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College doesn't make someone smart. College doesn't make someone choose to be productive. The decisions that lead to being smart and productive start early in c

by hajile 7y ago

College doesn't make someone smart. College doesn't make someone choose to be productive. The decisions that lead to being smart and productive start early in childhood. Unfortunately, dollars spent on early education don't seem to have much of a correlation with success later in life.

lsc 7y ago
So, I think about this a lot. I know a lot of really good sysadmins with no education; like of the people I consider really good sysadmins, close to half might not have degrees, and this is one of the reasons I equate my job to the trades. (I mean, along with the fact that our job is to create and maintain infrastructure so that other people can work) I know a fair number of software engineers with no formal education, though the proportion is a lot less than half. I know very few good electrical engineers who lack formal education. I don't know any good chemical engineers who don't have a formal education. My own experience (I've tried at school several times. I'm currently enrolled in the computer information systems "competency based" degree at nau.edu, but I've tried a bunch of others) is that school is actually way more difficult than industry. You can't just be brilliant twice a month, as is my experience of industry; you have to show up and perform at 90% every day which seems impossibly brutal to me. I mean, this is probably a quirk of my own personality; I'm actually really good at coming in and dealing with disasters every now and again, but my consistency is... really pretty bad. I mean, I personally think that a love of and respect for learning is fundamentally more important than education; but I also think that education isn't nothing. There are a lot of people who do a lot better with some formal education, and there are a whole lot of jobs, that as far as I can tell, are almost impossible to do well without a good formal education. I personally don't think I'd let a self-taught doctor hack on me if I had any other choice at all. My personal opinion is that if there are any young people with the capacity to be good at those things that require an education who are prevented from doing those things because of money, our society has made a huge mistake, one that will cost us much money in the long term, just 'cause having those people perform at peak value is hugely valuable to society. Further, I think that the unwillingness, as a society, to pay for the education of young people evinces a lack of valuation of learning that might be an even bigger problem.
- pw 7y ago
  It's a tangent, but I'd love to hear more about your decision to pursue the degree at nau.edu.
  - lsc 7y ago
    well, the equation on the "competency based" degrees for me is essentially that they are super way less prestigious than traditional degrees, but they are the only way, as far as I can tell, to get an education without a "you are on time all the time or you fail" condition, as I have a very hard time being on time (and am largely not budget constrained, so the "pay for time" part of most competency based degrees is not as big a deal for me as it would be if I was very slowly earning a degree while working a less remunerative job.) - 'failure' in academia seems, to me, to be way harsher than failure in industry; Nobody brings up even pretty big failures of mine that occured even a few years back in industry, but my high school academic record, more than two decades back, still haunts my admissions efforts, so as far as I can tell, community college is the most prestigious route open to me, and I need to execute almost perfectly to graduate to the next level. I probably won't execute perfectly, especially as my work is a higher priority than school for me, (and my work record isn't perfect either) so I think this is the most realistic route to some sort of undergrad degree, even though I generally work a lot better in person than remote. There are a lot of 'competency based' programs, and while I think something like that is the best chance I have of getting a degree without permanently marring my record in ways that makes doing academic things harder in the future, I have no idea if I picked the best competency based option. I do personally think that on the low end, you are way better off with a government school than with a private school; that was a big part of my decision. But, for instance, a friend was telling me about western governors university, and... that might have been better? they have an actual CS degree, which would definitely get me further.
    - pw 7y ago
      Interesting. So are you learning anything from the degree or are just you doing it to get the credential?
zdragnar 7y ago
More than that, many degrees (especially in the liberal arts) are, economically speaking, luxury goods. They may teach things that benefit society on some level, but the cost of procuring them isn't offset by low wages and scarcity of the relevant jobs. In a way, they form a bit of a poverty / class mobility trap for those who aren't well off enough to afford them on their own but are attracted by the idea of a purpose-driven life (social work, librarian, historian, identity studies come to mind).
asdff 7y ago
The biggest correlation on success later in life is how wealthy your parents are. Chances are you would be living in a safer neighborhood with better role models and exposed to more opportunities for further success, while being relatively insulated from opportunities for self-destruction. College functions to get you out of your class bubble and expose other opportunities that you wouldn't otherwise have living at home. You play college right like many do, you advance up that economic ladder, and in the process set up your future kids for trivially easy success.

by hajile 7y ago

lsc 7y ago

So, I think about this a lot. I know a lot of really good sysadmins with no education; like of the people I consider really good sysadmins, close to half might not have degrees, and this is one of the reasons I equate my job to the trades. (I mean, along with the fact that our job is to create and maintain infrastructure so that other people can work) I know a fair number of software engineers with no formal education, though the proportion is a lot less than half. I know very few good electrical engineers who lack formal education. I don't know any good chemical engineers who don't have a formal education. My own experience (I've tried at school several times. I'm currently enrolled in the computer information systems "competency based" degree at nau.edu, but I've tried a bunch of others) is that school is actually way more difficult than industry. You can't just be brilliant twice a month, as is my experience of industry; you have to show up and perform at 90% every day which seems impossibly brutal to me. I mean, this is probably a quirk of my own personality; I'm actually really good at coming in and dealing with disasters every now and again, but my consistency is... really pretty bad. I mean, I personally think that a love of and respect for learning is fundamentally more important than education; but I also think that education isn't nothing. There are a lot of people who do a lot better with some formal education, and there are a whole lot of jobs, that as far as I can tell, are almost impossible to do well without a good formal education. I personally don't think I'd let a self-taught doctor hack on me if I had any other choice at all. My personal opinion is that if there are any young people with the capacity to be good at those things that require an education who are prevented from doing those things because of money, our society has made a huge mistake, one that will cost us much money in the long term, just 'cause having those people perform at peak value is hugely valuable to society. Further, I think that the unwillingness, as a society, to pay for the education of young people evinces a lack of valuation of learning that might be an even bigger problem.

pw 7y ago
It's a tangent, but I'd love to hear more about your decision to pursue the degree at nau.edu.
- lsc 7y ago
  well, the equation on the "competency based" degrees for me is essentially that they are super way less prestigious than traditional degrees, but they are the only way, as far as I can tell, to get an education without a "you are on time all the time or you fail" condition, as I have a very hard time being on time (and am largely not budget constrained, so the "pay for time" part of most competency based degrees is not as big a deal for me as it would be if I was very slowly earning a degree while working a less remunerative job.) - 'failure' in academia seems, to me, to be way harsher than failure in industry; Nobody brings up even pretty big failures of mine that occured even a few years back in industry, but my high school academic record, more than two decades back, still haunts my admissions efforts, so as far as I can tell, community college is the most prestigious route open to me, and I need to execute almost perfectly to graduate to the next level. I probably won't execute perfectly, especially as my work is a higher priority than school for me, (and my work record isn't perfect either) so I think this is the most realistic route to some sort of undergrad degree, even though I generally work a lot better in person than remote. There are a lot of 'competency based' programs, and while I think something like that is the best chance I have of getting a degree without permanently marring my record in ways that makes doing academic things harder in the future, I have no idea if I picked the best competency based option. I do personally think that on the low end, you are way better off with a government school than with a private school; that was a big part of my decision. But, for instance, a friend was telling me about western governors university, and... that might have been better? they have an actual CS degree, which would definitely get me further.
  - pw 7y ago
    Interesting. So are you learning anything from the degree or are just you doing it to get the credential?

zdragnar 7y ago

More than that, many degrees (especially in the liberal arts) are, economically speaking, luxury goods. They may teach things that benefit society on some level, but the cost of procuring them isn't offset by low wages and scarcity of the relevant jobs. In a way, they form a bit of a poverty / class mobility trap for those who aren't well off enough to afford them on their own but are attracted by the idea of a purpose-driven life (social work, librarian, historian, identity studies come to mind).

asdff 7y ago

The biggest correlation on success later in life is how wealthy your parents are. Chances are you would be living in a safer neighborhood with better role models and exposed to more opportunities for further success, while being relatively insulated from opportunities for self-destruction. College functions to get you out of your class bubble and expose other opportunities that you wouldn't otherwise have living at home. You play college right like many do, you advance up that economic ladder, and in the process set up your future kids for trivially easy success.