Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
And we wonder why we are told to get a degree to have a better life and then when we get it wonder why we cannot get a job to have a better life...
If college is no where as relevant to most jobs (I would put finance and accounting in with nursing.) Others have some like engineering, computer science and computer information systems for instance.
I am not familiar enough with true CS to be able to judge, but "IT" oriented programs like MIS often do not align with corporate IT. Corporate IT is subjected to far more rules, regulations, and bureaucratic inertia than college can prepare for. One mistake in a corporate IT department can spark a severity 1 incident, which is grounds for immediate termination.
Many IT departments also require certifications for specific job roles. These are mostly government/defense jobs.
Colleges can't teach students about the real world. The politics, the racism, the bull.sh.it, the favoritism, the attitudes, the backstabbing, the lies, the fraud, thievery, harassment, violence, and all the other "isms." All things one must learn on by oneself as those are not exactly scientific, pc or polite.
My political science classes taught me a lot, racism is a popular topic in political science, history and anthropology.
Colleges don't teach you magics that you can apply to the real world, but they do give you some ideas.
Political science isn't worthless, for example, political scientists have found that tax system in the U.S today is more regressive(poor people pay higher rate) than it was decades ago. Also, political scientists have studied how the richest and most powerful Americans influence policy making process.
Another reason why I'm skeptical of the college system here. What exactly are they teaching you....and you're paying above inflation prices for that?
-College seems to really de emphasize "soft skills". Whether it's public speaking. Presentations. Creativity? Is that ever broached upon?
How about different personality types. Wouldn't that be useful to cover or analyze in a college class? What kinds of people are there in the world? How do you deal with them?
Higer education is all about hype!
College isn't for everyone, most people will find what they have learned in college is useless for the most part.
There is one way and one way ONLY, to learn what any job is really like after college.....you get to know people who will be flat out honest with you, who are working in that career field. Unfortunately, the only other way of really finding out, is hitting it running and take it right in the face.
All you're going to learn in college are the basics. You are going to gain book knowledge....not working knowledge. I've got a "business" degree and a nursing degree as well. Both were a piece of cake to ace in college. Both are loaded with "hidden" politics, backstabbers and a whole lot of dishonest cover ups. Unfortunately, very few careers are anywhere near as wonderful as they seem on paper and there are a whole lot of things the instructors do NOT tell you. If they told you about all of the ugliness in your chosen profession....they wouldn't have any classes to teach, would they?
I hate when people try to claim the bolded part.
If every professor was fully honest about the ugliness of each career, they WOULD have classes to teach. You would just be better prepared.
If every career is terrible, then you would only have terrible choices to pick from and would still end up picking a terrible one.
I am not familiar enough with true CS to be able to judge, but "IT" oriented programs like MIS often do not align with corporate IT. Corporate IT is subjected to far more rules, regulations, and bureaucratic inertia than college can prepare for. One mistake in a corporate IT department can spark a severity 1 incident, which is grounds for immediate termination.
Computer Science is a nebulous term that is thrown around that include programing another things rather than IT like say Computer/Management Information Systems. But the bolded text is the issue. What happens is you are taught X in college but you either need 5X or Y in the jobs. Why do we get taught one thing in college and finding it is just a basis or not even relevant to the job?
Quote:
Originally Posted by NJBest
Most people go to college for the wrong reason. If I take skiing lessons before I go to Arizona, my newly learned skills would be useless as well.
If this is the case, what is the wrong reasons and what is the right? I mean to me, hearing you "HAVE to go to college" from various teachers and politicians saying that going to college gives you a better life and puts you into a position to get a better job. The purpose of education has changed in a way because of this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ag77845
College degree is required, but college education isn't.
That is the issue. College education in itself is not needed but degrees are.
And we wonder why we are told to get a degree to have a better life and then when we get it wonder why we cannot get a job to have a better life...
If college is no where as relevant to most jobs (I would put finance and accounting in with nursing.) Others have some like engineering, computer science and computer information systems for instance.
One shouldn't be looking at college as a vocational training center. It's not designed to do that. Instead, look at it as in the tradition of liberal arts - it's supposed to teach people how to think and analyze. That's going to get you where you need to go no matter your subject area (and knowledge does get obsolete - anyone ever learn Fortran, Pascal?)
Even law school doesn't teach you how to be a lawyer.
One shouldn't be looking at college as a vocational training center. It's not designed to do that. Instead, look at it as in the tradition of liberal arts - it's supposed to teach people how to think and analyze. That's going to get you where you need to go no matter your subject area (and knowledge does get obsolete - anyone ever learn Fortran, Pascal?)
Even law school doesn't teach you how to be a lawyer.
The issue is people think it is and say that college is the modern version of vocational training rather than going to trade school. Now yes, trade school will not teach you everything but it will give you more basis similar to law school. With more people thinking that college is the be all end all, it needs to change because you have more people seeking college because it is the way people get better paying jobs. Blame the teachers and politicians who have gone and told the last three generations to goto college.
One shouldn't be looking at college as a vocational training center. It's not designed to do that. Instead, look at it as in the tradition of liberal arts - it's supposed to teach people how to think and analyze. That's going to get you where you need to go no matter your subject area (and knowledge does get obsolete - anyone ever learn Fortran, Pascal?)
Even law school doesn't teach you how to be a lawyer.
The problem with law school is that law schools have admitted too many students in the past decade. Medical schools don't admit too many students, so most of their graduates can land on a job.
Engineering has the same problem. Engineering schools virtually accept as many students as they can, and a ton of engineering graduates are having a hard time landing on a relevant job. The demand for engineers is not unlimited.
What are high schools supposed to do? People don't always need to go through college to know how to think and analyze. College helps, but not worth the cost and time. I mean, college education helps but not worth it,but college degree is required anyway....
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.