The importance of a degree

[ray245]

Personally, I do believe that a degree is important, and I do assume that many members on this forum will agree with me. However, there is several reason why is a degree important. I hope to start a dicussion and debate about what is the most important reason to have a degree.

From my point of view, while a degree is not an exact measurement of your intelligence, it is something that we should always try to achieve. After all, nothing is more important than education, and to seek knowledge.

Many people here in singapore, the older generation has this belief that a degree is not that important as you can earn a living without a degree, and is proud of the fact a degree holder will seek them for help or employment. So how would you argue against those people?


Secondly, I want to ask you guys about your view on assortative mating (I guess it deserve another thread, but I'll let the mods decide) Mostly inspired by LKY's views on such an issue. Well, we know that genetics does not mean the child will definetly be smarter just because the parents hold a degree, but is there any real discussion on this issue among the scientific community? http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=AsL96q4UD-A&eurl=

Personally, I do not believe that the child will be any smarter just because of the fact that his/her parents holds a degree. After all, intelligence can be cultivated and nurtured. However, the family influence and background do matter to a certain extend I suppose.

[Knife]

A degree is just a level of education and like any other skill or knowledge, if you don't use it, it is worthless. So in the larger scheme of things, those who go to college and then don't use their new skills either in the market place or other venue's are a complete waste. Those that do just have a piece of paper saying they've had X amount of years of job training that qualifies them for X.

[salm]

Going to Uni gives you time, on the one hand to become skilled in your trade. On the other hand it also gives you time and support to learn how to think in general.
This can also be achieved autodidactically of course, but it´s more likely that you will learn this at uni.
There are, no doubt, also people at uni who never learn how to think.

So even if you don´t use your specific training you got at uni you can allways use the general training you got there.

If you´ve ever worked in a factory for six weeks during school holliday you might know what i mean. You get assigned to a task and some guy that has been doing that job for 15 years will be your boss. If you are halfways smart and educated you can do this job better than him after 10 days.

[Lord Pounder]

Depends on the circumstances. I personally believe that too much emphasis is put on degrees. When I worked for a political party earlier in the year apart from the cleaning lady I was the only member of staff without a degree. The result being that the party was shelling out a fortune recruiting new staff once the university educated staff had gained enough experience to move on and get a job befitting their qualifications.

I was 17 when I left school, with very little in the way for formal qualifications 3 GCSE's and a GNVQ in science. I had no choice to continue my education, my folks needed the extra money to help run the house. I've since worked with people my age who where able to go the University route and they are no better at their jobs, in many cases they are poorer because while they where partying for 4 years I was gaining vital experience, plus I didn't have over 10,000 worth of debt hging round my neck like a lot of UK Students end up finishing Uni with.

My opinion is that, especially in places like America, college and university degrees are used as a way of keeping the status quo where the rich get richer and the poor stay poorer. Thankfully this isn't as bad in the UK and Ireland.

[Knife]

Going to Uni gives you time, on the one hand to become skilled in your trade. On the other hand it also gives you time and support to learn how to think in general.
This can also be achieved autodidactically of course, but it´s more likely that you will learn this at uni.
There are, no doubt, also people at uni who never learn how to think.

So they can or they can't? There fore this line of reasoning is moot.

So even if you don´t use your specific training you got at uni you can allways use the general training you got there.

This is a possibility but I've also observed that a lot of people in my classes are good at class work but other wise are complete morons who are baffled with the door knob leading outside the class room. So while I think university is a good place to help kids and even older folk learn how to think and apply their limited knowledge of the world, it's not always a given that these people come out critical thinkers.

If you´ve ever worked in a factory for six weeks during school holliday you might know what i mean. You get assigned to a task and some guy that has been doing that job for 15 years will be your boss. If you are halfways smart and educated you can do this job better than him after 10 days.

I actually worked on a floor for ten years and while the basics of the job were shit easy, it usually took a month before a new person got an attitude about how good he was and a good six months before he was actually worth while for the rest of us. In short, it was mostly ego on the new guys part.

[salm]

Going to Uni gives you time, on the one hand to become skilled in your trade. On the other hand it also gives you time and support to learn how to think in general.
This can also be achieved autodidactically of course, but it´s more likely that you will learn this at uni.
There are, no doubt, also people at uni who never learn how to think.

So they can or they can't? There fore this line of reasoning is moot.

Why should this be a black and white issue? I´m saying that people with an uni education are more likely to know how to think than people without one.

So even if you don´t use your specific training you got at uni you can allways use the general training you got there.

This is a possibility but I've also observed that a lot of people in my classes are good at class work but other wise are complete morons who are baffled with the door knob leading outside the class room. So while I think university is a good place to help kids and even older folk learn how to think and apply their limited knowledge of the world, it's not always a given that these people come out critical thinkers.

Yeah, like mentioned before it´s not a black and white situation. You will allways get some uni educated idiot savants.

If you´ve ever worked in a factory for six weeks during school holliday you might know what i mean. You get assigned to a task and some guy that has been doing that job for 15 years will be your boss. If you are halfways smart and educated you can do this job better than him after 10 days.

I actually worked on a floor for ten years and while the basics of the job were shit easy, it usually took a month before a new person got an attitude about how good he was and a good six months before he was actually worth while for the rest of us. In short, it was mostly ego on the new guys part.

Hmm... my experiances are different. For example, after working in a refrigerator factory for a week or two i was actually told that i was doing the job better than the regular guy who had been doing it for 20 or so years. The job was quite easy. It involved pushing refrigerators on a cart from the assembly line to a storage. You had to decide at which time it would make sense to put which refrigerator into which storage room.
I´m talking about real low level work that really doesn´t need any form of special training besides half a brain and a bare minimum of organizing skills.

[Darth Wong]

A degree is just a level of education and like any other skill or knowledge, if you don't use it, it is worthless. So in the larger scheme of things, those who go to college and then don't use their new skills either in the market place or other venue's are a complete waste. Those that do just have a piece of paper saying they've had X amount of years of job training that qualifies them for X.

Not true. A person who acquires a very difficult degree has proven himself, and this is a piece of evidence you can use when trying to assess his intelligence, abilities, and character. Too many people rely way too much on their godlike abilities to "read" a person upon a first meeting, which is how slick con-men can scam so many people. Outside pieces of evidence from large-scale long-term activities like a multi-year university education tell you a lot about a person that you might not pick up on first glance.

Unfortunately, a lot of people are stupid enough to think that any degree is roughly equivalent, which is foolish. The world is full of idiots with shit degrees like "Communication" (note: Sarah Palin has one of these). And of course, not every school is equivalent. There are some baaad schools out there.

[frogcurry]

My boss used possession of the right engineering degree from a known university as a basic judgement of "has the technical skills to do the job" when I got interviewed. After 5 seconds of confirming what university I was from and the degree I got, he moved on to assessing my attitude and other non-technical skills.

In that sort of context a degree is only important as it guarantees a bundle of basic abilities which are pre-requisites. You could do my job without a degree if you had the same knowledge and ability by some other means. The only reason a degree is the pre-requisite is for confidence in your staff that you wouldn't get otherwise, because a big enough design screw-up on my part (if it got through uncaught, which it might these days given the idiots we get as clients) could blow up an oil platform. If it was a lower risk job, I guess you might have non-degree staff as well.

If you have a specialist degree, then it's definitely worth something for that specific job or anything similar. But I'd question the value of any old degree for a job, versus any competing source of experience and knowledge. I learnt quite a few general skills at university, but honestly I've learnt 10 times as much in the same period working in a real job. The idea of getting everyone in the world a degree is a real annoyance.

[Knife]

Not true. A person who acquires a very difficult degree has proven himself, and this is a piece of evidence you can use when trying to assess his intelligence, abilities, and character. Too many people rely way too much on their godlike abilities to "read" a person upon a first meeting, which is how slick con-men can scam so many people. Outside pieces of evidence from large-scale long-term activities like a multi-year university education tell you a lot about a person that you might not pick up on first glance.

That's true enough for some people, your engineering, physics, and/or mathematicians come out fully able to think critically. I was taking a more general look at degrees, considering how many sports medicine degrees and other proverbial 'basket weaving' degrees out there. On top of that, I do know a couple women who went to some very nice schools and got nice shinny degrees and then married and stayed at home raising kids, now their kids are just shy of being on there own the moms have no intention of entering the workforce still. This is a total waste of an education, since neither of the women I know like that got a degree in child raring or something applicable to what they did.

Unfortunately, a lot of people are stupid enough to think that any degree is roughly equivalent, which is foolish. The world is full of idiots with shit degrees like "Communication" (note: Sarah Palin has one of these). And of course, not every school is equivalent. There are some baaad schools out there.

Indeed.

[septesix]

On top of that, I do know a couple women who went to some very nice schools and got nice shinny degrees and then married and stayed at home raising kids, now their kids are just shy of being on there own the moms have no intention of entering the workforce still. This is a total waste of an education, since neither of the women I know like that got a degree in child raring or something applicable to what they did.

Why is this a waste of education? I don't claim to know these women or their motivation, but getting a degree doesn't always mean you have to use it in some capacity. There's nothing wrong with getting a degree simply because they enjoy the pursuit of the knowledge.

[Lagmonster]

On top of that, I do know a couple women who went to some very nice schools and got nice shinny degrees and then married and stayed at home raising kids, now their kids are just shy of being on there own the moms have no intention of entering the workforce still. This is a total waste of an education, since neither of the women I know like that got a degree in child raring or something applicable to what they did.

When I was younger, I remember chiding my mother for 'wasting' her education, too, to which she replied that she hadn't thought of me and my sisters as a waste.

My mother has an education similar to that of my father - both studied in similar programs and were awarded doctorates from the same university, where they met. The difference is that my father chose afterwards to work in livestock disease prevention, whereas my mother chose to put in the enormous amount of effort needed to raise three well-educated and responsible human beings. For all intents and purposes, they were interchangeable academically or professionally, but my mother simply wanted to be a mother.

[Darth Wong]

The "woman wasted her education by becoming a full-time mother" idea implicitly contains the assumption that a degree has no use outside of vocational training. That is often true of a community college education (this is one of the big differences between community college and university), but a good degree tends to teach you a lot about critical thinking which can come in useful in any sphere of life, and makes you a generally more well-rounded person.

[Tinkerbell]

I think in part, a degree shows not only verification of a specific skill set, but that you were willing to work through it for however many years. You attended class, did the assignments, absorbed the material, etc. It shows a willingness to work hard and do what you have to do that is equally important to employers.

[ray245]

The "woman wasted her education by becoming a full-time mother" idea implicitly contains the assumption that a degree has no use outside of vocational training. That is often true of a community college education (this is one of the big differences between community college and university), but a good degree tends to teach you a lot about critical thinking which can come in useful in any sphere of life, and makes you a generally more well-rounded person.

What is the difference between vocational school that has an engineering course and a university then?

P.S. Can anyone address the second point which I have brought up? Or does that issue deserve another thread?

Secondly, I want to ask you guys about your view on assortative mating (I guess it deserve another thread, but I'll let the mods decide) Mostly inspired by LKY's views on such an issue. Well, we know that genetics does not mean the child will definetly be smarter just because the parents hold a degree, but is there any real discussion on this issue among the scientific community? http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=AsL96q4UD-A&eurl=

Personally, I do not believe that the child will be any smarter just because of the fact that his/her parents holds a degree. After all, intelligence can be cultivated and nurtured. However, the family influence and background do matter to a certain extend I suppose.

[Lagmonster]

Personally, I do not believe that the child will be any smarter just because of the fact that his/her parents holds a degree. After all, intelligence can be cultivated and nurtured. However, the family influence and background do matter to a certain extend I suppose.

You might argue that education does not make one a good parent, but ignorance DEFINATELY makes one a poorer parent.

[Darth Wong]

What is the difference between vocational school that has an engineering course and a university then?

A vocational school with an engineering course turns out a technician, not an engineer. They can slap the name "engineering" on their textbooks and their course names, but that doesn't mean their graduates will become licensed engineers without a lot more work.

[Ford Prefect]

but a good degree tends to teach you a lot about critical thinking which can come in useful in any sphere of life, and makes you a generally more well-rounded person.

I think this is something that a lot of people miss, or otherwise just don't care about. Even pansy ass arts degrees (at least here) are going to require students to write essays, and if they do them well, they will have learnt to formulate and support opinions with outside evidence, for example. Or if it's a law course, you learn to pick and choose the evidence to make your opinion look like the truth, and then take someone's money. More seriously, even if I never become a lawyer, or if for whatever reason I was to drop out of uni now, what I have learnt in my courses still has pertinence in my general life.

[ray245]

What is the difference between vocational school that has an engineering course and a university then?

A vocational school with an engineering course turns out a technician, not an engineer. They can slap the name "engineering" on their textbooks and their course names, but that doesn't mean their graduates will become licensed engineers without a lot more work.

What is the main difference between vocational school and a university school in regards to critical thinking?

[Kodiak]

The "woman wasted her education by becoming a full-time mother" idea implicitly contains the assumption that a degree has no use outside of vocational training. That is often true of a community college education (this is one of the big differences between community college and university), but a good degree tends to teach you a lot about critical thinking which can come in useful in any sphere of life, and makes you a generally more well-rounded person.

I totally agree with this. My wife has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Illustration and gave up a lucrative career as an artist to be a "stay at home" mom. All it takes is spending a little time with mom-friends of hers from her small rural town who never got a degree to see the difference. A college degree puts you in touch with ideas and people you would've never otherwise encountered fosters critical thinking skills and a desire to continually improve yourself. When I see people who never went to college, never challenge their ideas, and hardly ever travel more than 20 miles from their home it becomes obvious what sort of America the GOP is forced to cater to.