Higher (education) Quality (?) Topic:Follow

What did you get out of college? Did you get specific job-content knowledge? Thinking skills? A piece of paper which at least gets your foot in the door?

And what activities helped you get there? In class, homework, lecture, lab, senior thesis project? And which of these were just a waste of time?

Some great conversations.. meeting lots of different people.

edit: I don't know about the second part. It's not so much what I've done, most of which I've forgotten or is useless, but the way I've learned to think about it is useful. I think next year I'll do a lot better whilst enjoying the work more.



Edited, May 15th 2008 10:50am by Youshutup

A hefty student loan payment.

Oh, and teh smarts.

/nod My Bachelor's in Political Science from UCSD was pretty much the same way. My other two degrees is now just fluff on my resume. Most practical knowledge I gained was from my paralegal certificate and my certificate in intellectual property law. And I have gotten more networking opportunities from the classes for those certificates.

I've always believed that college is simply a test to show that you've got the work ethic and ability to succeed "IRL". The exposure to material that may actually be applied in your job is really a secondary benefit.

Granted I'm not very far into the system yet, but my experiences has basically been that my high school education trumps what I'm learning at uni in almost every way, except for the sequentially dependent level of material. Junior high and high school was more of an education while uni has been job training.

Higher education is an extremely flawed system, and what I consider to be the most pressing issue in America. It's largely a necessary evil.

College is mostly useful as a social club where one can meet peers from wealthy families. Ten years after, the connections made will be more valuable than the degree.

Honestly I think it depends on what major/degree program you go into (not to mention what university). Liberal arts degrees are a colossal waste of time and provide little to no training for the real world. As BT said, it's more useful for the networking rather than the actual education.

Engineering and science degrees, however, are useful, if not required for their fields. The knowledge gained from those programs cannot be found anywhere else except for in on the job training, and teaching an employee from the ground up is simply not cost effective or practical in any matter. Thus, companies appreciate the skills that can be learned from those programs.

I am graduating with my bachelor's in Management. I had a conversation with a friend the other day (who is marketing and management), and we decided we really didn't get much. Unlike, say, someone with a degree in accounting, we aren't immediately going to become managers with our degree (whereas they can pretty much go right out, get certified, and start working as accountants). We know all the theories well enough, but we don't have any practical experience, and no one is going to hire a fresh college graduate as a manager if they know what's good for their company.

We're educated idiots.

Now, if my degree, along with my numerous activities, honors, and awards, manages to convince a company to pay me $20,000 more a year, starting salary, then I can tell you for sure what I got out of it. But I need to find a job first!

I get my foot in the door, and to a lesser degree, I learned about how to run small businesses. Perhaps I can focus better and look at the goals for a company as a whole than some. But working knowledge, I have none, and that seems to me to count for a lot more.



As for the second part, my class on entrepreneurship helped a lot; it was the only actual hands-on experience I really got. Other than that, my Spanish courses will probably help me down in Florida. Most of my other classes were straight learn/memorize/regurgitate.

Learning how to multiply matrixes while working on my masters gave me a better understanding of how everything interrelates.

hehehe

Why? It's easier than highschool in every way: the material is more interesting (making it easier) and there are fewer assignments per class (making you less busy) and as long as you can make a thesis about topics you can do fine on any paper.



Really? Maybe I just picked the wrong things to study. What degree are you pursuing?

Why? What part of it is harder?

If you're studying something that's interesting to you then it should be easy. University allows you this freedom that was absent in highschool. Any difficulty is created by your own choices.

***

Though, there is a great deal of maturation that comes after highschool as well. I made C's and B's in highschool for the most part; at university I actually got motivated, but that was still directly a result of actually being interested in the subject matter.

Edited, May 18th 2008 6:56pm by Pensive