Keeping people employed?

[Maxmosbey]

Unfortunately, it's never that simple.

Transportation costs and quality (or, more specifically, the cost to replace defective items) increase the costs for goods and services off-shore. Services that can be provided remotely (help desk, programming, reading x-rays, etc) are subject to data and telecom costs which remain comparatively low (but quality of help desk/offshore call centers is a service quality issue).

When economists speak of "what we need are jobs, it doesn't matter whether it's private or public" miss the fact that at SOME point public employment gets to be such a large percentage that the taxes on said wages cannot support the much higher salaries paid. Entropy applies to tax/public employment - and there is some point where even "tax the rich" can't make up the difference. I'm sure that point can be calculated within an order of magnitude by economists - I don't know where the tipping point is, and frankly, that's a discussion better had in Spin Zone. Setting spending/taxing priorities is a political matter.

Yes, pensions are an issue. Most employers have eliminated defined benefit plans. Even the Feds jettisoned new DB plans years ago. But some state and local jurisdictions still employ them. Unions are a factor, but not THE deciding factor in that equation. And yes, taxpayers pay for those pensions, either directly or indirectly (direct payments to the investment plans/annuities or by reducing employee pay).... all compensation, direct and indirect, for public employees comes from the tax base.

So the decision to create a job here vs offshore is a factor of transportation, ease of management, direct labor, indirect labor (pension/benefits), taxes, availability of needed skill sets, social/moral factors (child labor, "green" initiatives, energy, etc), regulatory requirements, resources, and other costs that enter into the equation. For example, there's a perception that certain parts of Appalachia and the the deep south would be "low wage" areas - yet one might not find sufficient levels of the skill sets necessary in those locations. This inextricably leads back to education & other cultural factors.

I won't even get into the fact that some companies in some industries have folks on the payroll that are effectively "retired in place"......

Like you, I've started and owned small businesses. I've had to "rightsize" companies, and I've done merger integrations that have resulted in revamping the payroll. None of it is easy, and there really are no simple answers.

This does not have anything to do with keeping people employed, but it does have to do with perceptions. My wife is into the green movement and she is very sensitive to the "carbon footprint" and sustainability. We have been reading a lot about bamboo. So we talked to a "green" designer about remodeling our bathroom. My wife wanted bamboo because of its sustainability. The designer said that he does not recommend bamboo. They can not process the bamboo where it is grown and harvested, so it is sent by trucks to the railroad yard. There is is shipped to a seaport. If you are looking for real good bamboo products, they are manufactured in Europe. So from there it is shipped to Europe by boat. Then it used to manufacture the product, which is shipped by truck, rail, and ship, to the US. He said that the carbon footprint was enormous on bamboo products. Who would have thought? I just found that interesting, because common thought is that bamboo was such a ecologically friendly material. As a material I guess it is, but as a product it isn't.

 

[wsuffa]

This does not have anything to do with keeping people employed, but it does have to do with perceptions. My wife is into the green movement and she is very sensitive to the "carbon footprint" and sustainability. We have been reading a lot about bamboo. So we talked to a "green" designer about remodeling our bathroom. My wife wanted bamboo because of its sustainability. The designer said that he does not recommend bamboo. They can not process the bamboo where it is grown and harvested, so it is sent by trucks to the railroad yard. There is is shipped to a seaport. If you are looking for real good bamboo products, they are manufactured in Europe. So from there it is shipped to Europe by boat. Then it used to manufacture the product, which is shipped by truck, rail, and ship, to the US. He said that the carbon footprint was enormous on bamboo products. Who would have thought? I just found that interesting, because common thought is that bamboo was such a ecologically friendly material. As a material I guess it is, but as a product it isn't.

Don't know about the current generation, but it used more energy to make the early hybrid cars than they saved on the road. I suspect the new generation is better, but you've still got the issue of eventual battery disposal.

 

[John Baker]

No matter how the cake is sliced, our basic problem is a labor force that not only demands, but needs a higher wage than is currently available, in order to live a "normal" lifestyle.

You can barely live anywhere in the U.S. for under around fifteen hundred dollars a month. Yet in many parts of the world, that would be considered an astronomical sum of money.

Our cost of living forces us to purchase the least expensive goods. Since those are normally imported, our dollar is sent out of the country. We have to print more dollars to replace the exported ones, thereby devaluing the dollar, and raising our cost of living even higher. Since we can not afford American made products, we have lost millions of American jobs.........etc. etc. etc.

It's a downward spiral that can not be stopped until it becomes less expensive to buy American.

I'm talking about those who work and live near the bottom rungs of the ladder, you know, the people who are supposed to "benefit" from the trickle down theory. With their jobs long gone, along with their ability to buy product, it is causing that poverty to trickle up, with more and more people joining their ranks, daily.

It is now affecting even government employees, the ones who never dreamed that their jobs would ever be in jeopardy.

But then, I only have a ninth grade education, what the heck do I know?

John

 

[Everskyward]

You can barely live anywhere in the U.S. for under around fifteen hundred dollars a month. Yet in many parts of the world, that would be considered an astronomical sum of money.

I would argue that our expectations and standard of living are much higher here than in many parts of the world. I am guessing that most people here on this board own a residence, a vehicle or two, and many own an airplane. That would be unheard of for the majority of people in the world.

 

[SCCutler]

IMHO, U of Phoenix, ITT Tech, etc. are kind of a joke.

One of my associates is a Phoenix graduate; she then went on to Baylor for law school (an exceptional law school). She is an exceptional lawyer. Do not make the (all too common) mistake of equating non-traditional schools (like Phoenix) with "credit for life experience" diploma mailers; no relation.

They are the exact same joke that your school and every other university in the country is. You go to class, and you learn by reading books. Every once in a while, you'll get that great teacher that can lecture on real life, and that is beneficial, but beyond that, you're learning from a book.

That same book is available outside of universities. If anything, ITT Tech is a better school than any other because they only employ people that work in the field they're teaching about. That gives more opportunities to learn from the teacher.

I tend to agree.

Of course, my perspective is a little skewed. My undergraduate degree is from another school which caters predominantly to "non-traditional" students (usually, those who are "backfilling" their degrees while working). It was at night and on weekends when I attended; now, I presume there is a larger on-line component (a market which traditional universities and colleges are getting into more and more themselves).

In my experience, quality of instruction (as opposed to the pedantic pontification one so very often finds among tenured professorial staff at traditional universities, or the agonizing stumbling incompetence displayed by their favored Teaching Assistants or grad students), and the level of educated participation by the student body, are much better at non-traditional schools. We were "firing for effect," so to speak, usually paying our own way and doing it as a severe lifestyle sacrifice (by comparison to the traditional college experience, where many enjoy and fewer learn).

Indeed, the faculty at the school which issued my undergrad degree were almost universally strong professionals in their respective fields (and one horse's ass, but I dropped his class). When they taught, they knew of what they spoke (when I took Accounting, in response to a vigorous discussion of the vicissitudes of the state budget, the prof brought in a bound volume of the state's budget from several years earlier; embossed on its cover was her name, as she was the state's Comptroller of Public Accounts for several years.

If a school has a genuine commitment to learning, qualified faculty, and motivated students, you're gonna get some learning done. The credentials of a traditional college may be more valuable (mostly, I suspect, for the alumni contacts), but the genuine learning? Meh, same same.

No way I could have afforded to quit work and go back to school full-time, and no way I could have finished my degree part-time at any traditional colleges. Most of my classmates (many of whom were fast-movers at great companies) were in the same situation.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

They are the exact same joke that your school and every other university in the country is. You go to class, and you learn by reading books. Every once in a while, you'll get that great teacher that can lecture on real life, and that is beneficial, but beyond that, you're learning from a book.

If you're learning from a book, you're going to a ****ty school.

I just got home from my Integrated Circuits class. It's taught by a guy with many years' experience working for AMD and Sun Microsystems. He gives us a depth of knowledge that absolutely cannot be replaced by a book.

There are numerous other examples - Another good one would be the Senior Design Lab ("Capstone Project") course that I took and was taught by the Chief Engineer from GE Medical. Let me tell you, that guy knows his stuff - And it was an incredibly interesting class and I learned a ton. IIRC, there wasn't even a book for that class.

So I say again, if all you get out of your classes is what you read in the book, you're going to a ****ty school with ****ty instructors.

Kent, I mean no offense when I say this, but if you're learning anything in college that you couldn't have learned on your own more effectively, then your K-12 system is not good, it is leaving students with a lack of the most basic fundamentals of education: Reading and Understanding.

I can read and understand just fine - In fact, I am constantly reminded of that when I see how poorly people ready and comprehend threads on this board sometimes, arguing over things that have already been specifically addressed, often in the same post that's being quoted.

You simply can't gain an in-depth understanding about the world solely by reading a book.

So if a teacher is teaching things that you already know (for example, in programming languages, learning how to do basic I/O stuff for an entire semester because a group of students never bothered to self study), you're a bad student, because you didn't have the opportunity to learn?

No, you're a good student and everyone else sucks... And you should let the prof know that you're not being challenged and you're not learning and you want your money's worth.

The only thing I'll give most schools is that they'll put you in the right mindset to find out what you need to learn. But you can get that from experience too.

But you need the degree to get the job to get the experience.

 

[SCCutler]

...

But you need the degree to get the job to get the experience.

So often true!

 

[wsuffa]

So often true!

Ya mean you can't "read" for the bar anymore?

 

[SCCutler]

Ya mean you can't "read" for the bar anymore?

Not in Texas; I think CA may allow it still.

 

[SkyHog]

If you're learning from a book, you're going to a ****ty school.

I just got home from my Integrated Circuits class. It's taught by a guy with many years' experience working for AMD and Sun Microsystems. He gives us a depth of knowledge that absolutely cannot be replaced by a book.

There are numerous other examples - Another good one would be the Senior Design Lab ("Capstone Project") course that I took and was taught by the Chief Engineer from GE Medical. Let me tell you, that guy knows his stuff - And it was an incredibly interesting class and I learned a ton. IIRC, there wasn't even a book for that class.

So I say again, if all you get out of your classes is what you read in the book, you're going to a ****ty school with ****ty instructors.



I can read and understand just fine - In fact, I am constantly reminded of that when I see how poorly people ready and comprehend threads on this board sometimes, arguing over things that have already been specifically addressed, often in the same post that's being quoted.

You simply can't gain an in-depth understanding about the world solely by reading a book.



No, you're a good student and everyone else sucks... And you should let the prof know that you're not being challenged and you're not learning and you want your money's worth.



But you need the degree to get the job to get the experience.

Ok. I disagree with you, but I think we're going around in circles.

Lets go for a specific example, and tell me where the value of school lies:

I can program circles around a lot of people. If I can't do something, I can figure out how to do something with a computer. I have already written software that people want to use, and I understand what they want. That's the backstory (and one I'll stick to ).

I want to get a job as a software developer. Manager says "Nope, you need a degree!" So I go get a degree. What value am I going to get from that degree? Obviously, I'm not going to learn how to write software, I already do that. Advanced math? Perhaps, but I already know what I need to write software. English? What part of "i++;" is covered there? Social sciences? Perhaps, but remember, I'm already writing software that people use, so I already have a grasp on it.

Why should I be required to go to school, pay $40,000 (or more), just to prove to someone that I can do the job? Shouldn't my experience alone be enough to prove that I am capable of doing the job?

For what its worth, this is not that specific of an example, and I would wager that most really good programmers were not "taught" how to do it. It really is an innate skill....also known as "Problem Solver."

 

[James_Dean]

I'm happy about getting my bachelors degree from a state university. I cherish(and use daily) my PhD from the school of hard knocks.

 

[denverpilot]

It's taught by a guy with many years' experience working for AMD and Sun Microsystems.

...

There are numerous other examples - Another good one would be the Senior Design Lab ("Capstone Project") course that I took and was taught by the Chief Engineer from GE Medical.

It doesn't worry you that two highly skilled people in your field of study are apparently more motivated to teach at a college than to make their living doing what they were trained to do? Or that they can't find work as good as they are at it?

AMD & Sun, run into the ground and not going to make a comeback, but the guy couldn't find a job with a competitor? And GE Medical is still around, so why's the "Chief Engineer" out teaching college classes?

I'm guessing the first was downsized and hiding out in academia until retirement. The second, maybe he took an "early out" package?

You'd think with all the rhetoric about how badly the U.S. needs technical, scientific, and math students to "compete with the world" that these folk would be in high demand in their fields and not have time to be teaching college courses.

Could be a very bad sign of the state of working conditions or pay or... something... if GE's Chief Engineer is teaching at your school instead of doing hid "passion" which we'll assume is Engineering, for a living.

Being a "learning addict" myself, studying under those guys would be grand, but the fact that they're not being kept busy or motivated enough to stay in their Enginnering jobs is troublesome unless they're moonlighting. And even then, considering they're working for companies who pay their execs millions each year, might say something about their compensation for all that hard work and knowledge if they're moonlighting.

(From my perspective, techies are still pretty much *considered* to be dime a dozen because managers have no idea how to objectively measure technical skill at most companies, so they manage as if massive tech failures -- badly organized and risk-managed upgrades, no control over vendors because the techies aren't consulted about true requirements documentation, and other mass tech "disasters" -- are commonplace. There's absolutely no reason they should be. At all. But companies rarely will pay for the true level of service they desire from their computer systems nor assess them correctly until AFTER they fail. Or as I like to joke, "If I had a nickel for every time I personally typed the right commands into a system that brings $3 million in revenue a year into the company running it...".)

And I'm not saying that to brag. Any techie who's survived the tech support BS (ticket systems, managers who have never done the job acting like they know what it's like to be on call 24/7 and know how to logically troubleshoot at 2AM, endless meetings about fixing things that could have been fixed in 5 minutes with a shell script if only they weren't scared of the tech and needed a month of reassurances that it is the right fix) has felt underpaid and under appreciated as they yawned and went back to sleep at 3AM after averting a $200K-$300K business loss the next morning, when they're finally old and savvy enough to read the company 10K report online at EDGAR each quarter and watch the SEC filings of the execs above them reaping the benefits of their triage that wouldn't have been necessary if the system were only designed right in the first place...

After a while, teaching or just hanging out the "consulting" shingle looks a hell of a lot better than continuing to make them millions on their stock options every year.

Basically my motivation to remain in the tech workforce is that they pay me just barely enough to be a 1/3 owner in an aircraft LLC. I couldn't do that if I had kids, even. That's nothing to sneeze at and I'm grateful for it, but there are days that the brain damage is so high you wonder if you're in an alternate reality. Example: This week the new head of HR sent out an employee survey with questions in it like, "Do you trust executive management?" Seriously. I've met one exec the week he was hired as part of the massive coup going on in our executive levels and the rest have never even been to our offices. They packed 50 of us in a room built for 25 and he introduced himself, said he was a native of our State and that he was packing up and moving his family to California to Corporate HQ. That's everything I know about the man. Do I trust him? How would I know?

Think that's where these two instructors are at? Totally wanting to get the hell away from retarded stuff like that? Might be worth meeting them for a beer and finding out.

The reason I ask... One of my best computing instructors in college before I dropped out was on the ANSI C programming language specifications team. He's brilliant. He bailed out of his corporate job to teach at a relatively "no prestige" college because he knew he'd be a tenured Department head in 3 years. And he was. He makes a pittance compared to what he once made in tech, and now controls hid own life again. And is a great guy to have a beer with and talk anything other than tech with. His view of tech is that it's a great field to send some hard-charging smart kids off to "do battle" in nowadays until they're chewed up and spit out by it.

He's no longer interested in his own chosen field other than as a mechanism to use his knowledge to have a "cushy" Department head job at the college. I daresay if he hadn't gone into teaching tech, he probably wouldn't recommend it as a job to anyone.

I do know this. We won't retain these incredible people in our businesses by offering them silly employee surveys about whether or not they "trust" executives who are milking $1M a quarter in value out of the company via stock options and who are replaced by the next batch every time the company gets purchased by another bigger company. Most engineers and techs are lucky to make $10K on their "equity" in the sale transaction, and only the most senior even have any equity at most U.S. companies. Working for a start-up is no better. All the execs have to do to "un-dilute" their shares is to have a massive round of layoffs about a year before they sell the company. Been there done that, too. My "Founders Shares" were wiped out by that game and the founders walked away with $3 million a year or so later after the 50 or so "Founders" were let go after building something valuable for them.

Jaded? Hell yes. Happy to be working and still have a "good job" in this economy? Even more so. Looking for opportunities to start my own thing if the economy ever recovers from the Boomer's greed-fest? Yup. Planning on stealing smart folk and offering them a true piece of the equity? Absolutely.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

What value am I going to get from that degree? Obviously, I'm not going to learn how to write software, I already do that.

Probably the most valuable thing you'd get would be Software Engineering class, where they teach you how to best work as a small cog in a big wheel and to make well-designed software. Right now you can program - But there's a big difference between developing and maintaining the entire piece of software by yourself, and being a part of a company that's doing much more complex software.

Advanced math? Perhaps, but I already know what I need to write software.

I think most of the math requirements for CS are things that will help you to understand the workings of the hardware in such a manner than you can write the fastest possible software. Can be useful - But probably not very much so if you're writing some sort of consumer-oriented PC software.

English? What part of "i++;" is covered there?

"Dear investor, here is why you should give me a big pile of money so that I can sit and write i++ on my computer."

The better you can write, the better chances you have of getting proposals accepted, whether you're a business owner looking for capital or an employee of a large corporation trying to get them to allow you to work on project x and/or get the project moving towards a certain goal that you believe in.

Good English is a major part of the difference between being a line programmer and the project lead.

Why should I be required to go to school, pay $40,000 (or more), just to prove to someone that I can do the job? Shouldn't my experience alone be enough to prove that I am capable of doing the job?

In some cases, yes. But given two people with the same experience, the one without the degree is gonna lose.

And, BTW, you'll get no argument from me about how ridiculously high tuition has gotten. Since I started (18 years ago! ) tuition has increased 239%. Even after correcting for inflation, there's been a 123% increase!

For what its worth, this is not that specific of an example, and I would wager that most really good programmers were not "taught" how to do it. It really is an innate skill....also known as "Problem Solver."

To a point, yes - I don't remember having the ability to do such things when I was younger though, but that might be a basic human development thing. I will say that the higher-level Comp Sci classes I took definitely helped me to hone that problem-solving ability (and showed me how much I enjoy it too) by giving me very complex tasks to tackle with no specific direction. But, having an assignments where you turn in 80 pages of code, having written every stinkin' line yourself, will do that to you. (Or convince you that you don't have what it takes! )

 

[flyingcheesehead]

It doesn't worry you that two highly skilled people in your field of study are apparently more motivated to teach at a college than to make their living doing what they were trained to do? Or that they can't find work as good as they are at it?

Holy crap dude! Major overreaction!

AMD & Sun, run into the ground and not going to make a comeback, but the guy couldn't find a job with a competitor?

Who says he couldn't find a job? Maybe he decided that he was more interested in research than in corporate work? Maybe he wanted to teach? Seriously, where do you get off saying that if someone teaches, they can't find a job doing what they're teaching?

Maybe he wanted to be in a union?

And GE Medical is still around, so why's the "Chief Engineer" out teaching college classes?

Because he likes to teach, and he's really damn good at it, and maybe as the Chief Engineer the quality of the applicants he sees isn't as good as he wants it so he's doing his part to make sure the next generation of engineers are better educated? Hell, maybe he just wants to make even more money so that he can retire early? Maybe he has the extra job to support his flying habit? I doubt the money motivation though, he's an excellent instructor (those motivated by money usually aren't) and he has 14 patents with 5 more pending so I think he's probably got plenty.

I'm guessing the first was downsized and hiding out in academia until retirement. The second, maybe he took an "early out" package?

No, the first isn't all that close to retirement - I'm guessing he's mid-40's or so. The second, he's still the chief! Senior Design is a twice-weekly night class, he's still at GE during the day.

You'd think with all the rhetoric about how badly the U.S. needs technical, scientific, and math students to "compete with the world" that these folk would be in high demand in their fields and not have time to be teaching college courses.

Bah. Nobody's going to stick with an 80-hour work week at their job - And if the US needs that many people in technical fields, that means somebody's gotta teach them!

Could be a very bad sign of the state of working conditions or pay or... something... if GE's Chief Engineer is teaching at your school instead of doing hid "passion" which we'll assume is Engineering, for a living.

Maybe he likes his job, and likes working in the real world, and enjoys teaching too? Come on dude, there are airline pilots who still flight instruct on the side for the hell of it, and there always have been, even when working conditions and pay were awesome. This is the exact same thing.

And y'know... I really want to be a flight instructor - Moreso than a professional pilot. I enjoy the hell out of flying and I want to share the joy with others, and I think I can do better than a lot of the people out there.

I also spent several years as a truck driving instructor. I enjoyed the hell out of that - And I did it because I knew I could be one of the best instructors in the industry, and because it was REALLY rewarding helping people.

 

[denverpilot]

Maybe things are different at GE, but the Chief Engineers I know are traveling the world managing huge engineering projects on multiple continents. Trying to imagine even a senior engineer (and by senior I mean really senior, not just the title given to a staff engineer after ten years or so to get them into a higher pay scale) for Apple, Motorola, Qualcomm, Ericsson, etc... having time to teach college courses just doesn't even compute in my world. One friend who was chosen to go to "charm school" for a multi-national engineering firm As prep for a possible future run at a VP position, and who's responsible for large chunks of the U.S. Division he works for (and who doesn't even have a "Chief" title yet) is on airliners to China, Panama, Sweden, Dallas, Washington D.C. and other cities in the U.S. every week.

So my experience hasn't ever seen a "Chief" who had time to spend teaching. Perhaps he's gotten a special deal at GE. Don't know.

As an aside, having patents doesn't equate to having money at all anymore. The day you sign on at any typical tech company, you sign away the rights to any idea you have while working for the company, especially patents. I even had to contact my company's legal department and get a special waiver to work on software for a ham radio project that included VoIP tech and conferencing that was open-source because it was a little too "close to home" to what our company does for money. Had to prove it wasn't "competition" to our corporation. Some companies even have patent quotas. (Rumor I've heard is that IBM has them in certain engineering departments.)

Some companies reward patent holders with a bonus or stock options but almost never any guarantees of a percentage of the net revenue from the idea. We have piles of patent holders at my employer who maybe have a few thousand stock options for the effort.

Also signed a non-compete contract when I signed on, but those are almost always not defendable in right-to-work States and I've yet to see the company go after someone who left for a competitor since it's a loser lawsuit for both sides. But it's on file somewhere. If they haven't lost it in all the mergers.

So I "get off" making my assumptions from watching people in engineering roles in my employers over the last 19 years. (Maybe only paying attention for 17, since I had no idea I'd stay in this industry at all the first two years.) I saw "Chief Engineer" and a multi-national company name and my brain immediately said, "Does not compute." when you said the person had enough at-home tine to teach college courses.

More power to him, and more importantly to you, if it gives you the opportunity to study under him. Try to imagine Kelly Johnson having time to teach college classes while he was running the Lockheed Skunkworks perhaps, to see where I was coming from.

No insult was meant by stating theories about why they're available to you. I never intended to insult anyone other than typical tech company execs who blow in and blow out of companies I've worked for over the years with giant golden parachutes every time, and all their buddies on the Boards of Directors acting like they're governing on each other's Boards. The folks who make millions without much risk on the backs of those engineers you're learning from.

More corporate wackiness: My title to customers is "Enterprise Service Engineer" for Marketing purposes. I do not have an Engineering degree. My internal title in the HR records is not allowed to say the word Engineer due to that fact. I have no problem with my real title, but I chafed for a while at having to sign my business e-mail with the Engineer title. Then I realized that none of our "real" Engineers cared, because they wouldn't want to work in Customer Support ever, and most respect what we do to "shield" them from the goofy customer problem like, "Did you check that the cables are plugged in?"

So the only remaining question is: Which one should go on my resume'? I have business cards with both. Ha! Goofy tech industry. Titles mean virtually nothing.

Speaking of that, do you plan to sit for the P.E. Boards after your EE degree? Civil Engineers as a rule generally always do, EE's sometimes, Software "Engineers" almost never. We could have a long discussion over a beer about my theory that Software is far more dangerous to people's lives today than buildings and bridges falling down (example: Flash Crash) but the industry has almost zero professional licensure, professional liability, regulated "building codes" or other regulation, etc.

In my personal specialty, telecom, Bellcore used to set real standards prior to the Bell breakup in the U.S. but now dropped calls are so commonplace no one even cares anymore unless it's 911 that's blocking. Words like "must" have all been replaced with "should" in ITU and IETF "standards" and their teeth are completely gone. Comparing a Cold War era AT&T site to a modern one is like comparing Chevy to Tonka. But international "long distance" calls are pennies now vs $4/minute. So good or bad? Or just the same trade-offs as buying cheap stuff made in China from WalMart?

Some pieces badly need some real "Engineering discipline" and other areas still have 14-year-olds in basements hack together something on a Linux box and completely disrupt the industry. It's an awkward time for the software industry. It'll take a big software disaster to force more discipline into the typical "Software Engineer"'s world. Avionics is one area that's quite disciplined, comparatively. Meanwhile one bad Cisco or Juniper software release can still take out large swaths of the global IP network.

But the Engineers who release the good or bad stuff sleep though it while I back out their patches at 3 AM which is the way of the software support world.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Speaking of that, do you plan to sit for the P.E. Boards after your EE degree? Civil Engineers as a rule generally always do, EE's sometimes, Software "Engineers" almost never.

Doubtful. I suppose there's a chance I could do the FE/EIT so as to have a "score" for potential employers that might look better than my GPA but I don't think either is generally looked for in EE.

Also, to get the PE you have to have 5 years of engineering experience, which I believe has to be under a PE. Since there aren't a whole lot of EE's who bother with the PE, that's a pretty unlikely scenario.

We could have a long discussion over a beer about my theory that Software is far more dangerous to people's lives today than buildings and bridges falling down (example: Flash Crash)

No doubt. Airplanes are full of software...

 

[AuntPeggy]

Ok. I disagree with you, but I think we're going around in circles.

Lets go for a specific example, and tell me where the value of school lies:

I can program circles around a lot of people. If I can't do something, I can figure out how to do something with a computer. I have already written software that people want to use, and I understand what they want. That's the backstory (and one I'll stick to ).

I want to get a job as a software developer. Manager says "Nope, you need a degree!" So I go get a degree. What value am I going to get from that degree? Obviously, I'm not going to learn how to write software, I already do that. Advanced math? Perhaps, but I already know what I need to write software. English? What part of "i++;" is covered there? Social sciences? Perhaps, but remember, I'm already writing software that people use, so I already have a grasp on it.

Why should I be required to go to school, pay $40,000 (or more), just to prove to someone that I can do the job? Shouldn't my experience alone be enough to prove that I am capable of doing the job?

For what its worth, this is not that specific of an example, and I would wager that most really good programmers were not "taught" how to do it. It really is an innate skill....also known as "Problem Solver."

This is a really good example, Nick.

>>I can program circles around a lot of people.
I can remember awhile back when you were asking some pretty elementary questions on this board. You got answers from some people who did get a university education.

>>If I can't do something, I can figure out how to do something with a computer.
Good. You have great native ability. There are, however, people who don't have your native ability. Would you tell them to just forget about making it? Or, is it only about you?

>>I have already written software that people want to use, and I understand what they want.
So have I. So has Bill Gates. So???

>>I want to get a job as a software developer. Manager says "Nope, you need a degree!"
Many programming jobs require "college degree or equivalent experience." Those are the places you should be applying to.

>>Obviously, I'm not going to learn how to write software, I already do that.
Actually, that is exactly what you are going to learn. Rachel Ray is a cook and knows it. Julia Child was a chef. The difference is not immediately obvious, especially to the cook, but it shows in the sauce.
I take it back. This is true only if you go to a school that really cares to teach you to write well. I spend lots of time teaching good programmers how to write good programs.

>>Advanced math?
Beyond learning how to look at a problem and working your mind around logic, math doesn't help much. You're never going to work on a space mission or high finance. So skip it. On the other hand, you'd be surprised how much advanced math there is in the business course. And how useful it is in business.

>>English? What part of "i++;" is covered there?
If only I didn't have to spend so much of my time teaching good software engineers how to communicate!!! Why is it that their instructions are unreadable? And boring!!! Please. I have a brilliant colleague who cannot write a simple sentence with a single thought. Each sentence wanders from topic to topic in an endless stream of consciousness that only she can decipher. Others excel in three word sentences that convey as much information as a teaspoon.

>>Social sciences?
This from someone so interested in politics?

>>Why should I be required to go to school, pay $40,000 (or more), just to prove to someone that I can do the job? Shouldn't my experience alone be enough to prove that I am capable of doing the job?
I suppose if the job requires someone with no interest outside their own small circle, who doesn't want to interact meaningfully with those around them in an educated manner, then you have all the qualifications needed without going to school. Good luck. Have a good life.

Now, to my example. I was in a series of dead-end jobs until going to school.
I taught myself Basic one afternoon, which was the first language I used in a commercial product. However, I had already learned Fortran and Cobol in school, which made picking up Basic pretty easy. I've never used Fortran or Cobol in business. I taught myself Forth and wrote and sold a product in it at the same time I was learning Pascal in school. Never used Pascal commercially. Taught myself Assembler, C, C++, Java, and every other useful language I have ever learned. School taught me Lisp and tried to teach me Ada. OK, they taught me communications protocols and I used that at Prodigy.

In school, I learned to write, and organize, and think, and manage my time.

And the degree moved me from dead-end jobs to ones with potential and a future.

 

[wsuffa]

And GE Medical is still around, so why's the "Chief Engineer" out teaching college classes?

I'm guessing the first was downsized and hiding out in academia until retirement. The second, maybe he took an "early out" package?

Could be a very bad sign of the state of working conditions or pay or... something... if GE's Chief Engineer is teaching at your school instead of doing hid "passion" which we'll assume is Engineering, for a living.

That's not a bad sign at all. Frankly, I'm glad he's teaching and giving something back. You couldn't be more wrong in your assumption.

In many large companies employees and executives are encouraged to "give back" through mentoring, teaching, etc. both internally and externally. And most schools are thrilled to have such distinguished folks as part of the faculty (even if they're adjucts).

Personally, I do mentoring for students in my MBA alma-mater, I have been an invited instructor to entrepreneur and business classes at a couple of local schools, and I regularly judge case competitions at local MBA programs. I love doing those things because 1) I'm giving something back to the schools, 2) it feels great to see the students gaining knowledge from folks (like me) in the business world, and 3) *I* always learn something from the students. #3 is particularly true with "working" MBA programs such as executive and part-time programs where we can have an exchange of ideas (it's also true with regular MBA programs where I can gain insight to current management theories & how those theories are being applied).

I'm betting that Chief Engineer is getting a whole lot out of teaching in the program - from learning about cutting-edge research to identifying potential future employees. And the students get a whole lot out of it, too.

By the way, I *do* have an Engineering degree in addition to the MBA, and I maintain my PE license. I'm currently working in a large multinational where this kind of outside teaching (and volunteer work) is encouraged.

 

[denverpilot]

This is a really good example, Nick.

>>I can program circles around a lot of people.
I can remember awhile back when you were asking some pretty elementary questions on this board. You got answers from some people who did get a university education.

And no one can prove they learned any of that skill at the University. In fact, if it's a modern programming question, in a language created after they left college, the likelihood they did is about zero. Programming changes too fast.

>>If I can't do something, I can figure out how to do something with a computer.
Good. You have great native ability. There are, however, people who don't have your native ability. Would you tell them to just forget about making it? Or, is it only about you?

That's completely unfair to Nick, and seems to be your bias showing. He never said that other folks couldn't go to college, he was lamenting that he can prove an objective skillset higher than those who paid the money for it.

>>I want to get a job as a software developer. Manager says "Nope, you need a degree!"
Many programming jobs require "college degree or equivalent experience." Those are the places you should be applying to.

Yup. Or places like I've seen that just give a real-world programming test to potential applicants.

Nick's point is that you might not make it to the interview at all if the HR department didn't get the "degree required" checkbox for your Resume'. So you play the game, if you must. But companies are often missing out on some really incredible employees if they do that. You can always find employers who aren't that stupid out there, though... harder in a down economy, but not any harder than in a good one.

Educational Elitism vs. Skill. Age-old problem. And I predict it'll get worse as liability for software products goes higher. As it stands today, in certain jobs that don't require any kind of Software Engineering discipline, a degree, or any not-yet-created objective measure of coding skill -- I could write code that could ruin your life, and I'd never have anything worse than losing a job happen to me... jail time will change that for someone, someday.

>>Obviously, I'm not going to learn how to write software, I already do that.
Actually, that is exactly what you are going to learn. Rachel Ray is a cook and knows it. Julia Child was a chef. The difference is not immediately obvious, especially to the cook, but it shows in the sauce.
I take it back. This is true only if you go to a school that really cares to teach you to write well. I spend lots of time teaching good programmers how to write good programs.

And a whole lot of people will pay to eat Rachel's food over Julia's.

(I'd eat both, but since you're just being contrarian to Nick to be contrarian, I feel compelled to help out my fellow "non-degree holding-dolt". LOL!)

In fact, Julia's use of butter might have singlehandedly killed a generation of people with heart disease. ROFL!

>>Advanced math?
Beyond learning how to look at a problem and working your mind around logic, math doesn't help much. You're never going to work on a space mission or high finance. So skip it. On the other hand, you'd be surprised how much advanced math there is in the business course. And how useful it is in business.

Statistics has been the math course that has been the most interesting in my life, since it shows exactly how you're being lied to by most of the media and other people pushing agendas.

Algebra and the Rule of 72 (so a tiny bit of calc) have otherwise made me the most money and made the second largest difference in my life.

>>English? What part of "i++;" is covered there?
If only I didn't have to spend so much of my time teaching good software engineers how to communicate!!! Why is it that their instructions are unreadable? And boring!!! Please. I have a brilliant colleague who cannot write a simple sentence with a single thought. Each sentence wanders from topic to topic in an endless stream of consciousness that only she can decipher. Others excel in three word sentences that convey as much information as a teaspoon.

THANK YOU for noting this. Much of my job (even though it's not on the job description ANYWHERE) is translating "engineer-speak" to "human-speak". Seriously.

Software Engineers... as a stereotype, badly need to learn how to write in English and maybe other languages these days! Since most of these folks went through University and did NOT learn how to write, it completely blows your argument about the need for a "well-rounded" University Education.

(Might leave this one out the next time you're debating this topic, since it makes very many "educated" Engineers look like complete uneducated morons. If it weren't for spell-check, they'd look even dumber. And their University let them down. Big time.)

>>Social sciences?
This from someone so interested in politics?

Me too, but it hasn't ever paid the bills.

>>Why should I be required to go to school, pay $40,000 (or more), just to prove to someone that I can do the job? Shouldn't my experience alone be enough to prove that I am capable of doing the job?
I suppose if the job requires someone with no interest outside their own small circle, who doesn't want to interact meaningfully with those around them in an educated manner, then you have all the qualifications needed without going to school. Good luck. Have a good life.

Oh now this is just horse-pucky. Are you really saying that someone without a degree can't "interact meaningfully with those around them in an educated manner"? That's ultra-discrimination, not just elitism there!

Now, to my example. I was in a series of dead-end jobs until going to school.
I taught myself Basic one afternoon, which was the first language I used in a commercial product. However, I had already learned Fortran and Cobol in school, which made picking up Basic pretty easy. I've never used Fortran or Cobol in business. I taught myself Forth and wrote and sold a product in it at the same time I was learning Pascal in school. Never used Pascal commercially. Taught myself Assembler, C, C++, Java, and every other useful language I have ever learned. School taught me Lisp and tried to teach me Ada. OK, they taught me communications protocols and I used that at Prodigy.

So you claim you're mostly self-taught...

In school, I learned to write, and organize, and think, and manage my time.

...and then give the example of something that most folks can learn that without paying $40K for the privilege...

And the degree moved me from dead-end jobs to ones with potential and a future.

I think you just made Nick's point for him...

The degree is "required" but it's not an objective measure of anything useful in the software programming field.

I can give you an interview question that'll tell you in 5 minutes if a programmer can really program in C ... and it won't matter if they have a degree or not.

"Your employer bought a really cheap compiler and it doesn't include a string copy function. Write one."

If it takes more than three lines of code, doesn't use pointers, or takes more than 5 minutes with a pen at a whiteboard, or has a syntax error in what they wrote (many programmers can't write code on a whiteboard without leaning on the compiler as a syntax-checker crutch) don't hire them.

Bonus points if they can show three ways to do it.

And that's just question #1...

 

[SkyHog]

This is a really good example, Nick.

>>I can program circles around a lot of people.
I can remember awhile back when you were asking some pretty elementary questions on this board. You got answers from some people who did get a university education.

You'll note that those really basic questions were about a language that I was learning at the time, not one that I already knew. Also note that I reached out to the internet to find a solution, not my teacher and not my classmates. I think there's a problem there.

>>If I can't do something, I can figure out how to do something with a computer.
Good. You have great native ability. There are, however, people who don't have your native ability. Would you tell them to just forget about making it? Or, is it only about you?

I don't understand the question. It might have been more clear without the personal stab at me. If you're implying that I was representing my own situation and no one else's, then you're wrong. Also, for those without the native ability, I would indeed tell them to forget about making it. They will never be good at what they do, they will only be competent.

>>I have already written software that people want to use, and I understand what they want.
So have I. So has Bill Gates. So???

So that proves that I don't need a degree to help me write software that's used. FYI, Bill Gates didn't have a degree until 2007, and even then, it was an honorary degree.

>>I want to get a job as a software developer. Manager says "Nope, you need a degree!"
Many programming jobs require "college degree or equivalent experience." Those are the places you should be applying to.

Yes. And those jobs also still filter applicants based upon degree first usually, so the "or equivalent" only comes into play when there are no decent candidates with a degree (which happens....which proves my case, because the degree should make them better than me, right?).

>>Obviously, I'm not going to learn how to write software, I already do that.
Actually, that is exactly what you are going to learn. Rachel Ray is a cook and knows it. Julia Child was a chef. The difference is not immediately obvious, especially to the cook, but it shows in the sauce.
I take it back. This is true only if you go to a school that really cares to teach you to write well. I spend lots of time teaching good programmers how to write good programs.

You know how many times I've helped employees that have degrees write software that's usable? Enough to realize that the degree doesn't prove squat.

>>Advanced math?
Beyond learning how to look at a problem and working your mind around logic, math doesn't help much. You're never going to work on a space mission or high finance. So skip it. On the other hand, you'd be surprised how much advanced math there is in the business course. And how useful it is in business.

Can't skip it. Its a minimum requirement for most CS degrees. Calc I, Calc II, Trig, Linear Equations, Advanced Algorithms, etc. When was the last time you (or anyone you work with) actually used anything other than Advanced Algorithms in your code? Hell, most languages contain built in functions to handle advanced math anyway now.

>>English? What part of "i++;" is covered there?
If only I didn't have to spend so much of my time teaching good software engineers how to communicate!!! Why is it that their instructions are unreadable? And boring!!! Please. I have a brilliant colleague who cannot write a simple sentence with a single thought. Each sentence wanders from topic to topic in an endless stream of consciousness that only she can decipher. Others excel in three word sentences that convey as much information as a teaspoon.

Because they have degrees, so they did things the "school" way. I happen to write very well, and I have helped a lot of people in person and on PoA with correct solutions to their English issues. I've been doing that since High School. How? Because I take pride in learning about our language. College doesn't teach that.

>>Social sciences?
This from someone so interested in politics?

I admitted the value of Social Sciences in my post (and you cut that out of your response). But tell me what politics has to do with writing a financial app?

>>Why should I be required to go to school, pay $40,000 (or more), just to prove to someone that I can do the job? Shouldn't my experience alone be enough to prove that I am capable of doing the job?
I suppose if the job requires someone with no interest outside their own small circle, who doesn't want to interact meaningfully with those around them in an educated manner, then you have all the qualifications needed without going to school. Good luck. Have a good life.

That is just dumb. And pompous. And exactly the kind of attitude that hiring managers have. You should note, by the way, that I am VERY successful in my professional life at the moment, and I do not have a degree yet. I didn't get to where I am at by interacting in an uneducated manner. I got to where I am at because I care about learning what I do, and don't care if some arbitrary organization sponsors me by giving me a piece of paper that says I paid their salaries for a few years.

Now, to my example. I was in a series of dead-end jobs until going to school.
I taught myself Basic one afternoon, which was the first language I used in a commercial product. However, I had already learned Fortran and Cobol in school, which made picking up Basic pretty easy. I've never used Fortran or Cobol in business. I taught myself Forth and wrote and sold a product in it at the same time I was learning Pascal in school. Never used Pascal commercially. Taught myself Assembler, C, C++, Java, and every other useful language I have ever learned. School taught me Lisp and tried to teach me Ada. OK, they taught me communications protocols and I used that at Prodigy.

So school failed, and you taught yourself. You're proving my point.

In school, I learned to write, and organize, and think, and manage my time.

In college? I'd say that means either your primary education failed, or you were lazy before college if that's true.

And the degree moved me from dead-end jobs to ones with potential and a future.

I'll remember that when I check out of the Ritz Carlton, leave this business trip in Amelia Island where I am meeting with CMOs from all over the country (including AT&T, Qwest, Oppenheimer Funds, Pfizer, and a number of other failing and unsuccessful companies), dealing directly with representatives from a regulatory agency, and return to my office in North Carolina where I manage contracts we have in place with vendors that are known for being the best in their industry. Oh, then, when I cash my measly paycheck that allows my wife and I to live very comfortably, I'll make sure to note that my dead-end job will only be fixed once I finish throwing money at a college program that only exists for the day when I decide to move on to the next company, which may or may not overvalue that education.

Edit: by the way - college didn't teach you how to use the quote button. Is that something only us uneducated wretches use to communicate in an unsophisticated manner?

Edit 2: I don't usually reference my success publicly, because its no one's business except my own, but when I'm personally referred to as "uneducated" and "unsuccessful," I'll explain the reality.

 

[Gary F]

As it stands today, in certain jobs that don't require any kind of Software Engineering discipline, a degree, or any not-yet-created objective measure of coding skill -- I could write code that could ruin your life, and I'd never have anything worse than losing a job happen to me... jail time will change that for someone, someday.

Here is an example of how bad programming can screw up somebody's life, the Therac-25 fiasco.

A commission has concluded [1] that the primary reason should be attributed to the bad software design and development practices, and not explicitly to several coding errors that were found. In particular, the software was designed so that it was realistically impossible to test it in a clean automated way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25

 

[wsuffa]

Here is an example of how bad programming can screw up somebody's life, the Therac-25 fiasco.

A commission has concluded [1] that the primary reason should be attributed to the bad software design and development practices, and not explicitly to several coding errors that were found. In particular, the software was designed so that it was realistically impossible to test it in a clean automated way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25

And here's an example of how bad project management screwed up LOTS of lives (including us pilots....)

Link to article

One participant says, "It may have been the greatest failure in the history of organized work."

Certainly the Federal Aviation Administration's Advanced Automation System (AAS) project dwarfs even the largest corporate information technology fiascoes in terms of dollars wasted.

 

[AuntPeggy]

Here is an example of how bad programming can screw up somebody's life, the Therac-25 fiasco.

A commission has concluded [1] that the primary reason should be attributed to the bad software design and development practices, and not explicitly to several coding errors that were found. In particular, the software was designed so that it was realistically impossible to test it in a clean automated way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25

Yes. That's the horror that haunts my workday. Not that it happened here, but that it has happened somewhere. It's why I don't moan about "annoying FDA rules."

 

[SkyHog]

Yes. That's the horror that haunts my workday. Not that it happened here, but that it has happened somewhere. It's why I don't moan about "annoying FDA rules."

Note that every person involved in the Therac-25 system had a degree.

 

[Gary F]

Note that every person involved in the Therac-25 system had a degree.

I did not imply anything about the qualifications or training of the software engineers in this disaster, only that poorly written software can have devastating consequences. I have a bachelors degree in EE and many years ago I did a fair amount of programming in FORTRAN and various assembly languages. I had a few programming courses but was mostly self taught. I have a good friend who has a degree in mining engineering who has worked as a programmer for about 20 years and is very skilled. My bias is that a formal training in CS could be very valuable depending on the curriculum and quality of instruction.

 

[AuntPeggy]

Note that every person involved in the Therac-25 system had a degree.

I did not know that.

 

[tonycondon]

Note that every person involved in the Therac-25 system had a degree.

of course they did, they had to have to get hired!

 

[SkyHog]

I did not know that.

Its a strawman (admittedly), and doesn't matter, because the degree was not germane to their successes or failures, but its an important distinction to make when discussing the merits and qualifications of a development team.

Personally, I think the exact same problem could have happened with a group of PHDs or a group of High School drop outs. The failure was in the management of the development, IMHO, not with the developers themselves.

 

[SkyHog]

of course they did, they had to have to get hired!

LOL! Indeed.

 

[Bob Noel]

The failure was in the management of the development, IMHO, not with the developers themselves.

I disagree. In a safety culture, management isn't the only function that has responsibility for the overall safety of the system developed. When developing code for a safety-critical application you don't want code slingers that don't consider the safety implications of what they are coding.

 

[SkyHog]

I disagree. In a safety culture, management isn't the only function that has responsibility for the overall safety of the system developed. When developing code for a safety-critical application you don't want code slingers that don't consider the safety implications of what they are coding.

While I agree, there should be a project manager in charge of the development, and that project manager should be the one that is coordinating tests and audits of the code. I don't think its realistic to expect a developer to catch all possible mistakes in his own code, and coordinate an external audit of his code before rolling live. When you're that close to the development, you tend to miss bugs. That's why its important to have someone else do QA for you.

 

[AuntPeggy]

Its a strawman (admittedly), and doesn't matter, because the degree was not germane to their successes or failures, but its an important distinction to make when discussing the merits and qualifications of a development team.

Personally, I think the exact same problem could have happened with a group of PHDs or a group of High School drop outs. The failure was in the management of the development, IMHO, not with the developers themselves.

(my emphasis added)
No, the failure was in the management of testing. The product worked as specified.

 

[dmccormack]

Wow..talk about thread creep...

Anyway, My ,02 follows:

"Natural born code writers" are on the fringes, and rapidly being replaced by more manageable, preidctable systems approach to things. Given the complexity and cirticality of software systems, this is a Very Good Thing.

Still, there will continue to be employment opportunities, the same way painters who paint with brushes, mechanics who eschew computers, and dentists who own thier own practice will continue to be employed contra the trend.

Regarding "education," if you really don't think a degree is worth much, then go knock it out -- it should be easy. I did a BA with two minors in 2 years, using CLEP to earn 2 years worth of credits. (I rode my Suzuki 3 1/2 hours in the rain to Griffiss AFB, took 6 tests in 90 minutes, then rode back).

Houghton College presented me with a degree, but more important, there I learned how to read, how to reason, how to write, and how to speak. I was also exposed to worlds beyond the insular cavity we each prefer to inhabit.

 

[Maxmosbey]

I kind of disagree with Nick on the value of going to college, but I can relate to him as well. Without going into boring details, I will just say that I speak Spanish like a Mexican. Like a Puebla Mexican to be even more specific. I have never taken a class in Spanish. Because I am a white Midwesterner, as far from a Latino as one could get, I have a hard time convincing some people that I speak Spanish. It came up when I applied to be a probation officer. They noted on my resume that I said I spoke Spanish, but noted that it was not in my transcript that I had ever taken any Spanish classes. I said that I had never taken a Spanish class. Then they asked me how I spoke it then, and I had to say that I just do. Then they asked me how well I spoke it, and I told them that I didn't know, because I didn't know how to quantify it. That was not what they wanted to hear. It was interesting, because I got to thinking that in my circumstances, without it on a transcript anywhere, I had a hard time convincing anyone that I could. They did hire me however, but not before they talked to a couple of my references who told them that it was not an issue. So I see some of what Nick is talking about. That said, I've met a lot of people who speak Spanish very well who learned it in college. Just because I didn't, doesn't mean that the people who take Spanish in college are wasting their time. It is just another way to get there. Actually, I find that people who take it in college build a good foundation. I really don't have a foundation in the language that I can work off of. I'll probably never be any better, or any worse, than I am right now.

 

[dmccormack]

I kind of disagree with Nick on the value of going to college, but I can relate to him as well. Without going into boring details, I will just say that I speak Spanish like a Mexican. Like a Puebla Mexican to be even more specific. I have never taken a class in Spanish. Because I am a white Midwesterner, as far from a Latino as one could get, I have a hard time convincing some people that I speak Spanish. It came up when I applied to be a probation officer. They noted on my resume that I said I spoke Spanish, but noted that it was not in my transcript that I had ever taken any Spanish classes. I said that I had never taken a Spanish class. Then they asked me how I spoke it then, and I had to say that I just do. Then they asked me how well I spoke it, and I told them that I didn't know, because I didn't know how to quantify it. That was not what they wanted to hear. It was interesting, because I got to thinking that in my circumstances, without it on a transcript anywhere, I had a hard time convincing anyone that I could. They did hire me however, but not before they talked to a couple of my references who told them that it was not an issue. So I see some of what Nick is talking about. That said, I've met a lot of people who speak Spanish very well who learned it in college. Just because I didn't, doesn't mean that the people who take Spanish in college are wasting their time. It is just another way to get there. Actually, I find that people who take it in college build a good foundation. I really don't have a foundation in the language that I can work off of. I'll probably never be any better, or any worse, than I am right now.

Max -- same for me, but in French. I was forced to take it in High School and was bored to tears (imagine being 16 and having to repeat in English, "The pen is on the table....")



Anyway, DoD wouldn't recognize my second language because I didn't major in it or attend DLI I've also had to remove it from some applications when asked "Did you major or minor in French?"

I would like to answer, "No, I actually speak it, unlike those who majored or minored in it and can't speak a word..."

 

[SkyHog]

Regarding "education," if you really don't think a degree is worth much, then go knock it out -- it should be easy. I did a BA with two minors in 2 years, using CLEP to earn 2 years worth of credits. (I rode my Suzuki 3 1/2 hours in the rain to Griffiss AFB, took 6 tests in 90 minutes, then rode back).

Houghton College presented me with a degree, but more important, there I learned how to read, how to reason, how to write, and how to speak. I was also exposed to worlds beyond the insular cavity we each prefer to inhabit.

I've said many times that I am only a few credits shy of getting my CS degree in Software Engineering. There were some tough classes, yes, but they were useless classes. I also learned to read, reason, write and speak outside of college because I enjoy learning things. I learned French in high school, and continued to develop it afterward. I learned Esperanto just because I could (try finding a college class in that). I learned English because, as an American, I feel it is important to have a firm understanding of English.

Exposure to outside worlds? Being born in Germany, living in a number of other countries, and visiting many more probably did a better job than your college did. I understand not everyone has that option, but its there for those that do. If you never get the chance, its ok: American Businessmen do just fine without ever traveling outside the United States.

 

[dmccormack]

I think the learning how to "read" part must have not been emphasized in Houghton, because I've said many times that I am only a few credits shy of getting my CS degree in Software Engineering. There were tough classes, yes, but they were useless classes. I also learned to read, reason, write and speak outside of college because I enjoy learning things. I learned French in high school, and continued to develop it afterward. I learned Esperanto just because I could (try finding a college class in that). I learned English because, as an American, I feel it is important to have a firm understanding of English.

Exposure to outside worlds? Being born in Germany, living in a number of other countries, and visiting many more probably did a better job than your college did. I understand not everyone has that option, but its there for those that do. If you never get the chance, its ok: American Businessmen do just fine without ever traveling outside the United States.

For the majority of 17-19 year olds, college is / should be the first exposure to the Big Wide World.

Sadly, for many that only means beer and sleeping around.

While I agree schools should be able to assign credit to Life Experiences, most simply are unable to do that (Houghton had a policy of not accepting CLEP credits. They did recognize Community College of the Air Force credits. I was in the Air Guard then, so sent my CLEP results to the CCAF, then presented my transcript to the registrar, who replied, "I hope you don't pursue a life of crime...")

The Officer corps also requires a degree. Why? I think it establishes a few things about the Officer Candidate:

He/She is willing to commit to a long run effort
He/She is committed to self-improvment
He/She is willing to accept convention
He/She has been exposed to other thoughts and conflicting viewpoints.

 

[Maxmosbey]

Max -- same for me, but in French. I was forced to take it in High School and was bored to tears (imagine being 16 and having to repeat in English, "The pen is on the table....")



Anyway, DoD wouldn't recognize my second language because I didn't major in it or attend DLI I've also had to remove it from some applications when asked "Did you major or minor in French?"

I would like to answer, "No, I actually speak it, unlike those who majored or minored in it and can't speak a word..."

When I was a police officer I tried to get the department to pay for classes. They wouldn't do it. I used to work a lot of cases where I had to interpret, so I ended up testifying in court occasionally and the defense lawyers would really rake me over the coals on it. Besides, I would like to know more about the language itself. Syntax and sentence structures. Why do I say one thing like this, and another thing like that? I have a lot of questions. Maybe some day I will pony up and pay for it myself.

 

[denverpilot]

Hey, this article popped up yesterday about whether or not "Ivy League" educations are worth it anymore... and it's really wishy-washy about it, other than "It's not what you know, it's who you know."

Interesting article, and I thought you'd all enjoy it in the context of this discussion.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/41603641

Here's some of the highlights I would have liked to have seen them "flesh out" a bit more if it were a better "investigative" report...

- They give the median salary of a college graduate from an Ivy League school. They didn't give the same number for a typical State school. (Bad reporter, no donut, considering the title of the article.)

- They give a later-in-life number, and again, fail to offer up the median number for a State schooler or a no-schooler.

- The salary numbers weren't all that impressive to me. I bet a number of the folks here who own aircraft are making similar, or far better if they're owners of their own businesses (perhaps not in cash, but in equity), and I doubt too many of the folks here have an Ivy League education. (Only a few self-announced Doctorates here (hi Bruce and the Lawyer gang!), but pilots do tend to have an above average number of Doctors and laywers in our midst.

- The contacts... yes. Definitely. I'm not only convinced the contacts are the most useful part of a Harvard or Yale degree, but that there's often collusion amongst the "chosen" to keep the "top of the world" to themselves. They don't always succeed, of course... too much chaos.

- Another sideways thought while reading... it pointed out that these schools specialize not only in "education" but also in telling people that they're chosen and better than others. Seems like a disaster waiting to happen, but also garners results. Younger children told similar things in various psych studies do "better" in school and life. "Better" being in quotes because they may not really be HAPPY... but they'll at least be following the societal rules and not starving to death while they pop Zanex or other "happy pills" like candy.

No time to finish other thoughts, and these above aren't well thought-out at all... just fast first-impressions... gut-feel. Interesting article, thought I'd share.

 

[alaskaflyer]

How many Ivy League students are "set up" in the who-you-know side of things before they ever walk down the neatly manicured stone path to the recruitment office in their senior year at Georgetown Prep?

GWB (as just an example) may not have been POTUS without his Yale connections, but I'm fairly certain he wouldn't have ended up as middle management in a warehouse operation, retiring with a gold watch and a plaque before moving to Gulf Shores to enjoy his golden years and his 401K.

Just sayin'.