When you say, "start at the bottom", what do you mean?

a reply to: ketsuko

Ok let me tell you how my college experience went, since it doesn't sound like you guys want to actually be reasonable.

I started college, Colorado School of Mines in good old Golden Colorado 3.5 years ago. I came in with zero credits from a crappy public school in the suburbs of the Springs. Degree Computational and Applied Mathematics (minor Music Technology) so don't even start on "useful" degrees, trust me haha I am all about application of fine-tuned technical knowledge.

My easiest semester was 16 credits. My hardest semester? 23 credits. That is nearly double time, mind you, and guess how much I worked? 30-45 hours a week, that's 3-4 different jobs at once while I was doing advanced math classes to consume the time of what 2 normal people would have taken during school. All this and I had 3 family suicides while in college, and my family still made me pay for my own car, place to live, food, school bills, cell phone you name it.

You wanna take a gander at how I managed my money? I went through hell just to graduate a semester early so that I wouldn't have to pay that extra tuition money at the end. If you can't eat during college, or you can't pay for your own school bills then you simply aren't trying. I don't even care at that point what degree you are going for.

What I don't like is turning on ATS to a bunch of people who don't see the value in general knowledge seeking. So what if you want to get an art history major? Diversity in the knowledge pool is what keeps people like me interested in coding up songs using Matlab, or expressing an integral through a piano in my spare time.

And here's the kicker: Only 27 percent of college grads have a job related to their major. That's just more than a quarter of the people, and more than half of the 30 fastest growing occupations require some level of post-secondary education.

Guess how many people have a degree in STEM? About a third. Yet there are still people working those jobs and there are still people with art history degrees running around with some money because they find a job that just requires post high-school education.

The deal is this, you go to college and improve yourself. It may be a good bullet point to have high performance computing on your resume, or high-dimensional computational methods, large data manipulating tools, but in the end a large portion of people end up with without those on their resume and can still get by. You just gotta do what you do, be happy with it, and move on.

a reply to: onequestion

my daughters boyfriend just started as an electricians apprentice with zero experience! he's 21 and loves it!

a reply to: PhysicsAdept

And you can always find some who do, but there are far more who don't because they saddled themselves with a degree in art history or women's studies or something similar and then had to get a job outside their degree area that everyone else with a degree like theirs is also competing for.

In other words, the labor pool for such jobs is huge because all they require is a degree. Not necessarily any particular skill set you only have as a function of having earned your degree, so all the degree does is signal a certain amount of work ethic and studiousness which is why so many of those jobs also like you to have a year or three of relevant work experience to go along with the degree itself.

They also don't command as high of a salary to start because they have such a huge labor pool. Supply and demand.

And when this entire thread has been about the abysmal straights of entry level, the idea that you should only get a degree is it maximizes your initial earnings potential comes from that pool of advice.

a reply to: onequestion

While I was bartending, I went to college part time. I had a GED, and a love of computers.

I was programming.

A friend took notice, and saw that I showed promise. He got me an interview.

21 yrs later, I am still in the career that the interview got me.

Did a social connection help? Yes.

Was my skill and ability....and the fact that I was DOING what I'm good at rather than sitting around NOT doing it....a help? Yes.

It was what sealed the deal.

Let me recap...

H.S. dropout with a GED.
45 college credits with a 3.9GPA
- College courses geared towards something I love to do and that would translate into a viable career.
Self discipline, reliance, and moxie...


THIS is what got me to where I am today. Six figure income. A family that does not want.


So, whine away. Sorry. We all have a choice as to what we can focus our efforts into.

a reply to: nullafides

Kudos to you! Life is not easy, it does take effort! I shared my children's experiences earlier and not my own, since my efforts would be vanity of the past. You exemplified it. Don't cry foul, take the ball and run! If you can't understand the game...educate yourself and become a winner!
Edit add: vanity wins out...I was homeless living out of a back of pickup truck with one child, second child we moved up to 15 ft trailer with no running water or bathroom. I even was forced to homeschool my children due to circumstances out of my control. My children are making it in this world. I managed to move myself up in this world and expect my children to exceed me!

a reply to: nullafides

It's ok I know you can't see the bigger picture and I feel bad for you.

originally posted by: onequestion
a reply to: nullafides

It's ok I know you can't see the bigger picture and I feel bad for you.

Huh? WTF?

So...you're saying...God touched me, I'm special...and that's why I've "made it" ?


You my friend, are the deluded one. I don't think there's a sponge big enough for the pool of self pity that anyone accepting your viewpoint as "the truth" can dry up.

Even my wife just said, "it's the victim society".


Ciao.

a reply to: CynConcepts

You know...anytime I hear someone talking about a low paying job, or anything like that...I ask how they feel about computers. About programming.

Because guess what...there are hardly NO languages out there you cannot teach yourself with three things...

Any computer...

An internet connection...

And the desire.


College degree needed? No. Have the perseverance to do something about your lot in life, and f**ing DO IT

a reply to: CynConcepts

And BTW, thank you for your kudos

originally posted by: pl3bscheese
a reply to: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

So nowhere close to 4 billion.

Thanks.

I guess that depends on what you consider to be poverty,3 billion people making less than $2.50 a day is poverty in my opinion

a reply to: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

Those 3 billion losers need to get their # together and become
Computer programmers so they can begin programming the robot horde that replaces all the menial labor jobs and truck driving jobs over the next ten years that way the corporate oligarchy can really take over the mass of useless # eaters polluting my clean air.

originally posted by: onequestion
a reply to: nullafides

It's ok I know you can't see the bigger picture and I feel bad for you.

And btw, I just noticed your tagline.

"Obstacles cannot crush me; every obstacle yields to stern resolve." Leonardo Da Vinci


So, really. You feel the world is out to crush everyone. You feel the system is against everyone.

But, you have the above as your tagline?

Wow.

Even my eight year old daughter says "Buckup, sissy pants!".

Maybe I should arrange for the two of you to meet? I think she could be of some help with your dilemma.

originally posted by: onequestion
a reply to: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

Those 3 billion losers need to get their # together and become
Computer programmers so they can begin programming the robot horde that replaces all the menial labor jobs and truck driving jobs over the next ten years that way the corporate oligarchy can really take over the mass of useless # eaters polluting my clean air.

Cute.

I truly feel sorry for the fact that you do not see the point I was trying to make.

Enjoy your self pity party. You appear to be preoccupied with and wallowing in it.

a reply to: nullafides

Stop trying to make this about me and you there is a bigger picture here and that's what we're talking about.

I'm not personalizing this issue I've been hugely successful in one of the most challenging careers on the planet I know how to be successful.

a reply to: nullafides

I know your point your personalizing this issue when it's bigger than the individual.

We are a whole.

originally posted by: onequestion
a reply to: nullafides

Stop trying to make this about me and you there is a bigger picture here and that's what we're talking about.

I'm not personalizing this issue I've been hugely successful in one of the most challenging careers on the planet I know how to be successful.

Deluded. Pure and simple. Have fun, I'm done. And btw...if I ever DO get the chance to program the oligarchy's robots for your sector of the world...I'll put special code in for handling you.

originally posted by: nullafides
a reply to: CynConcepts

You know...anytime I hear someone talking about a low paying job, or anything like that...I ask how they feel about computers. About programming.

Because guess what...there are hardly NO languages out there you cannot teach yourself with three things...

Any computer...

An internet connection...

And the desire.


College degree needed? No. Have the perseverance to do something about your lot in life, and f**ing DO IT

When Americans go to some third world country, some Latin American country for example, and see people living in one room, thatched huts they are shocked.
It is so completely alien to anything they have ever seen.
They think "What desperate poverty! How terrible! These poor people!" For an American it is a real culture shock.

The modern lifestyle of the three bedroom house with hot and cold running water, electricity, and all the modern conveniences is a thing of only the last seventy five years.
it has only appeared as a way of life of the masses in the advanced industrialized societies.

The most of the modern conveniences hadn't even been invented a hundred years ago.
when one looks at things in perspective
Those living in the one-room hut in Ecuador are just living in the way that
has been the norm for the common man throughout the ages.

Many billions of people have lived out their lives in that same way
with no thought that they were living in poverty or that they were even poor.
It is only in modern America where people think it is necessary to have plenty of meat and
all the tender delicacies of a king every day......

a reply to: nullafides

Your a fool.

Your done because I know what it means to be successful?

Doesn't that suck.

I guess working my ass off and starving and being homeless to achieve a goal and achieving that goal isn't enough for you is it?

Somehow you need to prove that I'm lazy and I'm the problem instead of discussing the bigger issue at hand here.

.

a reply to: madenusa

Nice

a reply to: madenusa

To be fair in America there is no place for people to build something without owning it or renting it which requires participation in the system.

You have to make money here and there is plenty of homeless they are on every street corner where I live by the 100's.

It's in my face every single day. Literally by the 100's possibly by the 1000's.

There's 30,000+ chronically homeless in my county alone and the number grows everyday.

I don't think these people should have to live in huts anymore in a world of abundance. It doesn't seem like a world of abundance because of the false scarcity paradigm but trust me if we worked together more and caught wars less we'd be in a utopia right now