very otm
― Never changed username before (cardamon), Saturday, 13 August 2016 21:02 (seven years ago) link
Treesh, I'm sorry to hear that your college memories are so unhappy, but what you describe sounds pretty standard for me and most of my social circle: drugs, alcohol, doomed relationships, despair, self-doubt, retreat into fantasy, one or more psychological rough patches, way too much lit crit.
On some level I half-suspect that is more or less how college is supposed to go, and that going through those things was as indispensable a part of the learning process as anything I heard from a professor in a classroom. Good judgement comes from experience; experience comes from poor judgement.
― snarkoterrorist (Ye Mad Puffin), Saturday, 13 August 2016 21:36 (seven years ago) link
My B.A.'s usefulness was limited to getting me over the minimum requirements for getting into a graduate program. My M.S. has definitely been worth actual money in the bank. And I got the company to pay for it. I've been an incredibly fortunate son of a bitch.
― El Tomboto, Saturday, 13 August 2016 22:18 (seven years ago) link
Not as fortunate as someone born in europe tbf
― poor fiddy-less albion (darraghmac), Saturday, 13 August 2016 22:38 (seven years ago) link
them's fightin words
― El Tomboto, Saturday, 13 August 2016 22:43 (seven years ago) link
thats a more localised birthright tbh
― poor fiddy-less albion (darraghmac), Saturday, 13 August 2016 23:08 (seven years ago) link
Srsly tho
Didnt get into first choice (law) by a matter of a few points, took a year off for family reasons, did a business degree at the local technical institite to enable me to stay in town, got me into the public sector and took me 8 years to get back to get an IT degree. Cant imagine having managed any of it under a debt system.
― poor fiddy-less albion (darraghmac), Saturday, 13 August 2016 23:11 (seven years ago) link
i went to college for free and was paid to work thru grad school (per usual in the states), with a bit of loan debt to make the latter more doable. i don't know what i would have chosen to do if i were paying for college, probably gotten a computer science degree. : /
― j., Saturday, 13 August 2016 23:41 (seven years ago) link
xp my memories are not as bad as that makes them sound. but those years do seem kind of arbitrary in hindsight.. i think it wasn't the right time for me to be pursuing higher education. i guess everyone is different but at 18-22 i was quite young and had very little grasp of the world
― Treeship, Sunday, 14 August 2016 00:55 (seven years ago) link
i believe in the gap year. and also in pursuing humanistic learning throughout one's life rather than as an undergraduate focus.
― Treeship, Sunday, 14 August 2016 00:56 (seven years ago) link
in denmark i remember going to a party at this weird residential school that was like, in between high school and undergrad. at one point all this amazing food appeared but i didn't see any kitchen facilities or staff. they seemed to have dance parties every night at this place.
― Treeship, Sunday, 14 August 2016 01:02 (seven years ago) link
looked it up -- it was called a Folkehøjskole. i'm probably explaining it wrong, but i remember they didn't have grades and it was in the middle of the woods basically, deep in the copenhagen suburbs
― Treeship, Sunday, 14 August 2016 01:05 (seven years ago) link
or the suburbs of cph rather
pursuing humanistic learning throughout one's life rather than as an undergraduate focus.
― Treeship
iirc u either get a degree or u gain credit by sharing the correct blogs on message boards
― poor fiddy-less albion (darraghmac), Sunday, 14 August 2016 01:14 (seven years ago) link
not blogs, anecdotes
― Treeship, Sunday, 14 August 2016 01:23 (seven years ago) link
With 50 year working lives approaching soon, it wont be an issue of either/or (life-learning vs undergrad).
An undergraduate degree, or masters, in your early 20s isn't going to last 40 to 45 years, so you can get to have at least one more go at it, if not two. You might need to choose which student debts you want to pass on to your heirs.
― Half-baked profundities. Self-referential smirkiness (Bob Six), Sunday, 14 August 2016 09:26 (seven years ago) link
Meet the parents who won’t let their children study literature
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/09/02/meet-the-parents-who-wont-let-their-children-study-literature/?hpid=hp_regional-hp-cards_rhp-card-posteverything%3Ahomepage%2Fcard&utm_term=.f5ebc1131368
― some people call me Maurice Chevalier (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, 2 September 2016 13:41 (seven years ago) link
"at George Mason University"
stopped reading there
― droit au butt (Euler), Friday, 2 September 2016 14:48 (seven years ago) link
But seriously you should look at GMU's list of the world-changing titans who studied English! I mean, Howard Cosell, Tom Clancy, Emma Watson, Clarence Thomas, AND Mark Knopfler!
Who would not wish to be among such company as they begin their career journey. I mean, the list even includes a former EPA head and numerous prominent librarians.
― some people call me Maurice Chevalier (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, 2 September 2016 15:39 (seven years ago) link