Originally Posted by AustinsCE

That's why I never bothered with ANY degree. It's all take XYZ, even though you're not doing any of that. See, most people tell me they go to college to get a "well-rounded education", whatever that means. Then I talk to them about the subjects they "learned", and they don't know anything.

So basically, college is about a stupid piece of paper that stupid employers like to see. People who say "it proves you're willing to stick with it" type of thought. Well, it proves to me you sat through a bunch of nonsense for what you could have learned in 4 years on the job. As an employer maximizing profits (read:pay my pathetic employees as little as possible) I would love to see that degree! Conformist, zombie-lemmings stick around forever and do what they're told.

Exceptions? Always. Take Electrical Engineering. -IF- you want to know all aspects of it, takes a few years. Doing real complex stuff, like robotics or consumer electronics, you'll use a great deal of it. Sometimes medicine, but then most nurses don't need to know every aspect of everything, and so on. Or industrial design. It's a 5-6 year degree. The basic garbage, then 4 more if you follow the program, actually creating and computer models, and clay models, and drawing, etc.

If you specialize, you can get a job as a drafter, then designer, then get billing as a "project engineer" and in your specific field, ever bit as good as a degree. Hell, a mechanical/electrical/piping designer can be at $40 an hour in less than 5 years, more if you're willing to spend time in some of the more Hellish countries that have oil. Not to mention, you have no debt. All told, this can take as little time as you want it to depending on what you're willing to put into it. Not my thing, a job is just what I do to pay bills, but to each his own.

In the end, if you go to college for a job, don't go. If you actually want a complete education, have fun, but make sure and fact check because a Professor is just a professional student with a degree. You can get the same "education" from a parrot or a library, and it costs less. Or not, just my .02. Maybe I'm from the old school. Don't chase paper, whether it be green or eggshell white.