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ForumsDiscussion Forum → Decide my future
12
Decide my future
2019-01-14, 9:45 PM #1
So as I come to finally graduating after 10 years of on and off college punctuated by war, drinking, mental breakdowns and too many women, I have to figure out what to do next and it's almost certainly more school. I can't decide myself so you do it for me. I've narrowed it down to a second bachelor pad degree in health with an emergency medicine focus, which given my previous degree will basically just be a deluxe EMT-Paramedic pipeline

oooooor

Grad school in an environmental humanities program.

Other options in the poll are self explanatory
Epstein didn't kill himself.
2019-01-14, 9:54 PM #2
jokes on you, I welcome death
2019-01-14, 10:05 PM #3
ban FGR and confiscate his bitcoins
2019-01-15, 12:40 AM #4
Originally posted by Jon`C:
jokes on you, I welcome death


There is no joke your feelings were never part of this equation
Epstein didn't kill himself.
2019-01-15, 3:03 AM #5
Quote:
Go to graduate school for no specific career goal


Sure why not.
2019-01-15, 3:42 AM #6
BUY MORE ETH.
SnailIracing:n(500tpostshpereline)pants
-----------------------------@%
2019-01-15, 6:37 AM #7
The best thing to do is to keep getting undergraduate degrees until they won't loan you any more money. That's the market's way of telling you that you have enough undergraduate degrees.

But if you do decide to get a graduate degree, make sure your program is unfunded. Nothing good is ever free. You should pay the absolute maximum amount possible for your graduate degree. Then make sure you leave with a masters immediately before defending your phd thesis. You don't need to defend yourself against a bunch of ivory tower eggheads, you don't owe them anything.
2019-01-15, 6:52 AM #8
Get kicked out of the Academy for having a mind of your own.
2019-01-15, 6:55 AM #9
I'm still sorry that I wasn't able to help you with your project last year, Spook.
Star Wars: TODOA | DXN - Deus Ex: Nihilum
2019-01-15, 8:39 AM #10
Go for an actual ER doc position, STAT
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enshu
2019-01-15, 9:07 AM #11
Go work for Academi or Aegis or Titan or G4S
2019-01-15, 10:36 AM #12
Open a church and start a tax-excempt charitable organization to take people's money. Then use the money to start your own university, and award yourself a doctoral degree. Change your name to Reverend Jones, PhD.
2019-01-15, 11:33 AM #13
Well, based on your skills and life experience you have a lot of options.

With your time in the Marines you could be a Forest Ranger, or work in Search and Rescue. . .The French Foreign Legion is always an option too. But the skills you got in there could potentially link to a lot of different careers.
You also have a lot of experience with 3D printing and cinema, which could open the door to prop building or getting into special effects, maybe even stunt work.
Or you could have one of my old dreams and buy a boat and charter trips between the Hawaiian islands for rich snobs.
Or alternatively follow one of your old dreams and focus on music.
My blawgh.
2019-01-15, 12:28 PM #14
daytrade bitcoin
2019-01-15, 1:56 PM #15
drink scotch whisky all night long and die behind the wheel
2019-01-15, 10:58 PM #16
(and by that, I mean "learn to work the saxophone")
2019-01-17, 3:13 PM #17
Originally posted by Phantom-Seraph:
Well, based on your skills and life experience you have a lot of options.

With your time in the Marines you could be a Forest Ranger, or work in Search and Rescue. . .The French Foreign Legion is always an option too. But the skills you got in there could potentially link to a lot of different careers.
You also have a lot of experience with 3D printing and cinema, which could open the door to prop building or getting into special effects, maybe even stunt work.
Or you could have one of my old dreams and buy a boat and charter trips between the Hawaiian islands for rich snobs.
Or alternatively follow one of your old dreams and focus on music.


French Foreign Legion it is

already maxed on ETH

already drinking scotch whiskey

Jon I think I can get to two undergrads with no money down and no debt!
Epstein didn't kill himself.
2019-01-17, 4:11 PM #18
BUY MORE LINK
SnailIracing:n(500tpostshpereline)pants
-----------------------------@%
2019-01-17, 7:15 PM #19
Originally posted by ECHOMAN:
BUY MORE LINK


GET THE **** OUT
Epstein didn't kill himself.
2019-01-17, 9:45 PM #20
"buy link" (?)

Are you talking about upgrading your Comcast plan?
2019-01-18, 1:15 AM #21
BTW, a Master's will probably bring in more $$$ than a second Bachelor's if that's what you're curious about.
2019-01-18, 2:18 PM #22
Originally posted by Reid:
BTW, a Master's will probably bring in more $$$ than a second Bachelor's if that's what you're curious about.


I'm not, I will probably get a job as a dishwasher after either
Epstein didn't kill himself.
2019-01-18, 2:48 PM #23
Originally posted by Spook:
I'm not, I will probably get a job as a dishwasher after either


A Master's will let you sound more pretentious if you quote books at people.
2019-01-18, 2:54 PM #24
Required: a degree in chemical engineering (specializations in solvents and surfactants preferred) and an after-degree in ancient pottery, at least 2 years of professional dish washing experience (no hobbyists please) and at least five references. This is also an entry-level position, so we will not consider candidates who are overqualified. Must pass credit and criminal background checks. Must be willing to work unpaid overtime. Must be willing to work unpaid, period. Must be passionate about the job, we don't work just for the money and neither should you.

We are a proud equal opportunity employer. Our oursourced recruiters sure aren't, though, so don't bother applying if your name isn't white sounding.
2019-01-18, 5:17 PM #25
Originally posted by Reid:
A Master's will let you sound more pretentious if you quote books at people.


You read some obscure passage and then pretend...you pawn it off as your own idea just to impress some girls and embarrass my friend? See the sad thing about a guy like you is in 50 years you're gonna start doing some thinking on your own and you're gonna come up with the fact that there are two certainties in life. One: don't do that. And two: You dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a ****ing education you coulda got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library.
2019-01-18, 5:34 PM #26
Originally posted by Reid:
A Master's will let you sound more pretentious if you quote books at people.


Thats all I want

Also Jon, I have to write a research paper for Dr. Tainter's class and the only requirement is "good faith effort". How do you think I could maximally disappoint him while still technically fulfilling that requirement?
Epstein didn't kill himself.
2019-01-18, 5:46 PM #27
Doesn’t asking that question automatically mean you’ve failed?
2019-01-18, 6:13 PM #28
Originally posted by Jon`C:
Doesn’t asking that question automatically mean you’ve failed?


this rofl

students who only want to "technically fulfill the requirement" are the most soul-sucking to teach

DO WE NEED TO KNOW THIS FOR THE EXAM?

Any questions? "How do we write this to get full credit on the exam?"
2019-01-18, 6:18 PM #29
I know it's bad when I preface my proof that d/dx sin x = cos x by saying "you don't have to replicate this so don't worry".

At least when I teach them infinite series they'll have to think, and I may be able to have some fun lectures. Series are the only cool part of calculus.
2019-01-18, 6:26 PM #30
In an unrelated note, I figured out one of the hardest things to do. Write your autobiography, sparing yourself no embarassing memory or detail, as clearly as you can. I've coaxed a few friends into trying this. Nobody can make it past age 10, it's too hard to relive every moment like that.
2019-01-18, 8:16 PM #31
You're probably right, but I'm going for the performance art angle not the check the box angle! I'm very excited for his class because it's a seminar format and I got right out the gate talking about terrifying ****
Epstein didn't kill himself.
2019-01-18, 8:43 PM #32
I don't know what you've covered or what would be appropriate to write about. I'd probably try to do a research paper that related something he discussed back to operations research. Like, for example, contrasting the complexity that is burdensome but reduces systemic risk (like regulations or operations checklists) versus complexity that is overtly rewarding but increases systemic risk (like the propensity for capitalism/securitization to create financial products that ultimately cause widespread correlation between otherwise unrelated failures).

Maybe another interesting question would be, does securitization (by itself) really increase complexity, or does it decrease total complexity? Commodities markets are a distinct 'thing' that adds a layer of abstraction to buying and selling goods. At the same time, commodities markets make it possible to deal in goods without needing to ship them or physically take possession of them, which means the actual act of trading is far simpler than without them. At the same time, then, do commodities markets increase or decrease systemic risk? It seems like both. They increase risk because by making goods trading far simpler, it becomes trivial to speculate on goods prices. This creates the possibility for speculative bubbles in commodities, which can destabilize markets that depend upon stable factor prices. However, with commodities markets if you accidentally order too much of something, or if your customer goes out of business, you always have some place to sell your excess (ideally, again, without worrying about shipping or receiving something you can't use).

I could probably write a few hundred pages just asking about the complexity/risk tradeoff in commodities markets.
2019-01-18, 8:43 PM #33
Sorry for giving a real answer and not helping you with your interpretive dance or whatever spook
2019-01-18, 9:44 PM #34
This post has nothing to do with the merits of Jon`C's ideas on operations research, which I have only skimmed, but: I just realized that it was the college essay assignment that truly made me a fountainhead of mediocre to bad ideas, because it taught me to believe my own ideas, merely because I found a way to articulate them to be plausibly convincing.

Spook doesn't even need to try to argue what he thinks is true for the assignment--only to convince the grader that he did. The real test of his skill is to maximize the disparity between these two things without raising any suspicion....
2019-01-18, 11:29 PM #35
Originally posted by Reid:
In an unrelated note, I figured out one of the hardest things to do. Write your autobiography, sparing yourself no embarassing memory or detail, as clearly as you can. I've coaxed a few friends into trying this. Nobody can make it past age 10, it's too hard to relive every moment like that.


Not for me (especially with anything past age 10). In other words, it could be done but it wouldn't be worth the time and effort*.

And on that note, that does sound a lot like the idea for the biopic of the Most Iconic Massassian.

* = Especially not the effort it'd take to read through all my IRC logs from 2003 onwards
Star Wars: TODOA | DXN - Deus Ex: Nihilum
2019-01-18, 11:39 PM #36
Isn't it iconic, don't you think
It's like dflt.mat in your JK
2019-01-18, 11:59 PM #37
Originally posted by Reverend Jones:
believe my own ideas, merely because I found a way to articulate them to be plausibly convincing.


Um. This is also known as "thinking".
2019-01-19, 12:01 AM #38
If you're complaining about believing your own ideas that you successfully argued to yourself, I'm struggling to understand what you think a more appropriate standard for accepting an idea should be. Does it only count if someone else convinces you? Where do you think original ideas come from?

I'm not asking this as part of some epistemological debate, I mean from a purely pragmatic standpoint. You've justified your own belief based on information you believe true. That doesn't mean you're right, but this is quite literally as close to the Platonic ideal of knowledge you can possibly get. How isn't that good enough? I don't even have the words
2019-01-19, 12:06 AM #39
Originally posted by Reverend Jones:
Isn't it iconic, don't you think
It's like dflt.mat in your JK


At school they taught me how to cleave
Subtract and optimize geometry
They didn't rebuild BSP

For everything I long to do (a)
no matter when or where or who (a?)
has one thing in common too

It’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s TODOA
*SOLO*
Star Wars: TODOA | DXN - Deus Ex: Nihilum
2019-01-19, 10:03 AM #40
Jon, my post was partly self-deprecation, and part reflection about how inevitably clumsy the process of finding great rather than merely good ideas through introspection is. I actually am really thankful that my teachers and professors got me to take essay writing seriously--I just think back though and have to ponder how bad some of my old essays really were. But of course this just shows that writing is an art, like any other, where the first few hundred+ attempts to furnish a painting/piano piece/whatever rightly get thrown away.
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