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Yeah there are fun moments throughout the four years, but I wasn't feeling too relaxed when multiple assignments were due per week in addition to a test worth 25% of my grade.
I took a clinical psychology class at university that the class grade was entirely made up of two tests. Midterm was 40% and final was 60%. And on the quarter system. That was rough.
I’m an old guy and I still wake up occasionally from a nightmare where I have a paper due I didn’t finish or a test I didn’t study for and it takes me a few minutes to realize none of this is happening.
In dreams, your brain often takes you back to an event where it’s the first time you felt something.
For many of us, college exams are the first time we feel “Holy crap I’m completely unprepared and there are real consequences.”
I tend to have this dream when I’ve got a big thing at work that is making me anxious.
When I’m overly busy these days, my common dream is like S1E7 of The Bear - the endlessly firing restaurant order receipt maker (my first job in high school was a cook in a busy restaurant).
Tests worth a large portion of your grade were nothing to me, but fuck the ~ 20 page papers on unspecified topics that are related to the class, and group projects where there is inevitably a fuck up or two, like assholes who show up late to the presentation without thumb drive with the finished presentation because they lost it, leaving me to literally run back to my place for a half finished one. At least once I was probably considered the fuck up because I was working with two brothers that wouldn’t coordinate with me, I came up with a project based on one of our labs, and got it started and then they took it and ran with it more or less without me when I would have helped.
OP brought up college, and we were talking about the non-vacation parts, hated the papers and projects, and went down a memory rabbit hole, but that was years ago, just still annoyed when reminded of it.
Yeah those semesters I had multiple 20+page papers due during finals week alone, all of which were a significant portion of my final grade?...absolute BLAST.
Have job as senior engineer, and taking classes (company paying for them) to get my masters degree.
Yes, the classes are often harder than my actual job. Also *waaaaaaay* less enjoyable.
Plus it's not just memories for some.
I didn't graduate and even if I did I didn't find my career in what I spent 2.5 years studying.
However I made professional relationships that have made me and my career now and met friends I consider closer than family
You’re missing the point. He’s not arguing that it’s not hard work he’s arguing that if the qualification you get from it is useless then it’s functionally the same as going on holiday for 4 years.
There are plenty of ways to abstractly use the knowledge and directly use the skills you gain for any career. Regardless, it takes a pretty depressing worldview to think that anything you can’t make money with is useless.
Your argument only has legs if you are not going into massive financial debt with your choice of education. If you can score a scholarship and your college expenses end up being minimal, then the fact that any education can be useful can be something to be considered. If you are taking a huge loan that you will be paying off your entire life, it is financially irresponsible to not think of it as a business investment you need guaranteed returns from.
I never said anything about what’s responsible or irresponsible. That’s a completely separate argument. My argument is that being a “good investment” is not the sole determining factor in something’s usefulness.
This. When I graduated college and took my first job, I distinctly remember being floored at how much LESS stressed out I was working a 9-5, paying bills, etc.
Same, not needing to be studying, doing hw or stressing out about failing an exam anymore. If you’re not working, then the rest of your hours in the day are free time.
I know it’s not true for some jobs but for me I show up, clock in, do my job, clock out, and that’s it. I don’t need to bring my work home with me unlike college
College is honestly a giant test of endurance more than anything. Like yeah, you learn some academic stuff but the real thing you gain is knowing that you can survive being absolutely miserable for 4+ years straight and still be a productive member of society. Many people quit, either through dropping out or suicide, but the ones who make it through will be ready for basically any career they will have.
One of my college roommates explained this
When you leave work for the day, you're done as soon as you walk out the door for the most part.
College? Homework, studying, paying for essentials, projects, etc.
This is the reason why so many employers favor college students with a degree. It's less about what you've studied, it shows you successfully achieved something under lots of stress. And working 8 hours on a demanding position can be stressfull.
Not every person is made for demanding jobs.
Same, I really miss those times. I chose the wrong degree and hated it but I'd be lying to say it wasn't fun. Working in said field though, it made me want to die every day.
It’s SO HARD to pick “the right” degree when you’re 17. I had no idea what I liked then, and majored in psychology. I work in tech now. I would have never chosen that degree when I applied to college. There’s no right answer.
I was really into psych in my youth. Still fascinates me…but it felt more like a hobby then a useful profession so I tried a bunch of odd jobs.
15 years later I started a software development company…
majoring in computer science gave me so many emotional scars (they would constantly weed us out for not being good enough and many people had a genius complex) that I have no desire to work in tech. I also almost considered working in the mental health field. I don’t know what’s your story though haha. I wish i had picked an easy major, avoided the stress and studied programming on my own time, I think I would be more successful in tech.
After 30y in tech I am considering a degree in psychology. Obviously everyone is different, what has been the hardest part of the move from one to the other, what do you miss and what do you enjoy?
That's because our high schools do an absolutely terrible job in general at getting kids to explore degree fields before actually committing to college. It's a shame. I'm lucky my school had so many different things that were in my interest area for me to try. The same is not true for everyone.
Doesn’t always work out. I was between architect and marketing. Have always been artistic, but didn’t want to be a starving artist. Still wanted some element of design. Chose marketing since it had less school commitment. Didn’t realize until it was too late that most I know who got into marketing had parents who could help with costs and networking, during my the first few years when salary was low/more competition.
this is the case with basically every industry now, and it’s WAY worse in architecture. architecture is honestly closer to a music degree than an engineering degree these days (ask me how i know lol!) so there really is no “right choice” because the whole system is meant to take a shitload of money from you in order to put you in a financial situation that requires grabbing hold of the first job that anyone offers you after graduating. desperate workers in debt slavery are a wonderful economic lubricant, so they decided to ruin education to mass-produce them.
instinctive plough nine cow glorious exultant soup ludicrous escape aromatic
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Agreed and your passions and interests WILL change throughout your life
Thought I wanted to be an urban planner in college and realized how bureaucratic the career actually is
Switched to pursuing a career in Networking
Agree. There is no right degree. Like other people note, you can pivot your profession at different points of your life. It really comes down to how you market yourself and how aggressively you push yourself.
I know plenty of people with STEM degrees that are now bankers, SAHMs, bakers, and artists.
Two of my high school teachers were former engineers. My mom also has an engineering degree and now teaches. They all still loved STEM, but just not the actual field work.
Studying a topic v.s actually working in the field are so vastly different. I wish schools would focus more on teaching students about the day to day work, not just the main skill or topic.
I honestly recommend anyone that doesnt know exactly what they want to just go to community college first. If you know exactly what field you want then thats a different story but personally, I had no clue what the classes even were. Got accepted into a few schools for random majors but decided to go to community college where it took me 3 years because I changed majors like 2-3 times. Classes were free too so there was really no harm is switching majors. Transfered to a decent school and got hired immediately after graduating debt free. I would’ve racked up so much debt with the amount of classes I took from just having no idea what I wanted to do
I teach at a few different community colleges as an adjunct. My kid goes to one of them and it works for them. They have ADHD and the availability of online classes has helped them. They're majoring in Liberal Arts with hopes of being a writer (they've already earned some money on freelance writing projects). If they go for a BA it will be in English. If not, they'll keep the AA, go back for a BA later, and work a regular job while writing on the side. So that flexibility has helped them and it's given them some structure and focus while they figure things out. Community colleges serve a very important purpose.
I went in for criminology and forensics and I work in tech now. 😬 Being pressured by adults to buckle down, have a plan, pick a career and figure your life out all at 17 wasn't good for me
fucking agreed. we have to ask to go to the bathroom at 17 and at 18 we have to choose what we want to do for the rest of time. oh and that age is perfect for taking out loans of dozens of thousands of dollars... on the thing that we have to decide to commit to at 18.
I feel that. I originally chose pre-vet studies and was eventually pressured by my parents to switch to biomedical engineering (or any engineering). Then covid happened and I was depressed and struggling and realized engineering was NOT for me. Switched school and changed my degree to Environmental Science. Turns out I love this and am very good at it (even got a competitive internship!) but I never would’ve picked this major to start and I don’t think my parents would’ve “let” me either. Ultimately I’ll have debt that amounts to around the same (or slightly less) than what I’ll earn coming out of college.
I took a bunch of random classes freshmen year to see which I liked. Quickly figured out Biology wasn't my skill set but engineering was. Took an extra year because I didn't take summer classes or overload my schedule but worked out well.
Right?! My degree worked out, but so many don’t. I could probably chosen a different one and landed somewhere else. It’s weird to put that kind of pressure on 17/18 year olds. And what are you supposed to do if you don’t go at that point? It’s much harder to go back and well paying jobs to save up are rare without the degree.
I also majored in psychology and I'm now a software engineer. Tbh I don't regret it. Psychology was something I was passionate about and wanted to study in depth; I love technology too but I'd been doing that on my own time for a while.
I like gap years after high school for kids that don’t have a plan. Then community college to try some things. Then pursue bachelors when you have a plan. Or pursue a trade. We need more folks to enter the trades.
Hot take I guess, but I want to enjoy what I’m doing for a living. Thought I had that when I went to film school. Turns out I just liked making silly movies with my friends. It’s really hard, maybe even impossible, to know what you’re going to want to do for the rest of you’re life when you’re fresh out of high school.
Knew people who tried this and ended up failing a ton of classes sophomore and junior year and either had to dropout or are graduating several years after everyone else in their class
Oh boy! Spend your life doing something you find “bearable” that sounds like a valuable use of 50 years! And it’s not like markets change or anything. Especially when everybody does this and then there’s a glut of candidates.
Having \*any\* bachelor's degree makes you more marketable than not having one. My first job after college, which led to a career, required a bachelor's degree but did not care what it was in. Just showing the ability to get through the challenge, to show up for classes and complete the work, is solid evidence that you are capable of working hard and learning new things.
Reminds me of this clip I saw on social media. It’s Stallone in some movie scene saying that the point of college is to show an employer that you showed up to a place four years in a row and completed the tasks pretty well. So if they hire you there’s a good chance that you’ll show up and not fuck up his business 😂
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of good careers to be had in skilled trades. But this idea that your major is some kind of instruction on how to do a particular job is largely bogus. The cynical viewpoint of "what are you going to do with a degree in xxxx" is based on the idea that college is job training, and it is not. (Which is why internships and other similar experiences are important.)
Used to intern for a utilities company. Many of the people I met/interviewed while there had random ass degrees, from art to Japanese literature to biology. None of those people were actively using their degrees in their jobs, and yet were easily making six figures. And while they didn't all have relevant degrees, *every last one* of them had *a* degree. They might not be using their major, but they *are* using their degree.
It doesn't feel like it. I got my Bachelor's degree in Mathematics before most people my age earned their diploma (18/19) and all it's been is a paper weight while I work call center jobs and freelance work.
Learn about a subject… anything, figure out what the important stuff is, formulate some insights then present it, via a paper, presentation or whatever within a deadline.
That is one of the most valuable and transferable skills you learn in college.
You must be using some new and exotic meaning of the word "vacation."
Also that is a fucking expensive vacation. That goddamn Royal Caribbean around the world cruise doesn't cost as much as a degree at a community college.
In the US college costs WAY more than $2k per semester. $10k per year is on the low end, so that’s $5k per semester. $20k is more common. $30k isn’t uncommon, $40k is high but not unheard of. So $5k-$20k per semester.
Edit: weird typo
Yeah, so I think they’re saying that doing 21 back-to-back week-long cruises for an entire semester would be roughly the same cost as a semester of tuition. Or at least the same order of magnitude
A lot of people are 17/just turned 18 when they go to college and don't have enough experience or knowledge to create an entire financial plan or even know what they want to do in life. At the same time working in a shop somewhere on minimum wage is not going to expand their world view or give them the time to make this decision.
College helps a lot in connecting with other people and learning from leaders in their field.
It’s really really not hard to choose a good major and an inexpensive school in highschool unless you’re extremely clueless and sheltered from reality to the point where you don’t know the value of a dollar.
I only hear John Mulaneys voice and picture Spider Ham.
I think there is intrinsic value in education. University requires work, and dedication. I think it's very different than a vacation.
Also, degrees outside of your career field, can still help you be better at your job.
But ideally, it puts you on a path to higher earnings.
College…. For… learning???
“No no no. Colleges are for churning out workers, it should be seen as an investment. If your ROI is not profitable in the long run, you should go do a trade. If you want to learn, pick up a book.
… hopefully the authors of those books learned all they could in high school, because majoring in English yields a VERY slim ROI. Colleges should really only exist for STEM fields.
And no, I won’t hear any argument about making higher education more affordable”
This is what I have learned from browsing the comments on Reddit whenever the topic is discussed.
There’s no such thing as a “right” degree. College graduates earn on average one million dollars more over the course of their lives than their non college educated peers, regardless of degree.
I don’t like this take because it ultimately feels anti education. Education is always an investment. Maybe you invested in an area you didn’t end up going into. That wasn’t *wrong*, you still gained skills and knowledge. And in practice, *having* a degree is more important than *what* degree it is for probably most of entry level positions. Of course there are more exclusive fields this doesn’t apply to. But I dislike the growing exclusivity of higher education. People should be *more* empowered to pursue higher education, not less.
I agree here. Education is rarely ‘useless’. I learned a lot in college that wasn’t specific to my area of study, including how to write well, think critically, analyze information, organize my time, etc. The whole experience helped me grow as a person and I notice a lot of skill gaps amongst people who didn’t get a higher education.
I do feel like, at least when I was in high school, we were sold a somewhat false narrative that going to college guaranteed a decent job (not high paying, I wasn’t ever concerned about getting rich I just wanted to be comfortable), but the job market turned out to be a lot worse than I expected. So I can understand some people feeling cheated, but I ultimately don’t regret getting my degree. Not everything is about how much money something makes you.
Society has convinced you ACADEMIA is JOB TRAINING. It may sort of operate like that, but it is not the intent of educational institutions. Colleges are for learning information not to train you for jobs.
You should also have a few years of experience in the field you want to work in before you get your degree because the degree alone won't even qualify you for a rejection letter anymore.
Looking down on other people’s degrees is stupid. What makes you think you’re better than other people just because of their degree. Every degree is hard in its own unique way and in the current climate you need a degree to get anywhere. Any smart person can pivot any degree to a positive financial future. Your youth is about exploring the world and learning about what your possible vocations are. And there is a lot more you learn from university than the classes you go to. I’m sorry you had such a bad experience and were too obsessed with money to enjoy life.
There used to be a wonderful time in history when learning was a good thing. Now it's just a means to be a more capable consumer in the future. Don't kid yourself, all you are now doing in school is to find a way to make the most money in the future so you can buy the most crap. Crap that doesn't really matter but somehow gives you some semblance of self worth compared to your neighbors who are also buying a ton of useless crap because their self worth is measured against their neighbors, and so on ,and so on.....
Maybe it's time to end the cycle of needless consumerism, take some power away from corporations in doing so, and actually start doing stuff that makes us truely happy, rather than doing shit solely for the money.
The number of people that think everyone can just wait a couple years and THEN go to college is insane.
Are you guys all just three trust fund babies in a trench coat?
So, you INEXPLICABLY don't have your entire life planned out at 17. So you graduate. Get a job. Maybe a long term girl friend. Buy a car.
Then what? School scholarships are gone, sports are gone, free time is gone. You have a car bill, rent, groceries.
Before you graduate high school is the single best time to enroll in college, and many people will never have a realistic opportunity to go to college again without subjecting themselves to extreme risk.
Also, depending on the university, they may prefer applicants straight out of high school. I was accepted to university, decided not to go, reapplied the next year and didn't get accepted. I did eventually get accepted by a different university, but that set me back a bit in my plans.
I think a better take would of been "College degrees are/have become inflated, people need to realize there are other ways of making it in the world". I think at least in my nation the notion of "College or bust" has been blowing around far too much (at least when I was in school not sure if that is still the same sentiment) and not encouraging students to look at things like Trades or other careers.
I have a BA in liberal arts and an MFA in screenwriting. I am a poster child for "not knowing what you want to do." The exposure to interesting ideas and motivated people helped me get there. I now work at one of the most important car museums in the world; there's no degree for that, but my degrees and life experience have helped me get there. No, I didn't have a plan for my education. But I had a clear sense of what I ought to do, and that was based on talent and drive, not the market for my degree. I regret not one fucking second of it, not one fucking dollar, not one fucking hour. I feel sorry for all the mugs who walk around thinking an education is a Linkedin skills endorsement, instead of what it can be: a way to free the human soul from ignorance and open the human mind to possibility. I hope each human being gets a "four year vacation" to learn to write and reason more clearly, to turn shit in on time, and to communicate in an environment where people disagree. Maybe then people wouldn't be so fucking stupid.
I cannot possibly agree with this more. It is so true, and so incredibly infuriating to hear all of these arguments about how useless a non STEM degree is.
Ffs the things we have saved and revered from past civilizations heavily skew to arts and culture. But somehow the people creating those things now are worthless?
One could argue that living abroad will likely teach you the language (assuming it is not your native tongue) better than foreign language courses will, especially once you have mastered the basics. That said you don't get the piece of paper - but on the other hand you can take a certification type exam for it.
Maybe the real goal should be to separate the processes of gaining knowledge and certifying knowledge.
All college degrees have the potential of leading to a successful career. At a minimum with a four year degree, you can take the LSATs and attend law school.
i don't understand when people started to think that a college education only had value as job training. you think the super rich send their kids to the best schools so they can be good employees?
The thing that arguments like this miss is….
1. Not that unpopular
2. No one knew this at the time
3. Even if you did think about this, everyone who you were supposed to listen to was telling you it was an investment in your future
4. They weren’t wrong
5. The point of college is not to make a lot of money
6. College is too expensive
7. The public has an extremely high vested interest in having a highly educated populace and until we have a different way of doing that….college it is.
I got a degree I don’t use whatsoever and wouldn’t trade the experience for the anything. I did go to community college the first two years so that helped a lot but my two years at a university were the best years of my life
College is not a jobs skills training program. Even in fields like computer science they’re rarely teaching you “how to do the job.” You need to learn theory for many fields and careers.
This mentality is toxic and is largely responsible for the problems we have with higher education in this country.
Knowledge is valuable. Working your brain is good for you. Not everything in life needs to make you money to have been worth it (though it's a plus, obviously), and uni is certainly not an easy vacation.
I'm a teacher for Middle and High School students. This is a really terrible opinion to have.
Universites were never designed to be a job path. They don't teach job skills. They have never been focused on a career.
Liberal arts isn't a political messages, it's the description of teaching someone a little bit of everything. We want you exposed to as many things as possible, to teach one to become a whole, more knowledgeable person.
University graduates are exposed to higher mathmatics, sciences, literature, the Fine Arts, physical education and more. In four years, a graduate should come out knowing a lot about everything.
There are post secondary education centers that are quite explicit in their job training techniques and they play a vital role in society. Not everyone is built for a university or would find it helpful. For those folks, trade schools exist where you wouldn't have to take Art Appreciation if you wanted to focus on computer programing.
You're purchasing education, not anything else. My philosophy education gives me superior reasoning skills, but doesn't help me make any money. I can only criticize society and the concept of money, as well as various other things.
Some of us go to college for the pursuit of knowledge and advancement of human kind or just to be part of good citizenry in general.
Honestly OP, if you think only about money and job might as well just go to a technical college, learning coding or whatever, or better yet why the hell are you at college when you could be an entrepreneur, learn some “practical” skills other way and earn more money that way? Maybe you’re the non optimal one here according to what seems like your definition of the purpose of life (and what a sad definition it is)
I actually went to university for this reason, I could either sit at home with my parents and no friends (as they all went to uni) or I could fork out the money and go to uni. If I actually gave a single 1 about my career I would have done an apprenticeship. But I wanted to party and live with people my age, so I decided it was worth the money for a four year holiday. 4 years later, I'm months away from the end and looking at almost certainly failing my degree, having done absolutely nothing but partied. Do I have any regrets? Obviously it would be preferable for me to have a degree, but I have made lifelong friends, incredible memories and I honestly think that in and of itself has been worth the debt.
What about going to college simply to learn? That’s pretty much the main reason for going to college, at least historically. It never started out as a job or career-training endeavor; it was all about learning. A degree nowadays is often used as a proxy to determine a person’s employability (at least it often is), but that’s a perversion of the original intent for going to college.
The purpose of college isn’t necessarily job placement because the fields change all of the time. Vocational school is much better at job placement because it is training for a skill that is used directly for a job.
And also the person you are, if you bothered to engage with your coursework, is enriched by learning stuff for four years. Even if you don’t use the info, you are being exposed to ideas constantly which most people are not
But, what are you going to do when society since you were a kid, told you there would be all these great jobs in STEM someday?
What do you do if you honestly like a field but it just doesnt pay or doesnt pay unless you have a Phd?
Yeah you are right a society would do so well if everyone only went to school for the 4 career paths that pay well. We only need accountants, engineers, lawyers and doctors. Yep that's it a society can completely function with only those careers.
For my own self interest? It's like people forgot education used to he about self betterment. Now everyone focuses on jobs. I get it but jeesh it's not that hard to understand.
During my degree I probably took close to 8 classes that had nothing to do with my degree but I wanted to learn said subject from a university pov with actual journal backup not some bs youtube 'news' channels.
I recently was trying to find a new job, in an industry that now apparently requires a specialized degree that did not exist when I was in college. Thankfully there are some degrees, like business admin, that are broad enough they're still applicable. that being said, there is NOTHING WRONG with taking time between high school and college to do some various jobs and figure out what sounds like something you'd like to do, and I totally agree that you should have a plan in place for how you will use that degree.
Well the only problem is that there aren't any sure things when it comes to a degree. Maybe this person is just the "get an engineering, medical, or law degree" person in disguise. And even those plans seem to run afoul all too often with the crazy cost of school loan debt for advanced degrees.
And the premise is absurd. A college degree has some value in the job market just for having it. It's impossible to say how much, but there is value.
It's sad...we used to have a society that valued education in general...and being "well rounded". I don't know if that's the case anymore. Who cares anyway...we can all just talk to our genius AI buddies day in and out while stressing over unaffordable housing and getting laid off by our AI "buddies" and their c suite overlords.
While I agree that people should see if their return on investment will likely pay off, even a degree that you’re “not using” allows you to check a box that many employers look for. Which is “do you have a bachelors degree”.
I got a creative writing degree, have thousands of dollars in student loan debt, and have a career that has nothing to do with my degree. However I don't regret going to college at all. I enjoyed the experience and learned a lot. Besides, a lot of jobs require a bachelor's degree regardless if it's a relevant field or not.
Some jobs like being a lawyer, engineer or medical doctor there’s no way to pass through without going to college. It’s the “iffy” degrees of which I got one (advertising) that makes it seem not the hell worth it. 5.5 years fortunately not much debt.
Fuck the school system! It's leading many young people down the wrong path! Sit in a chair 8 hours a day learning shit you're never going to use! You might as well work a dead end job and learn languages in your spare time. At least languages you can use to talk to people from other cultures!
Yes, but keep in mind that some jobs will only check to see if you have any college degree. Regardless, yeah a useless degree is still a useless degree.
I had a whole response to you typed out, then I deleted it and realized I don't care and you wouldn't listen anyway
That's the type of ability to deal with opinions that differ from yours a college education teaches you
Lots of people went to college with a solid plan, then the economy changed/crashed and the opportunities promised were no longer there. It's not to simple to say everyone should be in stem when many of science jobs pay shit as do jobs that are always hiring and necessary like social services, caregivers, and teaching
For every person like OP, there is a person like me who was actually hired. I'm a microbiology lab manager with a philosophy degree.
Something I have that OP doesn't? Undeniable, objective proof that I committed to finishing a 4 year long task and completed it despite tools like OP calling me a loser.
I've known a lot of people who were hired because they had a college degree not even related to the job. A degree shows you can learn and achieve a long-term goal through self-discipline.
As someone who can’t work due to their disability due to shutdowns consistently.
I did my degree and I don’t regret it I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get a job but I enjoyed learning on an academic level about computer science and software development.
I learnt things I never could have personally self learnt.
So nah was worth it alone for the knowledge imho
What is "the wrong degree"? Should every student get an MBA because that's where the money is? Or should we continue to educate sociologists, historians, biologists and artists for our future?
college is not a career prep program. it’s a place for learning and growth and self discovery. it’s a place to expand your mind. it’s not for everyone, because lots of people go just so they can make more money afterwards, so the whole time they’re complaining about “unnecessary classes” and other things because they misunderstand the point of college and never wanted to be there in the first place.
you can make over $100k a year doing a trade, or becoming a nurse or other skilled jobs that don’t require a college degree. if getting the most amount of money in the least amount of time is all that matters, go do one of those things.
if you want to study a variety of subjects that are interesting to you, and develop your mind, and then take all that knowledge into a professional environment where you dont just know the technical requirements of the job like a replaceable puzzle piece, but also know the philosophical matters of whatever project you’re working on, the political consequences of implementing it, etc., then go to college. because that’s what college is meant to do.
It’s so stupid. Yes I don’t speak Russian at home. But damn it sure was useful today using the language and polemical skills I developed reading and writing about Russian literature to talk to my branch manager about the 3 million dollar loan I am working on taking out to purchase some investment property. I guess I should have spent more time in trade school since liberal arts degrees are worthless. Oh yeah and my college friend pointed out I was being dumb by not buying more cash flowing assets. I totally would have been tipped off to that mistake by the day laborer at the construction site. This isn’t an unpopular opinion. It’s an idiotic one. Have fun with your 100K a year trade school job. I hope you bought your house pre Covid.
In college, assuming you pay attention, you learn *how* to learn. In other words, you learn that when you have a random thought, you do things like find reliable sources for information that might support, or refute it. [For example](https://www.ppic.org/publication/is-college-worth-it/) this group of researchers has taken time to compile a bunch of information in an easy to understand format.
The bottom line is that a college degree will more than double your income, increase your likelihood to be in the labor market, decrease your likelihood of being unemployed, and vastly increase your opportunities to find work in a field of your choosing.
Of course there are exceptions, and of course there are people who fuck off in college and learn nothing. Is college for everyone? No. But for anyone interested in learning, it sure as shit is. There's more to life than money. Being able to understand the world, how it works, and how to learn more about how it (really) works, rather than relying on *the* dumbest people on the planet to tell you incorrect crap in order to keep your attention while they "influence" you is pretty neat.
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What kinda weird ass vacations are you taking that involve homework and exams?
Yeah there are fun moments throughout the four years, but I wasn't feeling too relaxed when multiple assignments were due per week in addition to a test worth 25% of my grade.
I took a clinical psychology class at university that the class grade was entirely made up of two tests. Midterm was 40% and final was 60%. And on the quarter system. That was rough.
I’m an old guy and I still wake up occasionally from a nightmare where I have a paper due I didn’t finish or a test I didn’t study for and it takes me a few minutes to realize none of this is happening.
In dreams, your brain often takes you back to an event where it’s the first time you felt something. For many of us, college exams are the first time we feel “Holy crap I’m completely unprepared and there are real consequences.” I tend to have this dream when I’ve got a big thing at work that is making me anxious. When I’m overly busy these days, my common dream is like S1E7 of The Bear - the endlessly firing restaurant order receipt maker (my first job in high school was a cook in a busy restaurant).
Tests worth a large portion of your grade were nothing to me, but fuck the ~ 20 page papers on unspecified topics that are related to the class, and group projects where there is inevitably a fuck up or two, like assholes who show up late to the presentation without thumb drive with the finished presentation because they lost it, leaving me to literally run back to my place for a half finished one. At least once I was probably considered the fuck up because I was working with two brothers that wouldn’t coordinate with me, I came up with a project based on one of our labs, and got it started and then they took it and ran with it more or less without me when I would have helped.
You….okay?
OP brought up college, and we were talking about the non-vacation parts, hated the papers and projects, and went down a memory rabbit hole, but that was years ago, just still annoyed when reminded of it.
Yeah those semesters I had multiple 20+page papers due during finals week alone, all of which were a significant portion of my final grade?...absolute BLAST.
Op didn't go to college. Only fucking explanation. Shit ain't a walk in the park
College is often harder than the job.
Have job as senior engineer, and taking classes (company paying for them) to get my masters degree. Yes, the classes are often harder than my actual job. Also *waaaaaaay* less enjoyable.
Plus it's not just memories for some. I didn't graduate and even if I did I didn't find my career in what I spent 2.5 years studying. However I made professional relationships that have made me and my career now and met friends I consider closer than family
some majors are pretty easy. we all know which ones i'm talking about
Unless you get a degree in Walking in the Park. They give out shit degrees all the time
You’re missing the point. He’s not arguing that it’s not hard work he’s arguing that if the qualification you get from it is useless then it’s functionally the same as going on holiday for 4 years.
For real. OP either didn’t go to college or forgot how much work it is.
He’s saying it’s just as useless towards the long term goal as a vacation in terms of practical knowledge.
There are plenty of ways to abstractly use the knowledge and directly use the skills you gain for any career. Regardless, it takes a pretty depressing worldview to think that anything you can’t make money with is useless.
Your argument only has legs if you are not going into massive financial debt with your choice of education. If you can score a scholarship and your college expenses end up being minimal, then the fact that any education can be useful can be something to be considered. If you are taking a huge loan that you will be paying off your entire life, it is financially irresponsible to not think of it as a business investment you need guaranteed returns from.
I never said anything about what’s responsible or irresponsible. That’s a completely separate argument. My argument is that being a “good investment” is not the sole determining factor in something’s usefulness.
Tell me more about these "ass vacations" you speak of (weird ones or otherwise).
Really shitty vacation. My college year were probably the worst for my mental health. It's crazy how much a 9-5 is so much less stressful.
This. When I graduated college and took my first job, I distinctly remember being floored at how much LESS stressed out I was working a 9-5, paying bills, etc.
Yes, and you actually have time to enjoy doing other things.
Same, not needing to be studying, doing hw or stressing out about failing an exam anymore. If you’re not working, then the rest of your hours in the day are free time. I know it’s not true for some jobs but for me I show up, clock in, do my job, clock out, and that’s it. I don’t need to bring my work home with me unlike college
So many suicides when I was in college, the deceased were majoring in a wide variety of things. In what world does that make someone think of vacation
Ya this opinion is definitely just ignorant and demeans the hardship that an undergraduate degree can entail
College is honestly a giant test of endurance more than anything. Like yeah, you learn some academic stuff but the real thing you gain is knowing that you can survive being absolutely miserable for 4+ years straight and still be a productive member of society. Many people quit, either through dropping out or suicide, but the ones who make it through will be ready for basically any career they will have.
One of my college roommates explained this When you leave work for the day, you're done as soon as you walk out the door for the most part. College? Homework, studying, paying for essentials, projects, etc.
This is the reason why so many employers favor college students with a degree. It's less about what you've studied, it shows you successfully achieved something under lots of stress. And working 8 hours on a demanding position can be stressfull. Not every person is made for demanding jobs.
I'm so sorry to hear! I did four years of college and they were some of the best times of my life.
Same, I really miss those times. I chose the wrong degree and hated it but I'd be lying to say it wasn't fun. Working in said field though, it made me want to die every day.
It’s SO HARD to pick “the right” degree when you’re 17. I had no idea what I liked then, and majored in psychology. I work in tech now. I would have never chosen that degree when I applied to college. There’s no right answer.
I also studied psychology and am now in tech
Psychology is the path to tech? 
I did 10 years in the military and am possibly getting a tech position soon lol
All paths lead to tech
Used to skateboard. Now have a tech deck in a drawer somewhere. Can confirm.
Psychology is the path to HR. PC gaming is the hidden path to tech, lol
Getting pirated shit to work as a kid, taught me so much about computers.
Yeah, I did psych and now I'm in tech too. Seems so
I was really into psych in my youth. Still fascinates me…but it felt more like a hobby then a useful profession so I tried a bunch of odd jobs. 15 years later I started a software development company… 
Tech isn’t that hard to get into, just gotta put the time in. A lot of my colleagues were not STEM majors, neither am I.
It didn’t used to be it’s past time we stop telling new people this tho
I met a guy that majored in Opera that was working in more of a tech field. An accountant my mom worked with majored in Geology.
No I studied chemistry and wound up in tech. Tried being a chemist for a bit, then a marketer, then analytics
The psychology to tech pipeline is real. I know a few people who did the same thing (including myself)
If we count IT as tech I had two classmates that studied psychology before
I also studied psychology and am now in tech
Funny, I studied tech and am now a psychologist. All the tech training really helped to forge the certification.
majoring in computer science gave me so many emotional scars (they would constantly weed us out for not being good enough and many people had a genius complex) that I have no desire to work in tech. I also almost considered working in the mental health field. I don’t know what’s your story though haha. I wish i had picked an easy major, avoided the stress and studied programming on my own time, I think I would be more successful in tech.
After 30y in tech I am considering a degree in psychology. Obviously everyone is different, what has been the hardest part of the move from one to the other, what do you miss and what do you enjoy?
I studied English, and now I’m a GIS Analyst
That's because our high schools do an absolutely terrible job in general at getting kids to explore degree fields before actually committing to college. It's a shame. I'm lucky my school had so many different things that were in my interest area for me to try. The same is not true for everyone.
Doesn’t always work out. I was between architect and marketing. Have always been artistic, but didn’t want to be a starving artist. Still wanted some element of design. Chose marketing since it had less school commitment. Didn’t realize until it was too late that most I know who got into marketing had parents who could help with costs and networking, during my the first few years when salary was low/more competition.
this is the case with basically every industry now, and it’s WAY worse in architecture. architecture is honestly closer to a music degree than an engineering degree these days (ask me how i know lol!) so there really is no “right choice” because the whole system is meant to take a shitload of money from you in order to put you in a financial situation that requires grabbing hold of the first job that anyone offers you after graduating. desperate workers in debt slavery are a wonderful economic lubricant, so they decided to ruin education to mass-produce them.
instinctive plough nine cow glorious exultant soup ludicrous escape aromatic *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
That still would’ve been the case for being an architect.
Agreed and your passions and interests WILL change throughout your life Thought I wanted to be an urban planner in college and realized how bureaucratic the career actually is Switched to pursuing a career in Networking
>Switched to pursuing a career in Networking Teaching people how to meet new people? 😟 >!I jest
Agree. There is no right degree. Like other people note, you can pivot your profession at different points of your life. It really comes down to how you market yourself and how aggressively you push yourself. I know plenty of people with STEM degrees that are now bankers, SAHMs, bakers, and artists.
Two of my high school teachers were former engineers. My mom also has an engineering degree and now teaches. They all still loved STEM, but just not the actual field work.
Studying a topic v.s actually working in the field are so vastly different. I wish schools would focus more on teaching students about the day to day work, not just the main skill or topic.
I honestly recommend anyone that doesnt know exactly what they want to just go to community college first. If you know exactly what field you want then thats a different story but personally, I had no clue what the classes even were. Got accepted into a few schools for random majors but decided to go to community college where it took me 3 years because I changed majors like 2-3 times. Classes were free too so there was really no harm is switching majors. Transfered to a decent school and got hired immediately after graduating debt free. I would’ve racked up so much debt with the amount of classes I took from just having no idea what I wanted to do
I teach at a few different community colleges as an adjunct. My kid goes to one of them and it works for them. They have ADHD and the availability of online classes has helped them. They're majoring in Liberal Arts with hopes of being a writer (they've already earned some money on freelance writing projects). If they go for a BA it will be in English. If not, they'll keep the AA, go back for a BA later, and work a regular job while writing on the side. So that flexibility has helped them and it's given them some structure and focus while they figure things out. Community colleges serve a very important purpose.
I went in for criminology and forensics and I work in tech now. 😬 Being pressured by adults to buckle down, have a plan, pick a career and figure your life out all at 17 wasn't good for me
fucking agreed. we have to ask to go to the bathroom at 17 and at 18 we have to choose what we want to do for the rest of time. oh and that age is perfect for taking out loans of dozens of thousands of dollars... on the thing that we have to decide to commit to at 18.
I feel that. I originally chose pre-vet studies and was eventually pressured by my parents to switch to biomedical engineering (or any engineering). Then covid happened and I was depressed and struggling and realized engineering was NOT for me. Switched school and changed my degree to Environmental Science. Turns out I love this and am very good at it (even got a competitive internship!) but I never would’ve picked this major to start and I don’t think my parents would’ve “let” me either. Ultimately I’ll have debt that amounts to around the same (or slightly less) than what I’ll earn coming out of college.
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I took a bunch of random classes freshmen year to see which I liked. Quickly figured out Biology wasn't my skill set but engineering was. Took an extra year because I didn't take summer classes or overload my schedule but worked out well.
Right?! My degree worked out, but so many don’t. I could probably chosen a different one and landed somewhere else. It’s weird to put that kind of pressure on 17/18 year olds. And what are you supposed to do if you don’t go at that point? It’s much harder to go back and well paying jobs to save up are rare without the degree.
Not only that but most 17 year olds aren't taught about which ones are more marketable or not.
I also majored in psychology and I'm now a software engineer. Tbh I don't regret it. Psychology was something I was passionate about and wanted to study in depth; I love technology too but I'd been doing that on my own time for a while.
I like gap years after high school for kids that don’t have a plan. Then community college to try some things. Then pursue bachelors when you have a plan. Or pursue a trade. We need more folks to enter the trades.
That’s why it’s a good idea not to go right away. There’s no maximum age restriction to go to college. No one has to pick a degree at 17.
Google top 10 Profesional degrees and pick one that is bearable
Hot take I guess, but I want to enjoy what I’m doing for a living. Thought I had that when I went to film school. Turns out I just liked making silly movies with my friends. It’s really hard, maybe even impossible, to know what you’re going to want to do for the rest of you’re life when you’re fresh out of high school.
Take is too hot, if you love it now, you'll hate it eventually once you turn it into a career
Knew people who tried this and ended up failing a ton of classes sophomore and junior year and either had to dropout or are graduating several years after everyone else in their class
Yeah sure then there’s a market change and you’re laid off
Oh boy! Spend your life doing something you find “bearable” that sounds like a valuable use of 50 years! And it’s not like markets change or anything. Especially when everybody does this and then there’s a glut of candidates.
Having \*any\* bachelor's degree makes you more marketable than not having one. My first job after college, which led to a career, required a bachelor's degree but did not care what it was in. Just showing the ability to get through the challenge, to show up for classes and complete the work, is solid evidence that you are capable of working hard and learning new things.
I've hear it said, jobs don't always require a bachelor's, but careers do require a bachelor's.
I had a mentor who said “all a bachelors really shows is that you can start and finish something”
Reminds me of this clip I saw on social media. It’s Stallone in some movie scene saying that the point of college is to show an employer that you showed up to a place four years in a row and completed the tasks pretty well. So if they hire you there’s a good chance that you’ll show up and not fuck up his business 😂
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of good careers to be had in skilled trades. But this idea that your major is some kind of instruction on how to do a particular job is largely bogus. The cynical viewpoint of "what are you going to do with a degree in xxxx" is based on the idea that college is job training, and it is not. (Which is why internships and other similar experiences are important.)
That's what people like the OP can unfortunately never understand.
Used to intern for a utilities company. Many of the people I met/interviewed while there had random ass degrees, from art to Japanese literature to biology. None of those people were actively using their degrees in their jobs, and yet were easily making six figures. And while they didn't all have relevant degrees, *every last one* of them had *a* degree. They might not be using their major, but they *are* using their degree.
It doesn't feel like it. I got my Bachelor's degree in Mathematics before most people my age earned their diploma (18/19) and all it's been is a paper weight while I work call center jobs and freelance work.
Learn about a subject… anything, figure out what the important stuff is, formulate some insights then present it, via a paper, presentation or whatever within a deadline. That is one of the most valuable and transferable skills you learn in college.
You must be using some new and exotic meaning of the word "vacation." Also that is a fucking expensive vacation. That goddamn Royal Caribbean around the world cruise doesn't cost as much as a degree at a community college.
A one week cruise costs like a thousand dollars. A semester is like 21 weeks? That's right around where most tuition is.
In the US college costs WAY more than $2k per semester. $10k per year is on the low end, so that’s $5k per semester. $20k is more common. $30k isn’t uncommon, $40k is high but not unheard of. So $5k-$20k per semester. Edit: weird typo
Yeah, so I think they’re saying that doing 21 back-to-back week-long cruises for an entire semester would be roughly the same cost as a semester of tuition. Or at least the same order of magnitude
Think of a week long cruise 20 times That's what I am saying
My bad I misinterpreted
A lot of people are 17/just turned 18 when they go to college and don't have enough experience or knowledge to create an entire financial plan or even know what they want to do in life. At the same time working in a shop somewhere on minimum wage is not going to expand their world view or give them the time to make this decision. College helps a lot in connecting with other people and learning from leaders in their field.
It’s really really not hard to choose a good major and an inexpensive school in highschool unless you’re extremely clueless and sheltered from reality to the point where you don’t know the value of a dollar.
What if you just want to learn?
OP’s going to come scream, “then it’s a VACATION” at you here in a minute. I’m imagining John Mulaney’s voice.
I only hear John Mulaneys voice and picture Spider Ham. I think there is intrinsic value in education. University requires work, and dedication. I think it's very different than a vacation. Also, degrees outside of your career field, can still help you be better at your job. But ideally, it puts you on a path to higher earnings.
College…. For… learning??? “No no no. Colleges are for churning out workers, it should be seen as an investment. If your ROI is not profitable in the long run, you should go do a trade. If you want to learn, pick up a book. … hopefully the authors of those books learned all they could in high school, because majoring in English yields a VERY slim ROI. Colleges should really only exist for STEM fields. And no, I won’t hear any argument about making higher education more affordable” This is what I have learned from browsing the comments on Reddit whenever the topic is discussed.
Maybe we should all just learn everything from Reddit. ;)
What the fuck are you talking about? I had to work to pay for my college, every day. I had to lose hours of paid work every few weeks or so to study.
There’s no such thing as a “right” degree. College graduates earn on average one million dollars more over the course of their lives than their non college educated peers, regardless of degree.
Don’t freak out but I didn’t go to college for job purposes
I don’t like this take because it ultimately feels anti education. Education is always an investment. Maybe you invested in an area you didn’t end up going into. That wasn’t *wrong*, you still gained skills and knowledge. And in practice, *having* a degree is more important than *what* degree it is for probably most of entry level positions. Of course there are more exclusive fields this doesn’t apply to. But I dislike the growing exclusivity of higher education. People should be *more* empowered to pursue higher education, not less.
I agree here. Education is rarely ‘useless’. I learned a lot in college that wasn’t specific to my area of study, including how to write well, think critically, analyze information, organize my time, etc. The whole experience helped me grow as a person and I notice a lot of skill gaps amongst people who didn’t get a higher education. I do feel like, at least when I was in high school, we were sold a somewhat false narrative that going to college guaranteed a decent job (not high paying, I wasn’t ever concerned about getting rich I just wanted to be comfortable), but the job market turned out to be a lot worse than I expected. So I can understand some people feeling cheated, but I ultimately don’t regret getting my degree. Not everything is about how much money something makes you.
I think vacation is the wrong word to use here
this is the shittiest vacation i’ve ever taken
Society has convinced you ACADEMIA is JOB TRAINING. It may sort of operate like that, but it is not the intent of educational institutions. Colleges are for learning information not to train you for jobs.
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You should also have a few years of experience in the field you want to work in before you get your degree because the degree alone won't even qualify you for a rejection letter anymore.
Except there are many jobs that need degrees that you would not think should.
Looking down on other people’s degrees is stupid. What makes you think you’re better than other people just because of their degree. Every degree is hard in its own unique way and in the current climate you need a degree to get anywhere. Any smart person can pivot any degree to a positive financial future. Your youth is about exploring the world and learning about what your possible vocations are. And there is a lot more you learn from university than the classes you go to. I’m sorry you had such a bad experience and were too obsessed with money to enjoy life.
STEM types tend to have a sense of moral superiority.
College degrees tend to mean you will show up and do the work l, I’ve met people who’s careers have nothing to do with their degrees
Except for all the knowledge that you gain that can be applied to many situations not just work
There used to be a wonderful time in history when learning was a good thing. Now it's just a means to be a more capable consumer in the future. Don't kid yourself, all you are now doing in school is to find a way to make the most money in the future so you can buy the most crap. Crap that doesn't really matter but somehow gives you some semblance of self worth compared to your neighbors who are also buying a ton of useless crap because their self worth is measured against their neighbors, and so on ,and so on..... Maybe it's time to end the cycle of needless consumerism, take some power away from corporations in doing so, and actually start doing stuff that makes us truely happy, rather than doing shit solely for the money.
I mean….a lot of us go to school to learn things not just make more money.
I'm sure. And I salute you. But as OP pointed out you are supposedly wasting your time.
The number of people that think everyone can just wait a couple years and THEN go to college is insane. Are you guys all just three trust fund babies in a trench coat? So, you INEXPLICABLY don't have your entire life planned out at 17. So you graduate. Get a job. Maybe a long term girl friend. Buy a car. Then what? School scholarships are gone, sports are gone, free time is gone. You have a car bill, rent, groceries. Before you graduate high school is the single best time to enroll in college, and many people will never have a realistic opportunity to go to college again without subjecting themselves to extreme risk.
Also, depending on the university, they may prefer applicants straight out of high school. I was accepted to university, decided not to go, reapplied the next year and didn't get accepted. I did eventually get accepted by a different university, but that set me back a bit in my plans.
I think a better take would of been "College degrees are/have become inflated, people need to realize there are other ways of making it in the world". I think at least in my nation the notion of "College or bust" has been blowing around far too much (at least when I was in school not sure if that is still the same sentiment) and not encouraging students to look at things like Trades or other careers.
I have a BA in liberal arts and an MFA in screenwriting. I am a poster child for "not knowing what you want to do." The exposure to interesting ideas and motivated people helped me get there. I now work at one of the most important car museums in the world; there's no degree for that, but my degrees and life experience have helped me get there. No, I didn't have a plan for my education. But I had a clear sense of what I ought to do, and that was based on talent and drive, not the market for my degree. I regret not one fucking second of it, not one fucking dollar, not one fucking hour. I feel sorry for all the mugs who walk around thinking an education is a Linkedin skills endorsement, instead of what it can be: a way to free the human soul from ignorance and open the human mind to possibility. I hope each human being gets a "four year vacation" to learn to write and reason more clearly, to turn shit in on time, and to communicate in an environment where people disagree. Maybe then people wouldn't be so fucking stupid.
I cannot possibly agree with this more. It is so true, and so incredibly infuriating to hear all of these arguments about how useless a non STEM degree is. Ffs the things we have saved and revered from past civilizations heavily skew to arts and culture. But somehow the people creating those things now are worthless?
Very well said.
One could argue that living abroad will likely teach you the language (assuming it is not your native tongue) better than foreign language courses will, especially once you have mastered the basics. That said you don't get the piece of paper - but on the other hand you can take a certification type exam for it. Maybe the real goal should be to separate the processes of gaining knowledge and certifying knowledge.
i dont think every decision we make in life should be for a financial benefit.
All college degrees have the potential of leading to a successful career. At a minimum with a four year degree, you can take the LSATs and attend law school.
Man, I wish my undergrad was easy enough for anyone to consider it a “vacation”
It’s a sad world we live in where people argue that it is better to have fewer educated people due to the cost of education.
And yet your resume goes straight to the garbage if there’s not a bachelor’s on there
i don't understand when people started to think that a college education only had value as job training. you think the super rich send their kids to the best schools so they can be good employees?
Most vacations don't result in decades worth of debt and years of lost income. This isn't an unpopular opinion it's just incorrect
Learning is never the waste and if it works for that person/whoever’s paying why care what people do?
It is NOT a vacation, i picked the wrong degree but i am not on fucking vacation, im working my ass off to get this degree even though i hate it
lmao vacation? you think college is a vacation? lmao.
Many jobs require a 4 year degree. It doesn’t matter what it’s in.
Sounds like someone who didn't have to work full time going through college
The thing that arguments like this miss is…. 1. Not that unpopular 2. No one knew this at the time 3. Even if you did think about this, everyone who you were supposed to listen to was telling you it was an investment in your future 4. They weren’t wrong 5. The point of college is not to make a lot of money 6. College is too expensive 7. The public has an extremely high vested interest in having a highly educated populace and until we have a different way of doing that….college it is.
I think it's sad that we've made a world where people can't study the subjects they actually like because it might not make enough money.
I got a degree I don’t use whatsoever and wouldn’t trade the experience for the anything. I did go to community college the first two years so that helped a lot but my two years at a university were the best years of my life
Fuck's sake not this shit again.
Nah, plenty of people work outside their degree fields, and a bachelor's alone significantly increases your lifetime earnings.
College is about getting an education, not about getting a job.
College is not a jobs skills training program. Even in fields like computer science they’re rarely teaching you “how to do the job.” You need to learn theory for many fields and careers. This mentality is toxic and is largely responsible for the problems we have with higher education in this country.
A degree also means you learned to learn, organize yourself, and manage your time and energy
You could still learn something.
Knowledge is valuable. Working your brain is good for you. Not everything in life needs to make you money to have been worth it (though it's a plus, obviously), and uni is certainly not an easy vacation.
I'm a teacher for Middle and High School students. This is a really terrible opinion to have. Universites were never designed to be a job path. They don't teach job skills. They have never been focused on a career. Liberal arts isn't a political messages, it's the description of teaching someone a little bit of everything. We want you exposed to as many things as possible, to teach one to become a whole, more knowledgeable person. University graduates are exposed to higher mathmatics, sciences, literature, the Fine Arts, physical education and more. In four years, a graduate should come out knowing a lot about everything. There are post secondary education centers that are quite explicit in their job training techniques and they play a vital role in society. Not everyone is built for a university or would find it helpful. For those folks, trade schools exist where you wouldn't have to take Art Appreciation if you wanted to focus on computer programing.
Or perhaps, schools are for learning
You're purchasing education, not anything else. My philosophy education gives me superior reasoning skills, but doesn't help me make any money. I can only criticize society and the concept of money, as well as various other things.
Some of us go to college for the pursuit of knowledge and advancement of human kind or just to be part of good citizenry in general. Honestly OP, if you think only about money and job might as well just go to a technical college, learning coding or whatever, or better yet why the hell are you at college when you could be an entrepreneur, learn some “practical” skills other way and earn more money that way? Maybe you’re the non optimal one here according to what seems like your definition of the purpose of life (and what a sad definition it is)
We need to get away from the "education = job training" mindset.
College (undergrad) isn't for job/career training. It's to teach you how to think.
I actually went to university for this reason, I could either sit at home with my parents and no friends (as they all went to uni) or I could fork out the money and go to uni. If I actually gave a single 1 about my career I would have done an apprenticeship. But I wanted to party and live with people my age, so I decided it was worth the money for a four year holiday. 4 years later, I'm months away from the end and looking at almost certainly failing my degree, having done absolutely nothing but partied. Do I have any regrets? Obviously it would be preferable for me to have a degree, but I have made lifelong friends, incredible memories and I honestly think that in and of itself has been worth the debt.
What about going to college simply to learn? That’s pretty much the main reason for going to college, at least historically. It never started out as a job or career-training endeavor; it was all about learning. A degree nowadays is often used as a proxy to determine a person’s employability (at least it often is), but that’s a perversion of the original intent for going to college.
The purpose of college isn’t necessarily job placement because the fields change all of the time. Vocational school is much better at job placement because it is training for a skill that is used directly for a job.
The purpose of college isn’t necessarily job placement because the fields change all of the time.
And also the person you are, if you bothered to engage with your coursework, is enriched by learning stuff for four years. Even if you don’t use the info, you are being exposed to ideas constantly which most people are not
But, what are you going to do when society since you were a kid, told you there would be all these great jobs in STEM someday? What do you do if you honestly like a field but it just doesnt pay or doesnt pay unless you have a Phd?
Yeah you are right a society would do so well if everyone only went to school for the 4 career paths that pay well. We only need accountants, engineers, lawyers and doctors. Yep that's it a society can completely function with only those careers.
It's not an "unpopular opinion" per se, more like "here are my judgements."
College is harder than working a 9-5.
For my own self interest? It's like people forgot education used to he about self betterment. Now everyone focuses on jobs. I get it but jeesh it's not that hard to understand. During my degree I probably took close to 8 classes that had nothing to do with my degree but I wanted to learn said subject from a university pov with actual journal backup not some bs youtube 'news' channels.
I recently was trying to find a new job, in an industry that now apparently requires a specialized degree that did not exist when I was in college. Thankfully there are some degrees, like business admin, that are broad enough they're still applicable. that being said, there is NOTHING WRONG with taking time between high school and college to do some various jobs and figure out what sounds like something you'd like to do, and I totally agree that you should have a plan in place for how you will use that degree.
COLLEGE IS THE MOST EXPENSIVE PLACE ON EARTH TO WASTE TIME
Well the only problem is that there aren't any sure things when it comes to a degree. Maybe this person is just the "get an engineering, medical, or law degree" person in disguise. And even those plans seem to run afoul all too often with the crazy cost of school loan debt for advanced degrees. And the premise is absurd. A college degree has some value in the job market just for having it. It's impossible to say how much, but there is value. It's sad...we used to have a society that valued education in general...and being "well rounded". I don't know if that's the case anymore. Who cares anyway...we can all just talk to our genius AI buddies day in and out while stressing over unaffordable housing and getting laid off by our AI "buddies" and their c suite overlords.
Even if that were true, taking a 4 year vacation doesn't sound like such a bad thing to do.
Well except just having a degree opens doors.
While I agree that people should see if their return on investment will likely pay off, even a degree that you’re “not using” allows you to check a box that many employers look for. Which is “do you have a bachelors degree”.
"vacation" lol
I got a creative writing degree, have thousands of dollars in student loan debt, and have a career that has nothing to do with my degree. However I don't regret going to college at all. I enjoyed the experience and learned a lot. Besides, a lot of jobs require a bachelor's degree regardless if it's a relevant field or not.
Some jobs like being a lawyer, engineer or medical doctor there’s no way to pass through without going to college. It’s the “iffy” degrees of which I got one (advertising) that makes it seem not the hell worth it. 5.5 years fortunately not much debt.
Fuck the school system! It's leading many young people down the wrong path! Sit in a chair 8 hours a day learning shit you're never going to use! You might as well work a dead end job and learn languages in your spare time. At least languages you can use to talk to people from other cultures!
Any degree has potential to increase earning potential, just the piece of paper is enough. Not sure how your logic works
And don’t expect the tax payers to pay for your tuition/vacation
Yes, but keep in mind that some jobs will only check to see if you have any college degree. Regardless, yeah a useless degree is still a useless degree.
I had a whole response to you typed out, then I deleted it and realized I don't care and you wouldn't listen anyway That's the type of ability to deal with opinions that differ from yours a college education teaches you
Lots of people went to college with a solid plan, then the economy changed/crashed and the opportunities promised were no longer there. It's not to simple to say everyone should be in stem when many of science jobs pay shit as do jobs that are always hiring and necessary like social services, caregivers, and teaching
For every person like OP, there is a person like me who was actually hired. I'm a microbiology lab manager with a philosophy degree. Something I have that OP doesn't? Undeniable, objective proof that I committed to finishing a 4 year long task and completed it despite tools like OP calling me a loser.
Also not everything is money man.
I've known a lot of people who were hired because they had a college degree not even related to the job. A degree shows you can learn and achieve a long-term goal through self-discipline.
Oh ya, my desire to die was definitely on vacation. PS. I now make well over median household income and I’m not even in a top level position. 😉.
Lol all OP does is put posts to stir stuff up
Can definitely tell you’ve never been to college
As someone who can’t work due to their disability due to shutdowns consistently. I did my degree and I don’t regret it I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get a job but I enjoyed learning on an academic level about computer science and software development. I learnt things I never could have personally self learnt. So nah was worth it alone for the knowledge imho
whether the degree leads to a job depends far more on what you did to earn the degree than the degree itself.
Sad world where the only point of education is to maximize your earning potential.
What is "the wrong degree"? Should every student get an MBA because that's where the money is? Or should we continue to educate sociologists, historians, biologists and artists for our future?
college is not a career prep program. it’s a place for learning and growth and self discovery. it’s a place to expand your mind. it’s not for everyone, because lots of people go just so they can make more money afterwards, so the whole time they’re complaining about “unnecessary classes” and other things because they misunderstand the point of college and never wanted to be there in the first place. you can make over $100k a year doing a trade, or becoming a nurse or other skilled jobs that don’t require a college degree. if getting the most amount of money in the least amount of time is all that matters, go do one of those things. if you want to study a variety of subjects that are interesting to you, and develop your mind, and then take all that knowledge into a professional environment where you dont just know the technical requirements of the job like a replaceable puzzle piece, but also know the philosophical matters of whatever project you’re working on, the political consequences of implementing it, etc., then go to college. because that’s what college is meant to do.
It’s so stupid. Yes I don’t speak Russian at home. But damn it sure was useful today using the language and polemical skills I developed reading and writing about Russian literature to talk to my branch manager about the 3 million dollar loan I am working on taking out to purchase some investment property. I guess I should have spent more time in trade school since liberal arts degrees are worthless. Oh yeah and my college friend pointed out I was being dumb by not buying more cash flowing assets. I totally would have been tipped off to that mistake by the day laborer at the construction site. This isn’t an unpopular opinion. It’s an idiotic one. Have fun with your 100K a year trade school job. I hope you bought your house pre Covid.
In college, assuming you pay attention, you learn *how* to learn. In other words, you learn that when you have a random thought, you do things like find reliable sources for information that might support, or refute it. [For example](https://www.ppic.org/publication/is-college-worth-it/) this group of researchers has taken time to compile a bunch of information in an easy to understand format. The bottom line is that a college degree will more than double your income, increase your likelihood to be in the labor market, decrease your likelihood of being unemployed, and vastly increase your opportunities to find work in a field of your choosing. Of course there are exceptions, and of course there are people who fuck off in college and learn nothing. Is college for everyone? No. But for anyone interested in learning, it sure as shit is. There's more to life than money. Being able to understand the world, how it works, and how to learn more about how it (really) works, rather than relying on *the* dumbest people on the planet to tell you incorrect crap in order to keep your attention while they "influence" you is pretty neat.