What's your education?

[Things]

I fucking hate algebra and calculus!

I hate all kinds of maths

 

[Bionic-Badger]

@Bionic-Badger, great advice. But If having a degree is the important part, why is it ones ability to learn, not what one has learned? It seems that if anything in college measures ones ability and competence, it would be their grades, not the fact that they have a degree.

Grades have their place; they are a metric. However, think about what a "grade" means: it shows your relevant placement among other students in your course, as decided by some teacher, based on your ability to answer some questions in the course. A grade says only those things, so how do you interpret that with respect to whether the person is a good hire? Is the person just good at cramming the night before only to have their memory of the course drop off exponentially?

There may even be questions on how was the course graded? Most courses are bell-curved, often around 65%. That means you get about a B- to C+ for 65% -- a D+ on an absolute scale; how does that measure up?

Another thing grades do not reveal is how well the person operates on real-life projects and work. Doing well on a test doesn't show, for example, whether you are able to communicate with peers on a problem. It doesn't show that you can work on a problem without having a teacher show you how it is done. The grade doesn't show that you can really think about problems beyond the scope of the course.

What the grades do show is that, for a specific subject, you were able to work through that material, and that you were exposed to it. Often real understanding of a course's material only comes some years after, when it is applied and reinforced. Up to that point, the person is only book and course-learned, and that's often not sufficient because it is quickly forgotten after the course completes.

Especially since many people who actually finished college are not competent. The correlation between the grades, competence, and jobs is not as it should be if incompetent people are getting jobs.

I don't know if that's a fair assessment. Even those with good grades are not necessarily competent. Also, some jobs also don't need extremely "competent" people with respect to the actual task -- at least not at the beginning -- but rather people who can be sufficiently molded into position. Furthermore, remember that "competency" is with respect to the employer's metrics, not the school's. The evaluation of some teacher is often not that relevant.

I think this could be due to recommendations, which is why I don't understand why they carry as much weight as they do. They can be a great tool to separate good employees from bad ones, but they are not reliable.

What do you think grades are? They're recommendations. They're rankings based on some material that other people feel shows competency. Those grades are not objective; they're dependent on the teacher and school -- which is why degrees from some schools are more valuable than others.

Recommendations from people and past employers can reveal things about a worker that are more important than what the worker presented on his or her resume: work ethic, ability to work with others, problem solving, drive, stubbornness, adaptability, etc. Such things may be far more important than good grades.

Even the very fact that someone has already worked, and has been employed for a while before seeking the job is important. Many companies are not even bothering with workers that are not currently employed, or have been employed in the past few months. They have their own reasons, but usually it is because of the idea that the unemployed person has lost touch with their area of work and aren't as competent as someone who is employed. In an employer's market that's their choice.

So where does that leave you? Well for many graduates, they don't have immediately valuable degrees. They have degrees that can usually get them in the door, because it's a degree, but most of their worth comes from actual experience. When there are gluts of such graduates, the prospects dry up. So you need to pick something that has inherent value (or at least more value), not just a "degree" that shows little more than you going to college.

Also, whats the point in doing well in a class if that class doesn't pertain to your major? For example, Fiddy doesn't like Calculus, so why does he have to do well in the class if it doesn't matter to his degree?

I'd say because being focused too much on only what you think is relevant may reduce your flexibility to adapt to situations in the real world. The ability to be well-rounded in a number of different fields, even at a basic level, makes you more versatile even in ways that may not be directly studied (e.g. the ability to communicate). Even within your own major, you may find that what you end up doing is much different than what you thought you were studying for.

Also, you should never do poorly in a subject because you think it doesn't matter and you slack off, but only because your abilities limit you.

If employers do not care how employees did in college, but only that they finished and have the degree, then why do well in any class besides the ones that teach you about your prospective job?

I didn't say they didn't care how you did in college. I said that it is just one factor among many that are considered. Grades are not the end-all, be-all. Nor are degrees, nor even work experience. When people believe that such metrics should be the only factor in decisions, they are putting themselves up as naive examples of why that is not the case.

If grades and competence do have a positive correlation, why don't employers look more heavily into grades, rather than degrees? Sorry for the rather sporadic reply, and thanks for reading.

Because that "competence" is limited to the classroom. The real world is not a classroom. You don't have teachers showing you the examples for you to replicate using contrived problems. The degree shows that you can be taught, the grades showing that you have learned those subjects for a short time.

An employer can obtain copies of your transcript and see how well you did in particular subjects of interest, but often that comes up when there's little else to compare against. At that point however, you're not really that valuable. You're relying low-level metrics because you haven't been set apart from others by other qualifications. This is why work experience, internships, recommendations, projects and skills stand out. They show that you can do more than just coursework -- because your job will be anything but coursework.

 

[Zathras]

deleted

 

[styropyro]

I'm currently studying chemistry and pre med in college. I have a 4.0 GPA so far!

In high school I was lazy. I had decent grades but good testing scores.

 

[Bionic-Badger]

Degree #1 - Fine Arts
Degree #2 - Philosophy and Religious Studies
Degree #3 - Film, Video, and Photographic Arts
Degree #4 - Information Systems

Not surprising considering that most of those "majors" are more like spare-time hobbies. Even if it is a career, those will rarely make a difference for people unless they go to a specialty school. Even then, I feel it's more about talent than the degree.

I'm currently studying chemistry and pre med in college. I have a 4.0 GPA so far!

In high school I was lazy. I had decent grades but good testing scores.

What are you planning on specializing in? Usually when I hear people state they're in "pre-med" without anything specific in mind I think the term is just being used as a better-sounding "undecided." After all, you can take practically anything for these pre-med/law/etc. tracks. There are exceptions of course, but that's been my experience with the people I've encountered.

 

[benmwv]

I just finished up my freshman orientation. I'm going for CPE, which is a dual major program for electrical engineering and computer science. Get two degrees in four years plus one extra semester.

Im pumped!

 

[styropyro]

What are you planning on specializing in? Usually when I hear people state they're in "pre-med" without anything specific in mind I think the term is just being used as a better-sounding "undecided." After all, you can take practically anything for these pre-med/law/etc. tracks. There are exceptions of course, but that's been my experience with the people I've encountered.

Pre-med isn't a major, it's just additional prerequisites for medical school that goes along with a major. (I'm sure you already knew that though) My declared major is chemistry, which has been a passion of mine for a long time.

As for specialization, I'll wait till med school before I truly decide that. What I do want to do is work in a specialty that uses lasers in medicine. For one, dermatology is a specialty with lots of room for laser treatment in it.

Ophthalmology is another specialty with laser treatments in it, but I'm staying the hell away from that. I had way too many eye surgeries as a kid to ever want to mess with eyes as a career.

 

[bloompyle]

High School

Though once I'm out of my on the job training I plan to get my degree out of the way, and focus on EE. Once I move out of the dorms and have my own house, with garage and more room, I plan to join and/or start a research group/lab. On top of that, I will further my EE education to hopefully a masters before I leave here. If I have the ability to, I'd like to start a minor in photonics and spectroscopy, and once I'm out, apply to MIT with the GI bill, grades, heaving volunteer involvement, and having the research group to show for my involvement in amateur research and development before even attending. I read that they look past grades and test scores and look more at what you've done already for society. Are you worth them teaching you? I want to look as competitive as possible.

Long term goals

Even further out, I want to get my doctorate in EE as well as the undergrad in spectroscopy and photonics, and perhaps even physics (though I am pretty sure I'll have my fill of physics with the other 3). I hope to lead a research lab, and be involved in application and as far away from academia as possible

Not sure if I want to go the med application, astrophysics, or semiconductor engineer and testing. Who knows! It's years away.

 

[offroadfreak8582]

I studied small business and Retail management on the Rotterdam university of applied sciences.

The name of my education indicates the wrong idea of the subjects it coveres. It is not it is about management in general. Also in big companies. A part is also finance.

greetings,,

 

[Bionic-Badger]

Pre-med isn't a major, it's just additional prerequisites for medical school that goes along with a major. (I'm sure you already knew that though) My declared major is chemistry, which has been a passion of mine for a long time.

Good that you have a plan then, and chemistry is an interesting major I wish I were good at.

 

[cmendoza]

styropyro,
I'm a Physical Medicine doc (PM&R) and use a fluoroscope for certain injection procedures that has a red laser pointer attachment for guidance. Derm, Optho and even Rad Onc use lasers alot more, I'm sure! (but I guess Optho's already out!).