LA, CA (RINGGGGGG!) School's back in!

For everyone here who's going back to school to get there grip in life, good luck and may the Force be with us all in our studies!

 

Its a trap!

 

And everyone who's just going to go to work as usual, remember how much worse traffic will be for the next few months.

 

Also remember that what you learn in college will never be asked of you once you leave. It's been eleven years since I finished college and I'm still waiting for someone to ask me to design a caster for a chair or help them through their drug dependency.

 

My drug of choice is Diet Dew. Can you help me SR??

 

That's my sister's drug of choice too, JF. She mourned when her favorite movie theater changed to Coke drinks.

Hm, well occasionally I see something in some article or something that mentions something from college biology or chemistry, but normal people don't walk around talking about that crap! Oh, and my dad's bachelor's degree is in marriage and family counseling. He never seems to use it. Seems like at least half of people/companies don't care at all what your degree is in as long as you've got one.

 

What did you major in?
Was that general stuff or specifics?


I've got the fun pressure that all this stuff I'll need to do in the future. Or at least, large chunks of it. Advantage of going with a field that requires the background knowledge in science.

 

Wrong! I never usewhat I learned in real life, but have found these things on several promotional exams I've taken in the past few years.

 

I started out my college career in the department of engineering at the University of Texas. I know you thought I was stupid but no I'm actually pretty darn smart. I spent two years there learning how to make things such as casters. It was fun, but I didn't like math and my prof weren't nice and I probably should have stuck with it but I didn't. I then switched to Social Work/Sociology and where I learned to help people.

Now I move people.

 

I agree, so far, the only thing I've used in real life that I learned in school was AutoCAD. Even then, only the basics helped me, as every job has their own standards and rules you'll need to learn. Other than that, it was pretty much a complete waste of time and money. They really should spend that time teaching people useful things. I've never used calculus outside of school, but a class on 'how to avoid being sued' would come in handy.

 

I used my education here on the boards just last week!

But most times I regret getting that MA since I'm now virtually unemployable.

 

Well, it's time for my senior year high school, and I'm looking forward to it. I love school, and I love learning new things. My favorite classes this semester will probably be the two college classes I'm taking at LAVC besides high school: Cultural Anthropology and Micro-Economics. Both of these things will help supplement me in a career in history, I think. And I plan on becoming a historian (besides the whole world domination thing XD), so this should definitely help.

 

I can use my schooling to better predict film plots (to the annoyance of some). Write really really good notes to myself, and know obscure literary things on jeopardy. I like my degree.

 

And my education helped in the attempts to blow up water bottles at the regional fan force meeting. now that's useful.

 

I SOOOOO hear you on that one! $40,000 piece of paper!

 

I'll give you 10 buck for it

 

I actually frequently use what I learned in college in my real job. I think SR would have made an awesome engineer.

 

These last months I've finally put my degree to work (B.A in art) in my current job. I like creating things and I don't hesitate to jump at the chance when something artsy comes along. I sure hope to get that promotion of being a case manager then I will surly do more art and also teach kids a thing or two about nutrition and exercise (post BA education it's a hobby of mine ).

 

I hear you. I have to leave the house a little earlier to try to beat traffic since I pass thru several schools and if I don't get to a certain intersection at a certain time then traffic gets backed up.

Boy I sure miss Summer break but the holiday break will be here soon can't wait.

 

Y'know, it seems to me the most important thing about having a degree is not using it or that it 'opens doors' for you. It just keeps some doors from being slammed in your face because you don't have that degree. It's kind of silly in most cases, there's a lot of educated idiots and savants out there, and a lot of very smart drop outs, too. (And plenty of intelligent people with college degrees and dumb drop outs as well, of course.)

I know, JR, "Whooo cares?!" Guess, I'm just getting philosophical again, as well as, saying it because I hate to discourage people from getting a degree because they think they don't really need one.

 

No one thinks they don't really need one! I mean, unless that person is fine in the service industry his whole life or is hot enough to act/model/whatever, everyone knows you need a degree.

 

I plan on getting about 9 majors...

 

ES is correct. In the past when I said I don't use my degree, and that I hated college, that was all sarcasm. Of coarse you should go to college if you can. I wouldn't have changed a thing.

 

Best thing I got out of my MBA is that I went to a school with a kick butt basketball team. I wanted to do that my whole life and now I have it and can die happy, in debt, but happy.

 

I was a philosophy major, so I use what I learned in college every day of my life, to think for myself, to analyze critically, and to formulate ideas. It's funny to me, people think philosophy is the most useless major, but it's by far the most useful. Nothing could be more useful than a well lived life. As far as "getting a job," philosophy is a pretty useless major. But there are those of us who don't want jobs, but employees, and for me, I think philosophy is potentially the most financially valuable major, too. Nothing in this world is worth more than a good idea. Being in film, that's what I sell -- ideas. We had a teacher in film school during the brief stint I had there who said, "Film is the dream money can buy." As a filmmaker, I can take ideas for someone's dream and turn them into reality. Ultimately, of course, it's my dreams and my ideas I want to make reality.

The core classes I took in college, of course, were totally worthless. Some of them were a little bit interesting as I was taking them, but honestly I can't remember almost any of the details of those classes. People always act like that's a negative, too, "Oh my god I forgot all of this stuff I learned!" There's a reason for that -- the brain is perfectly designed, and discards information it deems superfluous. I'm quite glad my brain cuts out the noise. For some people, remembering all of these mathematical formulas and scientific facts may be quite useful. For me it's all entirely worthless. There are millions of books out there full of that information should I ever need to reference it. I certainly don't need it taking up valuable brain space that could be spent on better things.

I'm also glad I'm in one of the few industries left where talent, hard work, and connections are all that matters, not a piece of paper saying you spent four years somewhere. In today's society, most people need college, but I'm very resentful about the education system and read an article my freshman year that I'll never forget -- "In Defense of Elitism." My opinion is the same as the author's opinion -- colleges should be much harder to get into, all of them, and they should flat-out reject most people who apply. A college degree needs to mean something again. Now it doesn't. Now you need to get a Master's to set yourself apart, because of how many stupid people graduate from college every year. I don't believe college is a person's right, I believe it's the right of those who are intelligent enough to take higher education seriously. I saw way too many students who considered college a great four years to party, drink, have sex, and screw around in general without their parents present. I came there to learn. Those people destroyed the value of my degree, and the universities are responsible. You know why it means something to have a black belt certified from the World Tae-Kwon-Do Federation headquarters? Because there are standards, and you can't get a black belt unless you go through an immense amount of work and are certified by a master. It has meaning. But if they just started giving away black belts because it's "unfair" to those who don't have them, a black belt would no longer mean anything. That's what has happened to college degrees. Because everyone "has the right to a great education," it somehow has meant that stupid people have the right to be in college, which is a shame. I had an English professor my final year in college who everyone thought was very harsh and a brutal grader. I always got As on his quizzes and tests, and took his class seriously. I had a great conversation with him one day, near the end of the term, where he told me how rare it was to have a student like me at OSU. I will never forget what he said, because it made me sad for him and the state of most universities now. He said, "Jonathan, if you were anywhere else, your work would still be A work. If I was teaching at an Ivy League school, I'd give you an A. Same with the A's I give to the other students, too. But the Cs I give at this school are not Cs. They are usually Fs.