College The student loan trap (rant thread)

master degrees are fucking useless, they are not hard to do. What is hard to do is a acutal fucking job. College teaches no life skills or actual work experince. Once u leave college and go into the real world u slapped in the face big time
 
^ the world of technology is very different today than it was when i was doing my undergrad and postgrad studies. so i agree that i apply very little of my subject-matter learning in my work.

but i totally disagree that college teaches no life skills. it teaches a lot of stuff indirectly that you may not even realise you’re learning.

first and foremost, i learned how to learn. i’ve been successful in my field because i’m a generalist who learns stuff incredibly quickly. that’s a skill i developed in college and university.

i learned to research, sum up complex issues, constructively criticise, communicate, to manage my time, collaboration, problem solving and many other skills i use almost daily in my job.

i also learned self-reliance and that my success was my own responsibility - the day i learned to stop blaming everybody but myself for my problems was an important day.

alasdair
 
JackARoe said:
I have seen my company cut to the chase and hire people over 60 if they had experience and the ability to work. Some younger people are more restless and tend to go for the money and don't want to work. But we also have a slew of younger people paying their dues just like the good old days and become successful. Showing up is 99% of success. Believe it or not a lot of people can't do that.
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i think it's just that younger people are already cynical by the time they finish high-school.

why work harder than you have to if you won't be rewarded? it's smart to just do the bare minimum for your employer (who won't even match inflation with your pay raises) if it means having time/energy left to get a side hustle off the ground and possibly be able to replace your wageslavery with entrepreneurship.

JackARoe said:
Use to be a University degree was worth something. Over the years the college curriculums cut class time, gave more time off and charged 50 times what it would have costed in say 1983. A total trap to me. And not as worth much as it use to be. Parents saved for their kids college days when i was younger. Do people still do that?
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yep, it's just not worth it anymore, people want alternatives and employers are still struggling to adapt to it.

alasdairm said:
first and foremost, i learned how to learn. i’ve been successful in my field because i’m a generalist who learns stuff incredibly quickly. that’s a skill i developed in college and university.

i learned to research, sum up complex issues, constructively criticise, communicate, to manage my time, collaboration, problem solving and many other skills i use almost daily in my job.

i also learned self-reliance and that my success was my own responsibility - the day i learned to stop blaming everybody but myself for my problems was an important day.
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i'd say it depends on your personality because i couldn't for the life of me learn any of this crap in school so i had to figure it out by reading career books and talking to people.

i ended up getting the most value out of polytechnic school learning fungible skills and refining soft skills in the workplace, which is easy if you are reasonably competent and know how to apologize when you fuck up instead of turtle and stew
 
assclass said:
Because you are trying to run before you can walk....

If broke then find any job

If have job but hate it, find better job

If have job but dont love it, find better job

If like job but want more money, find better job. etc

The goal is to go from unemployed to employed as fast as possible, and then continue leveling up your job.



The problem is that if you are BROKE, you NEED MONEY. Thus narrowing your opportunity, rather than expanding it. So it will take longer to find a job that you love and pays a lot of money (probably in part because demand, who doesn't want a fun, exciting job that pays great, and conversely no one wants the shit job for shit pay). The other thing is that if you go get a a shit job and continue looking for a job you love, you can tell your dream prospective employer, "I was broke, I needed a job and started working X, and I am not a fan, but show up every day and do a good job and then study/practice and search for this job on my spare time", your prospective employer will look at you more favourable than some bum who wont work until they find their dream job at a great salary.
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I think I understand what you mean, and on a certain level, I agree with it. But, when I say "job I can at least stand" I don't mean "dream job with a great salary", I mean a "fucking place where I don't hate every idiot I have to work with, and I don't want to call in sick every morning I have to wake up and go to work." I don't want to have a "dream job with a great salary" in my 20's (would be nice, of course, but also quite unrealistic, and I know that) I just want to do something I at least can tolerate.

I'm a full time student, living in a city full with other students, some with good connection in their families - and I don't ask you to know about Hungary's economical situation or anything like that, but it is shit as hell (renting a fucking room can cost half of your salary in the city where I study, and lets not mention the capital) - therefor, you have to go real deep to even just find a job you can do as a student, next to all your classes if your/your family is not local and/or have friends in the right places - and by job I don't mean "sitting in a chair, making coffee for the other office workers" type of shit. It took me 2 months to get a summer job at the KFC where I was at. TWO FUCKING MONTS.

At the moment, I'm applying to every fucking position I can find - from cashier to clearer, everything I can do 20 hour/week next to school. And, lets say that if I apply to 20 places, 1 calls me back. (It actually just heppand a few days ago, a lady calls me up, and tells me she is actually looking for students to work for her the next few months, but she cannot tell me when she will call me in, I just have to go when she says so. I have classes from Monday to Wednesday, from 10am-20pm with usually a two hour break somewhere in the day. The conversation ended quite fast when I told her, that as I student, I cannot drop everything to run in when she tells me to. )

And I know and I agree that I'm privileged to study at a university and have the luxury to say no to a job, but trust me, I didn't had many job offers to turn off. If a place would offer me the minimum student pay (so 1150 forint, 3-4 dollar/hour), somewhat flexible shifts, and some co-workers who would be just as un-interested in me as I would be about them, I would knock on the door, with CV in the other hand.
 
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In Canada there's no escaping it. They will garnish your wages and unlike other debts that disappear after 7 years, student loan will take you to court. Plus side is you usually get a job that you can afford to repay. I paid mine off(i thought i did) after 10 years then 5 years after that got a notice i still owed $3500. Can't fight them either, they say you owe it you're paying
 
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