How edumacated are you?

Unless you do dentistry, medicine, law or banking then you'll never really be anything else than 'mediocre' - unless you know someone or have an ass full of golden hair.

thats why, when next October comes around, im dropping out of work to do a second masters in mathematical finance. I would of done it this october but im stuck out in south africa at the moment trying to work against the stupidity and laziness of Eskom Power Generation, and at the rate its going ill be here till christmas.
 
This thread often confuses me, because in the UK a College is (when done in series) from the ages of 16 to 18 - after GCSEs. So basically what I've just come out of. But a US College is a UK University (I think). :p

Frankly, if I didn't go to uni now, and headed out into the wider world; firstly I wouldn't have a flying fuck as to what to do. I don't know whether I would be employable, which certainly isn't going to help my employability - not really knowing where I stand. So I would inevitably go straight to working at the local supermarket. Sure I don't know what it'll be like after uni, but I certainly know now that at 18 it would take me a good year or two to get started. Frankly I'd rather end up with the debt and have an extra 4 years to get some qualifications and think of what to do. Plus hopefully learn some social skills.

Another thing to mention about the debt - I don't know what its like in the US, but here we get student loans from the government. Basically after graduation, you pay the loan back in amounts graded as a percantage of your earnings (9% of the earnings over the ?1250 per month threshold). So if you do end up flipping burgers (and earning less than ?15k pa) - you don't pay anything back until you're earning more. And whatever debt is left over after 25 years, is completely written off.

and if you live in scotland... uni is free! courtesy of the UK! woooo

anyway, ive decided really that if you try to avoid debt or worry too much about it you really are not going to get anywhere at all. Everything today is angled at getting you into debt, its unavoidable almost.

education, cars, houses... nearly anything that costs more than the stuff you can get from a tesco extra will require financing of some sort. thats how the finance world works, it requires people to be in debt for them to make money... they make money on selling you the loan, they make money off selling the risk that you might default on that loan, and if they play their cards right, they stand to lose very little when you do default (because they sold the risk off to an investor, the investor pays the loss)

so, i guess its wrong to say dont worry about it, you dont wanna just flagrantly lend whatever you like. but its futile to try avoid debt.

besides, the student loan is the best/cheapest loan you will ever get
 
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Bachelor in Transportation Systems and Technology. Currently working on MSc.
 
With regards to student debt in America - I'm coming out free, thanks family! My partner will have ~$70k of debt after law school (a comparatively low amount). We have friends with over $100k from undergrad alone. And we have a friend coming out of dental school with *>$300k, and they'll have to buy a clinic relatively soon out of school. Then again, I also have a friend that thanks to the GI Bill and other incentives provided by his private school plus stored allowances from his enlisted time will actually turn about a $50k profit.

Summary: It's all over the place, but rarely cheap.

gt: Could you do a quick bit on what your degree in Transportation Systems involves?
 
Although Baldrik makes a good case for going to college. I only have a high school diploma, I looked at quite a few design colleges out of school. Weighed the options, It was going to cost approx. $70,000 for a BS in advertising. I came out of High School with a 3.0 so scholarships were few, and my viewpoints on diversity didn't exactly lend themselves to winning those. I'm pretty sure 80% of essay scholarships are about diversity. On top of that, I had never had a real job only under the table construction, my parents made too much for me to get aid but too little to help me financially. So it was hard securing a decent loan.

Anyways, it seems to me higher education is a poor measure of a persons value in a business sense. But then it's far from bad to have a degree, in my opinion only overvalued. And of course, the type of study is important as well.

I'll Leave this here:

There is a story of a young, but earnest Zen student who approached his teacher, and asked the Master, "If I work very hard and diligently, how long will it take for me to find Zen? The Master thought about this, then replied, "Ten years." The student then said, "But what if I work very, very hard and really apply myself to learn fast ? How long then?" Replied the Master, "Well, twenty years." "But, if I really, really work at it, how long then?" asked the student. "Thirty years," replied the Master. "But, I do not understand," said the disappointed student. "At each time that I say I will work harder, you say it will take me longer. Why do you say that?" Replied the Master, "When you have one eye on the goal, you only have one eye on the path."

This is the dilemma I've faced within the American education system. We are so focused on a goal, whether it be passing a test, or graduating as first in the class. However, in this way, we do not really learn. We do whatever it takes to achieve our original objective.

Some of you may be thinking, "Well, if you pass a test, or become valedictorian, didn't you learn something? Well, yes, you learned something, but not all that you could have. Perhaps, you only learned how to memorize names, places, and dates to later on forget in order to clear your mind for the next test. School is not all that it can be. Right now, it is a place for most people to determine that their goal is to get out as soon as possible.

I am now accomplishing that goal. I am graduating. I should look at this as a positive experience, especially being at the top of my class. However, in retrospect, I cannot say that I am any more intelligent than my peers. I can attest that I am only the best at doing what I am told and working the system. Yet, here I stand, and I am supposed to be proud that I have completed this period of indoctrination. I will leave in the fall to go on to the next phase expected of me, in order to receive a paper document that certifies that I am capable of work. But I contend that I am a human being, a thinker, an adventurer ? not a worker. A worker is someone who is trapped within repetition ? a slave of the system set up before him. But now, I have successfully shown that I was the best slave. I did what I was told to the extreme. While others sat in class and doodled to later become great artists, I sat in class to take notes and become a great test-taker. While others would come to class without their homework done because they were reading about an interest of theirs, I never missed an assignment. While others were creating music and writing lyrics, I decided to do extra credit, even though I never needed it. So, I wonder, why did I even want this position? Sure, I earned it, but what will come of it? When I leave educational institutionalism, will I be successful or forever lost? I have no clue about what I want to do with my life; I have no interests because I saw every subject of study as work, and I excelled at every subject just for the purpose of excelling, not learning. And quite frankly, now I'm scared.

John Taylor Gatto, a retired school teacher and activist critical of compulsory schooling, asserts, "We could encourage the best qualities of youthfulness ? curiosity, adventure, resilience, the capacity for surprising insight simply by being more flexible about time, texts, and tests, by introducing kids into truly competent adults, and by giving each student what autonomy he or she needs in order to take a risk every now and then. But we don't do that." Between these cinderblock walls, we are all expected to be the same. We are trained to ace every standardized test, and those who deviate and see light through a different lens are worthless to the scheme of public education, and therefore viewed with contempt.

H. L. Mencken wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the aim of public education is not "to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. ... Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim ... is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States."

To illustrate this idea, doesn't it perturb you to learn about the idea of "critical thinking?" Is there really such a thing as "uncritically thinking?" To think is to process information in order to form an opinion. But if we are not critical when processing this information, are we really thinking? Or are we mindlessly accepting other opinions as truth?

This was happening to me, and if it wasn't for the rare occurrence of an avant-garde tenth grade English teacher, Donna Bryan, who allowed me to open my mind and ask questions before accepting textbook doctrine, I would have been doomed. I am now enlightened, but my mind still feels disabled. I must retrain myself and constantly remember how insane this ostensibly sane place really is.

And now here I am in a world guided by fear, a world suppressing the uniqueness that lies inside each of us, a world where we can either acquiesce to the inhuman nonsense of corporatism and materialism or insist on change. We are not enlivened by an educational system that clandestinely sets us up for jobs that could be automated, for work that need not be done, for enslavement without fervency for meaningful achievement. We have no choices in life when money is our motivational force. Our motivational force ought to be passion, but this is lost from the moment we step into a system that trains us, rather than inspires us.

We are more than robotic bookshelves, conditioned to blurt out facts we were taught in school. We are all very special, every human on this planet is so special, so aren't we all deserving of something better, of using our minds for innovation, rather than memorization, for creativity, rather than futile activity, for rumination rather than stagnation? We are not here to get a degree, to then get a job, so we can consume industry-approved placation after placation. There is more, and more still.

The saddest part is that the majority of students don't have the opportunity to reflect as I did. The majority of students are put through the same brainwashing techniques in order to create a complacent labor force working in the interests of large corporations and secretive government, and worst of all, they are completely unaware of it. I will never be able to turn back these 18 years. I can't run away to another country with an education system meant to enlighten rather than condition. This part of my life is over, and I want to make sure that no other child will have his or her potential suppressed by powers meant to exploit and control. We are human beings. We are thinkers, dreamers, explorers, artists, writers, engineers. We are anything we want to be ? but only if we have an educational system that supports us rather than holds us down. A tree can grow, but only if its roots are given a healthy foundation.

For those of you out there that must continue to sit in desks and yield to the authoritarian ideologies of instructors, do not be disheartened. You still have the opportunity to stand up, ask questions, be critical, and create your own perspective. Demand a setting that will provide you with intellectual capabilities that allow you to expand your mind instead of directing it. Demand that you be interested in class. Demand that the excuse, "You have to learn this for the test" is not good enough for you. Education is an excellent tool, if used properly, but focus more on learning rather than getting good grades.

For those of you that work within the system that I am condemning, I do not mean to insult; I intend to motivate. You have the power to change the incompetencies of this system. I know that you did not become a teacher or administrator to see your students bored. You cannot accept the authority of the governing bodies that tell you what to teach, how to teach it, and that you will be punished if you do not comply. Our potential is at stake.

For those of you that are now leaving this establishment, I say, do not forget what went on in these classrooms. Do not abandon those that come after you. We are the new future and we are not going to let tradition stand. We will break down the walls of corruption to let a garden of knowledge grow throughout America. Once educated properly, we will have the power to do anything, and best of all, we will only use that power for good, for we will be cultivated and wise. We will not accept anything at face value. We will ask questions, and we will demand truth.

So, here I stand. I am not standing here as valedictorian by myself. I was molded by my environment, by all of my peers who are sitting here watching me. I couldn't have accomplished this without all of you. It was all of you who truly made me the person I am today. It was all of you who were my competition, yet my backbone. In that way, we are all valedictorians.

I am now supposed to say farewell to this institution, those who maintain it, and those who stand with me and behind me, but I hope this farewell is more of a "see you later" when we are all working together to rear a pedagogic movement. But first, let's go get those pieces of paper that tell us that we're smart enough to do so!
 
B.A. in Political Science, probably obvious isn't it, with a focus in International relations.

Started off as a ME major but switched majors start of my junior year. Planned on getting the Poli Sci major with a journalism and math minor. Diffy Q kicked my ass sophomore year but I figured a couple more years of seasoning would get me focused enough to get through that and the other math classes.

Juggling that schedule was kind of difficult and the classes I needed for certain requirements kept getting scheduled on top of others. I ended up having to give up on the math minor and then drop the Journalism minor later on unless I wanted to spend a whole extra year in school for them. Still took me five years to graduate after the major switch though I only took a couple of classes and worked more during my last semester. To get the journalism and math minors I would have had to spend a full more year in school or at a least a summer and another fall semester.


Planned to start on my MBA, UConn has a great double MA/MBA program, by the time I was 30. I still have a few more months to make that promise work. Maybe it will happen if not I will push it off a couple more years.
 
Although Baldrik makes a good case for going to college. I only have a high school diploma, I looked at quite a few design colleges out of school. Weighed the options, It was going to cost approx. $70,000 for a BS in advertising. I came out of High School with a 3.0 so scholarships were few, and my viewpoints on diversity didn't exactly lend themselves to winning those. I'm pretty sure 80% of essay scholarships are about diversity. On top of that, I had never had a real job only under the table construction, my parents made too much for me to get aid but too little to help me financially. So it was hard securing a decent loan.

Anyways, it seems to me higher education is a poor measure of a persons value in a business sense. But then it's far from bad to have a degree, in my opinion only overvalued. And of course, the type of study is important as well.

I'll Leave this here:

Nice, who's that passage by?
 
Contemplating doing my masters, work has a good policy which would cover most of it (they used to cover 100% but they don't anymore, something about a partnership in our future or something or other)
 
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