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General discussion (archive)I'm At College!(53 posts)(53 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted August 20, 2010
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akwater: That kinda sucks about the pension thing, however wouldnt a person be able to say take a higher paying field with more time spent like a Doc?

Well, all workers must pay for the minimum pension coverage (calculated in advance), but if they make more money, they can put more into their pension plan and in this way get more out when they retire. Most don't do that, so they bitch about how low their calculated pension will be, and when you ask them about their credentials and job pay, you soon realise that you're talking with a quasi infinite student. But at least they'll get their minimum, they can complain about that all they want, they're the cooks and it's their soup.
Posted August 20, 2010
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Titanium: Well, all workers must pay for the minimum pension coverage (calculated in advance), but if they make more money, they can put more into their pension plan and in this way get more out when they retire. Most don't do that, so they bitch about how low their calculated pension will be, and when you ask them about their credentials and job pay, you soon realise that you're talking with a quasi infinite student. But at least they'll get their minimum, they can complain about that all they want, they're the cooks and it's their soup.

In the UK it's become a giant ponzi scheme, there's no link between pensions and earnings, and I've been paying for a state pension through forced taxation that I may never get.
Posted August 20, 2010
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H2IWclassic: In the UK it's become a giant ponzi scheme, there's no link between pensions and earnings, and I've been paying for a state pension through forced taxation that I may never get.

Same here. But here "half" of our coalition government are the social retirees (smelly old people to you and me), so I can see how we'll get our army and police out of commission before the pensions get a cut.
Posted August 20, 2010
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Wishbone: I've always wondered about that particular scenario. I don't recall ever seeing an ad saying "Philosopher wanted".

Me neither, but us Fjellaper (tm) have something called The Bureaucracy. That, and the most bloated welfare system known to man.
Most "soft" majors either find jobs teaching, or in a governmental papermoving position. Those with some HR-related education end up in a HR department somewhere. A very select percentage pursue academic careers.
In the other end of the scale engineering and sciences majors are so sought after here that hiring personell are turning up on frat parties. Makes you wonder why the average number of applicants to the harder engineering majors never really increases. There was a slight increase when the credit crunch hit but now it's heading downhill again.
Oh well, no need to worry about my job then.
Posted August 20, 2010
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Gundato: One of the bigger problems/reasons behind people who feel their college years were a waste is what they majored in. It might seem REALLY cool to major in philosophy and I am sure you will learn a lot of great things and be the life of a party. But you also need to think about what you will actually do for a living.
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Wishbone: I've always wondered about that particular scenario. I don't recall ever seeing an ad saying "Philosopher wanted". I know a girl who's studying for a degree in philosophy (has been for years), and she gets extremely pissed whenever anyone asks her what she's going to use it for.

The reason is because philosophy allows for such diversity. And because it's a hard question to answer.
A job as a "philosopher" is damn near impossible; the closest to that one can get is becoming a professor at a university and write philosophical books. But the point of studying philosophy isn't to get a job as one. It's about the gratification of knowing (or attempting to know) your life and experiences. Plus along the way, you gain critical thinking and communication skills that no other field of study rivals.
Like your friend, I don't know what I want to do with my degree. But that's what life's journey is all about. Going into it knowing exactly what you want to do disallows for adventurous opportunities. University is not for developing work skills; it's for becoming educated.
And as an undergraduate, I might as well study something of which I take pleasure. I was a computer science major for two and a half years, and I hated every minute of it. Since becoming a philosophy major, I've changed so much in both my philosophy of life and my personality.
Plus when I master the core mechanics of something like logic, I can easily jump into programming if that's what I want to do. A win-win, if you ask me. And I can get into the ladies panties and stuff.
Posted August 20, 2010
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Titanium: Same here. But here "half" of our coalition government are the social retirees (smelly old people to you and me), so I can see how we'll get our army and police out of commission before the pensions get a cut.

I'd rather keep my earnings and provide for myself, same goes for other socialised services like schooling and healthcare. At the moment I get taxed *and* have to pay on top to get anything, to be honest I'm amazed I've survived this long financially.
Post edited August 20, 2010 by H2IWclassic
Posted August 20, 2010
Take classes that seam interesting and do well in them so you can have an high enough gpa forgraduate school if your interested. Check out the certificates you can earn as they maybe handy for some jobs or maybe your resume. If your doing really bad in a class or really hate it halfway through then see if you can withdraw from the class without penalty to your gpa. Get to know some of your teachers as they maybe able to help you with your education.
Posted August 20, 2010
Well uh, I'm not in university and stuff. I'm in Canada though, so that's cool.
Posted August 20, 2010
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Vagabond: The reason is because philosophy allows for such diversity. And because it's a hard question to answer.
A job as a "philosopher" is damn near impossible; the closest to that one can get is becoming a professor at a university and write philosophical books. But the point of studying philosophy isn't to get a job as one. It's about the gratification of knowing (or attempting to know) your life and experiences. Plus along the way, you gain critical thinking and communication skills that no other field of study rivals.
Like your friend, I don't know what I want to do with my degree. But that's what life's journey is all about. Going into it knowing exactly what you want to do disallows for adventurous opportunities. University is not for developing work skills; it's for becoming educated.
And as an undergraduate, I might as well study something of which I take pleasure. I was a computer science major for two and a half years, and I hated every minute of it. Since becoming a philosophy major, I've changed so much in both my philosophy of life and my personality.
Plus when I master the core mechanics of something like logic, I can easily jump into programming if that's what I want to do. A win-win, if you ask me. And I can get into the ladies panties and stuff.

That's the other perspective.
Basically, if you want to go to college to learn knowledge that will be tangentially related to your future, definitely keep in mind what kinds of jobs you can get with your degree. If you go with one of the "real" majors (engineering comes to mind) you will still learn a lot of outright useless stuff, but you will also learn a lot of stuff that WILL be useful (if only to get the ability to figure out if the computer program is having a hiccup and giving you weird data). Just expect to feel pretty annoyed if you go into a different field, since you really won't have a use for trigonometry and all the other fun stuff.
If you are okay with working "normal" jobs (salesperson, office minion, etc), then learn to your heart's content. The "hippie" majors have a lot of really interesting classes, and facets of pretty much any career can be enhanced (to varying degrees). by the crap they teach.
And, of course, by "hippies" I mean the people who can actually tolerate all the academia-inspired "thinking" that comes out of this stuff. Not my cup of tea, but more power to you guys (more jobs for me :p).
And by "crap they teach", I mean "stuff". I just prefer to use the word crap, since it is a fun word.
Post edited August 20, 2010 by Gundato
Posted August 20, 2010
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Cy-Fox: I'm taking an associate's degree in Systems & Network Support at Terra State Community College here in Ohio : P Though prior to that I went to a vocational high school for Network Systems (and seemed to be the only person who actually bothered doing maintenance/repairs on systems and filing reports for said maintenance/repairs while the Evil Programmers were playing Call of Duty, or performing some demonic ritual in Visual Studio)

Damn, that sounds identical to my tertiary diploma experience, I ended up doing half of the major IT project myself because the one other person who paid attention was doing the paperwork half ahd the other 6 guys were all wasting time
Posted August 20, 2010
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Gundato: <SNIPPER-DOODLES>

I'd argue what I study is a "real" major and engineering isn't. :P
Posted August 20, 2010
@Vagabond
I had Philosophy in what we in sweden call Gymnasiet, translation on [url]http://lexin.nada.kth.se/sve-eng.html[/url] turns up "upper secondary school".
Anyway. I've had it for three years and I was asked to go into a freshman class and explain what it's about. A couple others was there too to talk about other branches of learning.
They talked a while until it was my turn.
-We learn what some old smart people think about reality and stuff. Sometimes we also have to learn about what more recent smart people think.
Then I was done. I still think it sums it up pretty nicely. That they had to bring in a actual teacher later to explain some more is irrelevant. :P
Then I went to university and studied Philosophy for a while.
Ps. GOG fix the quote code!
Post edited August 20, 2010 by Tarm
Posted August 21, 2010
I swear to god, up to now the only thing Uni has been good to me was networking (as in getting to know people in the field and making contacts in the industry) and starting to lose hair due to stress than anything else.
I'm still of the opinion, that, at least in IT, certs and experience weigh much much more than a degree, view which has been proven by the jobs I've managed to land so far.
Posted August 21, 2010
I'd agree on that, in fact I take more pride in my TAFE diploma in networking and systems admin than my uni degree in network engineering. The only good thing about the uni is that it incorporates 3/4 of the cisco CCNA so you actually learn practical skills which are great up until you hit non-cisco hardware. There's no way I'd ever hire someone who ONLY has a degree from my uni for the simple fact that they're not taught HOW to do things, only why
Post edited August 21, 2010 by Aliasalpha
Posted August 21, 2010
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Gundato: <SNIPPER-DOODLES>
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Vagabond: I'd argue what I study is a "real" major and engineering isn't. :P

And that is what makes you a dirty stinking hippie :p
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General discussion (archive)I'm At College!(53 posts)(53 posts)
(53 posts)