For those that went to college...

[Saint Gut-Free]

I went to my local JC, majored in water treatment, got my A.S. and some state certifications to be able to work in that field.  Moved to San Diego, got a job at a water treatment  plant, and have not felt the need to "finish" school since then.

I have a dipshit pretentious roommate who is a grad student at UCSD and thinks human worth is measured by your college degree, so he can give you a totally different perspective on what I do and why he thinks its worthless.

Fuck him.

[goneoffdatlean]

Your friend probably makes like $10/hour doing something "below" his intelligence.  Most people I know who graduated college work some dumb, underpaying job that has fuck all to do with their major.

Hell, I worked in a fucking mail room for almost two years after I graduated.

[T.Depression]

I went to University straight outa hight school...did most my Bachelor of commerce, and intended to do law after that. Decided that school was for the birds in my last year...took a few years off. Go a government grant to go to a Technology school in the late 90's...did a Network Administration Diploma on the governments dime. Went back to University in 2002...did part of a joint History/Education degree (walked into the 3rd year of the program with previous credits) , but quit after a year.

I now work as a graphic designer...a job I walked into with no relevant experience or  education.

[SSR]

I have to say that while I regret not getting my degree because it is this uncompleted thing hanging there, I think I have had a much more fulfilling life had I stayed with it and either got a job with the state because that is all you can get in Sacramento with a liberal arts BA or did 6 more years and wound up driving a cab, because that is what all people with liberal arts PhDs did back when I was a youth.

Post drop out I have visited every state except Hawaii, Alaska & Florida, gone on 7 month long cross country road trips, been on four tours with bands I was in, did two record labels, ran a record store, run a bookstore, been to Paris a couple times, been to BC a lot and Mexico a few times, read way more than I ever did in college, amassed a very nice record collection, been with some very great women, produced records, played on records, wrote alot, did a community newspaper, organized around political issues, and went to schools to talk to kids about what the military is really like (as opposed to what recruiters tell them it is like).  I dont know how much of that I would have done had I continued on the path that I was on. I know I would not have travelled as much as I have. 

[lacey underall]

BS in biology. MS in biology. 1-2 more years and i will have a Ph.D in biology. Then I will take everything i've worked on for the past 4- 5 years to a parking lot and have a bonfire. Getting a Ph.D seems similar to dropping out. I work a lot, get paid shit, but travel more than I stay home and can pretty much do whatever I want whenever I want. It probably varies from lab to lab. My advisor is hands off...and actually several thousand miles away for the next year. Getting a Ph.D used to be really stressful and awful until I realized I could burn everything in a parking lot. If I don't do that, I might go to school some more and become a doctor. Or maybe people will think my research is so awesome they will give me a job at a university with ridiculous amounts of bureaucracy and my own lab with several minions to do my bidding.

[Jared]

I have to say that while I regret not getting my degree because it is this uncompleted thing hanging there, I think I have had a much more fulfilling life had I stayed with it and either got a job with the state because that is all you can get in Sacramento with a liberal arts BA or did 6 more years and wound up driving a cab, because that is what all people with liberal arts PhDs did back when I was a youth.

Post drop out I have visited every state except Hawaii, Alaska & Florida, gone on 7 month long cross country road trips, been on four tours with bands I was in, did two record labels, ran a record store, run a bookstore, been to Paris a couple times, been to BC a lot and Mexico a few times, read way more than I ever did in college, amassed a very nice record collection, been with some very great women, produced records, played on records, wrote alot, did a community newspaper, organized around political issues, and went to schools to talk to kids about what the military is really like (as opposed to what recruiters tell them it is like).  I dont know how much of that I would have done had I continued on the path that I was on. I know I would not have travelled as much as I have. 

Ok Scott, that's great.  But what did you do to fund it all?  I know you buy records to sell records, but I keep having the idea of "you can't make a subsequent amount of money without a degree" pounded into my head.  The list of have-dones above is pretty on par with what I want to do with my life and I don't see any correlation with that and majoring in English, something that I thought I would like coming fresh out of community college a year ago.  I think I'm more miserable now than I ever have been and I relate to what someone above said about alcohal dependence; I've been to work hungover more times recently than I ever have in the past.  Another question: what's the hierarchy like at Time Tested?  I'm managing a store right now and while I like it, it's not enough.  I want more autonomy in the place, etc.

[frankie teardrop]

I want more autonomy in the place, etc.

Then start your own buisness. You will never get autonomy by ladder climbing with a degree. Take it from me, I have 6 bosses. One is above the other, it never ends.

[Jared]

Well, yeah, I'd like to but at the moment don't have the complete know-how.  I think the answer to that involves more schooling.

[frankie teardrop]

I am about to graduate from DePaul University this year. I have about 6 more months to go. I will have a degree in International Studies. (Oui, je parle francais!). In any case, I don't really plan on doing anything with the degree. I actually want to be a labor organizer. If anything, I'll go back to school and study labor history and try and teach this ever disapearing realm of scholarship. But, I think school is great if you take advantage of it. If you want a degree that will get you a job right away, then your going to have to go to BUISNESS SCHOOL! If that doesn't appeal to you, which I just couldn't understand why, you can always go to LA&S, but you will most likely not get a "high paying" job with it right away. In my experience, all the computer nerds and buisness asswipes get the jobs and money. LA&S people don't.

[SSR]

Ok Scott, that's great.  But what did you do to fund it all?  I Another question: what's the hierarchy like at Time Tested?  I'm managing a store right now and while I like it, it's not enough.  I want more autonomy in the place, etc.

I've never made a lot of money from the bookstore but enough.  My overhead is low. I pay reasonable rent. I dont have kids. I dont buy into what people think are necessities: cell phones, cable TV, etc. Hell those two alone would cost me $100/month. Fuck that. I dont want people to be able to get ahold of me at all times anyway and why pay for 100 channels of crap when I can get 8 for free? I dont buy the newest tech gadgets. When I buy clothes I buy good clothes & shoes that will last. (This is where the rich have it over the poor. The rich can afford to buy well made things that last forever. Where the poor tend to buy cheap things that wear out quickly. I am not rich but I understand that paying $100 for a pair of well made shoes that will last for 10 years is cheaper than buying 3 pairs of $20 shoes a year for ten years). I've lived for stretches without an automobile. There is about 5 grand a year saved by not having a car. Ss pays for itself. I sell enough used stuff that I pay for whatever I keep so my music expenses are nil. If I go to shows or movies in Sacto, I get comped.  I dont drink and have never been a heavy drinker. When I did drink I drank good stuff - spending $50 on a bottle of good scotch is perfectable reasonable if you arent gonna gulp it down...and I dont. $50 a lot? Not really, about the same as 10 watered down drinks at a bar. I never bought more than one drink at a bar and usually followed up with a flask full of good booze.  I also have a way of getting drinks bought for me.  I have a credit card but the balance gets paid in full every month so it doesnt cost me anything to use it. While I eat out a couple times a week I also cook and since I am a good cook and can cook from scratch I eat well for cheap. Basically I have found smart ways to live well within my means and dont buy into the culture of manufactured needs.

As far as the bookstore, the hierachy there is more financial than managerial. I am not the last name on the check, which means I am not the final say-so. However I am on the check. Within my specific job I am my own boss. Outside that, I have to cooperate. I've been at the store for a long long time and while everyone is expendable at any job, I am as close to being unexpendable as one can be. If I owned the business outright, I'd have more power, but I would also have more responsibility and I dont want that.  Anyway, the situation at Time Tested is very unique and I dont think my circumstance could apply toward anyone elses.

[Yon Yonsen]

BS in political science, a minor in history, and less than a fistful of credits shy from a degree in journalism(which qualifies me for a minor in communications!!!) from SUNY Brockport.  Only reason I went back was because I broke my hip and couldn't do phyical labor anymore.  I work for Corporate America now in the cellphone industry, which is the same as working in a gulag run by Tony Robbins. 

[N]

I graduated from university of toronto with a double major BA in History and Sociology... GPA 3.62.  only went because after graduating high school mid-way through the year, the only job i could get was as a bike courier, which was the worst job i've ever had.  I liked school for the first 2 and a half years and was working towards grad school, then just got totally dissillusioned with the pointlessness of academia.  Finished my degree anyway, then moved to the London, England a year a half ago to take advantage of the dual citizenship I have on account of my dad.  I now have a relatively good-paying administrative job working for a government organization... it requries a degree but has nothing to do with what I studied and I only got it because of the fluke of temping here.   I think I might one day have to go back to school because there's no way I can do this for the rest of my life, but for the time being its allowing me to live in an another country and visit europe on the 30 paid vacation days I get a year.  if i could do it all over again I would have done a more technical/proffesional degree because a BA isn't worth paper its printed on.

[zombiewarfare]

3.62... Braggart!

[Claire Dactyl]

I'm just wrapping up my first semester at UW-Milwaukee.  I like the school, despite the fact that a lot of douchebags go here.  I'm majoring in English Education, because four years of high school apparently wasn't enough for me.

[SSR]

A funny thought occured to me while reading this and that is most people here - especially with liberal arts degrees - stating they arent working in the area they studied in.  An undergraduate degree was designed to make you a "citizen of the world," employable in any number of administrative jobs. It was with a graduate degree that you could use to get a job in your field. Starting in the 70s conservatives started their attack on the notion of this kind of citizenship training because they perceived that a "left wing" faculty was turning out an army of leftists under the guise of liberal education (complete poppycock. If it was true the college grads from 1950 - 80 would have us firmly in a socialist state. The incident of lefty professors pushing their political views in university has been greatly exagerated, much like conservatives exagerate everything - from WMDs to the "success" of trickle down economics). They successfully moved to discredit  liberal arts study by stating that it had no practical application in life. They also were successful in getting liberal arts departments underfunded, diverting the moneys they once got to "practical" departments like business. This was most successful at a state college level and happened in the 1980s. Also at the same time was the big push for math and science education - the argument being that we need math & science to keep us competitive. People bought it and thus the US college experience became one that was more like an intellectual trade school than a molder of good citizens. What comes out of the colleges are people with a very shallow understanding of the world, middle class middle managers who are happy to support whatever idiot policies that their government (Dem or Repug) push.  Ahhhh an it did not help that those most vocal in pushing a multicultural curriculum did so demonizing "dead white males" and being the shrillest assholes humanly possible. Nothing wrong with expanding the canon to get in different experience. Everything wrong with using a people's past exclusion as a reason to exclude others.  (And curious how conservatives were so eager to argue about multiculturalism while they pushed to defund parts of the university they didnt like and fund those they did. Kept the lefties fighting over frosting while they ate the cake.) 

What does this all mean? It means that you go to a school designed to create citizens of the world but is unable to due to lack of funding and both the university & you ignorance of their misson. You go to school expecting work in your field of study but the university fails you in that because that is not what it was designed for, at least not at an undergrad level. However you dont know that where it really fails you is that it doesnt tell you what its mission actually is and it lacks the resources to fulfill that mission.  Also doesnt help that too many people are coming into college barely prepared for their junior year of high school.

You want to work in your trade? Stick it out for 4 - 6 more years and get a PhD or go to a trade school. You could also study accounting or engineering.