Living in the Netherlands, I can't really complain about the way things go; we're economically pretty strong still and we manage to pay our tuition fees thanks to the study finances. There is, however, one thing I realized after nearly 4 years of studying at this particular level of education: it's absolute crap. Does it surprise me? Probably not.
It's kind of frustrating to graduate from secondary school and choose a study course – which'd be IT Application Development – only to discover that, 4 years later, it all pretty much has been for little to nothing.
Why do I say this? Well, I know it's all about the paper, but come on school – could you at least let me feel that I'm actually learning something, instead of knowing that 95% of my knowledge comes from being a hobbyist. That other 5% is Google at school.
The most frustrating part however, is that I'm in my last year and have to go through internship for half a year longer than the rest, simply because my previous internship failed for reasons I'd rather not mention.
As an addition to this, I know I won't be doing anything IT-related anymore – spare the hobby time – since my interests switched from this to music.
Truth be told, I'm not quite sure whether it's even worth going through this last year's hassle. Although my chances of getting accepted into the Conservatory without a diploma at this current level of education [because I'm considering quitting now] are pretty slim, I'm debating whether it's worth the risk anyway. Last I heard, they have exceptions in acceptance.
Anyway, yeah.
Join our IRC: #gamefront@irc.arloria.net “You live longer once you realize that any time spent being unhappy is wasted.” –Ruth E. Renkl
Same thing over here. I literally studied for none of my tests or essays and I got A's and B's for all my classes this past semester.
But the problem you're describing does seem to be a problem with STEM majors. They think they can just teach it like a history or math class and it just doesn't work that way.
Heh, I remember a former acquaintance of mine was going to SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) and he was complaining that his professors didn't offer any assistance if you were having problems with the coursework, and they expected you to figure it out for yourself. One of his friends basically told him he was being pathetic and that it's up to you, not them, to learn it.
If that's the case, then why are they there? Isn't college supposed to be a place where arguments are had and information is shared between students and masters of subjects? Doesn't the word "college" get its roots from "colleague/collegiate?" What is this shit about, "Oh, you're not getting it? Well fuck you then, you must just be a dumb shit. Thanks for the cash, sucker."
If that's really how professors act, then they don't deserve to teach.
It's the same way with SAT/ACTs: if you don't score high enough, then you don't get to go to a "good" school. Never mind that half the shit you study for on those tests isn't going to be used for 90% of what you do in life unless you're training to be a human encyclopedia.
College should be a place to grow and develop your mind and learn from other people, especially your instructors. But....it's not really that, is it?
We've become way too anal about qualification and less concentrated on tangible knowledge that might actually do some good, and tbh, I understand why you want to drop out. I've actually considered it, and I'm only a freshman
I would say though, at this point, you may as well finish, just to say that you did it and then get the extra pay-raise or "credibility."
You think the only people who are people, are the people who look and think like you.
But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger,
You'll learn things you never knew, you never knew.
Last edited by Adrian Ţepeş; December 15th, 2012 at 11:39 PM.
The famous Norwegian church-burner and murderer Varg Vikernes on this:
Spoiler:
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What I just said might seem as a digression to many, but it isn't; it exemplifies perfectly how Norwegian children are raised in Norway – and it never changes. Even at the university in Norway nobody demands anything from them. You can get a fancy degree in Norway with minimal effort, and all the way you will be followed by the dumbest, slowest and worst students. You see, they too are given the "equal opportunity" to get a fancy degree, and in order to make sure they too succeed the Marxists have removed all real challenges on the way. You can pass a course at the university in Norway by reading maybe three or four books. In my English course at the university in Tromsø I only had to translate four pages of text and attend lectures a once or twice each week to pass. I am not kidding!
The Norwegians don't know any better; they are proud when they get their degrees, thinking they are successful when they do, not knowing how difficult it would be to get the same degree in any other country in the world (Ghana included...). They are lost in the Marxist substitute reality. Naturally they educate very few mathematicians or physicians or biologists in Norway; you cannot cheat with natural sciences. To learn mathematics you bloody well need to understand mathematics too! So Norway after year 2000 educates fewer (!) natural scientists than Norway did in the 1950ies, when we didn't even have senior high schools for everyone. The educational budget is about a thousand times larger today, but... their priorities lie elsewhere, so to speak. As explained above.
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Well, you can read he's radical, but he's quite true about this. In the Nordic countries the only really hard-to-get degrees must be medicine and law.
But crap will probably hit the fan in about 10 years with so many people with university degrees and so few fitting jobs.
Last edited by Rikupsoni; December 16th, 2012 at 12:02 AM.
Virtually nothing you learn in school will be useful in real life. The thing that's useful is the bit of paper they give you at the end of it all - that bit of paper represents options.
A year may seem like a long time now. But later on, when the years are rolling by like coke lines in a whorehouse, you may find yourself wishing you had just taken the short amount of time it would have required to get whatever piece of paper you're working towards.
To a certain extent school is harder than it needs to be. Mass memorisation and recitation isn't a barrel of laughs. But I agree that most of it's useless. You ask people what skills their schooling's given them - how they've operationalised their knowledge. See how many people can give you jack shit on that account.
That said, the investment of a year at this point is so small that it's probably better just to suck it up and get on with it, unless you've got some awesome thing you could go and do instead.
"Slippery slopes can be fun - kind of like a water slide."
- Larry, Burn Notice
Last edited by Nemmerle; December 16th, 2012 at 03:36 AM.
I do agree with your point in saying that there is a large majority we don't need but I really find it useful at the end of the day, I mean I'm just striving for my qualification and if learning quite a bit of bull**** along the way is what I have to do then I have no problem doing it.
Before a business takes on an employee, they want to be sure that employee has an aptitude, and interest in the career presented. This employee needs to have a certain amount of background knowledge prior to the start date.
Most enthusiasts for a particular subject will have already aquired that knowledge, but there is a larger number of individuals who are seeking to work in that field, particularly if the field is hyped as being among those with the greatest supply of well paying jobs.
Now, it is nearly impossible to seperate the more knowedgeable enthusiasts from the n00bs, and posers. The college system serves as a means to certify individuals as having the basic knowledge level of an enthusiast. The basic knowledge that one is expected to have to get the job.
Beyond that basic element, I do not pretend to fully grasp the dynamic or reason for all of the classes.
If there is a reasonable chance for success I'd get that diploma. A combination of IT and music skills will be interesting for a bunch of job opportunities. Even if you hate IT now it is possible that later on you will regard it is an easy way to earn some cash.
As for what schools can teach - this also depends on the student. Just sitting in the lectures and doing the minimum work required won't get you far, but if you look around chances are that you will find something useful. Access to an university library is a good starting point.
Also, as Kilobyte says, university diplomas are valuable as they serve as indicator for the people who might want to hire you later on. Regardless of how useless the stuff you learned is, the diploma is still a piece of paper that says "this guy showed enough self discipline to get to this point".
School unfortunately trains you for academia rather than the subject in real practice. While it is a decent tool for learning the ropes it is overkill for some. For example, in my databases course this semester, we had a student who had worked with databases before in his job and had decent experience with the theory. He and the teacher got into so many arguments, each of which had decent strength to their sides, but you could certainly tell the difference between the application in research rather than industry. It was actually rather fascinating to listen to!
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