Twit voy "College is for Suckers"

[ScubaGuy]

Twit voy the 40 something former Target clerk now turned telephone repair man imparts more wisdom upon the DUmmies.

DUmmie link

TwixVoy  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Journal  Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Sat Oct-31-09 04:04 AM
Original message
Has anyone read "College is for Suckers"?
   
Has anyone read "College is for Suckers"?

Damn good book I am just finishing. It matches my observations from the brief time I spent in college.

I remember many years ago sitting down with a course counselor (or whatever the hell they are called now) at a university in my city. I was working full time back then. (I have worked 40+ hour weeks since the time I left high school) I asked him if he could help me find classes around my work schedule. I remember him telling me "Well, if you have to work you don't really belong at this school".

At the time I felt bad about it, but in retrospect it was the best advice ever. Had I taken loans I would have left that school over $100K in debt.

When I worked retail management for the past few years I can't tell you how many suckers were starting out in store level management after getting a degree in psychology or some such completely unrelated degree. They were all usually in massive debt.... and the salary for retail store management is.... well lets just say they are looking at 20 years of debt.

Now I am a technician for a major telecom. Most of my coworkers have degrees. The young ones coming in are in massive student loan debt. Here I am with my diploma learning with on the job training doing the same work at the same pay. They got suckered in by the student loan/college BUSINESS.

I have to say.... it is a breeze to compete against this generation coming in to the work force. Half of them lack work ethic, are hateful, mean, generally have trouble getting along well with coworkers, entitled, and can't even seem to show up to work on time. We have these dumb ass kids coming in with "degrees" talking about their belief the "degree" is going to get them a top level management spot any time now regardless of how inexperienced and irresponsible they are on the job.

I can see major problems coming down the road though. All these people getting in to massive student loan debt with the belief they will have the income to pay it off in a reasonable time.... Not going to be pretty when reality sets in.

Twit would have been going to college in the late 70's or early 80's .  $100K+ in debt for college ?  I graduated in 1978 and had less than 15K in student loans which were paid off in less than 2 years.

Oregone  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Sat Oct-31-09 04:11 AM
Response to Original message
1. Im going to write a book
   
Title it..."People who buy my book are Suckers"

Ill fill it with generalizations, and try and get the purchasers to feel better about themselves. Maybe they will send it to a friend. Ill probably get a multi-book deal; "Publishers are Suckers", "Politicians are Demonic Vampire Scum", and "Demonic Vampire Scum is for Suckers" will be my trilogy, all of which balance Eastern Spirituality with Western Philosophy in a post-Twitter world

Ill buy a large home. Maybe MC Hammers pad. I will try not to go bankrupt. If I do, I will write a new book. Something like "Free Government Cash for Slackers"

Its going to be great.

TwixVoy  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Journal  Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Sat Oct-31-09 04:29 AM
Response to Reply #1
2. Do you even read books?
   
Or is your attitude any book that doesn't tell you what you want to hear is above you?

Frankly I doubt you've cracked a book in years.

JCMach1  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Journal  Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Sat Oct-31-09 06:12 AM
Response to Original message
8. So, we should dumb down America more and everyone should become business
   
worker drones :eyes:

Sounds like more BS along the lines of 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad'

Glad it worked out for the OP... However, I would not trade places with him.

hfojvt  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Journal  Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Sat Oct-31-09 06:27 AM
Response to Original message
9. as a janitor with a master's degree it looks that way to me
   
but part of that is my fault for quitting my good job in the military industrial complex. (Can you say $400,000 in lost wages? Sure. I knew you could.)

If only the University of Nebraska had given me my degree in cloth, I could have at least cleaned urinals with it and gotten some use out of it. Well, besides the massive $8100 I made for ten months of part-time teaching. That actually was not bad money though, for a part-time job in 1990. The factory job I got in February of 1993 only paid about $10,000 for full time work.

I used the cardboard one as an archery target and tried to make a dartboard out of it, but it does not make a very good dart board.

What did you expect with a masters degree in womens studies?

TwilightGardener  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Sat Oct-31-09 10:57 AM
Response to Original message
21. Don't be jealous. Earning a degree at night or online is much, much easier
   
Edited on Sat Oct-31-09 10:58 AM by TwilightGardener
and cost effective for adult students than it used to be. Those coworkers aren't suckers for getting an education beyond yours,or for taking out loans. They accomplished something, and bettered themselves, no matter how much money they make right now. And many career paths require a degree for promotion into management--so they eventually just might be your bosses.

And at that point Twitvoy will be bitching about his incompetent boss and how he knows so much more than him.

JerseygirlCT  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Sat Oct-31-09 11:21 AM
Response to Reply #23
27. I'm with you
   
So long as college is looked on as only career-training, the most important aspects get pushed aside.

It is a shame that most often, a liberal arts education costs far too much these days. (We're paying for one now; it hurts!). But I encourage my kids to pursue one all the same. With that base, they're prepared to learn anything, do anything.

About the only thing a liberal arts degree is good for is teaching liberal arts or flipping burgers.  You would get a lot more out of that four years in the military or as a plumber or electrician apprentice.

ProgressiveProfessor  (1000+ posts)  Journal  Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Sat Oct-31-09 11:39 AM
Response to Reply #23
31. Disagree, today liberal arts programs prepare you to either go for another degree
   
or wait tables.

That is not entirely tongue in cheek. The prospects for someone with just your basic BA is pretty slim pickings. The techies do better.

Bingo!

HughBeaumont  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Journal  Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Sat Oct-31-09 11:08 AM
Response to Original message
24. Any more, the ROI just isn't there.
   
While the fact remains that not having a college degree (notice I said "degree") will close a lot of doors for you, corporate America hasn't exactly been doing it's part to open them for the glut of degreed citizens who acheived their credentials in the past and present this past decade.

And then there's the "we need more math and science graduates" crowd. Really? Is there a viable job market for all of this time and money I'm going to be spending on these difficult sciences? Or is corporate America going to take the bitch way out and offshore/inshore all of those positions? What good is the sheepskin and debt if you're unemployed because American corporations aren't hiring or practicing one-sided free movement of labor and capital?

I don't know how it is in your neck of the woods but even the semi-competent engineers that I know are fully employed. 

treestar  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Journal  Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Sat Oct-31-09 11:09 AM
Response to Original message
25. I've always thought that one big advantage employers have
   
Is the way in this culture we take it upon ourselves to train ourselves, at our expense, to be able to work in their companies. When they are the ones who should pay for it. We should start a national strike - no one go to college - the employers should be paying for it.

As to general education only. Just go for the luxury of becoming a Renaissance person.

 

TwilightGardener  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Sat Oct-31-09 11:16 AM
Response to Reply #25
26. What absolute silliness. It's rare that I read something so dumb.
   
Yes, we Americans are going to arm ourselves with ignorance and low levels of education--THAT'LL show 'em! They'll be forced to hire us know-nothings, and put us through college for FREE!! Or, they'll just import more educated foreigners. LOL.

MadHound  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Sat Oct-31-09 11:39 AM
Response to Original message
30. You're perceptions about college are a bit off
   
First off, not everybody has the good fortune to get a vocational career such as yours, especially in these times. Most are consigned to doing physical labor or some sort of low paying service job.

Secondly, I'm willing to bet that most of these "dumb ass kids" will be pulling down big bucks within a few years, depending on their particular field of work. Oh, and being inexperienced and irresponsible shows up in the vast majority of new workers, degreed or not.

Yes, the big problem is their debt. However given that their income potential is much greater than non-degreed workers, that debt might be a problem for a few years, but it will go away. Yes, we've got to find a way to finance college for a lot of people, but that problem doesn't mean that college is a sucker's move.

Finally, college isn't just about training for a job, it is also about expanding your intellectual horizons. Getting a wider view of the world in many different ways.

Frankly you sound like an old curmudgeon, bitter that you never attended college. Perhaps you should try it out. There are many creative ways to fund a college education. Me, I actually worked for the college I attended and got my degree tuition free.

But whatever you do, don't discount the value of higher education, because that value is beyond monetary measure.

niceypoo  (1000+ posts)  Journal  Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Sat Oct-31-09 01:47 PM
Response to Original message
36. 100k in debt?
   
What, were you going to go to medical school? I just got my bachelors and my loans came to about 25k. I worked full time all the way through school as a technician. Try getting a job as an engineer, or an accountant, or a laboratory tech, or a dentist, or a software engineer, or anything else that is highly paid without a college degree. As a technician you will probably never crack 50k a year whereas most entry level jobs requiring a four year degree start there. It will take me about 3 years to pay off my loan.

Do the math.

Taitertots  (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Sat Oct-31-09 06:02 PM
Response to Original message
42. Willful Ignorance is not a good thing
   
Lets take the average wages for college graduates and compare it to the average wages of people who are not in college. Are you better off going to college? Without question.

It is amazing how people think being intentionally ignorant is a good thing. While you were learning one insignificant portion of your one job, we are learning all about how the world works. What do you know about anything? You have no opportunity for advancement because you know nothing beyond your one thing. If you get fired you have no opportunity to find a new job outside your tiny area of knowledge. Good luck for you finding a place to hire someone under qualified and intentionally ignorant, I don't think everyone else is going to be that lucky.

[GOBUCKS]

Now I am a technician for a major telecom. Most of my coworkers have degrees. The young ones coming in are in massive student loan debt. Here I am with my diploma learning with on the job training doing the same work at the same pay.

So after 25-30 years in the workforce, DUmmy TwixVoy is in an entry-level job along with some recent college graduates. Yeah, those college kids are suckers. Even though, as cable company trainees, their college majors were probably English or "communications",  they have alrerady leapfrogged DUmmy TwixVoy's lifetime of work experience. I wonder if DUmmy TwixVoy has noticed that.

We don't call them DUmmies for nothing.

[diesel driver]

I have to say.... it is a breeze to compete against this generation coming in to the work force. Half of them lack work ethic, are hateful, mean, generally have trouble getting along well with coworkers, entitled, and can't even seem to show up to work on time. We have these dumb ass kids coming in with "degrees" talking about their belief the "degree" is going to get them a top level management spot any time now regardless of how inexperienced and irresponsible they are on the job.

He describes his co-workers as typical DUmmies....

Must make him feel "special", thinking it only took him 20 years of OTJ experience to get where newbies with degrees start out at....

[AllosaursRus]

And then there's the "we need more math and science graduates" crowd. Really? Is there a viable job market for all of this time and money I'm going to be spending on these difficult sciences?

Ya know what asshat, most with that kind of background are the innovators of our society and the world's! They "invent", "improve", and downright make things "progress" in our day to day existence! In other words, they make their own way and get RICH while doin' it! Ya think Bill Gates sat on his hands workin for some po dunk computer lab? Hell, he dropped outta college and turned into the richest man in the world! There are countless examples of these science and math geeks enriching themselves on what they learned! Most never work in corporate America.

If you think yer goin' to come outta book learnin' and just step into NASA, then you prove what I already knew, yer a frikkin' IDIOT!!!!!!!

Guys like Ben Franklin, Albert Einstien, and Tom Edison came from that class of people. Think about where we would be without math and science, moran!

(ETA) content

[Chris]

One math and science grad is worth fifty liberal arts majors... even the DUmmies admit that.  At least the honest ones.

[Chris_]

One math and science grad is worth fifty liberal arts majors... even the DUmmies admit that.  At least the honest ones.

When was the last time you saw an honest DUmmy?  Every one I've seen is as constitutionally incapable of accurately reporting reality as Bouncy Ball at her most drug addled, and most of 'em are aspiring to be yarn spinners of the TiTty boy caliber.

[DumbAss Tanker]

Twit Boy stumbled onto one element of truth, even if he isn't bright enough to see it:  It's the person, not the degree.  A lot of losers are drawn to liberal arts because they can't handle quantitative analysis, not because they are actually any good at qualitative analysis.  You can be quite successful on either path IF you have the gift and the drive for what it takes to succeed in it.