What is Digg?812 Comments
- Testiculese, on 08/14/2008, -7/+343For most people, life is a waste of time.
- Diggitized, on 08/14/2008, -3/+268Self-taught works in some fields, but not all. Yeah, Steve Jobs never wnet to college, but you'd better make sure your doctor did. :)
- Smokeydabear, on 08/14/2008, -7/+228College is what you make it. Many think that it is training for a future job. This is true to an extent, in my opinion, but there is more to it. What college did for me (as I had to work and pay my way through college) was teach me how to live on my own, be responsible for myself, and get the most out of my classes, because I had to work to pay for them. It always killed me when I sat in class and listened to kids talk about how their parents made them go to college. It isn't for everyone, even uber rich kids.
- serif69, on 08/14/2008, -14/+207My roommate is having trouble finding a job right now because he didn't finish his degree. Every employer is requiring a bachelor's. It's a big waste of time that a lot of people put an awful lot of faith in.
- Haax, on 08/14/2008, -12/+183Next up, "Most people" end up flipping burgers or stuffing tacos.
- afruff23, on 08/14/2008, -2/+167To become "an billionaire", I suggest you pass English 101 first.
- hughesj919, on 08/14/2008, -4/+166Collage? Thats good. I was never very good at art anyways.
- treehugger87, on 08/14/2008, -9/+141Hmmm, employers want people who finish things they start. How picky of them.
- mdude85, on 08/14/2008, -4/+132For every college dropout who becomes a billionaire, there are millions, maybe even tens of millions, of other college dropouts who will earn half the income in their lifetime that a college graduate will earn.
- inactive, on 08/14/2008, -6/+119Not if you're on Digg 24 hours a day :)
- johnomaz, on 08/14/2008, -28/+131All I saw was 'what if' 'what if' 'what if'....very boring.
- inactive, on 08/14/2008, -12/+101Hey guys, I'm here to do your triple bypass surgery. Oh, I dropped out of college (it was the best decision I ever made) but don't worry, I read all about how to do it in all the books at my local library. Oh, and I used Google too so this should be a piece of cake.
P.S. Steve Jobs is successful by being a gigantic douchebag who screws his friends/employees/gullable customers over consistantly. He just happens to have alot of charisma. - kris33, on 08/14/2008, -29/+114Steve Jobs sure thought so too. He never graduated collage and still thinks that it was one of his best decisions ever.
Everyone should watch his Stanford Commencement Address. It's really inspiring.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc - BrandonJM, on 08/14/2008, -11/+93Has anyone bothered to research the author? Charles Murray is a noted Libertarian, of course he doesn't want the government to help fund students to go to college.
Anyway, ridiculously stupid article. The B.A. is useless today because almost everyone has them, but anyone trying to find a job can tell you having one beats the holy hell out of just having a GED or high school diploma. - inactive, on 08/14/2008, -2/+79FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP
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ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ - inactive, on 08/14/2008, -11/+84Article is true. College is a waste of time for most people. Probably because most of them are still children who have no clue about adult life and what they want to do in life. Most are there on a parental scholarship as a "status seeker".
- wallyhartshorn, on 08/14/2008, -2/+75All I know is that the people I know who got a degree are making good money in stable jobs. The people I know who didn't go to college are scraping by and are constantly being laid off.
- carlosauresrex, on 08/14/2008, -3/+74sure, but what would I do if I weren't going to school? start my career, psht, no thanks.
- DarkSpoon, on 08/14/2008, -2/+59i love stuffing tacos. giggity.
- HeyaBILL, on 08/14/2008, -19/+75If every employer is requiring it, then its obviously not a "big waste of time."
- TheUngod, on 08/14/2008, -4/+59Thank you! There are also plenty of College dropouts who won the lottery, but we don't look up to them either. Luck can happen to anyone, but most likely will not.If you want to make money on your own merit, it's best to do it through education.
- bpoteat, on 08/14/2008, -5/+60Then, I'm sorry, but you either didn't get a very good engineering degree or you aren't doing real engineering. Engineering is, in short, applying mathematical and physics concepts in real-world designs. To do that you must first learn those concepts and how to translate them to real-world. If you aren't doing that, then maybe engineering isn't what you think it is.
Very few people can teach themselves, either on a job or otherwise, the concepts and skills required to be an engineer. And the fact that those few people exist does not make the entire educational system for them unnecessary. - chuckDontSurf, on 08/14/2008, -2/+56Why did you keep going? You kept wasting your money for 3+ years?
- MisterThirteen, on 08/14/2008, -3/+57You're not making time to fap, nom, or sleep?
- highwebl, on 08/14/2008, -4/+56
Ladies and Gentelmen, The Author:
Murray credits the SAT with helping him get out of Newton and into Harvard.[3] "Back in 1961, the test helped get me into Harvard from a small Iowa town by giving me a way to show that I could compete with applicants from Exeter and Andover," said Murray.[3] "Ever since, I have seen the SAT as the friend of the little guy, just as James Bryant Conant, president of Harvard, said it would be when he urged the SAT upon the nation in the 1940s."[3]
Murray obtained an A.B. in history from Harvard in 1965 and a Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1974.[citation needed] - BigConna, on 08/14/2008, -6/+55Getting wasted is no waste at all.
- seraphisset, on 08/14/2008, -3/+51Mine was "BS"
- kds405, on 08/14/2008, -4/+52I completely agree. College is a complete waste of time for some people. The thought that all people need to go is completely ridiculous. It really is a shame to see so many people wasting time and money in college. Majors like Criminal Justice and Communications are wrought with these students. Most of them are not thinking practically and I completely blame the colleges themselves and the high school counselors who push students to go to college (to make high school stats look better) no matter what they want.
- bombula, on 08/14/2008, -2/+49Jobs got lucky. Right place, right time. Can happen to anyone who spends $1 on a lottery ticket. If you don't like millions-to-one odds, get a degree.
If you think your undergrad degree was useless and you didn't learn anything, well, you studied the wrong thing at the wrong school, didn't you? If you'd studied medicine at Stanford or aerospace engineering at MIT instead of English or psychology at Oklahoma State, you'd be singing a different tune. - kris33, on 08/14/2008, -3/+50Dammit, had a feeling I spelled something wrong.
- MicahT0078, on 08/14/2008, -5/+52The author fails to address two things:
1.) What about people who know all that stuff but don't test well?
2.) He has something against the Bachelor of Arts, what about the Bachelor of Science? Is that a waste of time as well?
His whole opinion seems to be based around hitting back at those who go to prestigious schools and "leveling the playing field." It just reads like he was the kid who got sent to the loser table because the cool kids didn't want him there. - sotonohito, on 08/14/2008, -13/+59The US university system is the best on the planet, as evidenced by the fact that more foreign students come here than to any other nation. Even our second and third tier schools generally offer better education than the first tier schools in many nations.
The WSJ and its particular style of know nothing-ism can bugger off. Given that they offer consistently bad predictions, thought Enron was the best thing since sliced bread, saw nothing wrong with the mortgage problem until it collapsed, etc I think the best thing you can do is the exact opposite of what the WSJ recommends. - tmschmal, on 08/14/2008, -2/+45College can be a great learning tool, an awesome party, or for the most dedicated, it can be both.
A good college degree doesn't teach you specific knowledge, but rather teaches you how to learn better. Meaning how to ask good questions and where/who to get certain information from. Most of your learning takes place after college, but hopefully is built because of the foundation and learning process that started there.
However, I am a strong believer that everyone does not need a college degree. You must think of it as an investment, and make sure that you have a reasonable expectation for a good return on your investment. This includes your investment of time, money, and opportunity cost. For a lot of jobs, a 1 - 2 year associates, or technical program will provide a higher return than a 4 year degree. - OdinTGE, on 08/14/2008, -25/+67I have a college degree. It was a huge HUGE waste of time and money. I figured that out somewhere around month 3 of college.
- trer, on 08/14/2008, -26/+67You dropped $120,000 on an education you could have gotten for $1.50 in late fees at the public library.
- inactive, on 08/14/2008, -2/+43Because no good company will hire you without a degree?
- imacmike, on 08/14/2008, -4/+45Why settle for an billionaire when you can become an hero?
- manova, on 08/14/2008, -8/+47That is your fault. College is what you make of it, not what the college makes of you.
- failedpimp, on 08/14/2008, -1/+40For most people, Life is a waste of time
- davdev, on 08/14/2008, -1/+40Trust me, there are plenty of lazy and stupid people with college degrees, even post grad degrees.
- inactive, on 08/14/2008, -0/+39I listened to that speech a long time ago. Is one of the best I've heard in my entire life, nevertheless, not everybody has the luck that this people have, Bill Gates is a dropout too.
Just imagine if Jobs never met with Wozniak, it would have been a total different story for him... - modestmelody, on 08/14/2008, -5/+41He still misses a critical point-- the issue with the education system isn't that the BA doesn't achieve its goal, it's that American society has a different set of expectations and goals for the BA that it never sought to undertake. Only in the beginning of the article when Mr. Murray states:
Finding a better way should be easy. The BA acquired its current inflated status by accident. Advanced skills for people with brains really did get more valuable over the course of the 20th century, but the acquisition of those skills got conflated with the existing system of colleges, which had evolved the BA for completely different purposes.
does he even begin to address that issue. He's right-- for most people, college is a waste a time. Not because the elite institutions have not dramatically increased access to a huge variety of both underrepresented demographics of race and socioeconomic status, but because the BA is not job training or pre-professional in almost any field. The truth is, many companies over the last 50-100 years have skirted the responsibility to completely train their employees and have deflected that responsibility to an education system that largely shuns the idea that a liberal arts education should be directly, practically applicable in a specific position.
The larger issue here is that public institutions, beholden to societal pressures to succeed at what taxpayer's goals and perceptions are, have helped tremendously in reshaping the meaning of the B.A. whereas the elite institutions have been slowly bending to the pressures of an outside world seeking to justify the significance of some of the oldest organizations in the world (just short of the Church).
The need here is not for exams, whose efficacy is constantly debated amongst educational experts, but for the universities to stand up and strongly declare their purposes for the B.A. and turn away those whose goals are not inline with that concept. This would mean a huge reduction of kids who come from middle class homes who have no business going to college from getting their four year degree because frankly, they don't know what else to do after college and they want to make sure they'll have the earning potential to maintain their current status, but it would also mean that industries that have no business requiring the BA should take a step back and take on a little responsibility for their own employee development.
It's ridiculous we don't have mail room to boardroom stories developing right now because some douchebag decided that taking Advanced Finance, which provides little other than terminology that'll be helpful later on in the business world, really matters. - serif69, on 08/14/2008, -12/+48Yes it is. Read the article. The problem isn't that he didn't finish his degree, because he has years of real-world experience. The problem is that employers are looking for a piece of paper saying he spent $100k+ and four years of his life nearly ten years ago.
- bluazul, on 08/14/2008, -1/+35I went to college, and I'm about to get my doctorate. I agree that the BA system is quite flawed. I often say that the only thing I really learned in school that would be of use to other people is the ability to write better.
The class distinctions created by education v. non-education are huge. I must admit that I take part in them, too, even though I don't think they're appropriate. Putting less importance on the degree may help.
At the same time, this article's suggestions aren't much better. I have very little faith in competence exams. They usually don't measure what they claim to measure... - dse78759, on 08/14/2008, -2/+36If you're dumb enough to put 200k into a 4 year degree in an expensive , out of state college, and then turning that into a career where you'd never be able to pay that loan, maybe getting a degree isn't your biggest problem.
The 13 crayons stuffed up your nose are. - TheUngod, on 08/14/2008, -3/+37While the extra money you make has little to do with what you were taught in college, it has a lot to do with the fact you made it through college. It's not always about what you know, but your potential to learn. While someone who didn't go to college or dropped out may have the same ability to learn as a graduate, there's no proof. The proof is in the paper that says you did it. As an employer, would you rather hire someone that you KNOW has the ability, or someone who might?
- Eezyville, on 08/14/2008, -2/+35Sounds like they want another standardized test for getting a job.
- MisterThirteen, on 08/14/2008, -4/+37Zing!
- rivs, on 08/14/2008, -1/+33I think you guys missed the point. It's a quote from the movie Good Will Hunting. Perhaps you didn't catch it without the Boston Accent.
- melkat, on 08/14/2008, -12/+42What college did for you, then, is introduce you to the real world. The real world and a real career could have done that four years sooner.
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