Work/College/Finance

[Balta1701]

But my point is the skills in those courses don't provide you with anything. College education should be more focused, and SOME schools do that, but not all. "Business" could apply to anything, how can a degree in "business" classes provide you with any skills in the real world? Same with political science.

If you consider the alternative though, how many people really know the career they're getting into when they start college, or even when they finish? Isn't the usual statistic that most people wholly change careers 4+ times between college and retirement?

[bigruss]

Well, to be fair to those kids, they're being lied to. "Get a college education and your life is amazing" is the message, from teachers to the President. In reality, the education that students receive (for an insane amount of money) doesn't guarantee anyone that, and what's worse is that it barely prepares them for a future career. Specific education in specific fields should be how the system is set up, not a generalized post-high school education like we have now. Two of the most popular majors, Business and Political Science are 100% worthless in trying to get a job.

Ummm what!? Business majors are some of the best majors to have to get a job.

[bigruss]

How is earning $55k-$70k at age 22 a real life skill?

Geez, you get these jobs because you have advanced skills in certain areas compared to other people, such as presenting, analyzing, communicating, etc. These skills are worth lots of money.

[iamshack]

I'll say this...we have a lot of young adults on this forum...ages 17-22...there are a few I am very, very impressed with, and I can tell from what they post and how well they articulate their thoughts and present their arguments that they have developed some very solid skills.

 

The several that I have been very impressed with are all either in college now or recent college grads.

[bigruss]

Part of this is on the parents, as well. It seems like with many parents working more, there is obviously less parenting going on, which means less-prepared children.

 

But maybe it's like what Frank Gallagher famously said..."Best gift a parent can give is neglect. Neglect fosters self-reliance."

Oh yea, the parents have a huge say in this. How any parent who can't afford to send their child to college allows them to go to a private university costing $50k/yr without a ton of scholarship help is beyond me. It's an investment in that child's future, and risks should be included in the decision making process. And really, you can get a great education for half that price at a public university (or instate vs out of state) and the experience won't be too different.

 

But my point is the skills in those courses don't provide you with anything. College education should be more focused, and SOME schools do that, but not all. "Business" could apply to anything, how can a degree in "business" classes provide you with any skills in the real world? Same with political science.

Most business schools have concentrates, some ones like USC, I believe, have a more general business degree but you take electives in a certain area that you are interested in, so it's a less formal concentration.

 

At U of I, you go into Accounting, Finance, or Business Administration (International, Marketing, IS/IT, SCM, BPM, etc).

 

And my point is that they do, the students are just too damn stupid or lazy to understand what it is.

 

College is not just a tax you pay so that you can be given a job when you complete it.

 

I'm sure there are all sorts of things that one can learn in a business program.

 

I listed the real world skills I learned from freaking my History degree, for the love of pete.

Exactly, no matter what major you go into, you still have to market yourself to employers. This means a lot of involvement in organizations on campus, preparing yourself professionally for career fairs, interviews, networking, etc.

 

A business/engineering major can greatly help your job search, but they don't hand anything to you.

 

If you consider the alternative though, how many people really know the career they're getting into when they start college, or even when they finish? Isn't the usual statistic that most people wholly change careers 4+ times between college and retirement?

Depends on what a "career" change really means. Do you mean a person going from managing in Supply Chain to managing in Marketing? Because yes, it's a different area, but at that point it's probably more that you are on a general management path.

[Jenksismyhero]

Ummm what!? Business majors are some of the best majors to have to get a job.

 

But they're so worthless. No one I know LEARNED anything that they later used. Yes, you could self teach yourself all you want. You can do that for free without going to college. Unfortunately employers require that you show them a degree. This has nothing to do with what a student can/can't do, and everything to do with the way the entire system is set up - go to a bulls*** college and get a piece of paper and 4 years later pray you can get a job. Is this the case for all students? No. But the vast majority that's the way it works. And then 4 years later it's a big surprise when those bills start becoming due every month and you don't have a meaningful job because you thought getting a business degree would make you the next CEO of a company.

 

[Soxbadger]

Geez, you get these jobs because you have advanced skills in certain areas compared to other people, such as presenting, analyzing, communicating, etc. These skills are worth lots of money.

 

You mean you have skills that people learn in High School.

 

Business degree is considered a joke by many. So once again, what real life skills should they have wasted my time with in College?

 

Should they teach me to balance a check book, create a budget, tie my shoes?

 

Those are things they taught me in elementary school. I went to College to be challenged, not to just use nonsense buzz words on my resume so I can get paid to mindlessly work.

 

I learned to communicate, analyze and present?!?!

 

Isnt that what they taught you in grade school? How to format an essay, how to present an argument, how to frame a debate?

 

I just expect that people who are going to College already understand this.

[iamshack]

But they're so worthless. No one I know LEARNED anything that they later used. Yes, you could self teach yourself all you want. You can do that for free without going to college. Unfortunately employers require that you show them a degree. This has nothing to do with what a student can/can't do, and everything to do with the way the entire system is set up - go to a bulls*** college and get a piece of paper and 4 years later pray you can get a job. Is this the case for all students? No. But the vast majority that's the way it works. And then 4 years later it's a big surprise when those bills start becoming due every month and you don't have a meaningful job because you thought getting a business degree would make you the next CEO of a company.

This coming from a law grad?

 

You could self-teach yourself everything you learned in law school.

 

Hell, I never attended one Con law class, and got B+'s in both I and II.

[iamshack]

You mean you have skills that people learn in High School.

 

Business degree is considered a joke by many. So once again, what real life skills should they have wasted my time with in College?

 

Should they teach me to balance a check book, create a budget, tie my shoes?

 

Those are things they taught me in elementary school. I went to College to be challenged, not to just use nonsense buzz words on my resume so I can get paid to mindlessly work.

 

I learned to communicate, analyze and present?!?!

 

Isnt that what they taught you in grade school? How to format an essay, how to present an argument, how to frame a debate?

 

I just expect that people who are going to College already understand this.

Wow...you're coming off as an elitist cocksucker in this post.

[bigruss]

But they're so worthless. No one I know LEARNED anything that they later used. Yes, you could self teach yourself all you want. You can do that for free without going to college. Unfortunately employers require that you show them a degree. This has nothing to do with what a student can/can't do, and everything to do with the way the entire system is set up - go to a bulls*** college and get a piece of paper and 4 years later pray you can get a job. Is this the case for all students? No. But the vast majority that's the way it works. And then 4 years later it's a big surprise when those bills start becoming due every month and you don't have a meaningful job because you thought getting a business degree would make you the next CEO of a company.

Actually, I learned quite a bit about organizational management and behavioral theories. My business management degree was a mix of psychology and technical skills (along with my IT major which provided more technical skills but more importantly how to lead in IT).

 

Learning how to work with others in group projects was also essential, and not as many majors encourage or stress that as much as a business major does.

 

The thing is, even if you feel a business degree is bulls***, almost everyone that I know that graduated with one landed a $55k or higher job, which allows them to take that shock of paying bills much easier.

[Jenksismyhero]

Most business schools have concentrates, some ones like USC, I believe, have a more general business degree but you take electives in a certain area that you are interested in, so it's a less formal concentration.

 

At U of I, you go into Accounting, Finance, or Business Administration (International, Marketing, IS/IT, SCM, BPM, etc).

 

I guess i'm not communicating clearly. By focus I mean on actual skills, not learning the theory behind an abstract concept like globalization. Is some of that necessary as background info? Yes. But where I went to school they didn't do things like case studies or running a fake company or whatever. It was all textbook based. When you became a senior there was a little more of that real-world application, but it was still basically "learn X theory." I wish it was more case study based so that on a resume I could put did X and won X reward for being awesome.

 

And again, yes, there are schools that do this. But the college experience for the vast majority of students, even good students, doesn't involve any of this. And it's partly the way the whole system is designed, which is just to establish that you went to school and got a degree, not how much you actually learned and can apply after graduation at your first job.

[bigruss]

You mean you have skills that people learn in High School.

 

Business degree is considered a joke by many. So once again, what real life skills should they have wasted my time with in College?

 

Should they teach me to balance a check book, create a budget, tie my shoes?

 

Those are things they taught me in elementary school. I went to College to be challenged, not to just use nonsense buzz words on my resume so I can get paid to mindlessly work.

 

I learned to communicate, analyze and present?!?!

 

Isnt that what they taught you in grade school? How to format an essay, how to present an argument, how to frame a debate?

 

I just expect that people who are going to College already understand this.

I went to a top high school in Michigan, took many AP courses, and none of them prepared me for work like my business degree did.

 

Yes, there are games you have to play such as knowing buzzwords, but that's for anybody trying to get a job today and the business degree just teaches students how to better adapt to these games.

 

Mindless work? Really? The mindless work I do saves my company thousands of dollars a year, and keeps the company running as efficiently as possible. In case you haven't noticed, companies need that to turn a profit, and need a profit to hire people.

 

And no, HS helped but it had NOWHERE near the amount of in-depth skill development that I learned in college.

[bigruss]

Wow...you're coming off as an elitist cocksucker in this post.

Glad I wasn't the only one who thought that.

[Soxbadger]

Wow...you're coming off as an elitist cocksucker in this post.

 

That was the point of the post.

 

People can mock my History/Political Science degrees all they want, but the simple fact is, I chose to get the degrees I want and I make my own decisions, and I live with my own consequences.

 

When things dont go right for me, I dont blame other people, I blame myself.

 

No one is forced to go to College, but yet people want to force others in College to have to learn certain things so it makes their life easier.

 

High School is already filled with that nonsense, requirements, etc.

 

Its hard to feel sorry for people who made their own decisions and then dont want to take responsibility for where it got them. And it frustrates me to know that eventually College will become less of an intellectual challenge.

[bigruss]

I guess i'm not communicating clearly. By focus I mean on actual skills, not learning the theory behind an abstract concept like globalization. Is some of that necessary as background info? Yes. But where I went to school they didn't do things like case studies or running a fake company or whatever. It was all textbook based. When you became a senior there was a little more of that real-world application, but it was still basically "learn X theory." I wish it was more case study based so that on a resume I could put did X and won X reward for being awesome.

 

And again, yes, there are schools that do this. But the college experience for the vast majority of students, even good students, doesn't involve any of this. And it's partly the way the whole system is designed, which is just to establish that you went to school and got a degree, not how much you actually learned and can apply after graduation at your first job.

We were swamped with case studies, case competitions, etc while I was in school. In fact, almost everyone of my major courses I had to either study a company and make suggestions, and in my IT courses I usually had to go to a local company and actually build something for them, such as an Access database.

[Jenksismyhero]

This coming from a law grad?

 

You could self-teach yourself everything you learned in law school.

 

Hell, I never attended one Con law class, and got B+'s in both I and II.

 

Law schools is 100 times worse than college are preparing you for the real world. Nothing I learned in law school, except for abstract ideas, prepared me for anything I do on a day to day basis. There was no course like "how to present a motion in the circuit court of cook county."

 

That's sorta my point here - learning some abstract ideas in college doesn't help with the day to day. With something like business you couldn't do that because there a million "business" jobs. But even lawyers, in a very specific profession, aren't well prepared coming out of school. School is almost secondary to that first clerk job you can get, and yet the entire industry requires you to have that degree. Why isn't it enough that I can teach myself and pass the bar and have the same clerk experience? Why do I have to shovel over 120k+ to get that piece of paper when I could have self-studied and taken the Bar/Bri course I paid for anyway and ended up in the same place?

[Soxbadger]

I went to a top high school in Michigan, took many AP courses, and none of them prepared me for work like my business degree did.

 

Yes, there are games you have to play such as knowing buzzwords, but that's for anybody trying to get a job today and the business degree just teaches students how to better adapt to these games.

 

Mindless work? Really? The mindless work I do saves my company thousands of dollars a year, and keeps the company running as efficiently as possible. In case you haven't noticed, companies need that to turn a profit, and need a profit to hire people.

 

And no, HS helped but it had NOWHERE near the amount of in-depth skill development that I learned in college.

 

So you think your College degree was worth it, that is great news.

 

That does not change the fact for many it is is not worth it, nor will it ever be.

[bigruss]

That was the point of the post.

 

People can mock my History/Political Science degrees all they want, but the simple fact is, I chose to get the degrees I want and I make my own decisions, and I live with my own consequences.

 

When things dont go right for me, I dont blame other people, I blame myself.

 

No one is forced to go to College, but yet people want to force others in College to have to learn certain things so it makes their life easier.

 

High School is already filled with that nonsense, requirements, etc.

 

Its hard to feel sorry for people who made their own decisions and then dont want to take responsibility for where it got them. And it frustrates me to know that eventually College will become less of an intellectual challenge.

If I mocked your degree, I didn't mean too. I just don't like the shortsightedness that is rampant in HS'ers and college students, and the fact that this shortsightedness than tends to cost the public tons of money.

 

I never said one can't go for a History degree, I just suggested that they shouldn't go to a $50k/yr private school for it if their family can't afford it. And they also shouldn't go into that degree unless they have a general understanding of what they can do with it afterwards.

[iamshack]

Actually, I learned quite a bit about organizational management and behavioral theories. My business management degree was a mix of psychology and technical skills (along with my IT major which provided more technical skills but more importantly how to lead in IT).

 

Learning how to work with others in group projects was also essential, and not as many majors encourage or stress that as much as a business major does.

 

The thing is, even if you feel a business degree is bulls***, almost everyone that I know that graduated with one landed a $55k or higher job, which allows them to take that shock of paying bills much easier.

I've learned in my interactions with people in my company that it is invaluable to learn how to deal with different personalities in different situations and understanding all the different political agendas at work.

 

I'd think they'd teach you some things on how to deal with a lot of that nonsense in business programs...or at least you would learn it from the exercises and projects you worked on.

[Soxbadger]

Law schools is 100 times worse than college are preparing you for the real world. Nothing I learned in law school, except for abstract ideas, prepared me for anything I do on a day to day basis. There was no course like "how to present a motion in the circuit court of cook county."

 

That's sorta my point here - learning some abstract ideas in college doesn't help with the day to day. With something like business you couldn't do that because there a million "business" jobs. But even lawyers, in a very specific profession, aren't well prepared coming out of school. School is almost secondary to that first clerk job you can get, and yet the entire industry requires you to have that degree. Why isn't it enough that I can teach myself and pass the bar and have the same clerk experience? Why do I have to shovel over 120k+ to get that piece of paper when I could have self-studied and taken the Bar/Bri course I paid for anyway and ended up in the same place?

 

Law School is the biggest joke ever.

 

With Bar Bri I could have passed the Bar in High School, and if I had just clerked/interned for the next 7 years I would have been amazingly more prepared on the first day of work.

 

[bigruss]

So you think your College degree was worth it, that is great news.

 

That does not change the fact for many it is is not worth it, nor will it ever be.

Fine, they can skip college and try the job market on their own then. I bet 99% of the people that go down that path will wish they went to college, even if part of it was a "waste" of time.

[Soxbadger]

If I mocked your degree, I didn't mean too. I just don't like the shortsightedness that is rampant in HS'ers and college students, and the fact that this shortsightedness than tends to cost the public tons of money.

 

I never said one can't go for a History degree, I just suggested that they shouldn't go to a $50k/yr private school for it if their family can't afford it. And they also shouldn't go into that degree unless they have a general understanding of what they can do with it afterwards.

 

Not everyone can have concrete plans. You are asking 18 year olds to make life decisions before they truly are ready.

 

That is the problem with how expensive College is, you cant just go there and find out, you really need to already have a plan, which is so counterproductive to the College experience.

[bigruss]

I've learned in my interactions with people in my company that it is invaluable to learn how to deal with different personalities in different situations and understanding all the different political agendas at work.

 

I'd think they'd teach you some things on how to deal with a lot of that nonsense in business programs...or at least you would learn it from the exercises and projects you worked on.

I had an organizational behavior class, and our professor would set up class activities to learn things like negotiation skills, and how to work with introverts. It was very interesting to go through those activities, and much more useful than just reading a lesson from a book.

[Jenksismyhero]

Law School is the biggest joke ever.

 

With Bar Bri I could have passed the Bar in High School, and if I had just clerked/interned for the next 7 years I would have been amazingly more prepared on the first day of work.

 

Exactly, so to bring my point back full circle, don't you see the problem with college now? That the entire economy is basically requiring that you get a piece of paper that's essentially pointless**? Why not push vocational schools which are essentially apprenticeships? Why don't employers view that as a positive? Laziness? Don't want to check into your job candidate, better to weed them out based on where they got a degree? I don't know, but that's where we're at. More "educated" but inexperienced people looking for jobs.

 

**and yes, you obviously learn skills and other useful information in college. But a lot of that can be learned through internships/early jobs. But the problem is if you go that route you're limiting your future earning potential in 95% of cases.

[Soxbadger]

Fine, they can skip college and try the job market on their own then. I bet 99% of the people that go down that path will wish they went to college, even if part of it was a "waste" of time.

 

Then if its such a smart decision, those who went to College shouldnt complain.

 

I obviously made a conscious effort to get a College degree, so it stands to reason I believed that it was worth it. But if any of my friends started b****ing about going to College, Id really have little pity for them.