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wmw999

What does college mean?

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ONE hot summer’s day a Fox was strolling through an orchard till he came to a bunch of Grapes just ripening on a vine which had been trained over a lofty branch. “Just the things to quench my thirst,” quoth he. Drawing back a few paces, he took a run and a jump, and just missed the bunch. Turning round again with a One, Two, Three, he jumped up, but with no greater success. Again and again he tried after the tempting morsel, but at last had to give it up, and walked away with his nose in the air, saying: “I am sure they are sour.”



OK, professor, explain your parable to us un-educated college dropouts.

:(
"For you see, an airplane is an airplane. A landing area is a landing area. But a dropzone... a dropzone is the people."

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Depends on the degree...

Degrees like Medicine, Engineering....ect can really matter.

Things like Marketing, History...ect less so.

I know lots of people with a degree that do not work in their profession. So a degree is more a check point to get a job.

I know lots of people with no degree and really good jobs.... Heck, most of my peers think I have a Masters.

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Depends on the degree...

Degrees like Medicine, Engineering....ect can really matter.

Things like Marketing, History...ect less so.

I know lots of people with a degree that do not work in their profession. So a degree is more a check point to get a job.

I know lots of people with no degree and really good jobs.... Heck, most of my peers think I have a Masters.




So a liberal arts degree is . . .
I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama
BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun

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Depends on the degree...

Degrees like Medicine, Engineering....ect can really matter.

Things like Marketing, History...ect less so.



One of the things a well educated individual knows is that et cetera is abbreviated etc.
...

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

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How was zero-P developed; by a guy in his backyard? I don't know the answer, but I bet it was in a lab. I read it's silicone coated F-111, I'm sure more can shed light on that.



there was a guy in his basement who would coat your F-111 canopy with something to make it ZP (or close).

I think his name was Fred. I don't recall exactly. I almost had him coat my wildfire168. Instead I bought a Sabre.



OK, but that doesn't mean he invented/discovered it.



I didn't mean to imply that he did. Though it was a viable (though not as durable) alternative.



The point I was making was that it is most likely that the zero-P coating was developed in a lab by those with degrees.

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Big guys at teh gym can be smug, they can press 4 plates. Sharp-shooters might be smug - they can hit a target the size of a dime from 100 yards away, the size of a football from 500 yards. I can go on, but just because a person is good at something, there will be the smug types emerge. This does not mean they are bad at it, but that they are maybe a bit too proud of it and it has envelope their identity. Now, ok, they're smug assholes, but still they are way smarter than those who don't attend college/univ; that's teh point being discussed, not if they're smug.

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There's an old saying, "just because it can be done, doesn't mean it should" and "the simplest solution is usually the best." That whole concept seems to not not be enforced as they are learning complex things.



This explains why regressives, in this case conservatives, dislike academia. Education is progressive, right now liberals are pro-education progressives.

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How was zero-P developed; by a guy in his backyard? I don't know the answer, but I bet it was in a lab. I read it's silicone coated F-111, I'm sure more can shed light on that.



there was a guy in his basement who would coat your F-111 canopy with something to make it ZP (or close).

I think his name was Fred. I don't recall exactly. I almost had him coat my wildfire168. Instead I bought a Sabre.



OK, but that doesn't mean he invented/discovered it.



I didn't mean to imply that he did. Though it was a viable (though not as durable) alternative.



The point I was making was that it is most likely that the zero-P coating was developed in a lab by those with degrees.[/reply

no shit.

and it reminded me of the guy that used to coat old canopies and I thought I'd share.
--
Rob

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Agreed. Those generally include entry requirements, the demonstrated ability to show up regularly for classes, the ability to perform well on tests, demonstrated competence both inside and outside one's field (i.e. have to be able to write at least minimally) and the ability to organize one's time to make all that happen.



A college degree demonstrates competence in the part of one's field that's popular to teach and acceptable to test.

Legend had it that my favorite professor failed a third of her sophomore data structures class which was a degree pre-requisite. Most of the grade came from implementing software and having it pass automated tests just like you do in well-run companies post graduation.

The vast majority of the graduates I interviewed as a working software engineer who'd made it through the program were competent.

Parents weren't too happy with their children's grades and she wasn't allowed to teach data structures.

There was a noticeable decline in graduate quality.

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It's interesting, the only defense seen so far of the college system has been for engineers which at most schools the programs are more like trade schools anyways.



Really?? Have you ever been through an engineering program? I doubt it because if you had you would know how absolutely stupid that remark is.



Yep, engineers know how to perform stress analysis on a given structure/part, trade school attendees know how to assemble said structures - only engineers pretend they can do both, usually out of ego.



Damn, lucky, you and I actually agree on something. I haven't read a post of yours in this thread that I disagree with.
Don't forget...some of us engineers were doing the hands-on part for years before we ever went to college.



True, but I've watched engineers *TRY* to hands-on, it's between funny and pathetic. Don't take that the wrong way, it's just true. I imagine a mech trying to work a CG, stress or other issue would look pretty bad too.

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>There's an old saying, "just because it can be done, doesn't mean it should"

That's very true.

> and "the simplest solution is usually the best."

That's generally _not_ true when you get to higher levels of engineering and science. Often the complex solution _is_ really the best, and simple common sense leads you in exactly the wrong direction.

Common sense says the 45 degree angle should work. It doesn't. Time-based separation is a lot more complicated but works.

Common sense says that you turn the handlebars on a bicycle to the right if you want to go right (at least to someone who hasn't paid a lot of attention to what they do when they ride a bike.) Nope - you turn the handlebars LEFT to start a turn to the right. The physics are complicated, but the simplistic answer doesn't work.

Common sense says that static is a bad thing in communication systems; white noise is the ultimate failure of a radio link. Yet modern spread-spectrum systems transmit something that looks just like white noise, and it turns out you can transmit six times the information that way.

Common sense says that if you want to get closer to an object in orbit, you fire your engines to move yourself closer to it. In most cases, no - you generally overtake an object ahead of you by thrusting _away_ from it, which drops you into a lower orbit, which is faster, which allows you to get nearer to the object.

Common sense equips us well to deal with the ordinary world of eating, sleeping, walking around, moving things and dealing with other people. It doesn't equip us well to work with the sciences. Education is a much better alternative.



Common sense tells us that tax cuts work to benefit the economy, application and history show us they do the opposite for the masses.

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It's interesting, the only defense seen so far of the college system has been for engineers which at most schools the programs are more like trade schools anyways.



Really?? Have you ever been through an engineering program? I doubt it because if you had you would know how absolutely stupid that remark is.


I went to a big school, known for its engineering and had a roommate and other friends in the program. They took very few classes outside of the engineering school buildings and curriculum. I don't think they even had any electives until 2nd semster sophmore year.


So that makes Engineering College a trade school?
That is quite a stretch. :S


Not as much as you might think ;)

At the University of Illinois, the Engineering campus is on the North side of Green Street (Urbana). There really are students in Engineering here who cannot find their way around the South side of the campus.[:/]:D



Unless they live at 'Sinai Towers' ;)










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

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Now, ok, they're smug assholes, but still they are way smarter than those who don't attend college/univ; that's teh point being discussed, not if they're smug.



Ok, one smug person here really is claiming that a degree means one is way smarter than anyone who doesn't.

(but come on - you could hardly be surprised who it was)

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My final straw was when I took accounting fundamentals and discovered that even the fundamentals were flawed as they didn't even factor in additional effects. When I brought this up the prof basically ignored me and just went on.



Most people who think they know more than the professors usually end up the same way you did....out of school and no degree. The keyword in your remark is fundamentals. It is not meant as a comprehensive course that covers all situations and takes all possible variables into account. It only covers the basics. Since you failed to grasp them it is probably best that you dropped out and moved on with your life without a degree.
Are the profs always right? Nope, but 99.99% of the time they are and most are very receptive to being corrected if it is done in a helpful way and not by someone with an attitude.
I agree with Kallend. Just because you couldn't reach the grapes doesn't mean they are sour. Most find them to be very nutritious.
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.

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Now, ok, they're smug assholes, but still they are way smarter than those who don't attend college/univ; that's teh point being discussed, not if they're smug.



Ok, one smug person here really is claiming that a degree means one is way smarter than anyone who doesn't.

(but come on - you could hardly be surprised who it was)



I'm focussing on the intelligence value, not the asshole. The best dentist I have had was a total asshole, poor chairside manor, but he was competent; I'll take that.

Often I see people who are to conforming and "nice" as people who try to compensate for lack of knowledge/ability. I'll taka a smart, competent asshole, thank you.

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My final straw was when I took accounting fundamentals and discovered that even the fundamentals were flawed as they didn't even factor in additional effects. When I brought this up the prof basically ignored me and just went on.



Most people who think they know more than the professors usually end up the same way you did....out of school and no degree. The keyword in your remark is fundamentals. It is not meant as a comprehensive course that covers all situations and takes all possible variables into account. It only covers the basics. Since you failed to grasp them it is probably best that you dropped out and moved on with your life without a degree.
Are the profs always right? Nope, but 99.99% of the time they are and most are very receptive to being corrected if it is done in a helpful way and not by someone with an attitude.
I agree with Kallend. Just because you couldn't reach the grapes doesn't mean they are sour. Most find them to be very nutritious.


I didn't think I knew more, I just had questions about what the prof was teaching. And I did it without attitude, merely inquisitive.

I've never met an accountant in my life that factors in anything but the actual cost of a budget cut or an increase. Since they can't assign a fixed value to something like morale which may effect productivity, they don't even try. They just ignore all other impact which with as important as we've made exact accounting in our society (we've all said "damn beancounters" as we've been victims of their shortsightedness) is borderline criminal. >:(

I tasted the grapes, I didn't care to eat anymore. ;)
Stupidity if left untreated is self-correcting
If ya can't be good, look good, if that fails, make 'em laugh.

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My final straw was when I took accounting fundamentals and discovered that even the fundamentals were flawed as they didn't even factor in additional effects. When I brought this up the prof basically ignored me and just went on.



Most people who think they know more than the professors usually end up the same way you did....out of school and no degree. The keyword in your remark is fundamentals. It is not meant as a comprehensive course that covers all situations and takes all possible variables into account. It only covers the basics. Since you failed to grasp them it is probably best that you dropped out and moved on with your life without a degree.
Are the profs always right? Nope, but 99.99% of the time they are and most are very receptive to being corrected if it is done in a helpful way and not by someone with an attitude.
I agree with Kallend. Just because you couldn't reach the grapes doesn't mean they are sour. Most find them to be very nutritious.


I didn't think I knew more, I just had questions about what the prof was teaching. And I did it without attitude, merely inquisitive.

I've never met an accountant in my life that factors in anything but the actual cost of a budget cut or an increase. Since they can't assign a fixed value to something like morale which may effect productivity, they don't even try. They just ignore all other impact which with as important as we've made exact accounting in our society (we've all said "damn beancounters" as we've been victims of their shortsightedness) is borderline criminal. >:(

I tasted the grapes, I didn't care to eat anymore. ;)


Your entire response reeks of attitude. :S
In Kallends fable the grapes represent a college degree and the fox a student. The student could not reach the grapes and condemned them as sour.
You never reached the grapes (college degree) and are claiming they are sour (degrees are worthless).
You have never tasted the grapes. I don't say that to be mean, spiteful, arrogant, or anything else....just stating a fact. (Unless you actually do have a degree and haven't told us)
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.

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>I've never met an accountant in my life that factors in anything but the
>actual cost of a budget cut or an increase.

That's because that's their job.

If someone said "calculate the efficiency of this class-E power amplifier" and I replied "well, this amplifier is ugly, so I will claim its efficiency is 0%" - I'd be told (rightfully) to do my job, and stop bullshitting about what I think is good looking. In most cases that will be because aesthetics will be factored in later, _after_ we had come up with the actual efficiency of that and other amplifiers.

There are things in the world that are not amenable to touchy-feely answers, that need actual data. In general college grads are more able to supply that data.

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In Kallends fable the grapes represent a college degree and the fox a student. The student could not reach the grapes and condemned them as sour.



I claim no credit for it. The fable was Aesop's.
...

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

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>I've never met an accountant in my life that factors in anything but the
>actual cost of a budget cut or an increase.

That's because that's their job.

If someone said "calculate the efficiency of this class-E power amplifier" and I replied "well, this amplifier is ugly, so I will claim its efficiency is 0%" - I'd be told (rightfully) to do my job, and stop bullshitting about what I think is good looking. In most cases that will be because aesthetics will be factored in later, _after_ we had come up with the actual efficiency of that and other amplifiers.

There are things in the world that are not amenable to touchy-feely answers, that need actual data. In general college grads are more able to supply that data.



Bill, your examples are just laughable these days with just sheer unrelatedness to the source material.

An engineer definitely shouldn't worry about how something looks or alter their data to change that.

But an accountant, whose purpose is to deal with money, shouldn't they be willing to at least try to take all factors into account that may effect money?
Stupidity if left untreated is self-correcting
If ya can't be good, look good, if that fails, make 'em laugh.

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In Kallends fable the grapes represent a college degree and the fox a student. The student could not reach the grapes and condemned them as sour.
You never reached the grapes (college degree) and are claiming they are sour (degrees are worthless).
You have never tasted the grapes.



I was equating the grapes with college themselves and getting to eat all of them as the degree. I'm also just expressing my viewpoint and just encouraging people to think for themselves versus just arbitrarilly do what others tell them.

I see people as people. I don't treat someone different because they didn't do something, or go somewhere or because they did. In return, all I ask for is the same. If that doesn't happen or someone starts copping an attitude at me, I'll just give it right back.:)
Stupidity if left untreated is self-correcting
If ya can't be good, look good, if that fails, make 'em laugh.

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Interesting debate here.
I agree with both sides. Its something I'm grappling with myself these days since said bean counters decided to offshore most manufacturing, wiping out my economic niche in the process.

So far I've been an adventurer, high school dropout and self-trained mechanic and industrial automation tech. I made myself a niche solving tech problems the engineers had given up on. Time after time I see "engineer-correct" solutions that are expensive, elaborate, completely ineffective and just plain wrong... where when they turned the problem over to a general tech/mechanical tradesman, (me) I came up with simple, durable and permanent machinery.

I briefly dealt with some guys with this rigid mindset they got from their education: They told me "All troubleshooting starts with the PLC." (programmable logic controller). I laughed in their faces. The machinery they were taking an attitude about had some incredibly subtle mechanical effects... when I let them try to fix the gear they were hopelessly lost... It took them all day to fail to fix a simple alignment issue I fixed in 5 minutes... Because I knew the gear well and could spot a simple loose bolt/misaligned air cylinder with one quick look and a couple test cycles. Their one-size-fits-all attitude and approach to troubleshooting equipment was like trying to diagnose a sticky doorhandle or a flat tire on your car by asking the engine computer. It had absolutely nothing to do with the problem. When I walked away from that factory, they were still insisting they could fix worn/misaligned parts by reprogramming the damn thing. I left them to their fate. Last I knew the gear still wasn't running. Their incompetence will cost the company millions in time. The bosses of those guys I was training on the gear they were inheriting from my closing factory refused to hire me for the position even though I could fix it and their guys couldn't, because I didn't have a degree and since I didn't buy into their "all troubleshooting starts with the PLC" schtick, they considered me untrainable. Funny.
I thought the same thing about them.

The company's solution to this will be to hire even more of the same kind of guys who will expensively fail to keep production running, the company will lament how it can no longer manufacture cost-effectively, and send the factory overseas to be badly run somewhere else, putting entire towns out of work rather than acknowledge the flaws in their faces. It is no longer my problem. I've found another factory to work for now.

But as much as I have invested in the freehand tech-hacker mentality, I lack the patience and rigor to do the kind of engineering mentioned earlier in this thread... the spiral weld example. The way I'd do it, I'd cut a few test pieces, look up the best known way to do it, do trials till I had a weld quality and material output that met spec, make a first piece, record the required amount of weld filler, THEN just do the damn job.

And that approach to uneducated "engineering" has major limitations. You don't want me "whipping up" a nuclear reactor.

So I can relate to both pro and anti- college positions... I get annoyed with job requirements that blindly require an 80,000$ investment in an education to do a job any seriously skilled and enthusiastic industrial tech could do... I made a very good living waiting until the engineers were so frustrated they'd turn the machine over to me, whereupon I'd promptly design a simple mechanical solution out of spare parts and junk, often carving it freehand with a Dremel and a drill. It worked every time, because I didn't just design it on paper, make it, and then wonder why it doesn't work since all the math says it oughta, I kept redesigning it till it actually DID work.

But there is less and less room for the self-made types in industries, and without a degree, they simply will not pay you what the gear you make is worth no matter HOW much money you make or save the people running the factory. "Tough shit, you're not an engineer".

So I'm seriously considering a mech.eng. degree myself, 15 years after I walked out of high school and did just fine on my own. I simply do not have the in-depth ed needed to BE an engineer and I know it. There is only one way to GET that level of education: School.
Point I'm making here Bolas is, you wanna play in the big leagues, college would appear to be the only way... and I'm a guy who disdained the idea for half his career.
-B
Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

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With your real world experience, you've been and you should make a great engineer. Just try not to point out to the profs too many times the flaws in their concepts. ;)

Yet another reason jobs are going overseas as employers keep inisisting on people with degrees so they have to pay more. They probably still insist on them there, but as the degrees cost less to earn, they people don't insist on as much either. ;)

Outsourcing is probably the best example of the flaws of accounting you can get. Employee morale, customer complaints, rework, turnover is HUGE over there so constant retraining. But none of that is factored in except the actual workforce cost. :S

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

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Often I see people who are to conforming and "nice" as people who try to compensate for lack of knowledge/ability. I'll taka a smart, competent asshole, thank you.



I encounter far more assholes who behave that way to mask their incompetence.



I can see that, I can usually sniff them out.

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