the discussion.
- WalterBright 11y ago
  > I find it commendable that you have said otherwise Please, google "starting salaries for majors". It's not any harder than that. The thing is, unless advice I give says what people want to hear, they don't want to hear it. The most unwanted advice I give is to stop blaming others for ones' own decisions. Take responsibility for them. It's actually quite empowering. When I went to college in the 70's, it was the custom for seniors to tape their job offer and rejection letters on their dorm door for all to see. You bet we talked about jobs after college. I specifically chose classes based on how valuable I thought they'd be to my future career choice, and so did plenty of others. For example, lots of students quite deliberately did double majors, such as: "AY for fun, and EE for money." This was decades before google. Everyone knew that there were no jobs in AY.

matwood 11y ago

> "get a degree, it doesn't matter what in, you'll get a good job." What generation is that? I was in college in the late 90s and growing up I was never told just go to college. It was always become a medical doctor or lawyer.