TommyTheCat
Gonzo Scientist
Maybe 10 years ago, but there are a ton of other fields that are quickly becoming feeding frenzies. Railroad engineering is one-step away from bringing coke and whores to college career fairs.
I think that it's time.
- Thread starter jamesA
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Oh wow. 3 people have to say the same exact thing that I had to say.
...but my advice is not the advice you need to hear, right?
You're in shitty situations because you're stubborn. I don't care how many jobs you were laid off from or how poor the market is in your area, if you open up your mind and research, you'll never be the guy behind the curve. ...but where are you now? Why do you think you're there..?
Shut up and listen for a little bit and you'll learn.
Every god damn time I respond to you I give you life-fucking-changing advice and you're too thick headed to listen. Congratulations.
Once again.
1) Think first.
2) Spend second.
You don't get into a college, start pursuing a major and then talk to everyone you can. You figure out exactly what you need to know about the job opportunities in that career path and then you base your major upon this research. Whats the point of pursuing a degree if you find out that there's neither gainful opportunities or a need for employees with your particular expertise?
You're not 18 anymore and going into college without a clue, so there's no excuse for starting off college and then changing your major six times because you found out it wasn't what you expected. Even if its not what you expect, you only have a few semesters to knock out all your gen. ed. courses, if you haven't already, before you get into major specific courses. Once you're in major specific courses and if you find that there's no jobs you're interested in, to switch majors you'll be paying out the ear.
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That's why I'm asking, TBO. I'm not jumping into this next week. I started this thread to research some experience from you guys.
Wil, I can't pay off debt making this kind of money. I'm putting 10 bucks away a week, I could probably do more if I want to pinch myself.
I wanted to know some things by way of where to look for researching college majors, the work, and to get a plan before I blindly wander into a dean of admissions' office.
I may be stubborn, but I also stick things out. All you're doing is giving me doubts about going into a college to get an education so I can be more versatile in different fields in the first place.
Once again.
What the hell do you think this thread is for? I'm not diving head first into this, I'm asking questions and you're giving me advice for something I'm not doing. You talk about my being stubborn because you don't think I'm reading and taking your point into account, but you're not listening to me.
I'm thinking about this right now. I have been thinking about this. Now before I go spending money, I'm researching. This is what this thread is about.
So in essence, I AM ALREADY thinking first.
This whole thread is about my asking a very simple question; Are there any college assistance programs/sites/companies I can look up and talk to first? See where I can go to get my feet wet before committing?
When you answer that, I'll be happy.
Wil, I can't pay off debt making this kind of money. I'm putting 10 bucks away a week, I could probably do more if I want to pinch myself.
I wanted to know some things by way of where to look for researching college majors, the work, and to get a plan before I blindly wander into a dean of admissions' office.
I may be stubborn, but I also stick things out. All you're doing is giving me doubts about going into a college to get an education so I can be more versatile in different fields in the first place.
Once again.
What the hell do you think this thread is for? I'm not diving head first into this, I'm asking questions and you're giving me advice for something I'm not doing. You talk about my being stubborn because you don't think I'm reading and taking your point into account, but you're not listening to me.
I'm thinking about this right now. I have been thinking about this. Now before I go spending money, I'm researching. This is what this thread is about.
So in essence, I AM ALREADY thinking first.
This whole thread is about my asking a very simple question; Are there any college assistance programs/sites/companies I can look up and talk to first? See where I can go to get my feet wet before committing?
When you answer that, I'll be happy.
It wasn't your original post that put everyone off, telling you to think first. Your post replying to B about "crossing that bridge when you get there" was the one that made us all say, "Is this guy possibly contemplating spending money to go to college, as a full grown man, and he is simply going to figure things out and 'cross that bridge' when he is already enrolled in a program?"
Your best bet for getting an idea on real world requirements for jobs that interest you will be either seeing a guidance counselor on a college campus if they're willing to meet with a non-student and searching job listing sites like monster, monstertrak, careerbuilder, hotjobs, etc.
Think out some job opportunities and see the type of degrees required.
I would urge you to look into a more general degree like business administration/interdisciplinary business/general business or education, simply because I'm bias and feel that these degrees are both well paying and versatile. With a degree in business and a focus in marketing, or a specific degree in marketing you can find jobs that are highly focused on psychology aspects like market research and consumer behavior. Those courses and job opportunities feed off of psych degrees, but should you find that its not your cup of tea you can always pick up and have a useful degree in many other fruitful jobs.
I was going to minor in psychology to go along with my business major. If/when I go back for a masters, I may go for psychology but its a rough path to follow.
My mentor is a psychiatrist that runs his own practice out of a church and is a professor at a local community college. He lives in a decent size house and drives his base mercedes but he's not rolling in the dough, even though he has two to three jobs. He loves what he does and started out as a young guy without much direction in his life, picking up and moving to california and traveling the states before he decided to go to college.
What works for some, won't work for others. He's extremely intelligent and has his doctorate degree but it took him many years of schooling, to which he's still in debt to his education costs, before he got to the place he is today.
The upside to your financial situation is that if you're over 25 years old and are at a low financial level, you can problem receive some excellent financial aide for both subsidized and unsubsidized loans. I would venture a guess you would get quite a large Stafford loan, which you don't have to pay interest on until after you complete your education - so long as you're enrolled full time (12+ credits).
Also, you can't have my phone number because you would send me dirty phone calls and call at unpleasant hours. Anyone else can have it.
You could see the nudes, just not the phone number.
I don't think I've ever talked to anyone from online, other than B through facebook or Jordan through AIM.
I don't think I've ever talked to anyone from online, other than B through facebook or Jordan through AIM.
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you're missing out.
you aren't a true internet whore until you import someone from another country
So I hear. I'm just arrogant and get girls in person, so I always truly felt that the internet dating thing was for socially retarded people. In recent news, I can be an asshole on occasion.
Um where is a teaching degree frowned upon? I want you to back this up with proof. It seems to me that almost all of my friends in education have found a career position in some capacity whether it be in a classroom, administration, as an aide, or a corporate trainer (which make a ton of money). Those that have not gotten hired are basically worthless, lazy people that barely skimmed through their respective degrees. I know for a fact that I had corporations lined up at our college graduation trying to talk to the education majors. Epic, Sonic Foundry, Ibm, and Sony are just some to name a few.
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"Those that have not gotten hired are basically worthless, lazy people that barely skimmed through their respective degrees."
Did you not just answer your own question?
Read all of my posts, I encouraged him to research education and business degrees and merely said that psych was looked upon even lower than those two select degrees.
When you go to school for either education or business and talk to 1) engineers, 2) premed 3) anything else on campus, they'll tell you how much they hate you because of your workload being a joke compared to their own. This is what I was talking about. There are many, lazy, unskilled bottom feeders that will take these majors because they cannot cut tougher majors like the aforementioned majors.
Of course you need an education degree to be hired as a teacher, therefore it won't be frowned upon by the teaching profession because its a national requirement to be certified in your own respective state.
If you research employment information, you'll find that the number one most desired personal trait in the job market is communication skills.
If you can't talk with people and voice your concerns or ideas effectively then you are far less useful to a company. Those who teach are supposed to have excellent communication skills and the information to process information thoroughly enough that it could be regurgitate and taught to others. Basically this is why if you have an education degree, businesses will still hire you for many job opportunities.
I'll slam on the majority of teachers, but those who actually do their jobs and aren't in it for a governmental job with great benefits and security are critical to society and highly employable.
My ex girlfriend changed her major multiple times at Penn State and came out with an education degree. She's motivated and has found new and unique ways in which she can relate material to easily understood concepts to teach students. If only more education majors had the same initiative as her.
As a whole, the education major is thought of to be a Mickey Mouse degree by everyone else in college.
With that said, you have to take state exams to become a teacher and I have not heard of a job opening that does not require at least a minor in education in order to be selected for a teaching job.
Based on the standards set by schools of education and PI34 (no child left behind) I would be willing to bet that most "outsiders" views on required work loads for education majors are not correct. Just because I didn't have calculus 1-125 or study thermodynamics does not mean that I am any less educated than an engineer or a premed student.
It is amazing to me how much little credit society gives to the people who spend the most amount of time with our youth which also tend to be our future.
I guess most people still hold the addage true "those that can do - those that can't - teach"
There's a reason why there's that age old adage.
Also, I think you would be hard pressed to argue that your education is as technical or precise as the other majors I cited. This is fine, my major is the same way.
Things like building successful business relationships and teaching are more geared towards "touch and go" and "feel" type techniques, where the skills can be taught to a degree but there's still a major component of a natural gift.
Its terrible difficult to put your finger on how to successfully communicate, lowering situational tension and creating task tension to generate desire and essentially create a sale.
I see these sort of skills as a natural gift that when you enter college you already have a general idea of how to teach or perform in certain aspects of business, where as for a medical degree you start with a blank slate and you have to study, build, and consume an entire avalanche of information in order to be well versed and precise in your decision making techniques. These other majors are all learned and therefore are seen by many as more difficult and technical than the sort of program that yourself or myself went through. At the very least, this is my short explanation on why some majors are seen as "easy" majors while others are considered "difficult."
General consensus - business, teaching, liberal arts - easy
premed, chemist, civil engineer, etc. - extremely difficult
