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CLAM DOWN posted:Your anecdotes don't disprove things. A university education absolutely helps with those things. I believe, based on the research I've read, that cause and effect are confounding in the papers that promote the marketing points for college/university attendance. Inspector_666 posted:History, and I got around it by taking a class that I think was literally called "Math for Humanities" and then a comp sci class that I got a D in. I did try taking Calc before that and lol. I think your major should reflect the level of math you'll need - Psychology, History, or basket weaving. I don't have any problem with a concept like "Math for Humanities" classes as it, ostensibly, teaches you the math you'd actually need. Although, I've heard from Humanities majoring people that they think it should be Algebra 101 and 102, so YMMV. I didn't get around anything, requirement-wise. CLAM DOWN posted:Wait, so you can have a college which we call university, and you can have a college within a university? In American English, college is both what you would call a university as well as a professional organization. So a "College" is where you go to learn, and a "College of Business" is where a bunch of Business (and related) people would be. So you can have Jimmy's University College of Business without being redundant. Arsten fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Aug 2, 2016 |
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Aug 2, 2016 17:02
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Virigoth posted:Big Ten state university. Holla if ya hear me! Cross Northwestern off the list! I agree that a well rounded education is more beneficial than a straight technical degree. Contrary to what you may think while in school, communication and english/writing classes are just as important as your STEM classes. When someone knows how to effectively make a presentation with a good accompanying slide deck, it sticks out like a sore thumb because it is NOT the norm, especially in IT. Being able write and communicate with non-technical people is essential at all levels of IT and is commonly a reason a candidate does not get a job in my experience. I don't care if you God's gift to technology, if you can't communicate with others, I won't even consider you for the position. Of course my bias comes from two Big 10 degrees where others derive from little to no post secondary education. There is no one answer to what is required to work in our profession, but having a college degree at some level is typically better than not having one in most cases. But I certainly agree that finishing a college degree speaks to a candidate's willingness to endure a long and frustrating endeavor. Story time: I once ended an interview with a candidate for Help Desk that was going through my undergraduate program at a satellite campus because I asked her about senior design, and she said 'it's too hard and I am switching majors'. Guess what, that is the wrong thing to say to an alum because the interview was over right then and there. If you can't stick through the capstone of a major, why should I even consider you for a job where you will face problems on a daily basis that may be 'hard' too? I am a bit late to Degree Chat, but: B.S. Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology - Purdue University M.S. Communication - Northwestern University
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Aug 2, 2016 17:05
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My moms favorite phrase to me when I complained about something being hard was "You can do hard things" and that was that. Thanks mom for ingraining that one into my mind forever
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Aug 2, 2016 17:13
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I think being able to finish a 4 year degree is a good indicator of being able to deal with corporate bullshit in the business world. Did I really want to take such fun courses as Contemporary Cinema, Multicultural Autobiographies, or Principles of Social Anthropology? Not really, but in retrospect I'm better off as a person from taking them. The writing courses are also very important, being able to effectively communicate in business is an important skill.
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Aug 2, 2016 17:13
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Arsten posted:A "Well-Rounded" individual exists in people that have a variety of interests - college/university attendee or not. You do not make a "Well-Rounded" individual by making them take a course they aren't interested in. Just saying "Well, he came out of college/university with a degree and that means he's well-rounded" will bite you more often than not Here, a "university college" is a 2 year transfer program school for weaker applicants that has been accredited as a public degree granting institution. Very different worlds I guess.
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Aug 2, 2016 17:14
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State universities tend to have a big reputation difference between departments, too. The one I went to is known for an excellent engineering department, and the one I hope to go to within a few years has a pretty well regarded computer science department. Other departments at the same school might be considered crap.
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Aug 2, 2016 17:15
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One of the reasons I chose History was the lightweight math requirement. I took a sociology stats class that was piss easy, even for me. DONE. But don't tell me it didn't pay off. This morning I had to change a toner cartridge. Do you think I could've done that without my degree?
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Aug 2, 2016 17:19
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22 Eargesplitten posted:State universities tend to have a big reputation difference between departments, too. The one I went to is known for an excellent engineering department, and the one I hope to go to within a few years has a pretty well regarded computer science department. Other departments at the same school might be considered crap. This. If you are serious about getting the most out of a degree, picking a school with a well regarded department is important. My undergrad is a top 5 program and my graduate program is a top 10. Does that really matter to most people? Not really, but it does help build your network because other top people go to those programs. I have gotten interviews solely based on where I went to school.
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Aug 2, 2016 17:20
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Arsten posted:I believe, based on the research I've read, that cause and effect are confounding in the papers that promote the marketing points for college/university attendance. If you'd gone to college you'd know how to cite that evidence. My degree is a STEM degree, and I enjoyed most of the humanities stuff, but I'm a history nerd. English Lit. can gently caress right off, though.
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Aug 2, 2016 17:46
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Arsten posted:Depends on what your degree is in and what math they made you take. Did you get a degree in Psychology and have to take a discrete mathematics class? I majored in Spanish and the lowest level math my university offered was calculus and discrete math. I had to take both of them.
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Aug 2, 2016 17:48
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mayodreams posted:This. If you are serious about getting the most out of a degree, picking a school with a well regarded department is important. My undergrad is a top 5 program and my graduate program is a top 10. Does that really matter to most people? Not really, but it does help build your network because other top people go to those programs. I have gotten interviews solely based on where I went to school. The one I want to go to is 23 according to Google, but it's the highest ranking university in my state.
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Aug 2, 2016 17:52
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I was looking to fill hours my last semester; I ended up taking Fundamentals of Camping, where we learned how to set up a tent and build a fire. No survival skills or anything, it was pretty basic. The final was literally, Go Camping. I also took a physical education class called "Wii Sports". It's exactly what you're thinking, and it was great! I'm of the opinion that humanities and others out-of-discipline classes are a good thing and help people become more adjusted to society. Also, you'd be surprised the amount of university students who can't form full sentences with proper grammar.
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Aug 2, 2016 17:52
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CLAM DOWN posted:We weren't talking about "well-rounded", the comments were other items. Read back to what I quoted. Maybe you have a different vantage point from what your universities require, but the requirements of completion in US schools range between "He paid" and "He came out tortured with the knowledge of 1,000 men." The worst part is, that you can get this within the same institution. It's not like you can just dismiss everyone from Jimmy's State University because you know that they give a degree to everyone that pays. Unfortunately, you will find Einsteins mixed with people who ate lead paint from most schools. CLAM DOWN posted:Here, a "university college" is a 2 year transfer program school for weaker applicants that has been accredited as a public degree granting institution. Very different worlds I guess. Ya'll just need to get out there and socialize more!  skipdogg posted:I think being able to finish a 4 year degree is a good indicator of being able to deal with corporate bullshit in the business world. I'm not asking this to be facetious and I want to actually gain insight: how did those courses make you better as a person? skipdogg posted:The writing courses are also very important, being able to effectively communicate in business is an important skill. I filled up most of my self-designed credits with skill courses. I took things like CPR, people management, and machining - skills that I felt would advance me in life or at least be useful skills to have some knowledge of. (I admit that machining might die in the next 20 years because of 3D printing slowly getting into metals. But at least for the next 24 years I can still hew my own widgets! ) I have no problem with people who are interested in history taking those kinds of courses, I just object to the mandated requirement for degree fields it doesn't make a lot of sense in.Colonial Air Force posted:If you'd gone to college you'd know how to cite that evidence. Colonial Air Force posted:My degree is a STEM degree, and I enjoyed most of the humanities stuff, but I'm a history nerd. English Lit. can gently caress right off, though. psydude posted:I majored in Spanish and the lowest level math my university offered was calculus and discrete math. I had to take both of them.
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Aug 2, 2016 18:11
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Arsten posted:In casual conversation, I don't really bust out studies' citations - especially when I'm summing my knowledge into a single sentence. If I'm putting together a research document, I'll do it correctly. You keep talking about all this research you've read but obviously none of us agree with you. At the very least, a few links would help make your point. quote:That's actually my point. If you like history, you'll dig history and find out cool things that you might not have found on your own. If you hate Shakespeare, reading him for credit won't make you love him and it certainly won't make you take away anything from the reading. The actual Shakespeare, perhaps not, but the ability to compare, contrast, and think critically about what I read? Absolutely! And as far as that goes, I actually retained quite a bit about what I've read, which helps me make analogies and play Jeopardy! at home.
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Aug 2, 2016 18:19
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Arsten posted:"Having an interest" is the same reason why I can quote arcane lore about the TES series years after I played the last installment, yet can't remember what ISA stands for. I can still stuff male into female in the very few instances I come across it, but everything but the initialism is gone because I have no interest in late 80s technology. This presumes that all attitudes are pre-formed and that exposure to a subject cannot change those attitudes, which seems incredibly cynical and also not true. YOLOsubmarine fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Aug 2, 2016 |
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Aug 2, 2016 18:23
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Arsten posted:That's really....Really? That's pretty much just torture at that point. Meh. Precalculus or equivalent was a matriculation requirement for everyone and I already took AP calc in highschool. I also took the real chemistry course even though there was a "fun" one available for non-science majors because I'm a masochist.
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Aug 2, 2016 18:24
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I'm pretty clear on what a college is, and what a University is. But what is University of Maryland College University?
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Aug 2, 2016 18:46
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:I'm pretty clear on what a college is, and what a University is.
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Aug 2, 2016 18:51
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:I'm pretty clear on what a college is, and what a University is. UMUC is a school spun off of University of Maryland that panders to the military. They start classes every 6 weeks or so instead of having typical semesters. It's one of the more reputable online schools recommended to military people. (Which says a lot about the other schools)
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Aug 2, 2016 18:54
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Colonial Air Force posted:You keep talking about all this research you've read but obviously none of us agree with you. At the very least, a few links would help make your point. At this point the "it gives you critical thinking/make you well-rounded" is a bit of culturally assumed knowledge. Take this: Colonial Air Force posted:The actual Shakespeare, perhaps not, but the ability to compare, contrast, and think critically about what I read? Absolutely! NippleFloss posted:This presumes that all attitudes are pre-formed and that exposure to a subject cannot change those attitudes, which seems incredibly cynical and also not true. Attitudes are generally preformed, though they can change. But forcing them to endure something they have little or no interest in is about the worst way to introduce something to someone. It's about as useful as strapping every voter in the US down and showing them two days of political ads about the party they don't affiliate with and expecting everyone to change their minds about their political beliefs. It can, and does, happen - but it's not really how it goes for most people. psydude posted:I also took the real chemistry course even though there was a "fun" one available for non-science majors because I'm a masochist. 
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Aug 2, 2016 18:58
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Arsten posted:Attitudes are generally preformed, though they can change. But forcing them to endure something they have little or no interest in is about the worst way to introduce something to someone. It's about as useful as strapping every voter in the US down and showing them two days of political ads about the party they don't affiliate with and expecting everyone to change their minds about their political beliefs. It can, and does, happen - but it's not really how it goes for most people. Interesting political hypothetical, since the major driver in the rapidly changing attitudes about gay marriage and LGBTQ rights generally in the US has been simple exposure. More people know somehow who is out and that interaction and experience softens their attitudes and makes them reconsider their biases. Plenty of people have had the experience of taking a college course that they weren't particularly excited about and finding that it's actually much more interesting than they expected. Many even change majors and career focus because of this! We aren't born with an ingrained set of things we are interested in. Those interests are developed by experience and experience can change them. You have a wide enough range of potential elective courses to take in an American University that you should be able to find *something* that you don't immediately hate on principal.
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Aug 2, 2016 19:30
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NippleFloss posted:Interesting political hypothetical, since the major driver in the rapidly changing attitudes about gay marriage and LGBTQ rights generally in the US has been simple exposure. More people know somehow who is out and that interaction and experience softens their attitudes and makes them reconsider their biases. NippleFloss posted:Plenty of people have had the experience of taking a college course that they weren't particularly excited about and finding that it's actually much more interesting than they expected. Many even change majors and career focus because of this!
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Aug 2, 2016 19:47
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Arsten posted:A "Well-Rounded" individual exists in people that have a variety of interests - college/university attendee or not. You do not make a "Well-Rounded" individual by making them take a course they aren't interested in. Just saying "Well, he came out of college/university with a degree and that means he's well-rounded" will bite you more often than not. Generally it's more "Well, he came out of college/university with an applicable degree and that means probably not a total retard and can probably stick with something, learn about stuff, and do work up to and including the terrible boring busywork that is part of almost any job."
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Aug 2, 2016 19:48
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I unironically liked my math class. Learning Euler's identity was awesome. Same with how a lot of the math that describes mechanical motion also works for electricity.
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Aug 2, 2016 20:06
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Methanar posted:I unironically liked my math class. Learning Euler's identity was awesome. Same with how a lot of the math that describes mechanical motion also works for electricity. Math classes were fun, I was required to take up to Calc 3 for CS major (did not finish, but I did pass all the maths). I had friends that did mech eng and they had some insane math classes that looked fun, differential equations was one and there were 1-3 others if I recall, but can't remember the names. Numbers are kind of my jam tho.
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Aug 2, 2016 20:10
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Methanar posted:Learning Euler's identity was awesome. Yeah I thought they were going to leave that for Season 2. The suspense was incredible.
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Aug 2, 2016 20:25
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Dick Trauma posted:Yeah I thought they were going to leave that for Season 2. The suspense was incredible. Season two was all about Euler eating pie and getting really really big. It just wasn't the same.
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Aug 2, 2016 20:28
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Methanar posted:I unironically liked my math class. Learning Euler's identity was awesome. Same with how a lot of the math that describes mechanical motion also works for electricity. I had to do up to 4th year calculus for signal analysis courses and I loving loved it.
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Aug 2, 2016 20:46
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Math is very cool and good, particularly abstract algebra and topology.
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Aug 3, 2016 00:09
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In support of college (or university if you prefer), I have an employee who historically had very poor written communication skills. Misused or missing punctuation, bad spelling and grammar, run on sentences, etc.. He went back to school because he regretted never getting his degree and I have seen a marked improvement in his written communication. On the other hand, I know plenty of people who don't have degrees and already have great communication skills. Maybe, just maybe, college (or university if you prefer) is good for some people and not others. Crazy idea, I know.
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Aug 3, 2016 01:06
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I remember an officer when I was in ROTC in college saying to some of the kids who were failing that maybe college just wasn't for them and they should quit. Talk about motivating to prove him wrong.
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Aug 3, 2016 02:21
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Anyone have any IT related audiobooks that they would recommend? I need some stuff to listen to on my way to Portland. Anything related to VMware, general IT and employee management stuff, business intelligence & data visualization, automation, etc.
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Aug 3, 2016 03:00
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goobernoodles posted:Anyone have any IT related audiobooks that they would recommend? I need some stuff to listen to on my way to Portland. Anything related to VMware, general IT and employee management stuff, business intelligence & data visualization, automation, etc. Good to Great is a good read about business management coupled with change. Crucial Conversations is also good if you need help with communicating.
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Aug 3, 2016 03:06
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Something to consider - videos can be audiobooks too. I ripped all of my CBT Nuggets content to mp3 - 99% of that doesn't need the visual, so you're 99% of the way there just by listening. You could do the same with freely available conference videos like VMworld or Microsoft Ignite. Here's a fully legitimate playlist of VMworld 2015 sessions. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeFlCmVOq6yt484cUB6N4LhXZnOso5VC7 then just download in mp3 form with your browser and plugin of choice. MC Fruit Stripe fucked around with this message at 03:26 on Aug 3, 2016 |
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Aug 3, 2016 03:23
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adorai posted:Maybe, just maybe, college (or university if you prefer) is good for some people and not others. Crazy idea, I know. Sure this is true, but in the current economy I think it's a serious disservice to tell anyone trying to land their first real job that a degree doesn't matter, unless they are coming out of the military and received job training. I also think college is a great formative time for a lot of people, but it's so expensive it's hard to recommend it purely for that reason.
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Aug 3, 2016 03:38
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NippleFloss posted:Sure this is true, but in the current economy I think it's a serious disservice to tell anyone trying to land their first real job that a degree doesn't matter, unless they are coming out of the military and received job training. Too many people have bought into the idea that if you go to college you will get a good job. It's not that simple and the debt accrued in the endeavor can be crippling.
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Aug 3, 2016 04:13
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I really don't like that post, because when you say "the debt accrued in the endeavor can be crippling" is a manner of saying that you shouldn't go, or that the decision is close. You're referring to the outliers. You absolutely should buy into the idea that if you go to college you'll get a good job. You'll get a job which, according to US News & World Report, will earn almost a million dollars more over your lifetime than someone who just graduated college. So when you talk about the cautionary tale of crippling debt, it's like saying it's a 50/50 choice and you need to be careful because you could go bankrupt. You could do a lot of things, but if you have the opportunity, college is a no brainer.
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Aug 3, 2016 06:47
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The college discussion is cool and all but personally, I'm finding Four Roses bourbon to be quite nice.
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Aug 3, 2016 07:05
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I literally only got my awesome job because of college but lots of my classmates also got lovely loving poo poo (because of their low GPAs) and there are probably lots of people who do well who also get poo poo so well,,,chaos reigns i guess.
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Aug 3, 2016 07:06
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Vulture Culture posted:The college discussion is cool and all but personally, I'm finding Four Roses bourbon to be quite nice. I like that answer. Much whiskey.
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Aug 3, 2016 07:11
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