It’s funny, I went to college and got my degree in mechanical engineering. I’m glad I went and it’s definitely made my career easier. However, as a power plant operator, in my state a degree isn’t needed, just licensing.
I wish I wasn’t 17 when I had to make the decisions about it, and I wish I did many things differently. But ultimately yes I’m glad to have recieved a degree.
Yeah, I wanted to go and learn more shit, didn’t matter what (and my parents didn’t care either), I just wanted to learn more. Eventually landed on biology and got a BS. I still wanted to learn more so I got a PhD in biology. I’m a postdoc now and still learning and discovering cool things.
Relative to my qualification i’m paid like shit and nothing about my position is permanent, so it’s stressful. I love my job though, and don’t regret my path through higher ed…except maybe that I’d like to have learned skills to be able to fix my own car.
don’t regret my path through higher ed
Except the US killed all basic science support, and other countries are not making up the shortfall.
I went to university (Australia). I struggled a lot but finally made it through with a Computer Science degree, just in time for AI to fuck everything up. Now I’m a year and a half post-degree and still unable to get a job.
As for why, I went because it was the “right” thing to do. My younger sister got a degree and a “real” job and was doing well. She’s the golden child, and I guess I wanted that praise and love from my parents too. So I went to uni to get a degree too. But I’m still failing. Still worthless in their eyes.
Sort of…
I did get accepted, but FUCKING DEPRESSION DERAILED MY LIFE
FUUUUUUUUUUU
i withdrew…
mom got so disappointed in me…
Not even an "A"sian anymore…
fuck my life
now I’m just a puddle of "D"epression
now my older brother has something to make fun of me about… he got a degree and now I bet he feels so smug about it…
like, bro: shut the fuck up bitch ass dipshit, you caused me so much trauma
/end rant
Sorry to hear that friend.
I went and it’s the biggest regret of my life.
It took me 4 years to find a job after leaving because half of my prospective employers thought I was overqualified, and the other half said that completing university was no guarantee that I’d handle “real work”. My first (and current) job is only tangentially related to my field and doesn’t require a degree. Or any training, to be honest.
7 years before I bought my house, it sold for exactly half of what I paid for it. If I swallowed my pride and got a shitty minimum wage job straight out of high school, I wouldn’t have a student loan (where I live it’s interest free, but there’s a minimum weekly payment which is based on your wage), I would have been able to buy a house so much earlier, for so much less money, and I would have been paying off my mortgage for so much longer.
In hindsight, my perspective is this: The actual cost of going to university isn’t your student loans (which are still substantial, don’t get me wrong) - it’s time. Your degree has to make you so much more money than most people realise, because at a minimum you’re starting your working life 3 years later than you normally would - that’s 3 years you could have been working and saving, and 3 years of extra inflation to deal with.
I did twice. First right after high school, and many years later, my work offered to pay for a master’s program.
Now, I work at a college, so technically, I go to college every day and plan to until retirement.
Hell yeah
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Yeah I’d imagine you do haha
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I did some community college, took all the “required” classes although every fiber of my being was angry & restless about it, intuitively knowing it was a waste of precious time, energy, money, resources,
even doing what was “required,” I felt like I was fucking around when I should’ve been out in the real world living my life because I’ve got SO MUCH LIFE IN ME and college sucks out the life force.
But I still needed money to survive because you can’t survive without money, so I spent a couple years in two vocational schools and now I am working in those fields.
Vocational schools are a fast track to employment. Employment needed to pay off the educational loans 🤦🏼♀️
I did a year of literature when I didn’t know what to do in my life. I always liked computers so after that I applied to a computer science school. There I had a lot of fun and met a lot of people, some I still have in my life, learned some useful mindsets. Before I managed to get an actual degree I started working. From NOC engineer to software developer where I happily stayed. Did I need my higher education? Probably not, but I think it gave me another perspective and friends and many fun memories.
I studied philosophy and history of art as a double major for undergraduate. Doing a humanities degree was the right decision at the time for me. Should mention that I didn’t have to pay tuition fees as a Scottish person in Scotland.
During that degree I ended up getting interested in Linux since I enjoyed seeing a practical example of altruism in the real world. Laterally I did a masters in Computing at a former polytechnic uni and have been working as a programmer ever since. Analytic philosophy actually maps onto coding really nicely since they are both ultimately concerned with discrete mathematics. I did have to take on a student loan for that degree but it didn’t take me long to pay it off. It wasn’t computer science since I didn’t have the prerequisite STEM undergraduate degree but it focused on practical aspects of computing like developing desktop applications with Java, webdev with C# and JS, databases with SQL and introduction to operating systems.
It also helped that in my advanced logic classes in philosophy I’d studied the Church Turing thesis, which is just about the most fundamental concept in Comp.Sci.
I started because my parents made me. I stayed because mechanical engineering is pretty cool. I’ve had some very cool jobs in robotics and aerospace, currently going back to school part-time to study electrical engineering. After being in the industry for 10-ish years I realized I’m more interested in EE.
I did but had no direction and left after 3 years. Children, marriage, and returned at age 35 for a 2-year healthcare degree. Glad i went back. Sometimes i wish I’d known at 17 that this would be my path but then I probably would have skipped the kids and marriage - the things i didn’t know i wanted and the relationships that make my life rich and worthwhile.
The only direction I really had was the example set by my parents. They were/are social workers and we ALWAYS struggled financially. I picked something interesting to me that I knew made good money. I still do plenty of volunteer work and events with the companies my parents work for. But my job isn’t social work and never will be. Not to bash social workers in any way shape or form, just a severely underpaid path.
Nope. Was never good with standardised tests
I did: Got a free ride pretty much so why not? I ended up getting multiple degrees in part just because they sounded interesting (I was also working 1-4 jobs depending on the time though, so some of it was part time).
I have not ruled out going back sometime in the future if the opportunity presents itself.
