/lit/ - Literature

It's just a barrier to get a higher paying job. By all means, drop out and work minimum wage if that's what you want to do.

You aren't paying for the powerpoints, you are paying for the degree that you can use to get better employment options

>>6210875
>>6210876
>implying a college degree is worth anything these days

Please, even STEM fields are saturated as hell. I didn't come here for a glorified job certification, I came here to learn. Looks like I'm not even going to get that.

It's a cash grab, yes.

Do not expect it to grant you a job. A talented STEM or Libart student would only gain from the degree, through connections and the discipline and the material he essentially pays for.

>>6210862
If that's all that you're doing at college, you're doing it wrong. Go to the library, start studying, learn shit.

>>6210875
>>6210876
Sorry I had to be the one to tell you.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/04/53-of-recent-college-grads-are-jobless-or-underemployed-how/256237/

>>6210909

this, I live in the library and read all the time, and I'm a comp sci major

>>6210902
basically, college is designed to nurture talent and very little else. if you're just taking a degree to put it on your resume, there are many better ways down the mountain

This is how you learn your lessons.

You only learn The HARD WAY!!!

Now go get yourself a job at McDonalds to pay off your College Loans!!!

But the Real Knowledge and THE TRUTH never comes to you from inside of a Classroom!!!

Did 'ya learn anything yet?!!!

You're paying for branded credentials - the little university emblem on your degree parchment.

Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.” Isaiah 29:14

I'm just finishing college myself, and I've been whining about how it's pointless and everyone here is a retard who should be in a trade school and blah blah blah for years now. So I'm sort of with you. But having the perspective of a completed degree, I can say college is good for five things at this point, in my opinion:

1) The piece of paper (diploma+GPA) of course.

2) The opportunity to gain hard skills that you can put on your other piece of paper, your CV/resume. Too many people approach college 100% holistically and have resumes identical to the other 500,000 people in their graduating year with that degree. But college is a great opportunity to take classes that use or teach specific methodologies, technologies, etc., that you can put as a hard point under "Skills." Whether it's knowing several languages, several programming languages, having experience with certain types of project design formats or software, etc. College as a generalised training depot is good for gaining these.

3) Collegiality. Good for social networking, for getting a sense of your competition in the workforce, and for being exposed to new ideas. Also good for getting mentors, if it's with a superior. I already knew my grad adviser and had him willing to take me on in my second year, which can be a great advantage on an application and for letters of recommendation.

4) Forcible exposure to new ideas and new methodologies. It's hard to articulate this one, but basically being forced to look at things from different perspectives, even at the level of a survey course teaching you material that you weren't innately interested in despite your interest in the overall subject, will eventually broaden your mind in surprising ways. It's like exploring a city - if you go it alone, you'll tend to do certain things more than others, based on your preferences and mindset. But if you have a friend or two in town, they will force you to do a dozen things you never would have known or cared about, and in the long run you'll end up discovering some whole new things that change the way you explore new cities forever.

5) Forcible exposure to structure, and infinite opportunities to learn your weaknesses and strengths in terms of structuring your own work and time. This is another one where you won't realise how massively it benefited you until later. Whether you go to grad school or a job, you're being trained to approach work schedules and deadlines and personal study regimens professionally or at least intelligently.

I'm not denying at all that college is a massive scam and depressingly soulless business at this point, but you can at least take something out of it.

Maybe you fags just need to go to actually good schools, did you think of that? Of course your shitty community college is worthless. Even while I was still in school I felt like I was genuinely learning and being challenged, not just in my major classes, but in things like language and literature as well. And now that I've graduated I feel like I chose the right school, and my peers complain that their professors were retards who didn't even look at their homework, while I feel like I was taught by highly intelligent individuals who I genuinely felt were an asset to their field not only as teachers but as researchers.

Now silly, did you THINK that you could just breeze through college and just automatically get a GOOD PAYING JOB?!!! You actually should have taken that job at McDonalds right out of H.S. graduation, at least you wouldn't be $150,000 or $200,000 IN DEEP DEBT as you probably are now?

Did 'ya learn anything yet?!!

>>6211028
I started a job less than a week after graduation and I'm making about 60k.

>>6210862
anyone who didnt get that college is about partying/socializing and generally having a great time and doing/reading the stuff you like without having anyone to tell you what to do like a boss or a parent is a retard

Bachelor of Science ---> B.S.
M.S. Masters of Science Degree ---> More of the Same
PhD Degree ---> Piled on Higher and Deeper

That sums up your HIGHER EDUCATION!!!

Now did 'ya learn anything yet?!!!

>>6210910

depends on the country

jokes on you, i live on a third world country so engineers are needed here

>>6211028
>>6211043
Someone's bitter no one wants to hire someone with a Philosophy major

>>6211013

I went to a private high school and then LSE and never felt like my education was anything other than jumping through hoops in order to show an employer that I would be willing to jump through their hoops for money. I hate to think how bad it is in lesser institutions.

maybe you should have gotten into that Union Carpentry Apprentice Program after all!!!

>>6211055
Maybe if you did anything besides whining on the internet about how you hate school you'd actually get something out of your education.

If you do finish your Electrical Engineering or Biological Sciences degree, and end up working for a Top Secret of Secure Compartmented Deep Black Program for the Gov't and U.S. Military, remember they will "off you" when the project is done so that the threat of you Spilling The Beans as a Whistleblower is eliminated. That's what they are doing nowadays. Now go earn your degree with enthusiasm knowing you will have served your country well!!!

>>6211071

Where were you taught to jump to conclusions like that? My education finished three years ago and I don't miss it at all because there's more to life than hitting deadlines.

>>6211080
>>6211061
>>6211043
>>6211028
Jesus christ you are butthurt as fuck

>>6211055

>implying anyone at the lse actually cares about learning

>>6211081
This is the kind of nonsense that will obviously make you get absolutely nothing out of school. You knew for a fact when you entered school that you would have to finish assignments on certain dates. Yet you complain about it like it's unrealistic and insane for people to expect you to do your work by a certain date. What the fuck? Why do you concentrate on complaining instead of actually learning? I seem to be the only one on this board who doesn't bitch and moan about college, and I also seem to be the only one who actually got anything out of their education. Coincidence?

>>6211095

What did you get out of your education besides for a really short temper and a condescending attitude? I expected deadlines, I didn't expect the whole thing to seem like a pretence to make sure Oliver and Jemima got nice jobs when they turned 21.

>>6211095
>I seem to be the only one on this board who doesn't bitch and moan about college, and I also seem to be the only one who actually got anything out of their education. Coincidence?

>>6211116
Sorry, wasn't aware that being on the opposite side of the argument automatically made me "mad". I'll try to agree with everything you say next time to make you feel better.

And I got a shit ton out of my education. My work ethic drastically improved because I saw what happened when I was lazy, I learned about a lot of things that I really love, I learned everything I currently know related to my field, I learned how to effeciently work together with a group of people I'm sort of unfamiliar with, I learned how to deal with shitty peers/co-workers and how to deal with vague requirements by information gathering and asking questions. And the most important part was that I learned how to learn, so now that I'm out of school I'm not stuck with the skillset I left with, but I can quickly improve it and learn while working at the same time. I could go on.

>>6211133
Nice response.

>>6211143
Good for you mate, I'm glad you found university useful :^)

The thing is, you know literally nothing about this anon or the university he went to. Why are you trying to judge him based on your personal experience at a (presumably) different university in a different country? Maybe if you asked him WHY he didn't like it you might discover that he has very valid reasons

>they have to pay for education

>>6211143
Anyone whining against you is a loser. I didn't go to college, and I'm doing well, but I didn't go because I knew that I wouldn't have the right attitude to get anything from it. Working to deadlines is fine for me, as long as there's money at the end of the tunnel. That's why I work for a national daily newspaper.

Most of my friends went to college, and the ones who had the angry attitude your opponents are showing are the ones who got nothing from it. The ones who were smart and committed got a lot from it, and are the ones doing well.

Another reason I didn't go to school was because I genuinely thought I wasn't intelligent enough to do so. I don't think people should go to college if they're not smart and committed. All these whiners about their schools shouldn't have gone in the first place.

>>6211162
Do you even know why you're using that stupid emoticon, or do you just do it out of force of habit because you're unable to talk to someone without pretending to be ironic?

And I'd really love to see some valid complaints, because obviously there are shitty schools and shitty teachers. But I don't see complaints about that, what I See is people complaining that college exists, and that it's a "huge scam" and complaining that deadlines exist. Those are neither specific nor legitimate, as they should have known exactly what they were getting into before they started. It's a result of putting yourself in a shit situation and then whining about it instead of trying to make the best out of it.

You REALLY should have known what you were getting in to at first, which is to transform you into more Corporate Cannon Fodder!!! It's like being at the Army Recruiting Station, and signing those enlistment papers---> "They told me I would get to see the world and earn college credits too," when in reality they were training you to kill enemy soldiers on the battlefield. But hindsight is a learning experience, too, isn't it?

Now did 'ya learn anything?!!!

>>6211188
Are you so afraid of being wrong that you're incapable of actually speaking to anyone in this thread, instead deciding to just make generalizations and weird rants directed at literally no one?

>>6211143
>Sorry, wasn't aware that being on the opposite side of the argument automatically made me "mad"

>Maybe if you did anything besides whining
>What the fuck? Why do you concentrate on complaining instead of actually learning?
>I seem to be the only one on this board who doesn't bitch and moan about college

Maybe not mad, but you sound actively annoyed and on the wrong side of passive aggressive. Most of those things you mentioned are simple life skills that you pick up along the way where ever you go and with whatever you do. I can't imagine reaching graduation age and, for example, not knowing how to work with people I was unfamiliar with regardless of if I went to university or not. It's just human nature and sounds like you may have had a sheltered childhood if social skills such as that were your big takeaway.

As for learning about what you love, that's great and I'm glad you did, but I could have happily learned a lot about what I love with access to a library and not needed to be tested on it every few weeks by a person I don't know reading from a powerpoint.

>>6211198
>but I could have happily learned a lot about what I love with access to a library and not needed to be tested on it every few weeks by a person I don't know reading from a powerpoint.

Then why did you pay money to go spend years of your life doing literally that.

I was speaking to the OP.

But YOU can slave away at a desk in your cubicle while I am free to enjoy life, go to the beach, and crack open a Cold One, and enjoy the sunset without a mean boss telling me when I can go to the bathroom, and staring at this HUGE Pile of papers in the In Box.

It is your choice, college is meant to force feed information to people who otherwise would have no aptitude for real learning anyways, the only motivation being having to pass courses to get that degree, or else I can't get that Good Paying Job!!!

Only about 5% or less of the students at the University are True Scholars, who are there because they ACTUALLY WANT TO LEARN!!!

Now did 'ya learn anything yet?!!!

If they sucker me once, then shame on you.
But if they sucker me twice, then shame on me!

Now go pay your tuition!

Did 'ya learn anything yet?

>>6211212
I'm completely free to enjoy life. My boss is an awesome guy, who creates an atmosphere of fun and freedom in our office. We're free to work from home any time we please, and our hours are ours to decide as long as we make it to meetings and are in the office enough to contribute. We're free to take days off for no reason as long as our work is getting done at a reasonable rate. I'm fresh out of school and I was sent to Las Vegas for a week to a conference to learn and I didn't have to pay for any of it. I get home at 4pm every day and I have money to now spend on things I love. I bought a keyboard and am now learning piano. I purchase books every week and am now filling out my bookshelf with stuff I could never afford before. And most of all I genuinely enjoy what I do and the challenges that it entails.

So yes, I did learn things and I'm continuing to learn things. Thanks for asking.

>tfw studying philosophy and religious studies
>tfw will never get a job or become an idealized academic

The more you put into your education, the more you get from it. Paying the bill isn't enough.

>>6211203

Same as basically everyone in the UK does: I thought I had to. I remember my very first day of high school and being told by the headmaster that we were going to be "guided into the very best high education institutions" and after seven years of that, I just went with it. I deeply regret being as naive as I was.

Perhaps universities used to be something different, but, as they are now, you learn nothing unless you learn it yourself. Speaking from my experience, I could have not gone to college, bought all the same books and studied in the same way, and learned the same amount as if I had gone to college. However, I would be missing that all-important certification that is now seen as the basic qualification for any job.

Colleges did not start off as job certification warehouses, but they certainly are now. In the classroom setting, there is no "pursuit of higher learning" anymore. It is all about the end goal of employment. This shift has led people who truly seek learning to become disillusioned about what they are getting. Understandably so because it all amounts to false advertising. Even this, though, is becoming less prevalent because universities are constantly shoving statistics in your face that read, "x% of our graduates have jobs upon graduation." Universities are not even trying to disguise themselves as institutes of higher learning anymore.

The bottom line is, if you want to learn, don't expect college to be the ideal setting where learning will take place.

>>6211040
yeah!!!!

>>6211243
become a cop anon

>>6211212
5% or less actually contribute something to their fields of study. And they get rewarded well enough for it.

The other 95% are there for semi-easier job placement following graduation.

Also learning isn't exclusive to the university.

College is a waste of time. I'm only doing it to avoid work, all of my actual studying happens outside the classroom. The truth is that the lesson worth learning is that all the knowledge in the world won't help you if you don't have the conviction to take what you want. All your things are my property. Pray you do the same with mine.

>>6211055
>LSE
There's your problem mate.

I'm pretty sure it's just soulless Indians by this point