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Sorry you left, jps-teacher. I was going to chime in. I'll say it anyway. I agree that going back to school as an older adult limits your options, but not always because of the reasons argued between you and Humanoid.
First, educationally: If you are pursuing a science degree, your courses generally have to be no more than five years old. This means you may have to actually re-take some courses you have previously taken. This happened to one of my co-workers who decided to go into nursing. Plus, she had to take many pre-reqs that she had never taken in college. (She has one degree in sociology.)
Second, your lifestyle has changed. You may have a spouse, kids, a mortgage, other committments that make it difficult to go back to school. You may not live in or near a community that has a four year college. CC courses only cover the first two years.
"Never said that, but do you seriously think the applications to tenure track positions at say UCLA are of the same intelligence as the applications to your local community college?"
Yes. Yes I do. Everyone who makes it into a PhD program is about at the same intelligence level. What they choose to do after graduation has nothing to do with intelligence and has everything to do with personal preferences. Some join the private sector so they can make more money and have a less stressful life. Some decide to teach at a small liberal arts college because they want more student interaction while still maintaining a research program. Some work for the government because they like field work and research planning. Some work for non-profits because they believe in that cause. And yes, some try to get that tenure track job at a Research I university because they really love research, and they like the idea of being a manager of a group of researchers.
People who apply to a CC job may choosing to do so because they 1) want to focus solely on teaching; 2) find research to be unfufilling; 3) want to be able to raise a family and be present for them 4) want to do cool side projects without having to worry about having to publish or perish 5) don't want to be forced to live in a location where the few open tenure track jobs in their field are. For my field at least, these tend to be places like Iowa. I dont' really think that makes them less intelligent than a research professor.
Sorry you left, jps-teacher. I was going to chime in. I'll say it anyway. I agree that going back to school as an older adult limits your options, but not always because of the reasons argued between you and Humanoid.
First, educationally: If you are pursuing a science degree, your courses generally have to be no more than five years old. This means you may have to actually re-take some courses you have previously taken. This happened to one of my co-workers who decided to go into nursing. Plus, she had to take many pre-reqs that she had never taken in college. (She has one degree in sociology.)
Second, your lifestyle has changed. You may have a spouse, kids, a mortgage, other committments that make it difficult to go back to school. You may not live in or near a community that has a four year college. CC courses only cover the first two years.
More than happy to chat with you, and thank you. The good-bye was to Humanoid, not to the discussion.
No argument with the second point. It's one of the reasons that some of the special programs are explicitly designed for part time study even at institutions that don't permit that for the regular undergrads, and why some are prepared to support those who come to them with their families.
The internet has changed some of the preparation problem, allowing even those without a 4 year college near them to take a 4 year college course on line. Yes, lab courses are just a wee bit harder to deal with in that way - but as Cal Tech demonstrates, just because it is a community college doesn't mean that the science courses are insufficient.
The science course issue is different - and very much major specific, as far as I understand things. Nursing involves direct care in a way that few other majors do. So, yes, one might need to retake some classes.
The pre-requisites issue is totally different, simply because one [i]always[/i[ has to take the pre-requisites! It may be harder because it is that much more burden later on, but the actual cause of the burden is not age or time related. Does that make sense?
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Going back can be hard.
For the most part, the actual collegiate institutions, from application to matriculation to degree programs to graduation, are the least of the hurdles.
More than happy to chat with you, and thank you. The good-bye was to Humanoid, not to the discussion.
The pre-requisites issue is totally different, simply because one [i]always[/i[ has to take the pre-requisites! It may be harder because it is that much more burden later on, but the actual cause of the burden is not age or time related. Does that make sense?
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Going back can be hard.
For the most part, the actual collegiate institutions, from application to matriculation to degree programs to graduation, are the least of the hurdles.
Agreed. However, in the case of my friend, it took about 3 yrs for her to take all the science courses she needed, along with working full time. It requires one to stay motivated for a very long time.
You attack stan4, yet you essentially said the same thing about career advice. Its actually a bit funny.
Oh, yes. My telling you that there were ways to get information about careers, even when the school's resources suck is totally the same as stan4's saying the school never let anybody down (to his experience).
But, Humanoid, it is clear to me from your writing that your school let you down, and my comments about careers and the library neglected the blatant truth that even though an alternative source of information exists, it should not need to. I apologize for not explicitly saying so.
So, let me clarify my thoughts on this for you:
The single greatest crime committed against our middle and secondary school students is the complete and utter failure to provide sufficient numbers of competent counselors.
This include those who do college counseling, but who have little (and usually NO) training in the area, and have usually been to one or maybe two undergraduate institutions and one graduate school. They rely on reputations and college books, at best, and computer programs at worst. It doesn't help that in most states, there is no requirement for college counseling course work to become a certified high school counselor.
This also covers financial aid counseling, a specialized area that high school counseling programs almost never even offer a course. This is truly unfortunate, as the actual process of applying for fin-aid is as complex as taxes, in many ways. Then again, it is unclear how much the counselors we currently have could handle, even if we halved their work loads.
It includes career counseling. Most secondary school counselors have had a course in the subject. If they are lucky, it had a component that looked at the region in which the counselor will be working and another that examined future job issues. Rarely, though, do they provide the skills to assess changes in the job market, leaving the counselors - even those moderately trained - with antiquated skills to counsel in a rapidly changing market.
Special needs students, high ability students, and gifted underachiever are ill-served, as well. Most counseling programs require one course in SPED which usually includes one chapter on gifted children. This shows up in the efforts to get appropriate accommodations for the SPED students, when teachers balk or pay only lip service to the accommodations that are required of them. It shows up in course planning as early as 7th grade, in terms of college planning. It shows up in the utter lack of comprehension of what is going on with the underachiever.
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There are good counselors. But a system which, optimally, recommends a load of 180 students per counselor is designed to fail. If you then change the load to 240, 360, or more students per counselor, if sometimes the failure is catastrophic, it should hardly be considered shocking.
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Although ASCA recommends a 250-to-1 ratio of students to counselors, the national average is actually 479 (2004-2005 school year). This is a an improvement from the previous academic year, when the average was 488. See how the individual states stacks up and see how the individual states' ratios have changed over the past year.
At the high school level, the national average for the 2004-2005 school year is 229 students per counselor. See how the individual states rank.
At the K-8 level, the national average is 882-to-1.
9 states have high school average ratios below 180 to 1. One state is below 100 to 1. Two states' averages were above 400 to 1. The job cannot be done at that ratio.
Agreed. However, in the case of my friend, it took about 3 yrs for her to take all the science courses she needed, along with working full time. It requires one to stay motivated for a very long time.
^^^ She was single (still is), not even a boyfriend for most of the time.
But those are some of the obstacles of a second career, going back later (which often never comes), etc. That is why I would encourage everyone to finish high school, at the very least. That is why I am lukewarm on these "gap years" between hs and college. I know some kids don't know what they want to "do", but I think it's far better to get to college and start taking your GEs while you figure it out.
I agree with the high school counselor issues. Most of these folks have gone to local colleges and know little if nothing about out of state options. This is particularly true in an isolated state like Colorado, where the next states are quite a distance.
Financial aid counseling is a joke. Many high school counselors believe some of the hype about these zillions of dollars of unclaimed money out there, and encourage kids to apply for all sorts of odd-ball scholarships, the odds of which getting are about the same as winning Powerball. The kids learn fairly quickly that the best fin. aid comes from the colleges. The rest is mostly small scholarships (which do help, don't get me wrong) from civic groups, churches, etc, and LOANS!
I agree that going back to school as an older adult limits your options, but not always because of the reasons argued between you and Humanoid.
I don't even know why I spent so long arguing about that as they aren't even the most important issues, particularly here in California.
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Everyone who makes it into a PhD program is about at the same intelligence level.
Really, why would that be? Do the admission standards some how determine intelligence? Obviously, someone who gets into say a Phd program at Harvard is not going to be stupid but to claim each ph.d student is of the same intelligence at Harvard is a bit odd. There is another problem too, in fields that either lack men or women they lower the standards to attract the gender they are missing. This is exactly what happens in male dominated fields like mathematics and computer science. If they don't have at least some women in the department it looks bad so they are basically forced to admit a certain number of women regardless of how they stand to the other applicants. I've also seen special bonuses offered. So, not only do the admission requirements not determine intelligence but graduate programs some times admit students other motives.
BUt this isn't even the real issue. How many people with Ph.ds from Harvard apply to community colleges? Not many. The applicant pools for UCLA and a Community college are different. I know this first hand.
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People who apply to a CC job may choosing to do so because they
Firstly, I should note that what I have in mind are mainly science based subjects. I really don't pay attention to the humanities and things of that nature. The situation for the humanities etc is a bit different, there isn't after all many jobs outside of academia for say a Ph.d in Philosophy or History. Far more people get Ph.ds in these subjects then there are tenure track positions. As a result, its perfectly reasonable to find that the quality of Humanities teachers at a Community College is better than in the sciences. In fact, I would argue the same holds for High schools in many ways.
But for the sciences there are many other options outside of getting a tenure track position, so either they just really love teaching or they are forced into the position in some way. In some cases, an excellent scientist may get pushed into the position. Say , he moved for his wife and can't get a position at the only university in the area. But more often the riff raff get forced into the positions because they could not secure a tenure track position or could not make it in private industry. Seriously, why would someone work at a community college when they can get paid double in the industry? Its not like the work load at the community college is lower. Full timers teach 5-6 classes a semester (Unlike a research university where you only teach 2-4 classes a year).
Using counselors for career is a particularly good strategy. Nobody is going to be familiar with every field, but especially not someone that just has some undergrad degree in a social science (or whatever else, don't really know what the degree requirements are for these people). You need to get professionals from a variety of fields to come in and talk to the students. If you do this a few times a year, then by the time you graduate you would've heard first hand about a number of careers.
The lack of good college counselors really doesn't matter, they are useless compared to the the other resources you have on campus. I don't think I once talked to one of these people, I would just walk into the department I was curious about. Unfortunately doing this doesn't work at high school nearly as well as the level of competence from the teachers is much different than at a university or even a community college.
You got that right. I went to a public high school in California. I kid you not that I didn't learn ANYTHING. Many times, the teacher had us watch videos of reality TV. That's all. There was next to no learning, and the substitutes hated being there. About the only time anything happened was when the principal walked into class, the teachers started doing something then.
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