2088 sats \ 5 replies \ @k00b 28 Jan \ on: What are some solid alternatives to college/university? Education
In general, I recommend people go to college. Mostly because you don't know what you don't know and colleges do. It's expensive and certain fields are totally fucked, but if you want to learn either a breadth of things or a depth of something, there isn't a better, single, generic place imo. There's no shortcut to mastery and there aren't bootcamps for doctors or chemical engineers.
IME my college education could be partitioned like this:
- reading a lot of books and discussing them. The books are usually one of:
- a survey of a particular field
- significant to a particular field
- ordered learning tasks that intend to layout a path to mastery in a specific field
- gamified learning, ie
- grades are scoring systems
- homework/tests are challenges in a level
- classes are levels
- deadlines
- meeting a lot of people from diverse backgrounds who are learning too
- a hierarchy of mentors literally standing by to mentor
If you want to replace college, it should have those things or analogs for them.
Afaict this is still happening but it's no longer remarkable, because so many more people do it now and it isn't as challenging as it once was.
If you go to a highly ranked college at a reasonable price (whether scholarship, family support, grants, etc.) and pick a major with a high ROI its great.
If you do any combo of: go to a bad school, don't finish your degree, take out huge loans, get a degree with a low ROI or that doesn't have directly marketable skills and knowledge - it basically amounts to a scam.
I went to college and I'm glad I did, but I purposefully picked a major in the top 20 most highly paid.
Genuinely not to pick on people but if you pick an easy degree pays little money then you are likely in for a fun time at college followed by a rough real world afterwards. There are always exceptions, but this is painfully common.
Don't go for the proverbial "underwater basket weaving" degree. Ask yourself what do real world companies want most and will I be able to do that with this degree.
IMHO gap years to travel basically amount to a scam that only rich kids are able to do these days. I try to stay open minded but I would have a hard time hiring someone who did this. Everyone I've interviewed after a gap year (meaning right after, not later in their career) was clearly from a rich family and very entitled. Gap years yes you learn a lot of valuable social skills, but often not anything directly that employers what. If I'm running a small business and looking for a generic entry level analyst, do I hire someone with 1 more years work experience or someone who spent an extra year traveling europe? work experience every time, doesn't meant the other person is in any way bad, they just have less knowledge and experience my business needs
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Yes, in my circle of friends/acquaintances there's been a lot of recent college outcomes that have not been great.
- Daughter of friend, graduated from college with a degree in communication, I believe. She had gotten a great scholarship for college, but it's been almost a year since she graduated, and she's still working at the place (fast casual type restaurant) that she was working at while at college
- Another daughter of a friend. What with covid lockdowns, she switched colleges a couple times, thinking she'd escape the isolation of a particular college, but ended up experiencing the isolation of multiple different colleges. Her plan now is when she graduates in a few months, to live at home with her parents and work at a bakery, same as she's doing now in school. She was studying business, switched to polysci.
- Son of a friend, he just flunked out after 1.5 years. Computer focus.
I do know one kid who graduated 2 years ago, and actually got a job doing what he had studied for. It took him about 6 months to find the job. His brother is still struggling, alternating between some college, some work, some full-time video-gaming from his dad's basement, sleeping all day long and gaming at night.
I think the value of a college degree went down a lot, with covid. There was so much isolation, anxiety, and NOT LEARNING happening because of the lockdowns, masks, etc.
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Not to shame people, but just to learn the examples of where and how college goes wrong need to be discussed much more. You give some good possible examples.
Not completing your degree, picking a degree with little or no direct job market, and switching to an easier degree should all be big red flags to parents.
You do not have to have your whole life figured out and planned. You just need a basic approach to get some skills that are in demand in the job market and you can gradually build from there.
Parents and the students should constantly ask what are they/I going to be able to do with this degree? Is this going to make my whole life better in the long term or is this just the easy thing to do right now that I'll probably regret later?
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I got some more examples in the past month. And I'm really not explicitly looking for them, they just came up.
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Acquaintance and I were talking about kids. His 21 year old son graduated from college and had "apartment issues". I don't know what the details were, but he's now living at home, and apparently is looking for a job only very unenergetically. And doesn't have one.
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Son of another acquaintance. Graduated from college with a degree in something like veterinary tech. Couldn't find a job, eventually took a job at a fast food place.
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Son of friend in the neighborhood. Graduated from a name brand college with a dual degree in biology/chemistry. Has been at home with parents now for months. Nothing is happening in terms of a job. He's apparently great to have around, agreeable, does things with the parents as opposed to hanging out in the basement playing video games. But still, not what supposedly people go to college for to do.
I'm actually NOT opposed to kids living at home for a while. And I don't necessarily think that people need to immediately sign up for life for "real" jobs.
However, these are not kids working on passion projects or traveling to interesting places instead of getting a "real" job. They're just hanging out at home with parents, kind of depressed.
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Yes, in my circle of friends/acquaintances there's been a lot of recent college outcomes that have not been great.
- Daughter of friend, graduated from college with a degree in communication, I believe. She had gotten a great scholarship for college, but it's been almost a year since she graduated, and she's still working at the place (fast casual type restaurant) that she was working at while at college
- Another daughter of a friend. What with covid lockdowns, she switched colleges a couple times, thinking she'd escape the isolation of a particular college, but ended up experiencing the isolation of multiple different colleges. Her plan now is when she graduates in a few months, to live at home with her parents and work at a bakery, same as she's doing now in school. She was studying business, switched to polysci.
- Son of a friend, he just flunked out after 1.5 years. Computer focus.
I do know one kid who graduated 2 years ago, and actually got a job doing what he had studied for. It took him about 6 months to find the job. His brother is still struggling, alternating between some college, some work, some full-time video-gaming from his dad's basement, sleeping all day long and gaming at night.I think the value of a college degree went down a lot, with covid. There was so much isolation, anxiety, and NOT LEARNING happening because of the lockdowns, masks, etc.
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