We were lied to

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They all told me when I was young that I needed to go to college and get an education or else I'll end up "flipping burgers" for the rest of my life.

But as I'm wrapping up my second to last semester before I (hopefully) move on to grad school, I strongly feel that undergrad was a complete scam.

I was a customer who was promised a service. I pay the university, they give me resources (primary among them the lecture experience) to learn my field and I periodically prove that I am progressing in my learning by passing examinations. In return I'm given a degree that is given meaning in the job market by the assumption that I have overcome significant hurdles to receive this degree.

Instead, college just ruined my health and happiness and wasted my time and effort. The bureaucracy is terrible and the school seldom acted in my interest. Professors constantly act like royalty in the classroom and disrespect you as a person. Now I'm being told that college degrees aren't enough by themselves to secure a job. I'm not terribly surprised considering how bastardized the whole process is.

And then people with jobs condescend to me by talking about "the real world"! ha! I've had my natural rights violated as a human being constantly and worked my ass off for years even in the depths of depression and through fevers and hospital visits and the imposed guilt and shame of my family and peers and professors. Not only that but I completely crushed the bell curve while doing it! I was wildly successful in a difficult field. But silly me to think that I'm good enough to make it in "the real world". Or silly me to think that I'm "entitled" to a job.

Students shouldn't quietly take this disrespect anymore. It's people like us in STEM fields who keep society moving forward through innovation and hard work and yet during our education years we're belittled and abused.

But what can I do to change the system when I'm worn down enough just trying to secure myself a livelihood? ah well, the most I can do is be kind and helpful when I become a professor.

Undergraduate dissatisfaction general thread? sure

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Last edited by nat4200 on 19 Apr 2012, 5:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

It's mostly just luck to get a job. That, and connections and dogged determination in interview processes and searching for openings. The whole point though is that I know plenty of qualified people in other STEM fields who are having trouble getting a job. And they were bigger "social networkers" than I was. I'd probably flounder.

I have the ability to make it through graduate school just fine. I'm a mathematician btw. I love my field and I want to be able to secure a professorship one day. I'm just disgusting by the culture that I see in academia right now. I'm trying to find a graduate school that has a department that seems sincere. I don't want anymore bs. And I want a community of people who actually care about me as a person. Seems like a reasonable standard to me

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Last edited by nat4200 on 19 Apr 2012, 5:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

More and more people are realizing it's all a big money scam. Like you, I haven't been able to procure (any) employment, and I graduated in March. All I got was a huge load of debt with no way to pay for it. The "education" wasn't worth it, despite what my family says. Most of what I learned wasn't that useful, and most of it would have been easily learned from books on my own terms.

It's kind of funny how the view used to be that you're entitled to the means to earn your keep. Now you're not even entitled to that much. If nobody wants to give you a job, you can starve in the streets!

Also, I have to chime in and say that aiming for a career in academia is an awful idea. There's already a glut of PhDs. Not only that, but when the college bubble collapses soon, there are going to be less professor jobs available. You'll end up stuck as an adjunct if you're lucky.

Yeah seriously. I waste more time than anything else I do for classes. In fact, undergrad has really killed my natural imagination and love of learning. It's actually harder to learn anything useful in school than it is out of school! What a joke.



I just don't see how a nation's people can consider themselves free when making a living isn't even considered a right anymore. I don't want a big house and a fancy car, I just want food and a place of my own. But even that seems to be threatened. I'm sure I wont starve to death, but the uncertainty that comes with employment recently must be a big strain on young people just getting into the job market.

What is "STEM?"

I want to start my 14 y/o son in community college classes in March as a music major--concurrent with homeschool. (He's in love with classical music and darn good piano player to boot.) He'll take it easy, just one course at a time at first.

I figure by age 20 or so, he'll have no debt, an internship or two under his belt, some decent contacts in his field and the option of finishing up at a 4-year college if he chooses.

What do you guys think of this of this plan?

STEM = Science Technology Engineering Mathematics

I have to agree with you. Had I any sense back in the 90s, I would have gone to school to be an electrician rather than computer science. In fact, post grad work is so expensive that I have not seen any value in it (there are people that tell me that there is value in a MS in CS, but I think that is only for large corporations). I would like to take a few courses to keep current however.

The only nice thing about my education was that I went to a school that required paid internships for a year before you graduated. That at least allowed me to get some work experience under my belt before I got the degree.

I don't think we were lied to as much as while college stayed the same, the job market changed. It used to be going to college guaranteed good, steady employment upon graduation. Unfortunately, the world has changed a lot and the whole job market is in turmoil. So we see a lot of people with Bachelors & Masters degrees "flipping burgers."

I do agree with the rest of your post though. Many professors are prima-donnas who don't really "teach" as much as lecture and talk about how great they are. And face it, universities are hard hit financially, so they are just trying to fill seats and take your money so they can stay afloat. Unfortunately, they don't always tell you that the course line you are taking is a dead end.

BTW, no one is "entitled" to a job (or anything in life actually).

Most rich and famous people didn't go to college. Most unknown generic wage slaves did. Do the maths. Society needs us to be ready to spend the rest of our lives as some replaceable cog inside someone else's business, see, even though the people who don't conform to that are the ones who start the businesses in the first place.

See here: http://www.collegedropoutshalloffame.com/

And what percentage of the population could actually do that?

Those people are equal parts exceptional, and exceptionally lucky.

Anyone who is able to work is able to start a business. Whether or not they decide to do so is another matter.

Yes that's kind of why I dropped out.......not only do I feel I was scammed and am now going to have to try and pay back the college loans I took out and don't feel its a very good idea to take anymore out. But yeah it feels like one of the more pointless things I've wasted life doing.....and now I am not quite sure if I will be able to find any work or get on SSI but I probably need to come up with some ideas before certain family members catch on to the fact that I am pretty much doing nothing with my life at the moment.

I would really like to not have to depend on this society for anything, but that is easier said than done. Obviously I don't have all the skills nessisary to go out into whatever uninhabited land I can find and survive.......so unless I find other people who are intrested in such a thing, if I choose to do it, it will probably be the last walk in the forest I take.

I worked as an electrician/automation tech for 20 years. The jobs were plentiful and the money was great. BUT, the jobs were physically punishing too. Everything you do is overhead or near the floor, so you end up wrecking your shoulders and knees.

If you want to make REAL money, you need to do industrial maintenance. That work is usually hot, dangerous and extremely stressful.

These days you can still find work if you're very good, but they will work you like a slave because, thanks to skyrocketing cost of benefits, it's cheaper to work you 7 days a week than to hire an adequate number of techs...

That's why I'm back in school.

Last edited by GoonSquad on 15 Dec 2011, 1:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yeah, that has nothing to do with it. Anyone can start a business, but most of them will fail. Do yourself a favor and research attrition rates.