What does college mean?

[airtwardo 6]

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A college degree demonstrates:

1. Ability to learn.
2. Ability to follow through.
3. Acquisition of advanced knowledge.

Those without a degree may possess all of the above and more; a degree merely proves it more readily and easily.

Now, advanced degrees (masters, doctorate, etc.) are another matter.

A college degree simply means they (through some means) met the requirements to graduate.

Anything additional, either positive or negative inferences are simply that.

Yup...for most, it simply means one can access and utilize information in a manner suitable to meet the requirements for graduation.

The undergrad degree demonstrates you have the tenacity to follow through with something and can jump the hoops necessary to get a square hat, which in reality is what many employers are looking for.

After 6 long years of higher education, the best & most useful class I ever had was a 100 level sociology class in which the prof was so pissed at the poor test grades, he took a week to actually TEACH us HOW to study!

Giving my kids the same lesson when they were in High School improved their grades so dramatically I was called in for a teacher conference to discuss what the heck happened!

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[wmw999 2,123]

Ummm -- can you tell me the secret please?

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[billvon 2,400]

>My point is simply if all you know about a person is they have a
>degree, until more is known, nothing more, be it positive or negative,
>should be automatically inferred.

And that's what I disagree with.

If you are organizing a 16-way, and you have two people come up to you - one of whom was on the 400-way and the Arizona Challenge, the other of whom has never done a big way - which one would you take?

Of course it's best to ask additional questions of them. But of those two, knowing nothing else, most organizers will (rightly) take the person who was on the 400-way. Because although they may have sucked, may have cheated to get on it, may not have "pulled their weight" etc. - odds are that they're pretty good at bigger formations.

[airtwardo 6]

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Ummm -- can you tell me the secret please?

Wendy P.

I could but then it wouldn't BE a secret!




Basically in a nutshell~

Read the first sentence of every paragraph of a given chapter, then go back and read the material in it's entirety. Then give it a while to digest and go back and write down long hand the first sentence of every paragraph.

To review for tests, go back through you classroom & hand written book notes.

There are a few other things like be well rested, undistracted and study the same way, at the same times, for a set period of time, only study one subject at a time taking a break to switch class materials, study easy stuff 1st, then harder more technical things then back to easy etc.

...it's surprising how the material sticks in the brain.

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[CarrieByTheSea 0]

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it's a matter of not automatically trusting at least without further info.

You mean, like, what a resume might provide?

At least for me and my friends, our resumes for our first out-of-college position did not simply consist of submitting a copy of our degree.

Can you clarify, or do I understand your point correctly?

"Nature is cruel, but we don't have to be." ~ Temple Grandin

[Belgian_Draft 0]

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Or they may have simply lied, cheat, stole, defrauded, and/or BSed their way through.

Indeed they may have. And if they did their lack of an actual education will be noticed shortly after getting their first job if not during interviews.
A college degree means much more that just getting a piece of paper. It shows the person has the stick-to-it-iveness to finish something they started. I can tell you first hand that en engineering degree is, as Jakee put it, not just hard...it's damn hard.
On the job experience is irreplacable, but so is technical education. They compliment each other in ways so that somebody who has both is much farther ahead than somebody with only one of the qualifications.
If I need to hire somebody to bring into an engineering firm to train to be a go-to guy for a particular subject who do you think will be the best choice...the guy with the BSME, or one of the two dozen applicants with a high school diploma and 10 years erecting buildings, bridges, etc? My money's one the college grad every time.

HAMMER:
Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a
kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the
object we are trying to hit.

[ChangoLanzao 0]

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Or they may have simply lied, cheat, stole, defrauded, and/or BSed their way through.

They're the one's who's college degrees qualify them for managerial positions on Wall Street.

[kelpdiver 2]

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Additionally they tend not to have just one mentor, but even so, how does that differ from just being clones of the profs they had in college, other than being more reality based?

The student has multiple profs versus one mentor, and the university represents something different from the mentor.

The value of other job history will again depend on whether or not they ever worked at a planning capacity rather than a reactive fireman.

> It's not a matter of not trusting, it's a matter of not automatically trusting at least without further info.

I'm pretty sure you're the only one here putting out this strawman. The degree gets you an interview, not a job. And yes, it does mean at a lot of places, the lack of a degree is a big hindrance whether or not it seems appropriate. You would have to be known by the hiring manager or someone in that group to skip the HR screening process.

[champu 1]

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It's not a matter of not trusting, it's a matter of not automatically trusting at least without further info.

As said above:
My point is simply if all you know about a person is they have a degree, until more is known, nothing more, be it positive or negative, should be automatically inferred.

It may be hard to grill someone during an interview on certain liberal arts degrees (and I certainly wouldn't be the right person to do it), but it's not difficult to interview a new engineering grad against their resume and tell if they're legit.

[Bolas 5]

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>I think people are starting to wake up to the fact that for some career
>options, it's simply an uneeded expense/debt, at least to start a career
>with.

While that's true, it does severely limit your career options. I mean, if your goal is to get a relatively high paying job with opportunities for advancement, then a college degree is most definitely not an "unneeded expense." If your goal is more foodservice or retail, I agree, it could be an unneeded expense.

2 points:

1. Depending on how long one went to school and how much debt they accumulated doing it, their "high paying job" might not be so much after the loan payments start hitting.

2. I think food service and retail are fine first jobs and can really teach people not only basic work skills, but humility and understanding as well.

While for some career choices, college does make sense and pays off, but for others the degree can be a serious financial liability.

We had the housing bubble, soon we'll have the education bubble, in part due to the "litmus test" hiring practice mentality of degrees these daya.

Stupidity if left untreated is self-correcting
If ya can't be good, look good, if that fails, make 'em laugh.

[Bolas 5]

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>My point is simply if all you know about a person is they have a
>degree, until more is known, nothing more, be it positive or negative,
>should be automatically inferred.

And that's what I disagree with.

If you are organizing a 16-way, and you have two people come up to you - one of whom was on the 400-way and the Arizona Challenge, the other of whom has never done a big way - which one would you take?

Of course it's best to ask additional questions of them. But of those two, knowing nothing else, most organizers will (rightly) take the person who was on the 400-way. Because although they may have sucked, may have cheated to get on it, may not have "pulled their weight" etc. - odds are that they're pretty good at bigger formations.

Your example equates to job experience, not a diploma.

A better example would be 2 jumpers, one has their coach rating. Nothing more is known, who is the better jumper? I'd say the data is inconclusive and would want to know more before deciding.

Stupidity if left untreated is self-correcting
If ya can't be good, look good, if that fails, make 'em laugh.

[Bolas 5]

Sorry to "Lucky" it but my interent was out for a bit today.

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Or they may have simply lied, cheat, stole, defrauded, and/or BSed their way through.

Indeed they may have. And if they did their lack of an actual education will be noticed shortly after getting their first job if not during interviews.
A college degree means much more that just getting a piece of paper. It shows the person has the stick-to-it-iveness to finish something they started. I can tell you first hand that en engineering degree is, as Jakee put it, not just hard...it's damn hard.
On the job experience is irreplacable, but so is technical education. They compliment each other in ways so that somebody who has both is much farther ahead than somebody with only one of the qualifications.
If I need to hire somebody to bring into an engineering firm to train to be a go-to guy for a particular subject who do you think will be the best choice...the guy with the BSME, or one of the two dozen applicants with a high school diploma and 10 years erecting buildings, bridges, etc? My money's one the college grad every time.

If you're training them anyways, one of the guys with actual experience might be a better option as you could pay them less to start and they could go to classes as needed.

Give me someone with proven job experience over someone with some letters after their name any day.

Stupidity if left untreated is self-correcting
If ya can't be good, look good, if that fails, make 'em laugh.

[Belgian_Draft 0]

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Sorry to "Lucky" it but my interent was out for a bit today.

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Or they may have simply lied, cheat, stole, defrauded, and/or BSed their way through.

Indeed they may have. And if they did their lack of an actual education will be noticed shortly after getting their first job if not during interviews.
A college degree means much more that just getting a piece of paper. It shows the person has the stick-to-it-iveness to finish something they started. I can tell you first hand that en engineering degree is, as Jakee put it, not just hard...it's damn hard.
On the job experience is irreplacable, but so is technical education. They compliment each other in ways so that somebody who has both is much farther ahead than somebody with only one of the qualifications.
If I need to hire somebody to bring into an engineering firm to train to be a go-to guy for a particular subject who do you think will be the best choice...the guy with the BSME, or one of the two dozen applicants with a high school diploma and 10 years erecting buildings, bridges, etc? My money's one the college grad every time.

If you're training them anyways, one of the guys with actual experience might be a better option as you could pay them less to start and they could go to classes as needed.

Give me someone with proven job experience over someone with some letters after their name any day.

Training a recent engineering graduate to fit with your company and specialize in a particular area is a lot quicker and easier than taking somebody else who has no engineering training and bringing them up through the ranks. The college grad will be up and running probably within a few months to a couple years, the experienced but non-degreed person will take several years of balancing work and classes to even get to where the degreed person starts the job...if they even make it. First they have to take all the pre-reqs and general education curriculum (GEC) classes, then they have to do well enough in their pre-engineering, calculus, physics, chemistry, etc. to keep a GPA high enough to get accepted into the engineering program of choice. If they make it that far they then start taking the hard classes and the real challenge begins.
Unless you are very good, very lucky, or both, chances are the first candidate you pick to take your proposed route into filling the job won't make it. That can set you back years and the financial cost to your company could be far greater than just salary and benfits to a new hire. Best bet is with the proven commmodity, the college grad. He/she has already proven they can do the job.

HAMMER:
Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a
kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the
object we are trying to hit.

[Bolas 5]

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Sorry to "Lucky" it but my interent was out for a bit today.

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Or they may have simply lied, cheat, stole, defrauded, and/or BSed their way through.

Indeed they may have. And if they did their lack of an actual education will be noticed shortly after getting their first job if not during interviews.
A college degree means much more that just getting a piece of paper. It shows the person has the stick-to-it-iveness to finish something they started. I can tell you first hand that en engineering degree is, as Jakee put it, not just hard...it's damn hard.
On the job experience is irreplacable, but so is technical education. They compliment each other in ways so that somebody who has both is much farther ahead than somebody with only one of the qualifications.
If I need to hire somebody to bring into an engineering firm to train to be a go-to guy for a particular subject who do you think will be the best choice...the guy with the BSME, or one of the two dozen applicants with a high school diploma and 10 years erecting buildings, bridges, etc? My money's one the college grad every time.

If you're training them anyways, one of the guys with actual experience might be a better option as you could pay them less to start and they could go to classes as needed.

Give me someone with proven job experience over someone with some letters after their name any day.

Training a recent engineering graduate to fit with your company and specialize in a particular area is a lot quicker and easier than taking somebody else who has no engineering training and bringing them up through the ranks. The college grad will be up and running probably within a few months to a couple years, the experienced but non-degreed person will take several years of balancing work and classes to even get to where the degreed person starts the job...if they even make it. First they have to take all the pre-reqs and general education curriculum (GEC) classes, then they have to do well enough in their pre-engineering, calculus, physics, chemistry, etc. to keep a GPA high enough to get accepted into the engineering program of choice. If they make it that far they then start taking the hard classes and the real challenge begins.
Unless you are very good, very lucky, or both, chances are the first candidate you pick to take your proposed route into filling the job won't make it. That can set you back years and the financial cost to your company could be far greater than just salary and benfits to a new hire. Best bet is with the proven commmodity, the college grad. He/she has already proven they can do the job.

I said they could go to classes as needed basically to fill in any knowledge gaps. If they wanted to go for the full degree, that would be their choice, but may not be necessary.

Stupidity if left untreated is self-correcting
If ya can't be good, look good, if that fails, make 'em laugh.

[kallend 1,623]

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It means wealthy parents are willing to spend a whole lot of money...

Or in some cases, worthy students are willing to accept a prodigious scholarship.

Yep, that too. Some particularly worthy people are fully covered all the way to a doctorate.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[kallend 1,623]

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Give me someone with proven job experience over someone with some letters after their name any day.

Make up your mind - a few posts ago you wanted engineers to have "PE" after their name.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[Belgian_Draft 0]

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Sorry to "Lucky" it but my interent was out for a bit today.

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Or they may have simply lied, cheat, stole, defrauded, and/or BSed their way through.

Indeed they may have. And if they did their lack of an actual education will be noticed shortly after getting their first job if not during interviews.
A college degree means much more that just getting a piece of paper. It shows the person has the stick-to-it-iveness to finish something they started. I can tell you first hand that en engineering degree is, as Jakee put it, not just hard...it's damn hard.
On the job experience is irreplacable, but so is technical education. They compliment each other in ways so that somebody who has both is much farther ahead than somebody with only one of the qualifications.
If I need to hire somebody to bring into an engineering firm to train to be a go-to guy for a particular subject who do you think will be the best choice...the guy with the BSME, or one of the two dozen applicants with a high school diploma and 10 years erecting buildings, bridges, etc? My money's one the college grad every time.

If you're training them anyways, one of the guys with actual experience might be a better option as you could pay them less to start and they could go to classes as needed.

Give me someone with proven job experience over someone with some letters after their name any day.

Training a recent engineering graduate to fit with your company and specialize in a particular area is a lot quicker and easier than taking somebody else who has no engineering training and bringing them up through the ranks. The college grad will be up and running probably within a few months to a couple years, the experienced but non-degreed person will take several years of balancing work and classes to even get to where the degreed person starts the job...if they even make it. First they have to take all the pre-reqs and general education curriculum (GEC) classes, then they have to do well enough in their pre-engineering, calculus, physics, chemistry, etc. to keep a GPA high enough to get accepted into the engineering program of choice. If they make it that far they then start taking the hard classes and the real challenge begins.
Unless you are very good, very lucky, or both, chances are the first candidate you pick to take your proposed route into filling the job won't make it. That can set you back years and the financial cost to your company could be far greater than just salary and benfits to a new hire. Best bet is with the proven commmodity, the college grad. He/she has already proven they can do the job.

I said they could go to classes as needed basically to fill in any knowledge gaps. If they wanted to go for the full degree, that would be their choice, but may not be necessary.

You really have no idea how much education is needed to be a competent engineer, do you? It is not something you take night classes for a few months and be done with. The foundation is formed by all the pre-reqs...the math and sciences. Without those the actual engineering methods and theories are difficult to understand. For example: A client needs to weld around the outside of a cylinder in a spiral fashion similar to a barber pole. He needs to know several things: How much filler material will be needed, what type of filler material, what pre-heat, interpass, and PWHT temps, travel speed, total length of weld and time to produce the weld, and, most importantly, how mush distortion, if any, can be expected and how can it be minimized. Without a solid education in calculus, physics, heat flow, metalurgy and thermodynamics the only thing a person can do is guess. This is a fairly simple situation, yet the education needed to arrive at a solution would take years to get even going to school full time. Would it be possible to learn all this on the job? Yep. But what will that employee do for you until he is capable of doing the job you are trying to train him for? And while you are trying to train him you still need to hire someone to do the job you hope he will fill someday.
College grad, much simpler. An engineering grad would be able to address at least half the situation I cited and would know where to get the information needed for the rest. A senior engineer would be guiding him and available to answer any questions he had.

HAMMER:
Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a
kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the
object we are trying to hit.

[kallend 1,623]

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2. I think food service and retail are fine first jobs and can really teach people not only basic work skills, but humility and understanding as well.

I bet Boeing and Northrop-Grumman are just falling over themselves recruiting entry level engineers out of MacDonalds, KFC and Wendy's.

Bolas, your position here is just too absurd. For over 1,000 years (the first universities we would recognize as such: Bologna, Paris, Oxford, Cambridge are around that age) the world in general has recognized, and continues to recognize, a university education as the appropriate route for an educated person to progress in society and the professions.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[Bolas 5]

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Give me someone with proven job experience over someone with some letters after their name any day.

Make up your mind - a few posts ago you wanted engineers to have "PE" after their name.

That wasn't me.

Stupidity if left untreated is self-correcting
If ya can't be good, look good, if that fails, make 'em laugh.

[Bolas 5]

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Sorry to "Lucky" it but my interent was out for a bit today.

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Or they may have simply lied, cheat, stole, defrauded, and/or BSed their way through.

Indeed they may have. And if they did their lack of an actual education will be noticed shortly after getting their first job if not during interviews.
A college degree means much more that just getting a piece of paper. It shows the person has the stick-to-it-iveness to finish something they started. I can tell you first hand that en engineering degree is, as Jakee put it, not just hard...it's damn hard.
On the job experience is irreplacable, but so is technical education. They compliment each other in ways so that somebody who has both is much farther ahead than somebody with only one of the qualifications.
If I need to hire somebody to bring into an engineering firm to train to be a go-to guy for a particular subject who do you think will be the best choice...the guy with the BSME, or one of the two dozen applicants with a high school diploma and 10 years erecting buildings, bridges, etc? My money's one the college grad every time.

If you're training them anyways, one of the guys with actual experience might be a better option as you could pay them less to start and they could go to classes as needed.

Give me someone with proven job experience over someone with some letters after their name any day.

Training a recent engineering graduate to fit with your company and specialize in a particular area is a lot quicker and easier than taking somebody else who has no engineering training and bringing them up through the ranks. The college grad will be up and running probably within a few months to a couple years, the experienced but non-degreed person will take several years of balancing work and classes to even get to where the degreed person starts the job...if they even make it. First they have to take all the pre-reqs and general education curriculum (GEC) classes, then they have to do well enough in their pre-engineering, calculus, physics, chemistry, etc. to keep a GPA high enough to get accepted into the engineering program of choice. If they make it that far they then start taking the hard classes and the real challenge begins.
Unless you are very good, very lucky, or both, chances are the first candidate you pick to take your proposed route into filling the job won't make it. That can set you back years and the financial cost to your company could be far greater than just salary and benfits to a new hire. Best bet is with the proven commmodity, the college grad. He/she has already proven they can do the job.

I said they could go to classes as needed basically to fill in any knowledge gaps. If they wanted to go for the full degree, that would be their choice, but may not be necessary.

You really have no idea how much education is needed to be a competent engineer, do you? It is not something you take night classes for a few months and be done with. The foundation is formed by all the pre-reqs...the math and sciences. Without those the actual engineering methods and theories are difficult to understand. For example: A client needs to weld around the outside of a cylinder in a spiral fashion similar to a barber pole. He needs to know several things: How much filler material will be needed, what type of filler material, what pre-heat, interpass, and PWHT temps, travel speed, total length of weld and time to produce the weld, and, most importantly, how mush distortion, if any, can be expected and how can it be minimized. Without a solid education in calculus, physics, heat flow, metalurgy and thermodynamics the only thing a person can do is guess. This is a fairly simple situation, yet the education needed to arrive at a solution would take years to get even going to school full time. Would it be possible to learn all this on the job? Yep. But what will that employee do for you until he is capable of doing the job you are trying to train him for? And while you are trying to train him you still need to hire someone to do the job you hope he will fill someday.
College grad, much simpler. An engineering grad would be able to address at least half the situation I cited and would know where to get the information needed for the rest. A senior engineer would be guiding him and available to answer any questions he had.

You're naive if you still think they do all those calulations by hand. Computer based models and simulators handle that sort of thing. Might it be better to know how it all works? Sure, eventually, but it's not really necessary to start anymore.

Stupidity if left untreated is self-correcting
If ya can't be good, look good, if that fails, make 'em laugh.

[Bolas 5]

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2. I think food service and retail are fine first jobs and can really teach people not only basic work skills, but humility and understanding as well.

I bet Boeing and Northrop-Grumman are just falling over themselves recruiting entry level engineers out of MacDonalds, KFC and Wendy's.

I said first jobs, not that they should be immediate stepping stones to engineering positions. Obviously they'd need to also work at that plant in a much lesser capacity and work their way up.

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Bolas, your position here is just too absurd. For over 1,000 years (the first universities we would recognize as such: Bologna, Paris, Oxford, Cambridge are around that age) the world in general has recognized, and continues to recognize, a university education as the appropriate route for an educated person to progress in society and the professions.

Yes, because the way we did things 1000 years ago should never change with the times. Seems to be the same general argument some use for religion.

In this age of technology, so many careers could be made more accessible to more people if they'd drop some of the arbitrary requirements and rethink what exactly is needed.

Additionally, there are many people in careers managing and making decisions that effect people doing jobs they've never even done. Whereas if they had some experience doing that job they'd make much better decisions or at least know how flawed the data they are basing the decisions on usually is.

There's nothing wrong with someone getting educated just because they want it, but the problem is more and more jobs (even low paying ones) are requiring college degrees.

Going $50-$100K in debt to get a job that may pay $35K just doesn't make much sense, does it?

Stupidity if left untreated is self-correcting
If ya can't be good, look good, if that fails, make 'em laugh.

[champu 1]

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You're naive if you still think they do all those calulations by hand. Computer based models and simulators handle that sort of thing. Might it be better to know how it all works? Sure, eventually, but it's not really necessary to start anymore.

You're naive if you think the world stops for you to set up and run a computer simulation every time something goes wrong and you need to understand why.

[Bolas 5]

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You're naive if you still think they do all those calulations by hand. Computer based models and simulators handle that sort of thing. Might it be better to know how it all works? Sure, eventually, but it's not really necessary to start anymore.

You're naive if you think the world stops for you to set up and run a computer simulation every time something goes wrong and you need to understand why.

Hence why it's done beforehand to minimize the chances.

Then it's simply a matter of determing what the differences between the computer model and the real thing to determine what the issue is.

Stupidity if left untreated is self-correcting
If ya can't be good, look good, if that fails, make 'em laugh.

[Belgian_Draft 0]

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You're naive if you still think they do all those calulations by hand. Computer based models and simulators handle that sort of thing. Might it be better to know how it all works? Sure, eventually, but it's not really necessary to start anymore.

Sure computers do a lot of the work. But it takes an educated person to understand what input is needed to get the desired output, where and how to get the data, and be able to tell when the solution arrived at by the computer is wrong and find out why it is wrong. Computers are great TOOLS but they are only as good as the people who program them and operate them. Remeber: Junk in=Junk out. Somebody whose only experience is computer games and flipping burgers won't have a clue as to where to begin an ANSYS simulation. Think you can just grab somebody off the street, sit them in front of a computer loaded with CATIA software and they will just magically start to design automotive components? What happens when that employee has to make calculations in the field? What if they have to make decisions away from their desk and the only resource they have is their education? (You would be amazed at how many truck drivers think that the more weight they have on their truck, the faster they can stop)
Almost anything you intend to teach a non-degreed person in order to fill a job vacancy has already been taught to a degreed engineer, even a fresh graduate.
As far as debt vs salary, it is common for students to work their way through college by attending public universities and working pert time jobs during semesters and internships during summers. It is common for them to graduate with no debt. Starting salaries for entry level engineers start at around 40K and, depending upon major and class rank, can top out over 75K. I personally know a handfull who graduated college and started their first job with a salary over 100K.

HAMMER:
Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a
kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the
object we are trying to hit.

[kallend 1,623]

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Give me someone with proven job experience over someone with some letters after their name any day.

Make up your mind - a few posts ago you wanted engineers to have "PE" after their name.

That wasn't me. [/reply

Might as well have been; after a bottle of rum, you and rhaig are completely indistinguishable.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.