What's the point of post-secondary general education?

[Marco Fucko]

Is it just me or should you be able to directly pursue a subject degree without wasting time on general education. Why is ~1-2 years of a 4 year education wasted covering generic shit that may or may not relate to the current degree you're pursuing or any degree you would pursue after that?

 

[Exigent Circumcisions]

Just go to trade school, faggot.

 

[BlancoMailo]

Why is ~1-2 years of a 4 year education wasted covering generic shit that may or may not relate to the current degree you're pursuing or any degree you would pursue after that?

$$$ <--

 

[William Tell Underpass]

Australia has that I think. Most of their colleges degrees are 3 years and people get like 2 electives and no 101s.

Before US (And wider western) tertiary education was as much of a money grab as it is now, i believe the idea was that you should first be taught a baseline of how to think and why (Philosophy type, not indoctrination type) how to present arguments, and give you the same grounding as the field you wish to enter, which entails soft skills as well as hard knowledge.

Now that it is about stamping out degrees, you don't need to learn for the college to make bank off you and they don't need to protect their reputations (Even the really prestigious ones can just bribe their alumni who basically run America).

Also keep in mind that colleges which don't have large endowments, large research departments, or large state government budgets them basically make their money as land barons renting rooms and "The College Experience"

I think there was something quite admirable about teaching teenage savages about Descartes and Rembrandt, but unfortunately that is now the whole degree in many cases.

(Also sports, I know people hate hearing "lol dumb american", but I'm with the rest of the world when they say that American College sports is fucking insane and I do not understand why its like this.)

 

[AirdropShitposts]

Holy underwear! We've gotta protect our phony baloney jobs, gentleman!

 

[Lemmingwise]

From a management perspective it is easier and cheaper to serve generalist education than it is to serve specialist education. Nearly anyone can be hired to give the former. The latter are always in short supply and make more demands.

Why waste the bigger expense on the people that leave in one or two years?

 

[BScCollateral]

The idea is to assure minimal competence in baseline skills. This used to be done with a high school diploma, but that's now meaningless.

 

[Harnessed Carcass]

I think it's so people don't do retarded shit like make a thread on, "why university."
The average IQ is 100, the average IQ for a university student (in an actually worthwhile subject) is 120. If that's too complex for you to abstract an idea from, your IQ is ~69

 

[Watermelanin]

You can get a certificate in a lot of fields in the US by doing exactly that. Seriously: unless your chosen field is something really broad like "biology" or "chemistry" that comprises a slew of other fields, ask if they provide a certificate program. There's a good chance they will. You don't need any gen-ed; just show competence in the field. The reason degrees are generally valued more is basically what @BScCollateral said. Employers mostly just want you reading and writing at a professional level. The rest of gen-ed is mostly crap to them apart from a demonstration that you have the work ethic to maintain a reasonable GPA even when what you have to do for it is utter nonsense.

 

[Ex Cummunicated Sasser HD]

All I know is I never went to uni, but I did "intern" for 3 months at a design agency for free before they took me on full time... Best decision of my life, as I was still living with my parents and have zero student debt, didn't struggle to make ends meet, bought my first house at 25. and up until the Wu-Flu, owned a moderately successful business.

 

[Queen Elizabeth II]

It's not like the US elsewhere. In most of the world, a few exceptions like distance/flexi providers, you cannot elect or change your degree intention down the road. You will do things directly linked to your major from the start or after your first three to six months.

Those three to six months are to make sure those attending are able to do the actual course really. Universities will not know the different standards held by different parts of the country, let alone the differences between different countries.

You get this if you've ever transferred between elementary to middle or to high as well. The receiving institution knows that the former is probably lying about at least some of its grades and wants to know if what the student claims to have is actually accurate.

I don't know how this translates to other parts of Europe but while in the UK an American four year degree with a few years of undeclared major is viewed equal to a European one; but I know in France and Luxembourg they're sometimes not even considered accredited and have to be individually reviewed to judge what, if anything, they're really worth. Three/four years of Math would probably be considered fine, but two? Nice bit of toilet paper you got there honhonhon.

 

[Watermelanin]

Three/four years of Math would probably be considered fine, but two? Nice bit of toilet paper you got there honhonhon.

I'm a burger and that doesn't even make sense to me. We in the states basically consider [X] level math to be prerequisite to a course. You can take pre-calc in high school and be in calc in your first semester in college. And calc 1 would be prerequisite for most engineering classes. Once you have taken (and passed) whatever level of math is requisite for the class, you can take that class. Am I just misinterpreting what you're saying here?

 

[Orion Balls]

you cannot elect or change your degree intention down the road. You will do things directly linked to your major from the start or after your first three to six months.

Engineering programs in the US are very much like this. Very few "filler" classes and strictly scheduled out eng curriculum ensures that you can actually graduate in four years. If you try to change your major, you'll definitely be in there an additional year, at least.

 

[The Fifth Waltz]

Just come to Canada for post secondary. It's cheaper and our dollar is worthless lol.

 

[dirtydeanna96]

Employers mostly just want you reading and writing at a professional level.

I've got a master's in English.
All that consists of is reading and writing at a professional level.

 

[TheRedChair]

Just go to trade school, faggot.

Well in a way you are right.

In this economy you will always need Plumbers, HVAC, Electricians, Truck drivers, Farmers and so on and you can make a fortune doing it.

But I still went to college from time to time to work on my business classes.

The problem with college now is that you are not being prepared for the current employment market. Yes you do need your general education however I bullshit they are teaching now for general ed is the reason why people run up a high education bill.

BIG Colleges these days are organ grinding mills with the sole purpose of making money. You are better off going a community college and get as much education that you need to even be thinking of going to a 4 year and during the process MAKE SURE your chances of getting a job are better because you are watching what the job market will bare.

 

[VIPPER?]

Just come to Canada for post secondary. It's cheaper and our dollar is worthless lol.

If you're not from the area it's still expensive. Not US cariacature levels, but for example tuition at Dawson is something like 130$ per semester depending on the program for a local. It jumps to a thou and change for someone from Canada but not Quebec, and is between 6 and 9k for internationals. Books are their usual abusive 450$ tomes that you only need for two or three worksheets, conspicuously written by the "professor" giving the course.

https://www.dawsoncollege.qc.ca/finance/student-fees/international-student-fees/

https://www.dawsoncollege.qc.ca/finance/student-fees/non-quebec-resident-fees/

Meanwhile, US community colleges average about 5k for students from their state

https://www.communitycollegereview.com/avg-tuition-stats/national-data

10k per semester after books isn't a huge amount, but it's not chump change either, especially if you have to pack up and move to a new country for it, and especially when you can pay just 5 to go to an equivalent school in whatever US state a person already lives in and can reasonably find work/housing/etc in. And the dollar isn't "worthless", it's 0.73 USD right now. Sounds bad, but everything is cheap as fuck in the US and prices for things in Canada fly all over the place. Purchasing power in-cuntry is gonna fuck you over if you come in with two benjamins thinking it'll be like going to zimbabwe. That 69c can of beans in Burlington is 1.39 in Montreal. That 5$ quart of speed rail vodka in Iowa is goddamn 24.78 in Nova Scotia. Coming in with a wad of American currency isn't going to go as far as first-time tourists think it will. Local wages tend to be reasonable when you compare the higher cost of consumer goods and how much other stuff is government-subsidized... but if you're an American only coming by for 2-4 years or so, you can't really appreciate those benefits.

The problem with college now is that you are not being prepared for the current employment market.

This is the big problem, especially in STEM. This article is from a decade ago, but not much has changed in the attitude among software, internet service, and other tech-adjacent companies:

So what should a real interview consist of? Let me offer a humble proposal: don’t interview anyone who hasn’t accomplished anything. Ever. Certificates and degrees are not accomplishments; I mean real-world projects with real-world users. There is no excuse for software developers who don’t have a site, app, or service they can point to and say, “I did this, all by myself!” in a world where Google App Engine and Amazon Web Services have free service tiers, and it costs all of 25$ to register as an Android developer and publish an app on the Android Market.

https://techcrunch.com/2011/05/07/why-the-new-guy-cant-code/

I think it's only gotten worse from then, and companies in general are even more entitled now. But who can blame them? There's a huge glut of CS grads and STEM people in general, and obviously schools can't keep up with the meme frameworks du jour. So they resort to riddle based interviews, get mad at people for not being intimately familiar with their local (often undocumented) codebases, and write pissy articles about how hard it is to find workers, because they know that there's no shortage of labour to churn through until they find their unicorns.

If it hasn't already happened, STEM degrees are going to be less than worthless in the coming years. Not even like other degrees/certs/other education where it's a matter of course to get one before getting field experience, I mean it may as well be a complete gap on your resume like you took a year off to tour Europe or went to prison or something.

 

[Meat Poultry Veg]

In this era where everybody has access to a thousand Library of Alexandrias worth of information at the click of a button, the justification for getting a college degree is getting increasingly thin. Those who love knowledge for knowledge's sake will pursue it before and after getting a degree. Those who only pursue it for the sake of a rubber stamp will cease after getting it.

Post secondary is nothing but a credentialing cartel. If the credential was reasonably priced (i.e. you can obtain it and make a spartan living while living on minimum wage) that wouldn't be such a bad thing; however, in America at least, the price is so out of control that unless you're one of the Chosen*, there is no way you are going to get that rubber stamp unless put yourself into massive amounts of debt or come from generational wealth. From what I hear, the era of getting easy scholarships is over--but even back then, you had to put on a song and dance about how you're so unique like the fifty other pumpkin spice white girls who did a six week stint in Haiti for voluntourism. Most will have to get into debt and from the looks of it, most debt forgiveness programs require you to do something social justicey; like teaching in an Indian reservation. The others will have to scramble for endless employment so that they can keep the debt collectors at bay.

In short, it's just an initiation ritual to induct yourself into The System.

*Whoever this class is depends on the Left's chosen avant garde; yesterday it was the blacks, today it's the LGBTQQRDTIDOWEJFSD

 

[William Tell Underpass]

I know someone who managed to get off the STEM labour abuse model pretty early. She got an internship in a lab in her first year or so and then quit studying and just got a job with them. (bad at writing essays, couldnt keep up with the academic workload).

STEM field prep starts in highschool, they constantly groom teenagers inclined towards it that you must do your BA, then your Masters, then do research assistant / casual teaching associate work while you work on your PHD, then work your way up to being a professor while fighting like an animal for grants and research money.

Working in stem outside college is not much better because they can treat the ones who arent business inclined like slaves for near minimum wage basically forever because people in that field tend to get comfy just making enough to live and play videogames not to wanna risk asking for a raise.

Also, Trade school is a worthy endeavour, but tradesmen are assholes and you need a really thick skin to get in and stay in, especially if you are in anyway different because they will relentlessly bully anyone over the slightest variance.

 

[Meat Poultry Veg]

Working in stem outside college is not much better because they can treat the ones who arent business inclined like slaves for near minimum wage basically forever because people in that field tend to get comfy just making enough to live and play videogames not to wanna risk asking for a raise.

Can confirm. You can have more practical experience than postdocs and get trapped as a lab monkey forever just because you lack the three magic letters. And I had no inclination to pursue my doctorate because seven years making less than minimum wage was not an attractive prospect.