The case against going to a 4-year college
When i speak to people about my college experience it is mostly a tale of regret. I consider going to college to be one of the worst mistakes I ever made in my life and there are a number of reasons why I feel that way. I also believe that a lot of people that go to college / university have a similar experience to the one I had. I'll try to not get too conspiracy theory-ish in here but i may go off on a tangent, because i tend to.
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Why are you really going?
I had a wide variety of friends while at university and I can't really think of any that were there for anything they were interested in before they arrived there. The one exception would be art students - they seemed to be very dedicated and knew why they were going to college in the first place. Pity that degree, for the most part, isn't going to do anything for you and basically it's just a really expensive workshop you get to use for 4 years.
The rest of us however, jumped majors like crazy. I had 7 majors before I finally graduated about a year behind schedule (I got fantastic grades, just wasn't interested in the topics as much as i thought it would be.) I started in Psychology because I liked Alan Thicke's character on Growing Pains. I left that after the first semester and moved on to Nutrition, Physics, Economics, Finance, Computer Science, and eventually landed in Business because it was time to graduate already.
A vast majority of my friends had no idea what career their field of study was leading them to and also had very little to no interest in that field but chose it because it didn't sound too difficult or their tends to be a lot of girls in it such as Marketing.
Did your high school pressure you to go?
Maybe this isn't a thing anymore, but my high school would constantly lecture us about how we Must go to college or you will be a loser and I think that is just horrible to subject 16 year old kids to that. They presented us with statistics about how we will be accepting a much lower status in society, both financially and socially, if we didn't go to a university. I believed it because the school would allow recruiters to come on campus and give us sales chats with wonderful videos and colorful packets that lead us to believe that we really should go.
The sales pitch was relatively relentless and looking back on it (and after briefly being a teacher myself) I think maybe our usual teachers might have just been looking for a day to not have to teach by allowing the presenter into their classroom.
Crippling debt
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This is probably a major demotivating factor for anyone considering going to college because it is "free." One of my first college courses in Economics we walked in and saw T.A.N.S.T.A.A.F.L. written on the board. The professor later told us something that sticks with me to this day and it seems so obvious
Those low interest student loans you are getting? Well, your pea-size 17 year old brain can't even begin to understand what compounded interest on a 40-100 thousand dollar loan is going to do to your future earnings and this is one of the only loans that declaring bankruptcy will not protect you from.
The existence of easily-accessed-by-everyone student loans has kept the cost of University climbing. If these loans didn't exist or even simply existed in a much smaller capacity various colleges would be forced to compete with one another on price and value - they do not need to do that now as college education is one of the only things that is available everywhere that continually gets more expensive.
In many ways it is a racket
A few of my friends have gone on to be university professors. One of them did this because as it turns out there aren't really any jobs outside of education in the field he chose to study (that's another story) but both of them have told me that as educators they are constantly contacted by textbook manufacturers to make their books "required reading" for all of their students. The professors are given gifts, invitations to "conferences" in luxurious places, and sometimes even a cut of the profits in exchange for requiring their students to purchase absurdly overpriced books.
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if you haven't been to college, books are routinely around $100 each with many classes requiring multiple books
Students started picking up on this so instead of purchasing new books, the used books could be acquired at a much lower cost. This obviously didn't appeal to the publishers so they would make new editions of the same book and the professor would require that edition. One accounting class i was in I had the previous term's used book that a friend gave to me. The book was EXACTLY the same except the chapters were in a different order and the numbers involved in any practice questions were slightly different. How is this legal?
In a particularly bad situation, the professor of my class required us to purchase 2 books that he was the author of ... how is this not a crime?
Does your degree actually prepare you for anything?
Sure the piece of paper is going to open some doors for you but does that mean that you are actually good at anything? I graduated with honors, was in the top 10% nationwide and a member of multiple honor societies. When i began my first job literally nothing i had been taught was even remotely relevant. I think the only thing I had studied in college that was even used at all was MS Excel and you can learn more than i know about that program if you spent a couple days looking at YouTube videos or doing free classes on codeacademy.com .
Non mathematical degree programs (which is most of them) are basically environments where you learn to bend to the will of your professor who is likely very subjective in their interpretation of the art. Most of the teachers in my business curriculum had never even been in the workforce and had only ever been educators. Several of my teachers didn't even teach their own classes but rather had their free labor graduate assistants teach their classes for them.
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tl;dr
I think you can tell that i am not a fan of the 4-year college system, at least, not in the capacity that it exists in the United States. There is really no reason that this should cost as much as it does other than the system being well and truly rigged. They have pigeonholed the youth of the USA into believing that if you don't go to Uni, you are going to be subjected to a life of poverty and have no skills.
Based on a majority of the experiences that myself and most of the people I know have gone through, college is going to get you a job but in many situations your education doesn't make you any better at it. The most successful people I know (financially and how well they enjoy their line of work) didn't go to college at all but rather found something they were truly interested in and became excellent at it.
I don't think that most degrees actually add any value to the person who ends up holding it. This is particularly true if the degree has the word "studies" in it.... and I include Business Studies, which is what my first degree was in.
The only real advice that I give to younger people is based on my own life experience: If you don't know why you are going to college and you aren't truly interested in the subject matter, you probably aren't going to get much out of it.... and it will cost you dearly.
Thought provoking....
On steem?
Self proclaimed community watchdogs are actually hacking and stalking people.
This group https://steemit.com/@steemspeak is ran by https://steemit.com/@fyrstikken, They are hacking people that enter this discord server https://discordapp.com/invite/sqxV63P . Once you are hacked they profile you long enough to know all of your activities. They introduce workplace gangstalking visits and bring it to your attention cleverly and discretly so only you get it. They are very covert and tricky with everthing they say and do in this server. Some claim to have worked for or are working with the FBI and the NSA. Mixed with decomisioned traders and coding criminals, Its a scary mix of creepy people and thier intent is to drive you crazy and deplete everything you have ever aquired in life, even your freedom.
My hacking started with them introducing ransomeware that has options, dump my coin or delete my system drive. They acnowledged this to me in the server as it happened.
This hacking and stalking is done so they can manipulate the target to pump and dump for them. Threating and Making victims wear head phones, so nobody in your household can hear thier dramitization towards you. In 2017 this server was sidemarked as a drama show for entertainment purposes only as en excuse to say whatever they want all the way down to killing a politician. They have a server side command called "hey asshole" making a promt come up instructing everyone to wear headphones. They want everyone wearing headphones so nobody in your vicinity can hear them mess with you. Fystikken says its because of "mic feedback" but once your a target you get exactly why they make eveyone wear headphones.
With headphones on they subliminally direct victims with very low suggestive whispers mixed into their radio shows music. Combine this with them being able to manipulate their own individual outputs sound volume, which they control on the server side, they can pick what individual people hear and what at any given time. They decide who you hear on the server and change the volume controls for them. They can make some really low or off for those trying to investigate. They control who hears what and know who is who.
This team will find absolutely everything they can about you prior to using thier sugjestive and threatning program. They Introduce pictures that mean something only to the target, inducing paranoia while they watch and listen thru all of your circumvented devices. They are very aware of what makes you tick. They know your work schedule and use it for work stalking along side of this. I received multiple threating letters to my work and home addressed to my screen name from this group.
Fyrstikken tells people to sell their houses to buy crypto then dumps it on them. He has done many pump and dump scams. Quatloo being one of the first I witnessed and was done multiple times thru 2016 and 2017 them. It should be investigated for fraud. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=655793.0
Well said. The current educational system in the US is pretty much a scam.
In my case, I made the additional mistake of going to grad school. That decision was probably one of the top 3 worst ideas of my life, because now I have that crippling debt you mentioned, and nobody will hire me because I'm so overqualified for everything.
But… at least I'm able to look back and laugh at myself for the mistakes I made!
I went to grad school also and it was because of the fact that I was not satisfied with the salaries I was eligible for following my bachelors. I often wish how things could have been different if i had just took classes i was interested in instead of ones that were prescribed for me.
I hear you; I took on a lot of prescribed coursework myself. And it ended up being mostly a waste of my time and money. We can't change the past, of course, but we can change our direction in the present, in order to better control the way our future plays out. And we can also make sure to educate our kids on the subject of how the American educational system is designed to make us fail. :)
Sadly when it comes time to hire you they really like to see that degree on your resume though. I really think the majority of the stuff I learned on the job but I still needed that degree to even get my foot in the door. I got pretty lucky that I went to a community college and transfered and lived at home the whole time. I would work a summer and all of that money would go to my tuition. I don't think I took out a single student loan. My wife who went on to get her master's had loans that we just finished paying off a year or two ago.
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good work on paying the loans. I would like to go back and time and study real stuff and then when i am applying for a job just say that i do have a degree. I doubt anyone actually checks.
I think this may be a bigger problem in the US than other countries. In the UK you have to follow a path normally to get accepted. If you go through points systems you will get interviewed about why you want to do the course, there you have to demonstrate a real reason if it wasnt the courses you studied previously.
I went through university and come out with the degree then went into a job in my field. Not many people change their course here and if they do its normally in the same vein.
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!giphy brick
giphy is supported by witness untersatz!
Omg I loved college. First time I went I studied Applied Biology and Biochemistry. I had a keen interest in science at the time. I hated school. Although I did well academically, its wasnt the place for me. I never did work in my first field of study, but it gave me a passion for learning.
I continued to take college courses, part time, till I was nearly 30. And I would love, love to go back again. Maybe study medicine and be a doctor.
College opened doors for me. It gives you a foot above those that dont attend. When I was 25, although still studying, I was earning substantially more that my friends and I had pruchases my own home.
First round of college was more or less free. Paid a few grand reg fees, books and accomodation. So maybe at the time 18-10k a year all in. After that I had to fully fund fees too. But I was working, so I didn't mind paying for it.
Why did I go to college? Because I didn't want to ever have to struggle financially. And guess what......I dont!
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i loved college also. I am happy that you went in to a good field and ended up successful on the other end. Unfortunately for a lot of other people due probably at least in part to their own decisions, they didn't fare as well.
I'm happy that you did well even though at first it was a failure. Tell me, did you study in USA or somewhere else?
The first was by no means a failure, I got more out of it than I did school. Just because I didn't work in the field doesn't mean it was a failure at all.
I live in Ireland and studied here too
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ah ok. my bad if i hurt your feelings... it wasn't my intention at all :)
I'm happy that it all worked out for you.
Here in my country if you do not have any money you can go to the government university or you can just not go to school/college at all than go in debt.
On steem?
Self proclaimed community watchdogs are actually hacking and stalking people.
This group https://steemit.com/@steemspeak is ran by https://steemit.com/@fyrstikken, They are hacking people that enter this discord server https://discordapp.com/invite/sqxV63P . Once you are hacked they profile you long enough to know all of your activities. They introduce workplace gangstalking visits and bring it to your attention cleverly and discretly so only you get it. They are very covert and tricky with everthing they say and do in this server. Some claim to have worked for or are working with the FBI and the NSA. Mixed with decomisioned traders and coding criminals, Its a scary mix of creepy people and thier intent is to drive you crazy and deplete everything you have ever aquired in life, even your freedom.
My hacking started with them introducing ransomeware that has options, dump my coin or delete my system drive. They acnowledged this to me in the server as it happened.
This hacking and stalking is done so they can manipulate the target to pump and dump for them. Threating and Making victims wear head phones, so nobody in your household can hear thier dramitization towards you. In 2017 this server was sidemarked as a drama show for entertainment purposes only as en excuse to say whatever they want all the way down to killing a politician. They have a server side command called "hey asshole" making a promt come up instructing everyone to wear headphones. They want everyone wearing headphones so nobody in your vicinity can hear them mess with you. Fystikken says its because of "mic feedback" but once your a target you get exactly why they make eveyone wear headphones.
With headphones on they subliminally direct victims with very low suggestive whispers mixed into their radio shows music. Combine this with them being able to manipulate their own individual outputs sound volume, which they control on the server side, they can pick what individual people hear and what at any given time. They decide who you hear on the server and change the volume controls for them. They can make some really low or off for those trying to investigate. They control who hears what and know who is who.
This team will find absolutely everything they can about you prior to using thier sugjestive and threatning program. They Introduce pictures that mean something only to the target, inducing paranoia while they watch and listen thru all of your circumvented devices. They are very aware of what makes you tick. They know your work schedule and use it for work stalking along side of this. I received multiple threating letters to my work and home addressed to my screen name from this group.
Fyrstikken tells people to sell their houses to buy crypto then dumps it on them. He has done many pump and dump scams. Quatloo being one of the first I witnessed and was done multiple times thru 2016 and 2017 them. It should be investigated for fraud. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=655793.0
in many ways I feel this is better. I know some poor folks aren't going to be able to study what they want but most countries identify these people and provide them scholarships if they are truly gifted. However, when the government grants this privilege to just everyone, then the providers of the services (the colleges) have very little inclination to provide a product at a fair price.
when i think about how my university was $15,000 a year (without living expenses) I wonder how they justify that. I guess they needed more statues.
just like everything in life, there are many options. It's a bit like deciding if you need to go to a gym to get fit. I have seen many people who don't have a gym membership but are still super fit because they know what to do at home. If you can learn from youtube at home and you have the discipline, the resources etc then maybe you dont' need to go to college. However I feel a lot of people struggle to do anything at home without some accountability.
in regards to fitness, i know exactly where you are coming from and that is exactly why i am renewing my gym membership next month.
Here when you have no money, it just mean no University. There's no option for student loan.