The Irony of Higher Education

As I have seen for the last 25 years, another company is cleaning house of all non college grads.

"No degree? There's the door; don't let it hit you in the ass on your way out!"

My biggest customer is doing this right now and I have seen this happen at least 10 times over the years in large companies. I hit the ceiling in my field by the age of twenty five. I saw that only degreed people need set their sights any higher. This trend does and will continue; don't kid yourself.

There are professions in which experience and an early start is the best path to success. It all depends on where you want to land. Personally, I got the physics degree and am now self-employed as a consultant and programmer. Before starting college, and barring any incredible luck or unforseen and undiscovered talents, I was worth about $20- $30 an hour for the rest of my life. There is no way that I could do what I do without my physics degree - that is most of the time to sit at home writing code or designing systems while making $75 an hour...I have made up to $10,000 in one week, and I average about $5000 a week while working on site.

I owe this all to college AND to lots of hard work.

The latest reports indicate that those with college degrees can expect to make $1,000,000 more than non grads over their lifetimes.
 
Ivan Seeking, mind if I inquire more about your physics degree? I'm an aspiring physics-degree holder, and I'm curious as to where it will take me. My foresight hopes for a job as a titled physicist--likely, a researcher/professor--yet I'm curious as to what else it will do for me. What doors will it open up? Is it a good "money-maker" degree? (the latter question is simply one of my own curiosity =P). Anyway, I feel adamantly positive in my physics pursuit; I can't wait for college so I can learn... (high school just doesn't do it for me).

Thanks Ivan Seeking.
 
Originally posted by Calculusaurus
Ivan Seeking, mind if I inquire more about your physics degree? I'm an aspiring physics-degree holder, and I'm curious as to where it will take me. My foresight hopes for a job as a titled physicist--likely, a researcher/professor--yet I'm curious as to what else it will do for me. What doors will it open up? Is it a good "money-maker" degree? (the latter question is simply one of my own curiosity =P). Anyway, I feel adamantly positive in my physics pursuit; I can't wait for college so I can learn... (high school just doesn't do it for me).

Thanks Ivan Seeking.
Click to expand...

First, I only went as far as a BS. In no way is a BS in physics easy to market; say for example like an electrical engineering degree would be. Really, unless you are like me and no other subject will do, and unless you just can't stand the thought of not going into physics for the sake of learning it, I don't recommend a physics degree. On the other hand, physics provides a foundation that allows one to explore just about any physical sciences or engineering discipline. I found that by listing what I learned in physics on my resume, instead of just saying "BS Physics", I received a much better response than otherwise. I found that it is necessary to sell the degree - to explain why I have skills applicable for some particular job.

I have done best by taking risks; sometimes some pretty big ones. In short it works like this. If I think that in principle I can handle some particular task, even if I really know nothing about it, if someone asks if I am up to some new challenge, the answer is always yes…then I do whatever it takes to meet the challenge. In the early years this meant a lot of sleepless nights and sweating blood. However, in my experience, with a background in physics in fact I was up to most challenges. IMO, there is no better foundation for problem solving skills than physics. Problem solving skills are more valuable than most others that any graduate can offer.

I did crash and burn a few times, but even the failures are learning experiences.

In the last ten years, I have only seen a handful of ads for "Physicist wanted". I know one Ph. D. in physics working as the head of finance...

Unless you plan to be a professor, I don't recommend a Ph. D. You will never recover the cost of tuition and working for lousy wages.

Also, IMO, no matter what, get involved in an apprentice program, and take CAD.
 
thanks for the reply.

it's interesting to hear that; you aren't the first physics-degree holder i've talked to--I always get different responses. regardless, reading what you said only strenghtened my ambition. I can't see myself for any other degree, for if I have another major I wouldn't be learning physics! I really want to learn it for the sake of learning it, and I wouldn't want to go through an education any other way.

I suppose my foresight could be taken as irrational; it's not like I know what I'm doing. But I know enough of what I'm getting into, and having such dreams should be commendable anyway :D
 
I wanted to make a small addendum on one observation noted:

Unless you plan to be a professor, I don't recommend a Ph. D. You will never recover the cost of tuition and working for lousy wages.
Click to expand...

This is to say that unless you have a very specific goal and customer, say for example unless Microsoft is paying for your physics Ph.D.., or unless you know a specific commercial field that employs a lot of Ph.D. physicsts of a type, I would suggest going on to a Ph.D. in engineering. From my point of view, this is a practical matter of making a good living. A good engineeing Ph.D. is highly marketable...at times. :bugeye:

This is where an apprenticeship with a good company can open many doors for advanced studies.
 
I have something to post, which I will in 9 hours or so. I just now wrote a bunch of stuff but it seriously needs to be rewritten. I'm only posting because I just spent probably 30 minutes writting and feel like I have to. But, tomarrow be prepared to learn... why college sucks!
 
I'm in "tertiary preparation" classes right now.
Which are basically for people who fucked around in high school and now want to go to university.
I'm still fairly optimistic about the whole thing.
The thing with me is I can't work a shitty job, its physically impossible. No matter how much its paying doesn't matter, I can not do anything I hate. Not even for 10 minutes let alone the rest of my life.
I plan on writing and editting nature documentaries as soon as i find someone to go and get the footage.
I assume that won't be that hard, I think plenty of people would like to travel around videotaping wildlife if thats the only part they are responsible for.
I just need the education to be qualified to write and edit nature documentaries.
Which I plan on getting through zoology and ethology courses.
 
I've been at college/university (computer science degree) for a semester and 2/3s, and my opinion of it has changed completely. It (my learning style) hasn't really changed from when I was at high-school; I wait to the last minute to finish assignments, and hope for it to be over soon.

Why? Well, almost everything they teach is irrelevant. I prefer what I've done in the past: If I want to write some software that communicates with web servers, then I need to learn about the HTTP protocol and sockets and maybe TCP/IP. At college however, it's the other way around. You have to take prerequisite courses first. Now, that's almost what I do in my example, but you really have no immediate application for anything you learn. Next year maybe we'll need calculus for algorithm analysis. If they were to tell us WHY we were learning something, and even give an example or two to that effect, it would be helpful.

It's also slow. Whereas I could learn something at home in a day, they stretch things out to a week or two. So if you do study at home, classes become extremely boring. Also, the lecture method seems lousy. Everything you're told is also in a book somewhere. And if you study it from the book, you're at your desk with a computer so you can implement things right away and play around; and you can go at a different pace and get side-tracked a little. But in a lecture you see examples that you can't do anything with immediately. You watch the professor write something on the board... for 90 minutes! Half of my professors suck immensely at presenting complicated information too.

Lastly, it's high-pressure. Just because it's as lousy as high-school for me, I've fallen into old patterns of procrastination. I'm bored at school, hate the subject matter, and as such don't get much done. I remember last week that I studied unicode for a day. That was fun. However, it had nothing to do with school- it was just something I needed to know to write some software. I think I missed some stupid lab about k-maps or something.

The way school works seems reasonable though. You learn things you need far in advance, you get opportunities to speak with the professor and there is plenty of time for homework. But that just doesn't work for me. Remember the garbage man from Dilbert (the show)? He was a garbage man, but in his spare time he was a brilliant scientist. I'd much rather getting some menial job and study computer science in my own time, my own way. I don't even want to be that sort of programmer really anymore. Application programming and server maintainance seem worse than a help desk job- they just get paid more.

At least I've learnt to use resources like the library. I know about journals now- there is a lot of interesting stuff to read for free because I go to college. I also know a little more about what there is to computer science.

I think a better way of learning is to get a good book (hooray amazon.com), and just start reading and practicing. They have those amazon lists too, some of which look like they'd make a good course to follow.

In the summer I'm going to try and get a decent job, the sort where they train you (because all your previous knowledge is useless-Ha). Maybe a tech support job or a bank career. Then I'll study my own way. If I get more work done than I did at school, I'm not going back.

--
This lost some power when I made it coherent, but at least I sound more sane.
 
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Ivan Seeking said:
I wanted to make a small addendum on one observation noted:



This is to say that unless you have a very specific goal and customer, say for example unless Microsoft is paying for your physics Ph.D.., or unless you know a specific commercial field that employs a lot of Ph.D. physicsts of a type, I would suggest going on to a Ph.D. in engineering. From my point of view, this is a practical matter of making a good living. A good engineeing Ph.D. is highly marketable...at times. :bugeye:

This is where an apprenticeship with a good company can open many doors for advanced studies.
Click to expand...

just a correction here, if you are working on a phd in physics, it is typically free. if you are acccepted to a program they wont admit you with someone sort of stipend package. you dont have to worry about the tuition and there are also ample well paying job opportunities for a phd or even a masters in physics. i am currently working on my phd out here in colorado and have seen many people gobbled up by aerospace firms, weapon technology firms, raytheon, lockheed, bell, etc. hewlett packard and intel also hire a lot of physicists. they love physicists at those places, pay extremely well and have some of best benefits around. also, they very often let you pick your own hours, you just have to get the 40 in during the week. in a place like colorado where there is so much to do out doors that is awesome! just 2 more cents from some one else involved in physics. ivanseekings description of the phd world of physicists isnt exactly accurate. the experience of working on a phd in physics is an amazing experience in itself. you have free reign to discover some new science, build a unique experiment, work with some of the greatest minds in the world etc. you will never have another opportunity anywhere else like that.
 
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there is no irony to an higher education..... twenty-five years ago, having a BSc. put you a step ahead of the majority, who stopped there education at high school. Now, there are two problems with this A) You have to be a mongoloid to be unable to get a BSc. and B) the material is too advanced to be learned without a specialty that requires a graduate degree. There is simply to much ongoing development in a particular field (ANY scientific one) to consider yourself up to date without the specialization required by a graduate degree.

The problem with a science degree is that a student working on BSc knows how much more difficult there material is, and how much more (quantity wise) material there is to learn compared to say a philosophy major (I say this having earned a B.A. in philosphy in two years through my own reading while getting my BSc (Hon) in chemistry). They then expect a concommitent increase in salary in and social respect towards their chosen profession. The sad truth is that this will never happen. Too many science positons have been automated (like running PCR's, NMR's, MS's etc) and too many require advanced knowledge that too few think they need. WAKE UP! BSc is the new high school diploma. Flood grad schools with your idiotic minds... let them sort through the applications.
 
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