College is nothing but a waste of time

[QUOTE="Kh1ndjal"]you guys are missing a fundamental part of college. DOING things.

i'm not talking about partying or getting a job at a coffee store, i mean actually working. learning off the internet isn't going to get you anywhere. unless perhaps if all you want is facts off wikipedia. for many majors you actually need to DO stuff, and that requires doing it under professional supervision if you want to do it properly.

if you are an engineering major, you're going to have to learn software and hardware associated with your major. you don't become a mechanical engineer without knowing how to turn to design stuff in autocad and then actually use ten thousand dollar machinery to manufacture it. even if somehow you have the software and hardware, you can't learn properly without an expert guiding you the way through or at least present to correct your mistakes/answer your questions or stop you from cutting your arm off. on top of that, engineering students are required to work in teams, so being totally self-sufficient isn't useful if you can't be productive in a team.

art majors look at actual paintings, not pictures thereof in pixels. it's not the same thing.

and that's two examples. architecture, business, science and many other fields require you to do something with people or equipment that aren't readily available, rather than learn facts from a book. reading recipes doesn't make you a good chef. if you want to learn without doing or seeing anything for yourself, you are consuming information, not gaining knowledge.

MrGeezer

One doesn't need to be an art major to go to a ****ing museum. Sure, reading up on drawing or photography is no substitute for actual practice, but one doesn't exactly need an art degree to practice that stuff.

Sure...for SOME stuff it is imperative to use the school's resources. Like, most self-interested people aren't going to have access to a chemistry lab or the university's high-end telescope. But that just reinforces the idea that college ISN'T pointless. Either way, the vast majority of people going through college are sort of expecting to get a job. And...good luck being just as desireable of a candidate for employment WITHOUT having a degree and formal training.

Unless you are actually going to help society by being a dotor, lawyer, or engineer, by all means go. But if not, it pretty much is. College is a natural habitat for some of the worlds biggest a**holes like spoiled rich kids.

xXTalismanXx

Your argument for not going to college is that other kids are big meanie heads? :?

Yes, I'm sure my future degree in Biochem will be completely worthless.

College hasn't really taught me anything yet, I'm doing it so a piece of paper says I'm educated in something.XenoLair

Life is a waste of time.Chojuto

Yeah?

Well that's just like...uh...

your opinion, man.

Unless you are actually going to help society by being a dotor, lawyer, or engineer, by all means go. But if not, it pretty much is. College is a natural habitat for some of the worlds biggest a**holes like spoiled rich kids.

xXTalismanXx

Couldn't agree more. General education is a regurgitation of what you just did in high school. And your major doesn't mean much in this market. Pretty sad Spellingiscool

Shouldn't have picked a useless major then.

[QUOTE="xXTalismanXx"]

Unless you are actually going to help society by being a dotor, lawyer, or engineer, by all means go. But if not, it pretty much is. College is a natural habitat for some of the worlds biggest a**holes like spoiled rich kids.

Kh1ndjal

You could even argue its the uneducated who do more than a lot of the educated folk.

Depends on what you're going there for.

I do agree with gen ed is worthless. But learning skills in your field isn't. Plus in most cases without a college degree your greatly limited

[QUOTE="XenoLair"]College hasn't really taught me anything yet, I'm doing it so a piece of paper says I'm educated in something.KeitekeTokage

Informatics / Information Science

Honestly, it depends what you're going for. College is very necessary for anything involving Health, Science or anything that requires complex mathematics. If you're trying to run a business, art or even computers, all you need is the skills and knowledge of these fields. I find it sad that in our society, theres so much emphasis on a piece of paper saying what you did...instead of what you actually know. If I had a business, I would rather hire someone who knows what their doing instead of some over-achiever with no real world job experience or specific skills. Again, its all about the field of work you want to do. Regular jobs that require a specific skill usually can be learned and mastered without a degree. Not saying having a degree won't help, but I believe anyone can learn almost any job with real world job training and learning as you go.

My only beef with college is the cost. My 5th year and I'm currently 75k in the hole. Luckily I have one year left of Pharmacy school and its 6 figure salary from then on.

well. really though everything is a waste of timelloveLamp

I believe that hands on training is the best type of training. Sure its nice to have a blueprint and to know the basics of math and other subjects in the field just for extra beneficial knowledge, but if your trying to become a doctor per say...Nothing that you'll learn sitting in a desk will properly prepare you. You get the real training when you go to the hospital and see how surgery looks, feels, and everything else. :P

[QUOTE="Kh1ndjal"][QUOTE="xXTalismanXx"]

Unless you are actually going to help society by being a dotor, lawyer, or engineer, by all means go. But if not, it pretty much is. College is a natural habitat for some of the worlds biggest a**holes like spoiled rich kids.

Ilovegames1992

You could even argue its the uneducated who do more than a lot of the educated folk.

people assume college puts you on the fast track, and in some cases it does.

but most of the time all it does is raise the ceiling for advancement. Youre still going to start near the bottom, still not going to make a lot of money for the first few years, and in most cases if your buddy started working out of high school while you went to college, he is going to be making more money than you will be for a while.

But ten or so years down the road you'll be running a company or a branch or in some nice high-up position because, frankyl, they only hire people with degrees f or those positions.

[QUOTE="Ilovegames1992"]

[QUOTE="Kh1ndjal"] 1. you don't have to be educated to help society 2. people who are educated don't help society more than those who aren'txXTalismanXx

You could even argue its the uneducated who do more than a lot of the educated folk.

its not really a black and w hite situation, there are benefits to both educated and "uneducated" (not really the word I'd use) segments of the work force.

Wow, didn't realize that students in the US owed 1 trillion...that's insane :o

All this talk about college being useless is absolutely ludicrous. How are you going to go to med school without college? How are you going to get into Law school without college? I sometimes get the feeling that the people who write these articles are either extremely wealthy people who don't need a college degree or people who landed a good job with a lot of luck through connections and other means. It also really depends on your major. Anyone who thinks you can have a science career without a college degree is really high or mentally ill. Business administration degree may be a bit useless since you can basically have any business job opportunities without that degree, unless you plan on going to business grad school.

All this talk about college being useless is absolutely ludicrous. How are you going to go to med school without college? How are you going to get into Law school without college? I sometimes get the feeling that the people who write these articles are either extremely wealthy people who don't need a college degree or people who landed a good job with a lot of luck through connections and other means. It also really depends on your major. Anyone who thinks you can have a science career without a college degree is really high or mentally ill. Business administration degree may be a bit useless since you can basically have any business job opportunities without that degree, unless you plan on going to business grad school.

fighter91

yeah, it is pretty easy to say "I didn't need college to get a good job" when your best friend's dad gives you a job or you're being groomed to run the family business :P

for the rest of us with ambition and brains, we go to college, because not doing so would doom us to a life of repetitious, mindless work and, even if that work payed well, we would not be happy.

Whilst there were some valid points, it is very dishonest to say the entire further education system is a waste of time. It's like saying 'just because I did this and I experienced this then everyone feels the same way'.

I really don't know about your system, but here virtually everything taught at university was different from what was taught in High School. I did Business Studies and Economics in high school and they were of very little help to me doing a Bachelor of Commerce/Bachelor of Arts degree. The thing about universities here is that they go over an entire high school subject in the space of 6 weeks, and that's it. Everything is specialised to specific fields that you wish to study, and the level of depth is so much greater than in high school. Expectations are so much higher and to say that the majority of uni work is just a rehash of high school work is borderline ignorant, at least here in Australia ..

I'll try keep this simple and in three short points, even though the question is mostly situational.

1st group of people are those that don't benefit from college or simply can't go.

These are the people who want to pursue a vocation, don't have the right grades, would be unhappy with college, unable to attend due to money issues/ family issues, or have other connections (such as joining the family business). Except for rare cases, they will only receive the same or less income than a college educated person ten years down the line. They do have the benefit of making money when college students are losing money for the four years, but depending on the type of college education, that pay difference can easily change. To strike down any arguments from learning college level material outside of college, look at self-study education. Very few are adept to it and most fail miserably. Hell, look around and see the projects that were never finished. The guitar that sits with dust due to being abandoned after three weeks. Now imagine that self-study on the scale of micro-biology. It would either cost too much or the materials aren't there. The few exceptional geniuses to the list should be a part of group 2 if they're smart or be a part of group 3. Due note that being in this group does not mean that one is less intelligent, it just means that one does not have the resources OR skills available to attend college or just wouldn't be happy going to college.

2nd group is those that are able to go to college at a reasonable expense, are going into a career that will create a profit for their future, know how to use the major to their advantage (can occur in both Humanities and Sciences, though Humanity majors usually require some imagination and fine tuning to achieve a job), and have not obligations that can prevent them from going to college. As long as their smart about what they want to do and the type of institution they want to go to, then college is not a waste. It can be a huge waste if they go to a 50 k a year college for an education major without financial aid when they have scholarship money to go to a mostly paid for state school. That, however, is an entirely different topic about institutions and majors and should not be mixed in with this one. Sadly, people do this all the time, though not in a hyperbolic fashion. Many people can save thousands of dollars of debt by going to CC's instead of Private or even state schools. There are a few where cost does not matter if they have earned enough financial aid. Heck, I know some people who get paid to go to schools like FSU or UF due to how the state provides aid and the money they receive from outside scholarships.

Basically, as long as they don't mess their situation up or pursue their education in an illogical fashion, then it is quite profitable and will land them better jobs later on. As proof of this, look at government agencies, such as the Foreign service departmen or the FBI that do not require College degrees to be employed. Then look at how many people there have degrees that do important jobs. I'll be a monkey's uncle if it's below 90 %. Also, as stated before. Self study usually fails and colleges provide the resources, equipment, and teachers to help guide and speed you allong your way. Sure, some rare, gifted person can understand plato's republic without help in one reading, but even most smart people require a guide to illuminate the path.

The third group is the exceptions to the first two and are mostly all entrepreneurs. With rare exceptions, they also have some dealings in business. The examples I'll use are Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerburg. Both left college to pursue their businesses and prospered immensely. When you look at Mark, it was obvious that it was more profitable to leave Harvard to make money with Facebook. However, if one looks at the beginning of the company, you will find a lot of his success had to happen a college due to the nature of what facebook was originally, a social network that linked you with other college students. No other area except a college would allow one to have enough people to show how the network could connect people to who they knew while at the same time avoiding the overpopulation that would occur if he tried to string networks around something like a city. The other social networks would fail due to size or inappropriateness, such as at businesses.

Many people will then move on to talk about Bill Gates and try to use him as an example to drop out of college. This is the one that makes me lose a little faith in humanity and start laughing insanely at the same time. Bill Gates came from a rich family and knew enough that college would not help him. However, if Microsoft failed, he could have easily returned back to college. He wouldn't have lost anything but time. The average person cannot due this due to the financial damnation that would occur.

Basically the 3rd group is the exceptions, the greats. Yes, they break the normal rules, but that's because their smart enough to or have found an opprotunity that does not require a college education. The average person should never think he is among this group unless he can actually pull it off. Heck, if you look closely, the majority of this group only left college because they found something that could give them better pay. Most academic discoveries that could be done by the average person without the equipment universities have available have already happened by the end of the 19th century. There are the few exceptions in some fields like math, which doesn't require a million dollar telescope to look at the stars.

Basically if you skipped all that i wrote, I'll just summarise it by saying that the decision of whether someone should go to college or not is highly circumstantial. Group 1 shouldn't since it'd be too expensive and a waste of time. Group 2 should if there is nothing stopping them. Group 3 usually has already started something before leaving college and with millions of dollars, it's a pratical mismanagement of money to attend collge. They are also the exceptions, so don't think you are among this group unless you're really skilled in something and can make a profit from it.

Well let me put it this way, if you look at college as an educational source you are right but if you(Or anyone else)say its a waste of time then they're mistaken. I just got to college and I dont think its a waste of time, its just more complex education. And yes "Everything has a purpose" so how can you say its a waste of time. Thats . . . wrong.