Life After University...

Off Topic
41

[quote]skaz05 wrote:
I’m in my fourth year of college now, I did’t start until I was 26, I will be 31 when I graduate. Yeah, I’m doinig one of those 5 year degrees. Actually, it’s 4 years and one semester.

I wish I had done this much sooner, I would be in the same age category as most of the students here. It would probably make thing a little less awkward.

Needless to say, I don’t do any of the typical college kid stuff like binge drinking, dorm parties, frat binders, etc…

My first 4-5 semesters I just hated because all the crap I was “learning” I already knew, or I knew was 100% bullshit. Plus having to write essays and research papers was a major pain in the ass because I absolutely hate writing.

But looking back, those semesters were a lot easier. Sometimes I will take a class that I fall in love with, and sometimes I will take a class that makes me want to shoot myself. Like all these retarded “required” classes.

Anyway, college, for me, isn’t really all that much fun. It’s actually kind of a pain in the ass sometimes. I would much rather be working a regular job in my area of study, than actually studying. Plus, I don’t have any college friends, I’m a total loner here.[/quote]

Age does have a lot to do with it. I was under the age of 18 when I started so college was like a new world for me, free of parents and filled with girls with big booties who wore damn near nothing while sucking on lollipops. I was so focused on my grades though that I wish I had actually let go more…but then things worked out the way they happened.

If I were to start all of that at this age, I would already know with full experience all of the shit I thought I was new back then. That was where all of the fun is.

42

[quote]Thomas Gabriel wrote:
The thing that sucks about schooling is that there is never time to relax until summer time. In most careers, when you get home at dinner time, you can forget about your job. [/quote]

This is my beef with it. With many jobs, when you’re done for the day you’re done (obviously that’s not the case with all jobs.) As a student I find myself with a fair amount of free time, but I always end up worrying about work I have to do in the near future. I find it easier to switch to free-time mode when I’m working.

EDIT: Before I get blasted, I do realize that the above isn’t really a serious complaint. Having all that time is sweet, and there’s definitely no substitute (that I’ve encountered thus far) for the level of comraderie you share with your buddies from college. I was just trying to emphasize part of the benefits of being out of school. It’s one thing to miss your college years, but quite another to write off the rest of your life as being inferior to that brief period of time.

43

[quote]Iron Dwarf wrote:
I used to think, why go for a bachelor’s degree when an associate’s degree would suffice? It wasn’t until after college and getting into my career that I realized I could have been just as successful without ANY college.

Almost all the useful applicable knowledge associated with my career I learned while on the job. The only great thing about college was getting me out of the house, and meeting my future wife.

But that’s just me.[/quote]

Well it’s only true to a certain extent I suppose. I’m not sure if what you said is true in the states but I know in Canada some degrees entitle you to a higher pay grade simply for holding the degree, for example my dad said people who do the exact same job as him but who went to college instead of university are paid less, just like people with the same degree as him but who aren’t fully licensed engineers also make less than him.

44

[quote]timbofirstblood wrote:
Thomas Gabriel wrote:
The thing that sucks about schooling is that there is never time to relax until summer time. In most careers, when you get home at dinner time, you can forget about your job.

This is my beef with it. With many jobs, when you’re done for the day you’re done (obviously that’s not the case with all jobs.) As a student I find myself with a fair amount of free time, but I always end up worrying about work I have to do in the near future. I find it easier to switch to free-time mode when I’m working.

EDIT: Before I get blasted, I do realize that the above isn’t really a serious complaint. Having all that time is sweet, and there’s definitely no substitute (that I’ve encountered thus far) for the level of comraderie you share with your buddies from college. I was just trying to emphasize part of the benefits of being out of school. It’s one thing to miss your college years, but quite another to write off the rest of your life as being inferior to that brief period of time.[/quote]

I got three calls last night from patients all after 9pm. Not all of us get to completely forget about our jobs when we get home.

Not only that, but even though there is no homework, if you actually have a CAREER and not just a job, you will be taking work home with you some days, especially in professions like Law.

45

[quote]Professor X wrote:
timbofirstblood wrote:
Thomas Gabriel wrote:
The thing that sucks about schooling is that there is never time to relax until summer time. In most careers, when you get home at dinner time, you can forget about your job.

This is my beef with it. With many jobs, when you’re done for the day you’re done (obviously that’s not the case with all jobs.) As a student I find myself with a fair amount of free time, but I always end up worrying about work I have to do in the near future. I find it easier to switch to free-time mode when I’m working.

EDIT: Before I get blasted, I do realize that the above isn’t really a serious complaint. Having all that time is sweet, and there’s definitely no substitute (that I’ve encountered thus far) for the level of comraderie you share with your buddies from college. I was just trying to emphasize part of the benefits of being out of school. It’s one thing to miss your college years, but quite another to write off the rest of your life as being inferior to that brief period of time.

I got three calls last night from patients all after 9pm. Not all of us get to completely forget about our jobs when we get home.

Not only that, but even though there is no homework, if you actually have a CAREER and not just a job, you will be taking work home with you some days, especially in professions like Law.[/quote]

That’s not necessarily the rule though, and if what you’re looking for is a job you can leave at the office, you can find options and still do well for yourself. I was an intern for a law clerk at a local county courthouse when I was an undergrad, and this guy had a pretty good setup. He got to practice what he was interested in, and he made a decent living. Work ended at 5 for him, and while I’m sure there were times when it spilled over into his personal life, I think there was a pretty good divide between work and play.

This guy paid his dues to be sure (law school, and a few years of private practice that required long hours,) but ultimately he found a sweet gig. I wasn’t saying in my first post that all jobs are going to be goiod for leisure time, but some certainly are. If it’s a priority, it’s doable.

46

College is definitely a great time. I’m having more fun right now though, although i’m only a couple years out of school and still living with people in college, so it’s still not entirely the “real world”.

I think you shouldn’t have TOO much fun in college - the more time you waste during this time period the worse off you’re going to be for the rest of your life. At no other time in your life are you probably going to be able to just completely focus on your future - take the time to figure out what you want to do, and once you figure that out, spend a lot of time becoming really damn good at it (this doesn’t just mean going to class). I think my undergrad education was more applicable than some (I was computer science, so it’s a lot of technical knowledge i’m better off knowing now) but still a lot of the most important shit I learned was because I took initiative to learn outside of the standard curriculum.

The more time you spend being damn good at what you want to do, the more likely you’ll get paid or get an enjoyable job when you graduate. And those are pretty big in terms of how much you’ll enjoy your life. Having a job where you feel like you can really accomplish something and you enjoy what you’re doing is really satisfying and shouldn’t be underrated. Money also shouldn’t be underrated. Also having no homework and just being done for the day - my roommates are all in college currently and are much more stressed out about their work than I am since I can forget about it once 5pm hits.

But it is probably the only time in your life where you are going to be able to be really social really easily. It’s really depressing when you get out of college and realize that it’s a lot harder to be social and get involved in stuff with people in your age group. There’s stuff in your community to get involved with always but it’s not as reliable - I’ve gone to community events in my area and a lot of the time it’s a lot of people who are 20 years older than me. Not exactly my crowd. In college it’s easy - you just pick a student organization you’re into and show up for it and usually you can make some friends because everyone has shit in common in college.

47

[quote]Professor X wrote:
timbofirstblood wrote:
Thomas Gabriel wrote:
The thing that sucks about schooling is that there is never time to relax until summer time. In most careers, when you get home at dinner time, you can forget about your job.

This is my beef with it. With many jobs, when you’re done for the day you’re done (obviously that’s not the case with all jobs.) As a student I find myself with a fair amount of free time, but I always end up worrying about work I have to do in the near future. I find it easier to switch to free-time mode when I’m working.

EDIT: Before I get blasted, I do realize that the above isn’t really a serious complaint. Having all that time is sweet, and there’s definitely no substitute (that I’ve encountered thus far) for the level of comraderie you share with your buddies from college. I was just trying to emphasize part of the benefits of being out of school. It’s one thing to miss your college years, but quite another to write off the rest of your life as being inferior to that brief period of time.

I got three calls last night from patients all after 9pm. Not all of us get to completely forget about our jobs when we get home.

Not only that, but even though there is no homework, if you actually have a CAREER and not just a job, you will be taking work home with you some days, especially in professions like Law.[/quote]

Yeah in careers this is often the case - but (depending on your field) it’s probably less than in college. I have times where I have to be on call for big projects or might have to work on weekends a bit to get stuff done. However, if you spend the time in college to figure out what it is that you really love to do and find a good job, you might not mind working a little extra once in a while.

48

[quote]nowakc wrote:
But it is probably the only time in your life where you are going to be able to be really social really easily. It’s really depressing when you get out of college and realize that it’s a lot harder to be social and get involved in stuff with people in your age group. There’s stuff in your community to get involved with always but it’s not as reliable - I’ve gone to community events in my area and a lot of the time it’s a lot of people who are 20 years older than me. Not exactly my crowd. In college it’s easy - you just pick a student organization you’re into and show up for it and usually you can make some friends because everyone has shit in common in college.[/quote]

This is what I’m most concerned with. I’m doing coop in a city other than where I go to school and thankfully I have a few friends who go to local universities, otherwise I’d be utterly alone. This is also why I plan to maintain current friendships as opposed to trying to find brand new ones at a time when it’s most difficult to do so.

49

[quote]Professor X wrote:
As far as other comments about college not relating to your actual job, I would suppose that is true if you only finish your education with an undergrad degree. I have heard most basic college degrees mean as much in society today as high school diplomas meant 30 years ago.

In other words, if your goal is to live comfortably on some level without literally living paycheck to paycheck, you may want to accept that more schooling is in order beyond that and a more specific career goal is needed.[/quote]

I think it depends on the field though, although it’s true more often than not. If you have an engineering degree or in my case a CS degree, a bachelors degree is fine for end of the line since you can generally make enough money to live comfortably. You won’t live like a king or anything, but not everyone aspires to that.

But for most of the undergrad degrees like history, philosophy, sociology, and psychology - people need to understand from the beginning that undergrad should never be the end of the line here if you want more than a job that’s just decent.

Also, undergrad just cannot teach you what you need to know about working in the real world. Jobs are far too specific and varied in their duties that no matter what you end up doing you’re gonna feel like you’re learning more on the job than you did at university. But also, a great deal of that information would be useless if you were your friend at another company who has the same degree but does something a lot different than you. Undergrad seeks to give you as much general knowledge about a subject as possible - sometimes it fails but I think people underestimate it’s usefulness.

Personally I am incredibly glad that I got a liberal education from a university instead of an associates degree - I feel like i’m a much more well-rounded person because I now understand a great deal about a lot of different subjects. I honestly wish more people had more liberal educations - ignorance is a big problem in this country and I wish people were required to have more of an understanding of things like science, statistics, current issues, etc. As a country, the more smart people we have, the better off we’ll be.

50

[quote]JLu wrote:

This is what I’m most concerned with. I’m doing coop in a city other than where I go to school and thankfully I have a few friends who go to local universities, otherwise I’d be utterly alone. This is also why I plan to maintain current friendships as opposed to trying to find brand new ones at a time when it’s most difficult to do so.[/quote]

I lived alone for a year after college and hated it, it just wasn’t for me. I ended up moving in with some college students so right now i’m doing great and loving it - but now they’re all graduating so it’s like my senior year all over again since they’re all moving away. I’m actually considering a move across the country to live with another of my college buddies from before (although that’s not entirely my motivation - I also want to escape this area at some point before I die).

The thing is though, I hardly think it’s impossible to aspire to the best of both worlds - having an awesome social life with close friends and having a full time job. That’s why i’m not going back to college - I know that I like what i’m doing in my career right now so i don’t want to give that up because I feel like eventually i’ll find that great social life and have the great career at the same time.

51

The skills you are supposed to learn in college often seem distant from the material the professors teach in class. I think making this more apparent to students is a real failing of the university experience. That said, the focus on standardized testing has raised a generation that is taught to regurgitate (rather than question, build upon, think critically, etc.). That is disappointing as well.

Skills such as being able to formulate, write up coherently, and complete a project independently and with others in a timely manner is extremely useful for employers. So, here is where all those damn essays and projects come in. You are learning skills. The topics are often far less important than the process.

Consider it this way. Once you learn how to hit the muscles you want (mind-muscle connection) how you do it is less important. So, who cares that you have to write a paper on fifteenth century monastic postcards, it is learning how to do the research and put together a solid argument is the reward.

52

Guys can I ask you a question…um, not to hijack but uh…

according to this link…

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm

The average salary for a industrial/manufacturing engineer with a Bsc is about $55,067.

Is that considered as a good pay in the US? I mean, how good is good?

I’m asking because that’s exactly what I’m studying for.

53

[quote]Bicep_craze wrote:
Guys can I ask you a question…um, not to hijack but uh…

according to this link…

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm

The average salary for a industrial/manufacturing engineer with a Bsc is about $55,067.

Is that considered as a good pay in the US? I mean, how good is good?

I’m asking because that’s exactly what I’m studying for.[/quote]

More than half of the U.S. population make less that 50K a year.

54

[quote]skaz05 wrote:
Bicep_craze wrote:
Guys can I ask you a question…um, not to hijack but uh…

according to this link…

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm

The average salary for a industrial/manufacturing engineer with a Bsc is about $55,067.

Is that considered as a good pay in the US? I mean, how good is good?

I’m asking because that’s exactly what I’m studying for.

More than half of the U.S. population make less that 50K a year.[/quote]

…and that’s for the entire household, not just for one person. If you are making over 60k after taxes, you are officially doing better than half the country.

55

[quote]Professor X wrote:
skaz05 wrote:
Bicep_craze wrote:
Guys can I ask you a question…um, not to hijack but uh…

according to this link…

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm

The average salary for a industrial/manufacturing engineer with a Bsc is about $55,067.

Is that considered as a good pay in the US? I mean, how good is good?

I’m asking because that’s exactly what I’m studying for.

More than half of the U.S. population make less that 50K a year.

…and that’s for the entire household, not just for one person. If you are making over 60k after taxes, you are officially doing better than half the country.[/quote]

…Seems like studying for 7 years (yes 7 years, I’m in my 5th year) will in the end yield what I’m aiming for. I hope so. Thanks for the reply fellas.

56

[quote]Bicep_craze wrote:
Professor X wrote:
skaz05 wrote:
Bicep_craze wrote:
Guys can I ask you a question…um, not to hijack but uh…

according to this link…

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm

The average salary for a industrial/manufacturing engineer with a Bsc is about $55,067.

Is that considered as a good pay in the US? I mean, how good is good?

I’m asking because that’s exactly what I’m studying for.

More than half of the U.S. population make less that 50K a year.

…and that’s for the entire household, not just for one person. If you are making over 60k after taxes, you are officially doing better than half the country.

…Seems like studying for 7 years (yes 7 years, I’m in my 5th year) will in the end yield what I’m aiming for. I hope so. Thanks for the reply fellas.[/quote]

European engineering degree I am guessing?? they make it take a lot longer over there. However, like everyone said, yes, you will be well off here…

That said, getting an industrial job in manufacturing here is a pain right now because the auto industry is down (just like everywhere in the world) so there is basically a hiring freeze right now… in 3 more years you will be fine and riding a high point…

57

[quote]Ratchet wrote:
Bicep_craze wrote:
Professor X wrote:
skaz05 wrote:
Bicep_craze wrote:
Guys can I ask you a question…um, not to hijack but uh…

according to this link…

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm

The average salary for a industrial/manufacturing engineer with a Bsc is about $55,067.

Is that considered as a good pay in the US? I mean, how good is good?

I’m asking because that’s exactly what I’m studying for.

More than half of the U.S. population make less that 50K a year.

…and that’s for the entire household, not just for one person. If you are making over 60k after taxes, you are officially doing better than half the country.

…Seems like studying for 7 years (yes 7 years, I’m in my 5th year) will in the end yield what I’m aiming for. I hope so. Thanks for the reply fellas.

European engineering degree I am guessing?? they make it take a lot longer over there. However, like everyone said, yes, you will be well off here… That said, getting an industrial job in manufacturing here is a pain right now because the auto industry is down (just like everywhere in the world) so there is basically a hiring freeze right now… in 3 more years you will be fine and riding a high point…

[/quote]

Thing is I’m qualified in the field of electronics…electrical…and got working experience in mechanical related problems also. I should be able to work either as an electronics engineer, industrial engineer, or electrical engineer. Yes european degree.

But I chose the long way, 4 years diploma in industrial electroncs, inc work experience in electrical electronics and mechanical, 2 years HND in electrical and electronics and a further top up degree in a specialized field…got other qualifications also. Guess I should be ok if I pass my HND at the moment that is.

58

High school is a stepping stone to university, which is a stepping stone to life.

Life is more responsibility, more money, more appreciation, more accountability. Life is more of everything.