Why go to college?

While I'm white bread enough to value academic achievement for it's own sake, I notice this pervasive attitude from culture*

that you have to go to college or else you won't learn the skills needed for decent employment.

Sorry but isn't that what high school is for? Sure there's are technical fields such as law or what i'm personally doing medicine where book smarts are are going to be needed, but few people have serious aspirations of doing those. You don't need a B.A. to be a mechanic or a plumber and whole load of respectable career options.

I don't understand why society pushes higher education on every student fresh out of graduation.

hashtagsarestupid

I think it's idiotic to go to college without reason, because all it would be doing is wasting time and money. That said, there are myriad reasons to pursue a higher education.

1. It will be necessary for many of the more higher-paying jobs out there. If you want to be a doctor, lawyer, banker, psychologist, or even a teacher, you will need to get the relevant degrees for these career paths.

2. College and university (university especially) are both wonderful places to take advantage of networking in your chosen field. Professors might be able to connect you with successful former students, many of your classmates might have the connections necessary to help you get ahead, and on top of that, you may even meet successful alumni who have decided to pay your school a visit. Never underestimate the value of knowing the right people.

3. Higher education opens your mind up to a much wider range of possibilities. If you are the intellectual type, you will enjoy the mental stimulation you will get from being around others like you, and they might even get you thinking in a way that you had never imagined you would. Plus, don't forget that you're going to be taking classes that pertain to your interests (more or less; some classes, unfortunately, will be necessary to take if you want your chosen career to become a reality, and you won't like all of them), so it would be much nicer to be in a class that you enjoy and presumably show some talent in.

4. If you end up living away from home, you're also going to get a measure of independence that you likely aren't used to. For once, you're going to be responsible for taking care of yourself to a degree that you wouldn't have seen before, and you're going to have much more freedom to do as you wish than you would with your parents breathing down your neck.

I could go on, but I think the important thing to say here is that, if you aren't sure that you really want to go to college, take a bit of time off to find out what you really want, and where your interests truly lie. Try to find yourself, and once you do, if college would serve your purposes, register as soon as you would be able to.

"While I'm white bread enough to value academic achievement"

Apart from other things, college would aid you in recognizing why that was an idiotically racist thing to say.

And better than thy stroke; why swellest thou then?

whitebread kashchei, not white bred.

hashtagsarestupid

Well, I'm a snob. That's about it.

Removing personal preferences from the equation, most people don't need to go to university, and people who don't need to go to university going to university can cause all sorts of problems, from wasting their own money and time (and time is money), to potentially distorting the labour market by being overqualified or devaluing such qualifications by making them too common. Looking back over the last sixty years or so, we see that a high-school diploma used to be seen as a significant qualification for many jobs, where by now it's shifted to a bachelor's degree, and what counts as the "basic qualification" (that is, in more honest terms, enough paper to give you an advantage over the other potential workers in some fields) may be drifting higher still.

edited 9th Oct '11 7:51:10 AM by ekuseruekuseru

Most employers are snobs, too. And I'm referring to the "main street" small-time employers. as well. Getting a degree makes you goal-oriented and responsible in their eyes.

edited 9th Oct '11 7:51:12 AM by johnnyfog

I'm a skeptical squirrel

Whatever "goal-oriented" means.

But, yeah, lots of places evidently just want you to have a degree. Any degree, even if it's in history or something (mostly) irrelevant to 99% of jobs.

It puts you a neck further than the rest of the job hunting pack, for one. Imagine yourself ten years from now with just a high school degree, and then imagine yourself ten years from now with any kind of college degree. Which one looks better to hire for a company?

Admittedly, a lot of people go to college without any reason. Chances are, if you're in college and you're an undecided major, you went in too early. I know I want to be an English major, and even if I change my mind on what exactly I want to be (writer, teacher, editor, etc.) I can at least use that to increase my chances of getting a job. Maybe not my dream job, but a job nonetheless.

Then there's the fact that you're around mostly good people interested in the same things as you, being challenged by actually good material that interests you. If you keep a high enough grade, at least at my school, instead of taking a history class about, I dunno, American history, you can take a history class about baseball, for example. And those are smaller classes, so you have a stronger group to work with.

College isn't for everyone, but I'd say it's worth a shot for most people.

I'm pretty sure the concept of Law having limits was a translation error. -Wanderlustwarrior

another good reason to go is that you get valuable experience in whatever field you're going into either via clubs related to it, as well as decently equipped labs or attending various conferences/internships and the like.

I've learned more about the practical side of making commercial art in 2-3 months of universty than I likely could have anywhere else exceot somehow landing a job in the field with no connections.

Tropetown's guidelines are good. And I just dropped out of university, partly due to other circumstances, but I also didn't think it through all the way. Don't do what the Fascist did. That's not a political statement - if you plan on replicating this advice, you should probably tell them that too.

Do your homework on where you want to go, and don't let people get your goat for being a "spoilt student brat" or anything like that.

Maybe there are other droputs here... I don't want to pry into anyone's choices in life too much or anything, but... hmm.

I've been told that even if I don't use my degree for its intended purpose, the mere fact of my having one will allow me to get jobs that aren't open to people without degrees. (It worked for my brother, at least—he used a poetry degree to become a firefighter.)

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

It would depend on what you want to do. Not all jobs require elective education*

, but most of the higher skill demanding jobs do require formal education. Again, it depends on what you want to do with your life. If you don't want to do something that requires further education, only do it if you have spare money and want to.

Fight smart, not fair.

Sure it looks good to have the letters B.A. on a resume, but I think it's value is seriously over played. 

Experience is what is important in the job market, and in most fields you can get that through on the job training and apprenticeships rather then spending four year studying at university.

Don't get me wrong, I like leaning. It's often fun and it makes you a better person. But when we are telling teenagers that  the sensible thing to do after high-school is get yourself into ten of thousands of dollars of debt in the vague hopes that it will some how land you a high paying job, something is clearly wrong.

hashtagsarestupid

University allows one to not only gain extra knowledge but also able to hol grander knowledge while demonstrating commitment. Experience may be important but so is knowing.

I’m a lumberjack and I’m ok. I sleep all night and work all day.

^^ What gets me down is that people often go out of their way to blame restless, troubled students for it. Certainly, I'm not going to all-out defend those (like myself) who simply made under-researched decisions on something big in their lives, but I also think that by looking back on my final years in high school and then in a more technical college I can see that the advice offered was little more than "You'll really, really need to go to university at the end of the day.".

Which is a shame really, because I back the support services framework that schools and colleges get here in Britain - the fact that it's there gets it all a passing grade from me. Everything just seems to be backed by the wrong people and spurred by cultural assumptions that don't want to change to fit the times.

But I do probably say that with a lot of regret in my tone. I tried for a BA, the apparently easiest option for people who want to cheat their way through life by bumming off of other people making more of themselves*

, failed, and now I'm trying to work out where my walk around the neighbourhood will fit in around waiting for some B-western to load on Openflix.

Most jobs (assuming you're going for something technical) only offer training to a select few. They can't train everyone that looks alright, so they limit it to the best of the litter, which, in most cases, are people with some kind of higher education.

Experience is important, but I see a lot of people throwing that idea around without realizing that you can't just get experience. There's not an advertisement floating around saying "free experience!" Especially when college education is experience.

I'm pretty sure the concept of Law having limits was a translation error. -Wanderlustwarrior

Your question isn`t really "why go to college," it`s "why get a B.A other than as a springboard to a further degree like law."

Many degrees really are useful. I`m doing physics, one of the most practical within science. I know some people in engineering, others who are trying to get in. All that`s just counting undergrad degrees.

I do agree that it`s overrated overall, though. I think if it`s true that someone "needs to go to college to get a decent job" then that`s a problem in itself to begin with.

"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart

1. you want a job that requires some sort of degree- teaching, engineering, business management, pharmacy, etc. In general, these jobs are usually higher-paying (or at least, higher steady income) than jobs that don't require a college degree.

2. you're still competing with other people applying for whatever job is out there. Even if the job doesn't actually require a college degree, some people who are applying for the position will have one anyway. You might not even make the interview list simply based on the fact you don't have a degree. because of this you end up with a lot of college-educated people working jobs like sales and cashiering, but the alternative is often not working at all.

3. trade schools are generally very specific. Unless you already know exactly what you're going into, it's hard to pick a program you think you'd like before starting. Each certificate/diploma has less job variety to choose from than a college degree. You still need to specialize in college, but you often only get to pick your concentration/specialty in your 2nd or 3rd year, and you should have a good foundation to hop over to a different program if you don't like it.

The best reason to go to a 4-year college is that it's 4 years where you both have a degree of independence from your folks, and don't have to work. For a lot of people, life never quite gets better than that.

You have no idea how much I envy you right now.

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

to be fair, even for those of us who arent employed for part of our college time,. any major worth its salt is a ton of fucking work.

I'm in college because I like being a professional student. Also, all the girls who are students as well is a bonus. I do know about college being a scam.

TU NE CEDE MALIS CLASS OF 1971

I find it hilarious they find outliers who didnt need college to succeed (just unethical business practices) as proof that college is a scam.

That quite a conclusion, sometimes it is really is a matter of privilege and money you know?

hashtagsarestupid

I fund the idea that everyone goes to college is a driven, goal oriented pers0on hilarious given I know more than a few Frat and sorority members at my campus tangentially, and for all their protesting about said things niot being about money and partying, it doesnt change the fact a lot of the frats require hefty entrance fees to join and mostly have drunken parties on the weekend, and are eternally underprepared for class.