College is just not worth it anymore

[magaman]

I'll disagree in that I think a college degree is definitely worth it.

It depends on what degree you are getting. Something like accounting, medical, law, you will always be able to find employment. But a degree like an art major is going to be tougher.

I have worked trades and hated it. The people were downright mean, they didn't want to teach you anything, and your body won't last a long time so you'll want to retire as early as you can, you get to work outside which is nice in the spring and fall, but it sucks in the winter and summer.

I got my degree from a community college which was a lot cheaper, in computer science. Get some certifications and work your way up and you can make some good money in this field. If I didn't do this, I'd probably go into nursing.

Trades are honest work and the good guys that do them deserve a lot more than they get for doing the work they do. That type of work isn't for everyone though and the "anyone can do anything" attitude that's prevalent here in the USA is rather false. You have to have a natural talent or an aptitude for something and you really can't learn that; It either comes to you or it just doesn't and probably won't. That doesn't mean don't try but don't invest more than you're willing to lose trying to learn something either.

 

[BasilSeal]

I think of college the way I think of a first house. It is expensive. For some, it can be worth it and a good investment. For others, it can fail to build value. The market changes, and it's value is tied in many ways to that.

Meanwhile, it was an expense, and can easily outpace what you earn, making it difficult or impossible to pay off. Unlike a house, there are not built in protections to prevent someone from taking massive loans against the purchase. Like a house, you can find moderately priced options that may be more suitable. What house or degree you pursue should fit your future plans (will your family grow? does this college prepare me for the career I want?).

Is a house for everyone? No. For a lot of people renting makes way more sense. Same for college. Perhaps a trade school or homemaker is the best match. It is not a one sized all answer, but unfortunately we've made it seem so to high school students, as more of a status symbol than a path to an education and career. Same for the status of owning your own (first) home.

Sadly, many families go into deep debt in the process, to support sending a kid off to college, or to similarly to support their purchase of a home.

 

[CaliforniaBased]

Depends on the degree. A good engineering degree will go way further than tradeschool, plus you can learn a trade as well and NOW your a REAL master technician and VERY capable. Tradeschool is legit as well. I would say the following degrees are easily worth paying for:

Engineering (any except audio engineer LOL)
Computer science
Chemistry and associated fields
Biology ( the more difficult variants not stuff like environmental science)

Physics and math degrees , though they cover very advanced technical information are not as practically applicable and not worth as much.

Sure you could be a self taught engineer, but you will not be able to get lisenced as a public engineer in your state and make some serious money working for yourself as an independent consultant. It will also be much harder to get hired.

These degrees, along with tradespeople and the average working person keep the wheels of our economy turning. It is also important to have good people and business skills to accompany your raw talent. In many states you can recieve financial aid after you reach a certain age if you will not be working while you go to college EVEN if your parents are wealthy, as you can declare yourself financially independent.

 

[Parmesan]

I would say the following degrees are easily worth paying for:

Engineering (any except audio engineer LOL)
Computer science
Chemistry and associated fields
Biology ( the more difficult variants not stuff like environmental science)

You are still drinking the Kool Aid. Not sure why in the last 10 years or so, white collar STEM has been assumed to be some road to riches. White collar STEM is highly competitive. We are talking 300+ applicants over the course of a weekend for even a job that requires 10+ years of experience, and that is just at my friend's little no-name consultancy run out of a shared office space. Middle class parents have been pushing STEM left and right for over a decade now, it's the the next liberal arts degree. That's not to say learning hard science still isn't better than endless social theory, but there is NO shortage of aspiring tech lord geniuses here in America.

 

[SeekingTruth]

You are still drinking the Kool Aid. Not sure why in the last 10 years or so, white collar STEM has been assumed to be some road to riches. White collar STEM is highly competitive. We are talking 300+ applicants over the course of a weekend for even a job that requires 10+ years of experience, and that is just at my friend's little no-name consultancy run out of a shared office space. Middle class parents have been pushing STEM left and right for over a decade now, it's the the next liberal arts degree. That's not to say learning hard science still isn't better than endless social theory, but there is NO shortage of aspiring tech lord geniuses here in America.

Agreed. Why take part in this endless advancement of the sciences? At some point we have to ask what is the purpose. Oh yeah, DNA manipulation. No thanks. Plus these post grad biological sciences jobs pay half of what you could earn in a self employed trade.

 

[inthefade]

Depends on the degree. A good engineering degree will go way further than tradeschool, plus you can learn a trade as well and NOW your a REAL master technician and VERY capable. Tradeschool is legit as well. I would say the following degrees are easily worth paying for:

Engineering (any except audio engineer LOL)
Computer science
Chemistry and associated fields
Biology ( the more difficult variants not stuff like environmental science)

Physics and math degrees , though they cover very advanced technical information are not as practically applicable and not worth as much.

Sure you could be a self taught engineer, but you will not be able to get lisenced as a public engineer in your state and make some serious money working for yourself as an independent consultant. It will also be much harder to get hired.

These degrees, along with tradespeople and the average working person keep the wheels of our economy turning. It is also important to have good people and business skills to accompany your raw talent. In many states you can recieve financial aid after you reach a certain age if you will not be working while you go to college EVEN if your parents are wealthy, as you can declare yourself financially independent.

You are still drinking the Kool Aid. Not sure why in the last 10 years or so, white collar STEM has been assumed to be some road to riches. White collar STEM is highly competitive. We are talking 300+ applicants over the course of a weekend for even a job that requires 10+ years of experience, and that is just at my friend's little no-name consultancy run out of a shared office space. Middle class parents have been pushing STEM left and right for over a decade now, it's the the next liberal arts degree. That's not to say learning hard science still isn't better than endless social theory, but there is NO shortage of aspiring tech lord geniuses here in America.

I have a BS in computer science and work as a software engineer. If I had to choose what to study just starting now, it would 100% be a real and useful trade like electrician or plumber. The corporate world is getting worse and worse.

 

[CaliforniaBased]

I have a BS in computer science and work as a software engineer. If I had to choose what to study just starting now, it would 100% be a real and useful trade like electrician or plumber. The corporate world is getting worse and worse.

You can be self employed as an engineer or computer programmer as well. Many industrial style companies oustide of "big tech" are very old fashioned. Trades like plumber and electrician are veyr cool also.

 

[idane]

Depends on the degree. A good engineering degree will go way further than tradeschool, plus you can learn a trade as well and NOW your a REAL master technician and VERY capable. Tradeschool is legit as well. I would say the following degrees are easily worth paying for:

I agree with you on the engineering tradesman combo. However, I have yet not found a company that is interested in hiring such a person. They cannot grasp the concept and the value you bring to the company. You are either placed in front of a screen as an engineer or you are placed in the field far away from the screen as a tradesman. And you are usually not allowed to mix those two. I believe you can only harvest on these combo skills if you are self employed or maybe in tiny/small startup companies with no HR department (yet).

 

[Enoch]

I agree with you on the engineering tradesman combo. However, I have yet not found a company that is interested in hiring such a person. They cannot grasp the concept and the value you bring to the company. You are either placed in front of a screen as an engineer or you are placed in the field far away from the screen as a tradesman. And you are usually not allowed to mix those two. I believe you can only harvest on these combo skills if you are self employed or maybe in tiny/small startup companies with no HR department (yet).

A guy I do business with completed his apprenticeship (4 years) with the IBEW then got a bachelor's in Electrical Engineering.

owns his own electrical contracting company now.

 

[CaliforniaBased]

I agree with you on the engineering tradesman combo. However, I have yet not found a company that is interested in hiring such a person. They cannot grasp the concept and the value you bring to the company. You are either placed in front of a screen as an engineer or you are placed in the field far away from the screen as a tradesman. And you are usually not allowed to mix those two. I believe you can only harvest on these combo skills if you are self employed or maybe in tiny/small startup companies with no HR department (yet).

true what you say about the start up company. My friend works for one and he does both engineering and trades work setting up the experiments for the new technology they are developing.

 

[Seadog]

I agree with you on the engineering tradesman combo. However, I have yet not found a company that is interested in hiring such a person. They cannot grasp the concept and the value you bring to the company. You are either placed in front of a screen as an engineer or you are placed in the field far away from the screen as a tradesman. And you are usually not allowed to mix those two. I believe you can only harvest on these combo skills if you are self employed or maybe in tiny/small startup companies with no HR department (yet).

I thought of doing that route, although it having become an engineer first, it's a bit more difficult in terms of time. Many people after getting their trade can go back for a few years to complete their degree, however while a lot of stuff from engineering would be transferable, there would be courses from pretty much every year which I would need to do, meaning, I'd be starting and finishing the as the 17 yos out of high school, and still taking the full 2-3 years - only with a lot more dead time in the middle. So for someone upgrading, total school might be 6months or a year more than straight engineering. For the opposite, it seemed to be 5 years for engineering, then 2-3 on top to learn an "inferior" trade - essentially no different than doing 2 unrelated programs. Additionally I've heard anecdotally that the trades are often a bit bullheaded when it comes to letting engineers in their ranks. Going the other way is fine, but when mr fancy pants P. Eng wants to come in, I'm not sure if they're threated or not, but for the few ppl I know who did it, it was anything but easy.

The reason why I was interested in it was because I met a guy once, he was a professional mechanical engineer, and had his marine engineering ticket. So he would hook up with rich people who were getting boats designed, and could both operate, and design/implement changes. In effect a one stop shop for messing around with the mechanical boat systems, and with far less friction that would go with 2 people who mightg have differing schedules, abilities, communication hurdles etc.

 

[GigaBITE]

I think I've written this before, but I love the humanities, which used to be the backbone of Western civilization. I do, however, totally regret majoring in one of those disciplines. Not because the job prospects are poor (I ended up "learning to code" and got a job as a software engineer instead) but because it really was an indoctrination experience, transforming one into a far left freak. I wasn't taught my subject, I was made to read feminist and Marxist tracts. I was assigned Michel Foucault (accused of sexually abusing kids but a favorite of Western academics). This was ever so slightly before the pronouns nonsense. When all that Woke silliness arrived I knew I'd been had.

If I had to go back, I probably would've majored in Computer Science. At least in that field, computer science will still actually be taught. It wouldn't surprise me, though, to eventually see courses like "Queering Computer Science" and "Race and Racialism in the History of Computing" and other such nonsense being required. They probably already exist but one could probably graduate today without having to take such a course. The Wokening of the humanities happened gradually and you had stalwarts who tried to fight it. With STEM, it's happening so quickly that I think it's caught a lot of people off guard. I guess today you have people like James Lindsay and Gad Saad trying to push back.

 

[Jive Turkey]

I think I've written this before, but I love the humanities, which used to be the backbone of Western civilization. I do, however, totally regret majoring in one of those disciplines. Not because the job prospects are poor (I ended up "learning to code" and got a job as a software engineer instead) but because it really was an indoctrination experience, transforming one into a far left freak. I wasn't taught my subject, I was made to read feminist and Marxist tracts. I was assigned Michel Foucault (accused of sexually abusing kids but a favorite of Western academics). This was ever so slightly before the pronouns nonsense. When all that Woke silliness arrived I knew I'd been had.

If I had to go back, I probably would've majored in Computer Science. At least in that field, computer science will still actually be taught. It wouldn't surprise me, though, to eventually see courses like "Queering Computer Science" and "Race and Racialism in the History of Computing" and other such nonsense being required. They probably already exist but one could probably graduate today without having to take such a course. The Wokening of the humanities happened gradually and you had stalwarts who tried to fight it. With STEM, it's happening so quickly that I think it's caught a lot of people off guard. I guess today you have people like James Lindsay and Gad Saad trying to push back.

Haha this reminds me.. I took an anthropology course my freshman year of college. For three months it was nothing but privilege this, privilege that, race isn't real and DON'T CALL THEM ESKIMOS!!!


Then on the final exam we were expected to know about the kinship structures of all these obscure tribes in Africa and their medical practices and religious beliefs, when, no exaggeration, we hadn't touched on the actual curriculum once.

The one redeeming factor in that class was that I was already redpilled but acted naive asking really obvious questions to poke holes in her narrative and this based boomer in his 50s always cracked up at my questions haha