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How are people back when you were in college "more interesting"? At that age I didn't consider my self as well rounded and experienced as I am now. I knew almost nothing about the world at that time. The interesting life experiences didn't really start until the post college years when I could actually afford to do things. It was quite a shock going from a the majority sheltered suburban life I grew up in to the real world.
Well, not all of them were, but you had choice to surround yourself with the people you wanted to be around unlike work and K-12.
People tended to be more open minded and had more free time to ponder things, ask questions, have more things to talk about thanks to whatever class they were taking, and so on.
Taking chances was easier then as well since when you messed up you knew it wasn't likely to completely change your life. It's not that people knew all that much, but felt they did and weren't so afraid to admit what they didn't know.
The sense that anything was possible and your whole life was ahead of you was there. Or that once you got out into the real world you were going to make great changes and so forth.
Not to mention back then if I wanted to see friends I could just travel up a few floors or down a few floors or even across town and there they were.
Now, if I want to see more than one or two old friends at a time I have to get on a freaking plane or schedule a meet up months in advance.
For most of my working life, I had more free time after college than while in it. Just class, homework, and research was a lot more than a 40 hour week. Just by the "book" definition, the minimum practical was 18 hours in class + 3 hours homework for every hour in class = 72, then research added a lot more....
That's if you go "by the book" / the average student's expectations which many of us didn't have to. As an example, if I had an 18 credit course load (18 hours class time / week), I would attend about 10 of those hours, if that. Even though for the courses in my major homework was supposed to be closer to 5 hours / class (they wouldn't even let you take 2 CS courses in a given semester without a manual override from an administrator) it was probably less than 1 for me most weeks. The only consistent exceptions to this were my honors classes because they typically assigned large amounts of reading. Being an undergrad, I didn't have to do any research. So for me, a normal week was about 10 hours in class + 15 or so of homework + maybe 5 of studying = ~30 hours. Of course, there were the weeks where I was pulling all-nighters and putting in 100 hours if I had 2 major projects and 3 tests due, but that wasn't normal and I knew those weeks were shot well in advance.
Out of college, a 40 hour week is a light week for me. 50-55 is pretty average, with 60 - 65 not being worth raising an eyebrow over.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tnff
Ok, besides college and grad school, I've bought my share of cars, as well as several homes, raised two kids, worked different jobs in different locations on projects that changed the world, along with a war, several presidents, recessions, and all the rest. I think I have more than earned the right to have an opinion on the subject.
I agree whole-heartedly
Quote:
Originally Posted by macrodome2
Closest thing I've experienced to college is outside sales. You are judged objectively- by making quota. You visit different clients. Each client/sales opportunity is it's own project. You have to be very self motivated and self sufficient, but if you are successful you are rewarded monetarily instead of getting an "A".
That's a good point and may be why I'm sometimes a little jealous of sales people. I also think that, at least in my industry, sales people really piggy back off and get a lot of the credit and $ for what the developers really do. They get the easier travel where they can actually experience the city, and spend a few minutes demoing what we spent 40 hours to build, then if it goes well they get the big bonus, and if it goes badly we get the blame. If you can stomach it, which I can't, sales is one of the best lines of work to get into. It can be a lot of work and stressful, but it's always in high demand, is easily understood, pays extremely well, and improves your ability to sell yourself to companies thus increasing your compensation beyond what you're probably worth relative to other key jobs at the company.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wordsmith12
This post was spot on!
I quoted the above paragraph because I think this can happen in college as well when you're working on a group project with incompetent people. It happened to me once. Long story short, we started as 5 and ended up as 2 because three people weren't pulling their weight, resulting in their being kicked out of the group.
It happened to me once as well. We had a 20+ person team for a big project that was roughly 40% of our grade. We were not allowed to kick people out of the group and our instructor told us up front that everyone got the same grade for the project regardless of effort or contribution "just like the real world." I tried to stay out of it and just do my part since I had lots of other stuff going on at the time. 2 months in the group had barely even started, about a dozen people basically refused to do any work, etc. I wound up having to take control of the project, taking the lead in all areas: management, business requirement gathering, design, and a good portion of the coding. It cost me a lot of sleep and grades in a couple elective courses. It turns out that while some aspects of the situation were fake (those people that did nothing would have been fired in any decent company), overall it was surprisingly realistic, and depressing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Port Pitt Ash
Also in corporate America, unlike college, being skilled at your job is becoming more of a negative. It seems there's a push toward mediocrity in your actual work (while excellence is praised in your social team-building exercises).
I haven't really found this to be the case in my field. However, what I have found is that the really skilled people often get so much dumped on them that they struggle just to keep their heads above water. The people that either aren't as good or have very limited, specialized skillsets have far less work assigned and get the free time either at work, or home, to "be initiative" and put together fancy documents, and schedule meetings with management to network, "prove" their worth, and promote ideas that most of the rest of us already have, making the impression that they're real go-getters and leaders, thus getting promoted up the ladder.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Port Pitt Ash
There's no real incentive to be better either. Once they know you're the skilled one you get more work, without more pay. Then someone quits and instead of getting replaced their workload is either spread across multiple people or gets dumped on you.
This is happening all over America. The current unemployment situation makes it really easy for employers to take advantage of their employees.
I think that laws need to be changed regarding overtime rules for employees. The current law is that any job that requires a college degree or professional training beyond high school is exempt from hours and overtime pay regulations. At the time the law was passed, a high school education was the norm and meaningful college degrees put the employee in a position of power. The thought being that if they don't like the current setup, they can walk away and find a different employer because one can't just pick up anyone off the street to do that job since it requires specialized knowledge. Well, nowadays, a bachelor degree is like a high school diploma was back then. In most situations a company absolutely can pick from any number of people off the street to replace an employee that they feel isn't working hard enough. Because of this, they're able to force people to work well beyond the standard 40 / week without any increase in compensation. If the employee refuses to do that, they are let go for "not completing the tasks required of their position" or "not being a team player."
Quote:
Originally Posted by ovi8
The only thing I miss about college is having friends around in close proximity every day.
Finding something you really enjoy makes life after school a completely different experience.
Having all those similar people around with similarly large amounts of free time is definitely one of the huge benefits of college. Out in the real world, your neighbors and coworkers probably won't have as much in common with you and often won't be free at the same time you are.
While it's a great idea to find something you really enjoy for your job, the fact is that most people don't enjoy any activity that pays liveable wages enough to want to do it 40 hours or more per week, especially when it's on someone else's schedule and so that someone else sees the majority of the fruits of their labor. That's not to say we all hate our jobs but most people do not get to work on something they would do anyway if they didn't receive a paycheck for it.
That's if you go "by the book" / the average student's expectations which many of us didn't have to. As an example, if I had an 18 credit course load (18 hours class time / week), I would attend about 10 of those hours, if that. Even though for the courses in my major homework was supposed to be closer to 5 hours / class (they wouldn't even let you take 2 CS courses in a given semester without a manual override from an administrator) it was probably less than 1 for me most weeks. The only consistent exceptions to this were my honors classes because they typically assigned large amounts of reading. Being an undergrad, I didn't have to do any research. So for me, a normal week was about 10 hours in class + 15 or so of homework + maybe 5 of studying = ~30 hours. Of course, there were the weeks where I was pulling all-nighters and putting in 100 hours if I had 2 major projects and 3 tests due, but that wasn't normal and I knew those weeks were shot well in advance.
Out of college, a 40 hour week is a light week for me. 50-55 is pretty average, with 60 - 65 not being worth raising an eyebrow over.
I agree whole-heartedly
That's a good point and may be why I'm sometimes a little jealous of sales people. I also think that, at least in my industry, sales people really piggy back off and get a lot of the credit and $ for what the developers really do. They get the easier travel where they can actually experience the city, and spend a few minutes demoing what we spent 40 hours to build, then if it goes well they get the big bonus, and if it goes badly we get the blame. If you can stomach it, which I can't, sales is one of the best lines of work to get into. It can be a lot of work and stressful, but it's always in high demand, is easily understood, pays extremely well, and improves your ability to sell yourself to companies thus increasing your compensation beyond what you're probably worth relative to other key jobs at the company.
It happened to me once as well. We had a 20+ person team for a big project that was roughly 40% of our grade. We were not allowed to kick people out of the group and our instructor told us up front that everyone got the same grade for the project regardless of effort or contribution "just like the real world." I tried to stay out of it and just do my part since I had lots of other stuff going on at the time. 2 months in the group had barely even started, about a dozen people basically refused to do any work, etc. I wound up having to take control of the project, taking the lead in all areas: management, business requirement gathering, design, and a good portion of the coding. It cost me a lot of sleep and grades in a couple elective courses. It turns out that while some aspects of the situation were fake (those people that did nothing would have been fired in any decent company), overall it was surprisingly realistic, and depressing.
I haven't really found this to be the case in my field. However, what I have found is that the really skilled people often get so much dumped on them that they struggle just to keep their heads above water. The people that either aren't as good or have very limited, specialized skillsets have far less work assigned and get the free time either at work, or home, to "be initiative" and put together fancy documents, and schedule meetings with management to network, "prove" their worth, and promote ideas that most of the rest of us already have, making the impression that they're real go-getters and leaders, thus getting promoted up the ladder.
This is happening all over America. The current unemployment situation makes it really easy for employers to take advantage of their employees.
I think that laws need to be changed regarding overtime rules for employees. The current law is that any job that requires a college degree or professional training beyond high school is exempt from hours and overtime pay regulations. At the time the law was passed, a high school education was the norm and meaningful college degrees put the employee in a position of power. The thought being that if they don't like the current setup, they can walk away and find a different employer because one can't just pick up anyone off the street to do that job since it requires specialized knowledge. Well, nowadays, a bachelor degree is like a high school diploma was back then. In most situations a company absolutely can pick from any number of people off the street to replace an employee that they feel isn't working hard enough. Because of this, they're able to force people to work well beyond the standard 40 / week without any increase in compensation. If the employee refuses to do that, they are let go for "not completing the tasks required of their position" or "not being a team player."
Having all those similar people around with similarly large amounts of free time is definitely one of the huge benefits of college. Out in the real world, your neighbors and coworkers probably won't have as much in common with you and often won't be free at the same time you are.
While it's a great idea to find something you really enjoy for your job, the fact is that most people don't enjoy any activity that pays liveable wages enough to want to do it 40 hours or more per week, especially when it's on someone else's schedule and so that someone else sees the majority of the fruits of their labor. That's not to say we all hate our jobs but most people do not get to work on something they would do anyway if they didn't receive a paycheck for it.
All excellent points. Your post too describes very much how I feel.
FWIW:
I'm retired. I never worked a 40 hour work week. Not ever.
As I said in another post, I never went to college. But I always wanted to do well so I got into sales where I could work my way up. Once, when I was about 35, I worked myself to a standstill. So depressed and exhausted I could not get out of bed. I took 2 years off. I had made some money so I flew my sailplane nearly every day. After a couple of years I felt better and went back to work. But not quite so hard.
I traveled. Sometimes internationally, sometimes on weekends. And I took the promotions and better jobs no matter where they were. Chicago, San Diego, Atlanta, Huntsville, AL; Texas.
I'm glad I did it. All that work made a world of difference, and now we're retired.
This year I built my first computer. These days I am studying Spanish. I work in the backyard, watch the birds, talk to my dog. Travel some. I like being retired.
I don't know that you can still find guys like I was; guys who will work on the sales floor 60 hours a week and then take a promotion to Chicago. But if you are one of those people I believe you can still succeed. I don't believe you can create success in great quantity by working 40 hour weeks. Just don't think it can be done.
It happened to me once as well. We had a 20+ person team for a big project that was roughly 40% of our grade. We were not allowed to kick people out of the group and our instructor told us up front that everyone got the same grade for the project regardless of effort or contribution "just like the real world." I tried to stay out of it and just do my part since I had lots of other stuff going on at the time. 2 months in the group had barely even started, about a dozen people basically refused to do any work, etc. I wound up having to take control of the project, taking the lead in all areas: management, business requirement gathering, design, and a good portion of the coding. It cost me a lot of sleep and grades in a couple elective courses. It turns out that while some aspects of the situation were fake (those people that did nothing would have been fired in any decent company), overall it was surprisingly realistic, and depressing.
.
Sad part is I seeing more often that they would not be fired but kept on. They are still charging billable hours and as long as someone is willing to jump in and do everything like you did, the poor performers are a profit center.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wsamon
I haven't really found this to be the case in my field. However, what I have found is that the really skilled people often get so much dumped on them that they struggle just to keep their heads above water. The people that either aren't as goodor have very limited, specialized skillsets have far less work assigned and get the free time either at work, or home, to "be initiative" and put together fancy documents, and schedule meetings with management to network, "prove" their worth, and promote ideas that most of the rest of us already have, making the impression that they're real go-getters and leaders, thus getting promoted up the ladder.
.
This is a really terrible thing to write and super harsh. I think what the OP is feeling is normal and lots of people feel this way, of questioning if there's maybe more to life than what's on the surface. I was not wealthy or popular in college, college wasn't that objectively enjoyable for me at the time and I couldn't wait to graduate. But as an adult certain parts of me long for that time when you didn't have to yet think about life yet. It doesn't mean the OP lacks ambition to succeed in life, and that's a terrible thing to say about someone you've never met before on an internet forum.
Thank you for your kind words. You're 100% right, and I agree with longing for "that time when you didn't have to think about life yet." That happens to me every once in a while.
I think it's great you are questioning and seeking alternative paths. Not knowing what field you are in, maybe you can work for a college? If you are willing to relocate, there are plenty of colleges all over the country hiring for a variety of jobs. Since most collegetowns are cheap and have lower cost of living, you could possibly even settle temporarily for a part time job while you get a master's degree or work your way up at that college?
Thanks for the reply.
I've thought about working at a college or university. (In fact, I applied for such a position at my alma mater while still studying there, but didn't get the job.)
However, I'm not sure working at a college even comes close to one's experience there as a student. From what I've gathered, working in higher education isn't much different from working in the private sector. Unless you are a professor or work in some kind of research-driven role, your job is not likely to be academic in nature. Thus, you might as well work at Anywhere Corp.
As I stated earlier, it may just be the "college student experience" that I miss -- cramming for tests, memorizing definitions, writing papers. I was always a great student -- the kind who would fret at getting a B.
It's saddening that Corporate America offers little in the way of intellectual stimulation. Sure, you might learn about your industry, how to use proprietary software, and so on, but there comes a point where there just isn't much else to discover. In contrast, you're always taking different classes and studying different subjects in college.
There's nothing like the satisfaction that comes with getting an A after busting your ass studying for a test or working on a project. In the work world, it isn't often that you get a pat on the back. And you'd better hope that your boss doesn't try to take credit for your efforts.
It's saddening that Corporate America offers little in the way of intellectual stimulation. Sure, you might learn about your industry, how to use proprietary software, and so on, but there comes a point where there just isn't much else to discover. In contrast, you're always taking different classes and studying different subjects in college.
School is all about you- the student, work is about the corporation. That's not going to change, so I'd suggest you find something to give you fulfillment- even if it's a hobby.
Maybe I just miss the studying/intellectual challenge. I know most people are happy to put that behind them, but I actually enjoyed learning, writing papers, studying and acing exams, etc.
It appears to me that you regarded college as the be-all, end-all.
IMO, on the contrary ... it's merely the training to give you a license to learn even more. It's the launch pad for the journey ahead, not the destination.
One of my flight instructors always observes "that a good pilot is always learning". True in every profession and pursuit I've been involved in for over 50 years. The excitement of learning and doing is as strong today as it ever was for me, and I've got more resources to utilize to pursue this stuff.
Perhaps it's all about attitude and what gratifies you that is lacking for now? Maybe you could devote some time to learning/exploring other things than what you do for work? Hobbies?
Socially, if you're not finding the satisfaction among your friends now that you got while in college, that tells me that it's time to find new friends. At this stage in your lives, you should have all the more opportunities/excitement than you did when in college ... and you and your contemporaries now have the benefit of more experiences/money/resources than you all did back in school.
It's the launch pad for the journey ahead, not the destination.
Post college life often times lacks a definite A to B direction.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sunsprit
Socially, if you're not finding the satisfaction among your friends now that you got while in college, that tells me that it's time to find new friends. At this stage in your lives, you should have all the more opportunities/excitement than you did when in college ... and you and your contemporaries now have the benefit of more experiences/money/resources than you all did back in school.
Pretty much any friends you find after college are going to generally take a lot longer to become good friends (except maybe co-workers you also hang out with outside of work) for the simple reason you don't see them as often and have as much time to spend with them.
Although none of this touches on how much more loans payments are, college costs are, and how many recent college grads are out of work or under employed today.
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To all.
