College, university, whatever you want to call it. After realizing I am at a bit of a dead-end in my life, I have decided to return to college in the Fall of 2010 (if things go as planned). There are many reasons I stopped at just an Associate’s degree a few years ago. The primary reason being a lack of interest. I was making decent money employed as a web designer, I had learned most of my skills on my own or from peers, for free. College seemed pointless to continue.
One of my biggest peeves about higher education is the higher price tag. For me to go to uni this fall, tuition alone will be $11,000+. For one year. Then add on the absurd price of books (yay half.com!), overpriced food if I forget to bring any with me to the campus, plus any other fees (I’ll be in the art department, I don’t doubt there will be plenty of extras I’ll need to purchase).
Yep, a homeless man is richer than you are.
Add to the cost, all the silly hoops you have to jump through and pointless, useless classes you have to take to meet the requirements for a degree. The justification of all these extra pointless classes that have nothing to do with your goal is to “make a more well-rounded student” of you. I think that’s a pile of bullshit right there. The more classes they require you to take, the more fees and tuition they can milk out of you.
But all that money must surely be going toward getting excellent professors! I have my doubts there. College administrators drive the fanciest cars in the lots, and live very well. Is my money going toward my own advancement in life, or theirs? I think more of it is going toward theirs.
Unless you come from the kind of family where mommy and daddy could actually afford to pay cash for your college education (where the fuck do these people come from?!), you’ll be incredibly deep in debt from day 1 until fucking retirement age.
I was hoping to avoid the crushing weight of student loan debt, but alas. I think you can pretty much guarantee your résumé or job applications are trashed if you don’t have “Bachelor’s Degree” at the very least listed. It doesn’t matter what your skills and experience are in the real world. Unless you have that degree. I’d say it’s incredibly rare that an employer will look past the lack of degree and just focus on your portfolio and what you can do for them. It happens, but not often enough.
I hate that what you can do isn’t as important as something as expensive and useless (remember those pointless classes?) as a big degree. I think it’s another magnifying glass on the elitism out there. Employers will say a Bachelor’s degree shows you can put your mind toward something and accomplish it. What I’ve seen, they’re just blowing smoke up your ass. It shows you’re a part of their club.
I’m certainly not trying to knock education and learning. For fuck’s sake, learn all you can, fill your brain to the brim. With the internet, you have tons of information available to you for free. I’m just wagging my middle finger at the goddamn colleges and universities that cost an arm and a leg and don’t focus as much on truly learning as they claim to.
Tags: bachelor's degree, Education, elitism, Money, resume, rip-off, tuition, university
I am right there with you. I’m also going to college in the fall of 2010, staring down 12k+ a year for the next 4-5 years, just so that my resume doesn’t get trashed when they see experience with no degree. It’s bullshit.
I really agree with you on a lot of this. I hate the fact that you have to take gen. ed. classes to fulfill your degree requirements. And every school does say it’s because they want you to be well-rounded! I don’t particularly care about being well-rounded. I want to be knowledgeable in MY major. That’s it. Ugh, you could probably cut down your college time by like half if you could drop the gen. eds.
I still don’t completely understand the way American colleges/universities work. Why does it have to cost that much money? Around here we pay a tuition of about 500 euros a year (which is about $675) and I don’t think I have ever spend more than 200€ on books. At least that’s what my parents paid for my education as a bachelor in journalism. There’s probably some difference between following a medic course to become a doctor and a course to become an accountant, but still, we aren’t talking about thousands of euro’s at all. The largest part of the education is paid by the government and it’s important that the government is willing to invest in knowledge, otherwise you are not getting the best out of your people. By asking these ridiculous amounts of money as tuition, you keep people from getting a good education and from helping their country become more intellectual.
I went to school for 3 years, got an Associates in Photography and a Bachelor’s in Graphic Design and now I am up to about $60,000 in debt. I’ll be paying that back until I am dead for sure.
NEVER go near the Art Institutes. It cost me $20,000 a year not including camera equipment, darkroom supplies, printing, matting, etc.
The only good thing I can say about them is that they don’t make you take too many gen ed classes. I think I remember taking a math, English and Spanish class and the rest of my courses were actually art related even though it was Art History and Color Theory and things of that nature.
Haha, I share your view. To the point where my boyfriend and I had a HUGE argument over it. I think it sucks arse that people like my mum, with no expensive education, don’t get jobs even though they are better qualified because they don’t have a fucking piece of paper!
Personally, if I owned a company, and law didn’t require a degree or anything (Like nursing, teaching etc) then the first thing I would look at is life experiance.
An example is, a couple of years ago I read on the net, there was a computer programmers job avaliable, to be considered for the job, you had to make the “Beep” test. (I think is what it’s called). Where the computer would beep at a certain combination. (Like prime numbers or something, I can’t remember the actual combination). Anyhow, people with a big expensive piece of paper couldn’t do it. And, obviously, people with no big arse loan and expensive education could easily do it.
My boyfriend did it just to prove to me he could do it. He was 15 or 16 at the time. Bah. I just find it funny.
I don’t know if this helps, but I hope it does.
I am studying for an undergrad degree through the University of South Africa. It’s mainly a distance based university.
This university has exam centers dotted all over the world.
I know of various people that have studied through it and have been able to procure employment in different countries.
The rates are not so bad at all for international students. I wrote exams in Ottawa once. The only thing is that the school calendar goes according to the South African one. Which means the school year starts in January and ends in December. However, you can register for programs according for just a semester. 2nd semester starts in July 2010. I think they might have an Arts program if you’re interested.
They are not so great with student support at times, but keep in mind they have 1000′s of students across the world to keep up with. It does help to call at 8am South African time and to complain on hellopeter.com
http://www.unisa.ac.za
Btw, Nelson Mandela studied through this University while he was stuck in jail on Robben Island
I completely agree with on this one, up until this point:
“I think you can pretty much guarantee your résumé or job applications are trashed if you don’t have “Bachelor’s Degree” at the very least listed. It doesn’t matter what your skills and experience are in the real world. Unless you have that degree. I’d say it’s incredibly rare that an employer will look past the lack of degree and just focus on your portfolio and what you can do for them. It happens, but not often enough.”
I guess I’m part of that “not a lot, but it happens” group, because I’ve been working in the web design industry for more than four years now and I have no degree nor institutionalized education. All I have is my experience (so far, three different employments, which all three have been in different industries, but I’ve been the web/graphic designer in each one (web hosting/internet marketing/clothing). Personally, I don’t agree with you, only for the fact that I’m living proof, but also because I highly doubt if you have an amazing portfolio (doesn’t necessarily have to be “amazing”, but well off enough to show you have skill) and can show that you have a solid work ethic… (can back it up in ANY previous jobs you’ve had) I doubt that they will just push you to side for someone with a bachelor’s degree.
School doesn’t equal experience, it equals a foundation or structure for you to build on.
If this does indeed happen to you often, than I must say you are looking with the wrong employers and they obviously don’t know the field all that well.
BUT, then again…this only pertains to the “multimedia” industry. I would never argue on this if it pertained to being a doctor or lawyer…or jobs to that nature.
I hear ya, and in many cases, your portfolio will sell you big-time. I was thinking more about the places that get wayyy more resumes than they can possibly check out thoroughly, so they’ll start weeding through some basic stuff to decide which ones they’ll look into further (like at a portfolio). Some of those big companies will begin by weeding out the resumes that don’t have a Bachelor’s degree listed, just to pare down their choices. I would *hope* that’s not too common, but I have a strong feeling it is.
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