Starting next fall as a junior for Civil Engineering. Yay!

To be honest I thought I would have more to put here to make this thread interesting.

Hooray for Universal Constructor!

Congrats dude, I'll be starting engineering next fall too... as a Freshman.

I got accepted at Rose-Hulman in October. I am 95% sure I'll be accepted at University of Illinois in December. My test scores are leaps and bounds above the requirement along with having a couple substantial merit awards, but I haven't taken a foreign language class, which they require 2 of for admission. So I told them I'd take Spanish I and II at a community college over the summer if they admitted me to make up for the deficiency. Not sure which one I'd prefer to go to; they're polar opposites that are both the best at something.

Man, I almost went to Rose-Hulman! Didn't want to pay for it, though.

Congrats!

I almost went to university once. I was a horrible high school student, so my grades were horrible, yet my ACT scores were decent enough. I was told by the university that I needed my high school transcripts. I went to my high school to get them, they handed me a sealed envelop & I turned them in. I ended up receiving a letter in the mail stating that I wasn't eligible to attend said university because of my grades. I ended up going to community college instead. A few years later, before I graduated, I received a letter in the mail asking me if I would like to transfer. I went to see someone at said university about transferring & ended up learning that had they received my ACT scores w/in said envelope I would've been admitted, despite my grades. I felt like I had wasted a few years of my life going to a school where most of my fellow students were barely functional human beings. The whole situation left a bad taste in my mouth & I never bothered transferring. I didn't even go to my graduation ceremony & opted to receive my degree via mail. It has always bothered me that I didn't attend university & to this day I feel a bit embarrassed when I'm having a discussion w/ someone & they ask me which university I attended. I've always regretted the fact that if I would've had the guts (the shame was too powerful) to look in to things a bit further my life could've potentially turned out far different. I would've been the first person in my family to go to college. Now we'll just have to wait until my daughter is older (I'll do everything in my power to make sure that she's able, if interested). However, things are going rather well & I've discovered that I'm able to to learn a great deal about things w/o continuing my education. I may not make a lot of money & I may not be the most sophisticated person around but I'm nearing contentment.

Congratulations! I think that going to university is a wonderful thing & I hope that you appreciate the opportunity. Good luck!

WTF, you guys are all little kids (except grandpa Mentat).

Goodjobrightonwaytogo and all that

Congrats. I studied Civil Engineering once for a month and a half before realising it was a horrible idea and switched back to Mechanical Engineering. Best. Decision. Ever.

No, Dash has just been going to school for 9 years

stfu.

6.

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2 Year no clue what I wanted from school or life for that matter.

Picked stupid major out of haste

2 years stupid major

Realized stupid major was uber-niche, essentially dead-end, and stupid, changed to engineering

2 years pre-engineering

now transfer.

At least I did it all at a community college and therefore have zero debt, and allowed myself to mature to the point where I was ready to make an intelligent decision about what I wanted to do with my life instead of picking whatever major sounded coolest/easiest like so many people I know.

Looking back I'm really not sure how I got to this point without getting discouraged. But hell, after 6 years, another 2 - 2.5 years at a university seems like nothing. I feel like I'm almost done.

What are upper division engineering classes like, anyway? Anybody? With respect to the first 2 years I suppose.

Generally a hell of a lot more fun. Not sure about civil engineering but in general you should be getting to the point where you can start learning about and dealing with real problems.

Out of curiosity, why not mechanical engineering? And what was the stupid major?

Underwater basket-weaving with a minor in littoral willow-harvesting.

Mainly a fascination with infrastructure. I'd love to eventually get into roadway design, traffic engineering, or some form of urban/community planning if at all possible. I juggled mechanical for awhile a couple years ago but I came to the conclusion that it's just not my thing.

And the other major was "Environmental Policy Design". Okay, so it's probably not as bad as I'm making it out to be, but I'll be damned if I ever end up in politics working for some government bureaucracy spewing out one ineffective, intrusive, nanny-state law after another in the name of environmentalism. I can't imagine something I'd be LESS interested in or passionate about. I'm sure it's right for somebody but dear god what was I thinking. Now that I think about it I think I had been into Biology before that and it was a major that I could count a lot of my biology classes towards and get out sooner without having to take many extra classes. That turned out real well. At least I have a lesson I can pass on to people I know that are just entering college and are as clueless as I was.

Anyone who would look down their nose at you because you never attended a university is someone with whom you shouldn't waste any of your time. Really, if they're anything like your average windowlicker, then the longer they spend in school, the dumber they become.

Freelancer knows. Freelancer's never been to school and he's as smart as he's gonna get.

Don't mean to be a downer in your thread, Dash. Congrats and all of that. But I'm so sick of this bull****.

People in our culture believe some retarded ****. All North Americans are brainwashed by privately owned, for-profit schools that "more education" is the answer to all possible problems. Gotta maximize profits! And while you're at it, you've gotta talk a bunch of clueless 18 year olds into picking a stupid and useless major so you can keep feeding the last generation of the really clueless 18 year olds who stuck around to be cheap labor.

This thread is the sort of thing I'm talking about...

Dash is looking at 8-9 years of school, most of which was a complete waste because he just wasn't mature enough to know what he wanted to do.
Mentat ended up graduating from a CC because he wasn't mature enough to wear his balls on the outside.
I know a guy who's basically doing the same thing as Dash. Bounced around between schools for a while.
I know a guy with a history degree. He's back in school to become a teacher.
I know one guy who dropped out of his PhD program. Wasn't a good fit for him. He's going back to school to become a machinist.
I know another guy who has an engineering degree. He wants to go back to school to become a computer janitor.
I know a girl with an English degree. She's back in school to become a photographer!

Back in school, continuing in school, school school school. It's all so ****ing ridiculous. Hate your major? More school! Can't get a job? More school! Economy sucks? More school! It's sure to work out this time!

WTF? I have an engineering degree (not a particularly stellar one) and I am a computer janitor.

His degree says "I'm interested in technology and I'm good at maths"; what else does he think he needs to start out?

What is exactly is your point? What should I have done differently? Given the circumstances and the environment into which I will be graduating, I don't think there is a better way that I could have gone about this. In 15 years, looking back, what is going to be a couple extra years? Nothing. I probably will barely remember it. At $20 per unit in a public community college district that is experiencing record high enrollment but is bankrupt from decreased subsidies from a state that is even more bankrupt, I hardly think I've been lining some greedy executive's pockets the last few years. I've had plenty of chances to pursue employment going through school that I've turned down. What I'm doing is my choice.



No. This is BS and borderline offensive to boot. Many of the classes I took my first 4 years either directly counted towards my engineering transfer requirements, or were prerequisites for classes that I had to take. Even so, every class that didn't end up having anything to do with my eventual major helped me in some way. Learning how to study at the college level, learning how to meet deadlines, learning how to build a rapport with the professor, learning how to deal with different types of professors and classmates, the list goes on and on. I generally do not believe that any education is a waste.



Who cares? Why do you care? What is your genius plan that will make everything work out perfectly for everybody? If you've got it all figured out, then mind your business and go do it.

You care way too much about other people's business and shout way too loud when telling them what they're doing is stupid, wasteful, inefficient, etc etc etc. And stop being so paranoid about the private entity and their obsession with profits. Big deal. That's the point of a free market system, the needs and wants of the people will be fulfilled because a select few are able to get rich off of said needs. There's nothing wrong with this, get over it.

I think there's something in my eye..

this is quite possibly the first time I've witnessed anyone, ever, besides myself, point out the huge gorilla sitting in the middle of the room. It's like everyone on earth is ****ing blind.

Oh, and.. yeah, I'm someone who's been drifting in and out of schools for ~8 years now and realized that it was a complete waste after the first semester. I swear if I hear the s-word one more time I'm gonna stab somebody.

It's like serial monogamy but more (less?) expensive.

That said, congratulations dude! I'm sure you'll make something worthwhile out of it, which is the principal difference between my friends going back to school in the nth field and people who don't die with their music still in them.

Oh, I know. But he can't find a good enough job right now so he really needs to get more educated.

He also needs Brawndo. It's got electrolytes.

I deeply resent having to go to university. I have to go to university, so I can get a worthless piece of paper that says I know how to do something I've been teaching myself since I was 9 damn years old, because people are spending 8 years in school, racking up 2 or 3 useless bachelor degrees, so they can get a job a ****ing high school dropout was doing 20 years ago.

I completely agree with that. Education is good. Education as an institution is terrible.

What exactly is the alternative? Certainly there are plenty of people that go to school, pick something they like and get good jobs no problem, and probably wouldn't have otherwise.

I think these people are upset because nowadays most people graduate from high school and going to college is pretty much a given. Therefore the value of a degree is pretty diluted and competition is high. I won't argue with this, pretty much everybody knows it's true. I'm also not sure if it's a bad thing or not. But I will argue that if you're as good as you say you are and as able to accept and turn around on a challenge like you imply you are able to, that you should have no problem going to college and blowing away 99% of the scrubs who you just said are there mouth-breathing their way to 3 underwater basket-weaving degrees.

dude whats wrong with mouthbreathing my nose has been broken thats all

Wikipedia has rendered liberal arts degrees obsolete.

Read this it's funny as hell.

http://www.holytaco.com/2008/06/03/the-10-most-worthless-college-majors

hahaha I love the pictures, especially of philosophy and latin

I wasn't even aware that half of those are degrees.

Took me 7 years to get my Bachelors. I don't regret any of the opportunities to learn new things in all the classes I took. Although if I had to do it all over again, I'd go to Community College for a few years before transferring to a private school.

not surprising

Communications made me laugh the most.

And then there's this:

http://www.holytaco.com/r2dcup

JonC hasn't responded to this yet (and he wont) because it made his head pop like Mars Attacks.

RIP.

Do you mean an alternative for Dash_rendar, or do you mean an alternative for our society as a whole? Because, in the latter case, a good place to start would be to stop believing the lie that the most qualified people to educate our workers are professors and grad students who have literally never had a real job before.

Sorry, I'm too busy trying to finish my degree in less than 8 years to pay attention to cognitive dissonance.

Got my Bachelors in '06 and MBA in '08. Worth every penny (except for the parking permits and some of the textbooks, those were bull****).

I got my Bachelors degree back in May. It took 5 years because I switched majors at the start of my junior year. I found it to be a pretty enjoyable experience. Now I'm just trying to get started on my career before I go for a Masters. The Bachelors was a must - the Masters and any other education beyond that will be mostly for me.

Jonc, Admiral of Angst

Seriously though, just because that's the way it is doesn't mean that we're all believing a lie that's telling us that that's the best way for it to be. I've had professors who have been in the industry as well as ones who haven't. It was pretty nice to talk to the ones who have, but some of the ones who haven't were very good as well. As I start to work on upper division classes I'll hope more and more of my professors have been in the industry, but if not, I'll go elsewhere for industry advice they can't provide. A good student and a good worker finds ways to make it work.

According to any professional I've ever talked to (yes, it's more than one, don't go there!), you learn your job ON THE JOB, merely drawing on things you learned in school. This is where the type of person you are shines through, where your REAL capabilities shine through. This is what separates the people who are worth a damn from the people who simply have a lot of education and book smarts.

In short, I don't think that what you're saying is that big of a cancer to our society.



Wait, who's? I don't get it.



What are you studying?

bsc honors in cs.

zzzzzzzzzzz

No, I definitely agree with this, it's a huge problem. I suppose I'm pretty spoiled in this regard. My (small) department is composed of professors all with 15+ years of experience in software engineering (I checked their CVs, not making this up). Except for two new guys, one of which has zero years of experience. They're worthless and everyone knows it. We've since lost a few of our senior professors and the department is having a hell of a time finding anyone nearly as qualified that actually wants to teach. I've heard through the grapevine that this is generally how it is in other engineering departments at my school, as well as fine arts. Very much not the case for physics, mathematics, business, economics and (obviously) liberal arts. Edit: Oh, that's the software engineering department. The CS department is mostly worthless.

My point being that I'd assumed that other high profile science and engineering schools (MIT, Caltech, etc) would have a similar trend towards hiring really good people. Maybe I'm wrong about this. But even if I'm right, most people don't go to those schools.