university is a waste of time

Discussion in 'Higher Ed' started by sunflowerpower, Jun 20, 2012.

  1. IamnotaMan

    IamnotaMan I am Thor. On sabba-tickle. Still available via us

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    I remember getting my A level results (The exams you take which basically decide which uni you can get into). It was a really nice feeling, thinking that you have all these options open to you.

    But after uni, I found jobs (in my sector at that time) were either filled by family connections/private high school connections etc, all that crap.
    Or the jobs were normal jobs, where the interviewer was terrified you'd be HIS boss in 3 or 4 years time.

    It all gave me a pretty flat feeling.

    I wound up running my own businesses. Having got a degree rarely comes up in conversation, if ever. I used to think "law degree blah blah". Now I think, "what the fuck was that 3yrs for"...
     
  2. dwight78

    dwight78 Member

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    While I get your point, I can assure you that in th internet age, that quality can also be obtained by reading lots of stuff from the internet.Many many people who go to university do not develop the qualities you enunciated. They just go there as a fulfillment of an expectation and to emerge with some certificate because an employer will be asking for that certificate.

    In light of the availability of information through various sources in the 21st century I think it is time to re-evaluate what constitutes education
     
  3. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    The problem with the internet is that you decide what to read.

    I agree that educational methods and techniques should be constantly evaluated.
     
  4. Sleeping Caterpillar

    Sleeping Caterpillar Members

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    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUoXtddNPAM?t=42s
    Damn link busted "And the people in the houses
    All went to the university,
    Where they were put in boxes
    And they came out all the same"

    I completely agree, however I would argue that certain professions benefit from a degree. particularly science and medical fields as access to a lab would be nigh impossible otherwise.
     
  5. Sallysmart

    Sallysmart Raynstorm Serenade

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    True you do decide and that is where you can be smart where you like to be smart. The problem with school is they decide where you Should be smart and that's like saying we should all be the same, get the same marks and so on.
    The school boards have discussed letting kids decide what they want to learn and I think it's In the works in some areas already. Supposedly math and English will stick but remember the days when women had to go to HomeEc and the boys had to go to shop class? That was changing when I was in school. Now some kids are able to ask for German as a second language class instead of French.
    On the Internet you can pick what you like and even concentrate on it. If they taught me what I read on my own later in life I woulda been doing what I do now a long time ago because it interests me and I am good at it. Starting it on my own and reading and learning about it has made me understand it and realize my potential here and then I found what I love and will retire doing.
    Sad thing is they taught me nothing of it in school, and even the Pros who study what I do have asked me if I'd consider working where they do,,, Nope, they read it in text and are only allowed to apply it as they read it in text, that would ruin all that I do well. Their certificates hold them back in my opinion.
     
  6. machinist

    machinist Banned Lifetime Supporter

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    reading books and stuff on the internet is good, but it doesn't even come close to a replacing what you will learn taking a class at a university.

    take for example if you wanted to teach yourself how to build furniture. you can learn a TON from reading books and looking at the internet, but if you have a master craftsman (equivalent of a scholar in academia) teaching you then you learn all that and so much more in a matter of no time in comparison.

    it's the same way in school. you can teach yourself a little physics but damn its going to take you 10 times as long to do it yourself.

    I can't imagine EVER learning some of the things i've learned in school on my own. you open a damn text book and its in a foreign language.
     
  7. Sallysmart

    Sallysmart Raynstorm Serenade

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    It would depend on what you like to do in your heart, some things could not be taught to ones self on their own, many things can. As far as building furniture. I was never taught that in school, but when I was divorcing my first husband I wanted to move out and a friend who was taking nursing needed help with rent, her and hubby were doing ok but sometimes tight, my rent helped them and to get things he needed done faster and bring in the cash faster I agreed since I wasn't working then, (in the process of deciding where to move) to work with him in the wood shop, he taught me to use the table saw, scroll saw, ban saw and do a whole lot of things I never thought I could do. After working with him I built my own rocking horse for a friends new baby, and made my own sweater box bench for the end of my bed. We made curio cabinets and pressed em out in short time and we both made a lot of money, at first, me being his Jo boy/Girl, then making stuff on my own while he was out selling it. This was something I could have carried on with but it wasn't really what I wanted to do even tho I as getting good at it. Sometimes life lessons and friends can teach us what we want to know.
    I also learned how to work on my own cars, not taught to me in school, so my point is school is only a base line for the beginner as we all are, the Internet now is a great tool for getting started in what interests us as is life and time it's self. We can point ourselves and if school is what we need then so beit but not for everyone. Nursing,,, yup, doctors,,, yup, but many courses are bunk, a waste of time and money.
    I remember a friend telling me she took some class in university, I dunno, business or something "What does that make you?" "Well I can work in a bank, become a police officer,,, yada,,, yada,,, yada,,,
    Wow, lots of choices, none I would want. She ended up working in care for the disabled, that's good! but it didn't happen because of her course. I did that for several years without her course and made the same money. She loves her work.
    My uncle was a school teacher, he now feeds and fends for his adult kid,,, who doesn't do anything but sucker his parents by hanging out at a collage on their dime to watch and play with girls, who is the smart one here? Someone's retirement is being sifted to nothing, and once it comes clear this kid doesn't want to pass a course and have a real job he will fend for him further. He now has a baby with some chic he is not serious with, bet you can guess who is fending for that one. Smarts are in the head of each to his own degree, school can only help if you pick wisely and most students even rely heavily on the net anyway.
    I dropped out of high school, I am already looking better then my uncle is and I work less now and take less bullshit then he ever did. I hate to say it but it's true, love him as I do. Learn all you can from all sources, including the net, (((but let life teach you as well,,, something I was told Often when I was a kid because my parents weren't gonna fend for me once I was an adult.)))
     
  8. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    My point is that although the internet is a great resource tool, you must be able to validate the material presented as fact.

    As I pointed out in the quote, research has shown that individuals’ tend to select among all the data available to support attitudes and beliefs that they already hold. Many times data that does not support those ideas is rejected or misinterpreted so that the individuals' comfort zone is not upset.

    So anyway, it depends on what your view of an education is. In my experience higher education has always allowed you to choose any major, minor, or class that you want. You don't even have to get a degree if you don't want to.
    Grammar and high school are different as most cultures like to have citizens who are able to read, write, do basic math, have a cursory understanding of science, and display rudimentary hygiene.

    If you study educational movements you will find that just about every concept imaginable has been tried at one time or another.
    Classical, Contemplative, Critical Pedagogy, Democratic, Normative, Curriculum Theory, etc. This leads me to believe that using the internet has a place, but is not the end all educational method, and that universities will always have a place in education, if you understand that a university is not the buildings, but the educational society that makes it up.

    To make the statement that "university is a waste of time", as the op did, and to find some here that appear to support that statement leads me to believe that they themselves have a very limited understanding of what a good education is as they think in very narrow terms. Just the thing that a good education tries to dissuade.
     
  9. WOLF ANGEL

    WOLF ANGEL Senior Member - A Fool on the Hill Lifetime Supporter

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    Nothing is wasted in Life - it is all Experience.
    The Diversity of a wider and more diversified company allows understanding and education there for the embracing.
    Be it at an academic establishment or via the employment of after schooling, it all counts towards the road one takes.
    Life, is what you make it
     
  10. Sallysmart

    Sallysmart Raynstorm Serenade

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    You might be right in some cases but I have seen some pretty stupid people who did several years of schooling just to come out a smart ass with no brains. Tis why I prefer to work for myself rather then have some idiot call himself my superior only to mess with my job.
    We had supervisors in the last place I worked, tons of them and all but a few were knuckle heads, touching our stuff making things screw up and then calling out blame. I told a few of them to keep their paws off till they take my training as an operator, then things wouldn't shut down on us. Yet the company hired them on the basis they had all this training and three years experience. Mamma's boys, sent to school to get them out of Momma's basement. After so much crap I left and I am ten fold happier, less stressed and would never work for someone else again.
    What's really funny is you could see them and their higher ups were taking a butt fucking from the top and when I went to get my tools from my shop after I had already quit and some time passed, a supervisor I really liked (one with the most time there) was with me. He was shaking and looked nervous. I asked what's up, he said his work was killing him, the pressure to make the top Happy is so bad they were all losing it. He then said I was lucky to be leaving it and he wished he could do the same. He was one of the highest paid there and yet his schooling does nothing till he applies it where he needs to.
    I have since ran into people I worked with on the machines and the problem is even worse. They tell me all the time they want to quit and will and many have. Companies are at a push to feed the CEOs now and nothing else matters anymore and this company is suffering badly, peeps leaving, noobies coming in all the time and the peeps up stairs are scared shitless all the time that any day some tard is gonna come in and hand them their pink slip because it's that bad.
    Numbers can't climb if you treat your workers and their bosses like crap.
    We had a great shares level that declined more then half in a year once the new management came in. It never did recover and went down two thirds in total. I lost a lot of money there. Wanna work this way? Not anymore so watch what schooling you take, it could be your early heart attack. Even doctors in Canada are stressed now. I'm not, I have a job that a micro chip can't replace so I am not scared of losing it. It's mine and I have no smart ass boss overseeing it.
     
  11. themnax

    themnax Senior Member

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    what i think is a waste of time is this myth that indenturing yourself to pay for an institutional education is supposed to be a ticket to a big income to pay it off with.

    higher education need not be a complete waste if it is viewed as simply one of many ways of exploring and satisfying curiosity. that's what universities are supposed to be about. sciences and the arts. not all this nonsense about how to legally rob each other, otherwise known as business.
     
  12. IamnotaMan

    IamnotaMan I am Thor. On sabba-tickle. Still available via us

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    I suppose the best way to describe university is "an aspi.ration tax", for many/most people.

    Certainly in America, and more so now in Britain etc, university technically bankrupts people. Except the law prohibits them from declaring bankruptcy. Which is pretty perverse. Atleast with the debt of a house, you can enjoy the house before its paid for. But for many, uni is just 3, 4, SEVEN years of lost income and work experience.

    One big problem is that govts and employers simply haven't bothered to keep pace with the improving skills of the young workforce (despite the lies to the contrary). They'd rather get a young graduate in China/Indonesia to do the job, then shoot him if he doesn't do a 95 hr week.
     
  13. tommeem1

    tommeem1 Members

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    College didn't work out for me. I was told basically that I was a certain kind of person that can only get a certain kind of career. I did enjoy the learning aspect of it and if I could have stayed there forever, I think would have, knowing well I never would have gotten the career because I'm a certain kind of person. But, the reality of my situation was weighting heavy on me with each passing year. So, I dropped out after several years.

    Regardless of that, I'm sure there are more positive college experiences.

    It really depends on the individual.
     
  14. I'minmyunderwear

    I'minmyunderwear Newbie

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    so, what kind of person and what kind of career were you?
     
  15. tommeem1

    tommeem1 Members

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    I rather not talk about it.
     

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