Using college to stave off the real world

This is something that hasn't been directly discussed yet, so I went ahead and started this.

Let's get to the point; there are those of us who couldn't get into college when they finished high school and wanted to keep going, but due to (unfair) financial problems, we couldn't. Then there are those who stay in college for over half a decade to get another degree.

What do you think of this? The first makes me envious, even if reminded of the oppurtunity to dampen the cost by saving (I'll be in debt and have wasted my youth with some job I don't care about, while my friends can do what they really want). I don't know about the second, which is what I want to hear more about. Discuss.

Well, I think that anybody with a suffient love of learning and amount of interest in any subject should be allowed to go to college, learn however much they want, and stay however long they want.

And who have the money or benefits package to do it.

Speaking as one of those professional students, I have no real reason to go into the workforce right now. We're in a hell of a recession, so as long as the money's good, I'm happy with my current position.

I question the notion that college is not part of the "real world". How is it any less real then being employed?

Erm...

Speaking as someone in college...no, it's pretty different.

Housing, food, supporting yourself (taking out loans doesn't count because you can't do that outside of college, at least not for long), insurance (most students are still on their parent's insurance), transportation issues (most people have cars their parents got them, or can get by without cars, or at least are on their parents insurance), etc.

Sure, some people in college are paying their own way with their own money, have their own insurance, and are completely independent. It's just my experience that this constitutes less than 1% of college students.

As for the OP, the first is generally the product of a broken educational system, and/or a combination of poor luck and not enough effort on the part of the student.

Bluh bluh misread what you meant on the second.

edited 24th Sep '11 7:07:58 PM by deathjavu

* rises hand*

A sufficient passion for learning is expressed in the capability of getting into college by obtaining scholarships. If you really love what you want to do, you can probably write an essay and send it to some people that can give you at least a couple hundred dollars.

I have to agree. College isn't a whole lot like the real world, especially if you live on campus. You go to class for about three or four hours a day on average, tons of facilities for you to use including gyms, dining halls, laundry, study centers, libraries, a community of people interested in similar subjects as you, etc. etc. etc.

Still, if my poor ass could get into college, I think a lot of people can. Granted I'm gonna be in debt for like the rest of my life, but whatever, if you really have the passion to learn, that wouldn't be a problem.

edited 24th Sep '11 7:40:47 PM by HeavyDDR

I had to drop out because of numerous problems with my financial aid, but I will admit that I was only attending to give me an excuse to move out. Hell, when I informed my father of my decision, I told him as much.

Well, that's what Ph.D's are for, ain't they?

People stay at them so they can get a shot at remainin' at the sweet, tenured world of academia, where they'll never ever work more than 35 hours a week. That's why there's a market for postgrauate degrees.

edited 24th Sep '11 8:10:40 PM by SavageHeathen

^Not sure if you're being sarcastic, but if you aren't I'd just like to say that the idea that a job in academia is easy is dead-wrong. Researchers generally work a lot and not necessarily for particularly good money. Since they often get a set amount of money each month, they tend to work incredible amounts of overtime without actually ever getting paid for it, simply because when your doing a research project, you simply have to finish those calculations, or that paper by a certain time; things like "overtime" doesn't even enter into it. You don't even have to be a fully-fledged researcher for this, I've had instructors who were PHD students and who were working their ass of on various different projects.

edited 24th Sep '11 8:39:54 PM by Mathias

I've got a lot of bitterness for "Professional Students".

I have an associates degree now, and I'm working on a bachelors degree, just for reference.

I went the military route after a semester of college post-high school. I've worked hard, experienced some amazing things, and for the time I was put into leadership positions that you would be hard pressed to see most 23 year olds in(I was 23 when I put on staff).

I loathe the way we hire people with such a burning passion. We hold education on such a pedestal over experience. Now I agree that education is of prime importance if you are, say, a lawyer or a doctor or any other field that requires specialized experience that you can't just get on the job. But so many jobs out there just want a degree in anything, even if it doesn't have dick to do with the job itself. Learning is useless if you never do anything with it.

Officers in the military, for instance. If you want to be JAG or a doctor, you need the appropriate education, it makes sense. But to be an officer in charge of a supply or police unit, you could have some bullshit useless sociology degree while a troop who has worked as an enlisted cop for years wouldn't be eligible, or a former warehouse shift leader couldn't become an officer in supply.

It's wrong, it's essentially forcing people to go to college to get a degree that is often not relevant for the job, and they will get it over people who know the job inside out and have experienced every little thing. It's insulting, and it's ass backwards.

Someday, I want to run a security company. My best people will be experienced and paid what they are worth, fuck some irrelevant degree in something unrelated.

edited 25th Sep '11 8:55:25 PM by Barkey

Do you have any idea of how much work it takes to write a paper which is up to the standards for being accepted by a serious scientific journal? Or to prepare a lesson, or a really good talk? Or — shudder — to grade a few hundreds of essays?

And do not get me started on research, which is awesome and incredibly frustrating at the same time: sometimes, you'll spend months without getting any real progress, and sometimes you'll do a lot of stuff in a couple of hours.

Now, I am not saying that academics have it hard — it's a great job, and I would not want to do anything else. But it's not a cakewalk, believe me.

We've once got a guy here who studied, like, seventeen things at once. And from each, he was receiving a stipend.

I think colleges would be better off if we rigged up some kind of work/housing thingy that did most of the stuff that a college did without the education and just had the people who don't want to focus on issues work full time.

Yeah, honestly that's what I loved most about the military.. Institutionalized living. Focus on your work and ditch the tertiary bullshit.

Hmmm... if I think about it I guess I might have done this to some degree. Not by staving off employment, not by any means. I've been employed full time the past four years, 30+ hours a week part-time for two years before that, and less than 30 hours a week part-time since I was 14. I've never been unemployed, even if it was just seasonal work.

However, I have used college as an excuse to remain living with my parents, and definitely as the excuse for why I have no night life or significant other. I probably wouldn't anyways, but the excuse is nice to be able to dish out.

That I continued my education in order to get a master's to raise my chances of becoming financially comfortable is still by far the biggest reason I've stayed in college as long as I have, but if I'm being completely honest with myself I have liked being able to remain a little dependent.

edited 26th Sep '11 9:52:07 AM by Bur

I guess I just have some little bit of distaste for waiting until a masters to get into a career Bur, your case is a little different because you work a lot, but I see a lot of college students who just seem to expect that bam, they'll come out of college with some high degree and start making more money than I make with just as many years of experience.

It's the whole concept for me that I've been working this whole time and someone who's never had a job can pop out of college and start raking in the dough is a bit offensive.

Now for college students who are really nose to the grindstone and working hard, I probably don't see them as much, but I ponder how so many of my friends in college have so much god damn free time to do things like game and go out. It's like I'm struggling to make rent and pay bills and keep my head above water, while some of these kids spend 12 hours a day gaming or fucking about.

I.E. why about half the population of TV Tropes seems to be college kids.

edited 26th Sep '11 10:01:52 AM by Barkey

The more I read your posts, the less envious I feel about college students in general. Except for those who actually work hard like my best friend, due to the resources and connections that he has access to that I don't, and makes clever use of. Though, that's a more motivational, positive type of envy, because you dont need a degree to be an game artist or illustrator.

That's why I laugh my butt off whenever this happens to any of my younger friends. One of them wondered why she couldn't get a psychologist job right away - she had to start (gasp) in whatever qualifies as menial labor in a mental institute, and oh this meant she was just such a loser, and the world is unfair, and she was wasting her life. It was just like... "Hello? Job market? Over-saturation? Build-up of experience and resume?"

I sometimes get this kind of impression about some folks at my university.

You're not there to organise "Marxism rallies", guys.

Hey, mom and dad are spending $40k a year; they might as well "live the dream".

When it comes to commie rallies, the question is not why: It's why not?

^

They could be doing something useful like studying instead.

And god damn do they get enough fucking vacation. Two weeks a year of vaca for me that I have a really hard time scheduling in a way that I can actually spend, and there they go, several holidays and breaks they get off. Spring break, winter break(if the college doesn't offer a winter semester) and part of the summer.

That's the major part I'm envious of, some of these kids make more money than me by simply going to school and here I am working, I guess I'm the stupid one.

Well, the whole idea of college is that you make more money by going to school for several years, which justifies the costs of school.

The thing is, most of those slacker students? They have joke degrees that won't get them much in the way of jobs. When they graduate with C's, either under the crushing burden of student loan debt or having spend tons of their parents money, they'll fail so hard they'll be working at Mc Donalds within a couple months.

As far as housing and other things go- Deboss has a point, students would perform much better in their subjects if these things were taken care of for them.

But learning to manage things like housing and such is something you're learning by going to college. Might as well learn it there where there's an abundance of housing and assistance.

edited 26th Sep '11 12:29:37 PM by deathjavu