How to Deal with Stupid Parents

Off Topic
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A lot of good advice here, I’d just like to say the following;

Getting a bachelors degree in an engineering field is a sure way of having a steady career with liveable/comfortable pay AT THE LEAST.

My dad has a bachelors in business and he started as a buyer in 1980 at a hard drive company. He has been a program manager for the past 15-20 years, managing people with PhD’s and masters in engineering/physics etc. He has hit the “ceiling” of pay for his degree, they will not promote him to director almost for the simple fact that he does not have a masters/phD in engineering etc. And I can just about guarantee that he would not be where he is if it weren’t for that piece of paper.

But you see, the experience IS important and it HAS paid off for him. What I am getting at, is I think it’s still one of the safest/realistic approaches to get a engineering degree etc. AND acquire experience. Sure the guy who is 25 with 6 yrs experience may be ahead of the guy who is fresh-out with his engineering degree/ zero experience. But what about 5-10-15 years later? At some point you’ll have a guy with 10-15 years experience AND a great degree vs. a guy with 15-20 yrs experience WITHOUT a degree. At this point the difference in experience isn’t as substantial. YES universities and higher education is an industry, it has to be to exist. But there is value in learning 4 levels of calculus, classic/modern physics, strength of materials and dynamics etc. If not for what you actually learned, then for LEARNING HOW TO LEARN. Yes I agree that it comes down to the ability of the individual to APPLY it. I would also reiterate that getting a degree is a filtering process, many enter, few complete their engineering degree and those who do have proven at least something (ability to show up with a completed assignment on time/sober…over, and over, and over for 4+ yrs).

A smart guy with no degree and experience is very useful, a smart guy WITH a degree AND experience is MORE useful, I would argue.

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You guys ruined a good troll job with all this seriousness

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[quote]cally wrote:
You guys ruined a good troll job with all this seriousness[/quote]

This, I had to bow out when the grumpy old cuntyness stopped.

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[quote]RATTLEHEAD wrote:

Although it’s not exactly a representative sample, the students on my course were pathetically lazy. So much so, I graduated student of the year for a 2:1. Only 2 other students got a 2:1 - by the skin of their teeth - whilst the rest were happy to laze around and get 2:2’s or even 3rds.
[/quote]

Where the hell did you go to uni? That was certainly not my experience…

A lot of companies will just automatically throw grad’s CVs in the bin if they don’t at least have a 2.1 at the moment.

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[quote]RATTLEHEAD wrote:

[quote]The Ox Man wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]The Ox Man wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:
See the disconnect in your statements, Ox Man?[/quote]

No I said they were hard for different reasons
[/quote]

Of course there are differences. Always have been, always will be.

Suck it up and make your way in the world – “hard,” “harder” or “hardest” be damned. Fuck all the excuses.[/quote]

Indeed, I don’t disagree with you. I was just highlighting a few problems that young people face today.

It was really just in response to people talking about this generation being lazy and having it easy, which is a bit unfair. I think it’s an age old stereotype older people have about the younger generation. There are obviously a lot of lazy fuck ups in every generation that give everyone a bad name. Conversely there are a lot of hard working people who succeed.

In my old university for example the student population has grown in the last 10 years, but the sale of alcohol at the student union is a third of what it was, and overall standard of pupils is higher. A lot of the evidence at my uni at least is showing that the students entering university now are working harder than they were 10+ years ago. This is partly due to the value of the degree falling, so a 2.2 is no longer as sufficient, people really need a 2.1 or a 1st class degree to get their foot in the door.

That’s using the UK standards, I have no idea what those levels are comparable to in the US system.[/quote]

Although it’s not exactly a representative sample, the students on my course were pathetically lazy. So much so, I graduated student of the year for a 2:1. Only 2 other students got a 2:1 - by the skin of their teeth - whilst the rest were happy to laze around and get 2:2’s or even 3rds.
[/quote]

I don’t think I understand the 2:1, 2:2 grading system here.

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[quote]carbiduis wrote:
My dad has a bachelors in business and he started as a buyer in 1980 at a hard drive company. He has been a program manager for the past 15-20 years, managing people with PhD’s and masters in engineering/physics etc. He has hit the “ceiling” of pay for his degree, they will not promote him to director almost for the simple fact that he does not have a masters/phD in engineering etc.[/quote]

This is actually pretty normal, that people hit a ceiling within their own company. It’s even more prevalent as you get to the top, to the VP, President, CxO level.

And the typical solution is to leave the company for somewhere else (even if you’ve been there for 20 years) for a higher position, and then, maybe eventually, come back.

So, manager at Company A has experience, knowledge, etc. but won’t be promoted to director. Company B has headhunters looking for a director position. Company B may or may not even be in the exact same industry, but at that level, strategic planning and management skill is often more important than technical skill, so you can change industries a lot easier.

And then work as a director for awhile, maybe getting promoted to the executive level, say, Junior VP and hit another “ceiling”.

Then jump ship to Company C (or even back to Company A) at a Senior VP level or higher. Obviously you have to prove yourself and sell yourself when you do this.

Executive leadership often works a lot like this… always moving up… but not always at the same company.

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[quote]LoRez wrote:

[quote]carbiduis wrote:
My dad has a bachelors in business and he started as a buyer in 1980 at a hard drive company. He has been a program manager for the past 15-20 years, managing people with PhD’s and masters in engineering/physics etc. He has hit the “ceiling” of pay for his degree, they will not promote him to director almost for the simple fact that he does not have a masters/phD in engineering etc.[/quote]

This is actually pretty normal, that people hit a ceiling within their own company. It’s even more prevalent as you get to the top, to the VP, President, CxO level.

And the typical solution is to leave the company for somewhere else (even if you’ve been there for 20 years) for a higher position, and then, maybe eventually, come back.

So, manager at Company A has experience, knowledge, etc. but won’t be promoted to director. Company B has headhunters looking for a director position. Company B may or may not even be in the exact same industry, but at that level, strategic planning and management skill is often more important than technical skill, so you can change industries a lot easier.

And then work as a director for awhile, maybe getting promoted to the executive level, say, Junior VP and hit another “ceiling”.

Then jump ship to Company C (or even back to Company A) at a Senior VP level or higher. Obviously you have to prove yourself and sell yourself when you do this.

Executive leadership often works a lot like this… always moving up… but not always at the same company.[/quote]

Yup.

I’d also imagine a somewhat “inverse” approach can be taken to move into different areas. I’m currently a project Engineer, so getting hired as a design engineer may be a steep hill to climb. So if I could find a way to move over to our design group in the company I’m currently at, put in a few years there, THEN apply for a design position outside of my company.

Or even finding a company that is a competitor or similar industry, it would be easier to enter a design role since I am already familiar with this industry (applicable experience I guess is what most call it :stuck_out_tongue: ).

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[quote]carbiduis wrote:
What I am getting at, is I think it’s still one of the safest/realistic approaches to get a engineering degree etc. AND acquire experience. Sure the guy who is 25 with 6 yrs experience may be ahead of the guy who is fresh-out with his engineering degree/ zero experience. But what about 5-10-15 years later? At some point you’ll have a guy with 10-15 years experience AND a great degree vs. a guy with 15-20 yrs experience WITHOUT a degree. At this point the difference in experience isn’t as substantial.[/quote]

I basically agree completely with this. The only difference I’d point out is that “getting the degree” is not the same as “getting the education”.

Two parts: A degree says you took the classes and were able to pass… but there are many people I’ve known who can pass a class but 6 months later can’t remember anything. Or those who can pass a test one week but would fail that same test two weeks later.

Secondly: one can get a stronger education than their classmates (and tests/quiz/project scores reflect this), without jumping through all the hoops or taking some of the BS classes that serve primarily to weed out students. As an example, my intro to Chemistry class required that we take notes during lectures, and a good chunk of your grade was based on how good your notes were. There were several who understood the material very well, aced tests, and saw no reason to take notes… but they got poor grades because of it.

Obviously the deeper you get into your major, the less BS there is, but sometimes having a degree doesn’t mean you have a good education… and sometimes having a good college education can be done without actually getting a degree.

Completely agree with that; I wouldn’t be able to do what I can do now if it weren’t for some of the math, science, computer science education I got. Also, honestly, the social psychology and group dynamics stuff (which was grad-level psych). And the hands on experience building and tuning our SAE Formula car to win the world autocross championship. Those are all experiences facilitated by going to a university.

I’d go so far as to say there’s value in just learning stuff altogether, assuming you’re actually learning it and not focused purely on passing tests. If you truly know the stuff, it’s easy to pass a test. If you can pass a test, it doesn’t mean you actually know anything.

History classes are often the worst example of this. There’s so much important stuff to learn, in terms of development of concepts and important ideas over time, but the classes often focus on names and dates and who did what… not why, and what it really meant, and how it impacted stuff elsewhere. But I also think you need some basic understanding of economics and finance and government and psychology and religion and science to even really start putting history together.

I’d only adjust this to replace the word “degree” with “education”.

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[quote]The Ox Man wrote:
A lot of companies will just automatically throw grad’s CVs in the bin if they don’t at least have a 2.1 at the moment.[/quote]

Which is important, cause every company needs good STUDENTS working for them in order to be successful…

\sarc

…yes I am bitter about companies that are hard up for good GPA’s, since my GPA was right about in the middle/lower portion.

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[quote]carbiduis wrote:
…yes I am bitter about companies that are hard up for good GPA’s, since my GPA was right about in the middle/lower portion.[/quote]

Not to get too personal, but why wasn’t it higher?

For what it’s worth, up until a certain point in my career, it would have been a lot easier to get a job with a degree and a moderate GPA, than a high GPA but no degree.

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[quote]jbpick86 wrote:

I don’t think I understand the 2:1, 2:2 grading system here. [/quote]

Basically in the UK we don’t have GPAs. A university degree is awarded in 4 levels
1st : The best grade, seen as excellent
2.1 : A good grade, generally considered a “good” degree, this is what most people aim for
2.2 : Not that great but passable
3rd : Might as well have not gone

Also, good points by Lorez and Carbidius. Completely agree, you get out what you put in for sure. And it is definitely possible to pass tests while not understanding the material. I did this exact thing for my final pure maths module. I was always more of a fluid dynamics guy :stuck_out_tongue:

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[quote]LoRez wrote:

[quote]carbiduis wrote:
…yes I am bitter about companies that are hard up for good GPA’s, since my GPA was right about in the middle/lower portion.[/quote]

Not to get too personal, but why wasn’t it higher?

For what it’s worth, up until a certain point in my career, it would have been a lot easier to get a job with a degree and a moderate GPA, than a high GPA but no degree.[/quote]

My favorite question to answer…NOT…

for starters, my parents paid my whole way (Activate FLAME-POWER NOW!) which I have been and always will be completely grateful for. I was told this was going to be the case since I could hear with my own ears. I think this prevented me from gaining perspective, and motivation.

I tend to “over think” things, which made it hard to complete assignments perfectly, and thus tests. I was always trying to relate things to the real world rather than just “doing well” on the test. But for this same reason, I feel I am able to apply what I have learned (since I was ALWAYS thinking of how it related to the real world and how to apply it!)

I didn’t spend as much time as I should have during my junior year on studying. Not to say I didn’t spend time, but when you’re taking 5 INTENSE Engineering courses, you pretty much have to spend ALL of your time on it.

I was actually on academic probation at one point, I had to retake classes. In my final year I became successful due to a smaller class load and finally realized that ALL IT TAKES IS TIME!! Just spend time on it, it’s THAT SIMPLE…kinda like weight lifting.

My final year I got like a 3.2 I think, I graduated with about a 2.78 I think (overall and engineering curriculum GPA were virtually the same).

Getting shit done motivates me, not completing course work. I’m just glad I got my degree and GTFO.

I always had a feeling that school was a “game”. I like learning, but I am extremely visual which make it hard to learn by taking notes. I know I will need to sharpen my axe with either SIX SIGMA training (workign on tutoring myself now).

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[quote]carbiduis wrote:
YES universities and higher education is an industry, it has to be to exist. But there is value in learning 4 levels of calculus, classic/modern physics, strength of materials and dynamics etc. If not for what you actually learned, then for LEARNING HOW TO LEARN. Yes I agree that it comes down to the ability of the individual to APPLY it.[/quote]
That’s the line I was always fed about college. “It’s not about what you learn, it’s to show companies that you learned how to learn.” Motherfucker I’ve known how to learn since I was born lol!

[quote]carbiduis wrote:
A smart guy with no degree and experience is very useful, a smart guy WITH a degree AND experience is MORE useful, I would argue.[/quote]
True, but what is more useful than either of them is a hard worker. Assuming he’s not a complete moron, work ethic>experience>intelligence>degree in my opinion.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I openly admit that work ethic is something I struggle with. I was able to coast through school so easily that I developed this habit of not having to work hard since I could work so efficiently and intelligently. Problem is that is MUCH different in the real world as opposed to school. In school you can get away with that, because everything is dumbed down for people not as smart as you who can get by with hard work. In business, if you can work really quickly and intelligently, you need to ALSO work really hard. That’s how you give the most value to your employer and that’s how you succeed.

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[quote]carbiduis wrote:

[quote]The Ox Man wrote:
A lot of companies will just automatically throw grad’s CVs in the bin if they don’t at least have a 2.1 at the moment.[/quote]

Which is important, cause every company needs good STUDENTS working for them in order to be successful…

\sarc

…yes I am bitter about companies that are hard up for good GPA’s, since my GPA was right about in the middle/lower portion.[/quote]
100% agree

GPA has always pissed me off. It’s the stupidest, most subjective bullshit. Same class, one with an easy teacher, one with a hard teacher could result in smarter students with worse GPA’s simply because of their placement. One kid takes basketweaving, underwater bubble blowing, and whittling and gets a 4.0. Some other kid takes dif eq, thermodynamics, and biochem and gets a 3.0.

The list goes on and on. I don’t have a better system, but I have always hated the one that’s in place. And I didn’t even have a bad GPA. I think I had like a 3.8 in high school and a 3.5 at the end of college.

But see there were always these fucking tryhards who would get 4.0 or 3.9 or whatever the fuck and people acted like they were sooooo fucking smart. They’re not smart they put like 1000x as many hours in! I remember in high school me and my buddies would race with finals. Didn’t matter what grade you got, just whether you finished before the next guy.

So in the calc final for example, we’d get done in like 15 minutes. You have an hour and a half, so we spent the rest of the time playing Tetris on our graphing calculators. But you’d have these girls who would not only take the whooooole time, but they’d stay for like a half hour over into next period! Then the test results would come back and Sally “takes two hours to finish the test” Jenkins would get like a 99 and I’d get a 93. Well you win I guess Sally.

Joke’s on them when it came time to take the ACT though. None of them made it more than halfway through the math section before time ran out lol. I got a 33 on that bitch.

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[quote]The Ox Man wrote:
1st : The best grade, seen as excellent
2.1 : A good grade, generally considered a “good” degree, this is what most people aim for
2.2 : Not that great but passable
3rd : Might as well have not gone
[/quote]

1st = A = 4.0 = Geoff
2:1 = B = 3.0 = Atila
2:2 = C = 2.0 = Desmond
3rd = D = 1.0 = Thora

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[quote]csulli wrote:

[quote]carbiduis wrote:
YES universities and higher education is an industry, it has to be to exist. But there is value in learning 4 levels of calculus, classic/modern physics, strength of materials and dynamics etc. If not for what you actually learned, then for LEARNING HOW TO LEARN. Yes I agree that it comes down to the ability of the individual to APPLY it.[/quote]
That’s the line I was always fed about college. “It’s not about what you learn, it’s to show companies that you learned how to learn.” Motherfucker I’ve known how to learn since I was born lol!
[/quote]

well, were you ever challenged before you went into engineering? Maybe you were. I wasn’t. I’d say it’s about learning/overcoming challenging topics etc.

sure you learned to walk/poop/write before college. But what do you do when you “just don’t get it”? (maybe this hasn’t happened to you based on your other posts)

I was constantly challenged in college, so I feel like I learned how to “climb the hill” which was a useful tool, some people are able to “jump over the hill”…well, I’ll see you when we get to a hill that’s to tall for your too jump over, I already know how to climb over it :wink:

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[quote]csulli wrote:

But see there were always these fucking tryhards who would get 4.0 or 3.9 or whatever the fuck and people acted like they were sooooo fucking smart. They’re not smart they put like 1000x as many hours in! I remember in high school me and my buddies would race with finals. Didn’t matter what grade you got, just whether you finished before the next guy.

[/quote]

I’d clarify that by “smart guy” I mean “smart enough to know when to work hard”

My best friend was in calc in HS (accelerated in our HS program) but he fizzled, burnt out and dropped out. Cause he wasn’t willing to work hard.

-Hard work is my Talent.
-I am not smart, but I never stop thinking.
-What I lack in finesse, I make up for with GRIT.

These are my personal models, to make me feel good about myself when I am around someone like you who would always get the grades I couldn’t!

would you believe that I actually knew a guy who at the age of about 22 said “I have an IQ of 160, therefore I shouldn’t have to waste my time with the pre-req’s, they should place me in the higher math levels” He wanted to be a physicist and he wasn’t even working on entering the major yet at like 22! (he was in school for a few yrs already!)

like…“oh, fuck, you have AN IQ of 160!!! shit, just give us the $40k tuition and we will hand you your degree” -said none of the advisors anywhere ever.

dumb fuck you actually have to work to get it!

Thats the caveat to a degree (as mentioned by others previously), yeas you spent the time to get the degree, but did you have to WORK for it? some don’t(smart), some do(like I feel I did, since I’m not especially bright lol).

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[quote]carbiduis wrote:
-Hard work is my Talent.
-I am not smart, but I never stop thinking.
-What I lack in finesse, I make up for with GRIT.

These are my personal models, to make me feel good about myself when I am around someone like you who would always get the grades I couldn’t![/quote]
See now that school time is over I find myself increasingly jealous of people like you lol.

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[quote]The Ox Man wrote:

[quote]RATTLEHEAD wrote:

Although it’s not exactly a representative sample, the students on my course were pathetically lazy. So much so, I graduated student of the year for a 2:1. Only 2 other students got a 2:1 - by the skin of their teeth - whilst the rest were happy to laze around and get 2:2’s or even 3rds.
[/quote]

Where the hell did you go to uni? That was certainly not my experience…

A lot of companies will just automatically throw grad’s CVs in the bin if they don’t at least have a 2.1 at the moment.[/quote]

Glasgow Uni. I entirely agree that a 2:2 is pretty much worthless, didn’t make these people care anymore though.

With the Scottish Government has been funding higher education everyone thinks Uni is mandatory + students family entertaining the notion that a degree (general 3 year) or even a 3rd class is some form of achievement means that a fair number of students believe by reaching those mediocre levels they will be rewarded.

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[quote]carbiduis wrote:
well, were you ever challenged before you went into engineering? Maybe you were. I wasn’t. I’d say it’s about learning/overcoming challenging topics etc.

sure you learned to walk/poop/write before college. But what do you do when you “just don’t get it”? (maybe this hasn’t happened to you based on your other posts)[/quote]
That’s a good point.

And I think you’ve kind of hit on a piece why the younger generation seems lazy, because many didn’t learn that any earlier than college, if even by then.

My second high school was far harder and required far more work than college ever did. In college, there were some difficult subjects (e.g., advanced analysis of algorithms) but by then I knew what it took to force myself to learn it. I was able to learn the material and spend time thinking about how I could use it, rather than be completely focused on the process of learning/studying.

My Junior and Senior years of high school involved, without exaggeration, an average of 4 hours of homework a night, and I was also doing cross country/track (seasonal), marching band/jazz band (seasonal), and taking piano (which was at least an hour of practice daily). And working weekends.

My biggest struggle with college was that I was capable of working hard and being successful while completely overloaded, but that the university itself didn’t provide enough for me. I had a lot of time to fill, and I realized that working ahead in class backfires when you’ve already learned half a semester’s worth of material by the end of the first week. On the surface it probably sounds like I’m bragging, but it was a genuine struggle that left me pretty angry and frustrated. I wanted to learn faster, but I was being “held back”. It took me 3 years before I finally said “screw it, I’m doing things my way”.

A friend of mine got a double major in Math and Computer Science in two years, taking, at times, 50 credit hours simultaneously. My advisor, and the dean, wouldn’t let me exceed 20. It didn’t stop me from learning on my own, but it did piss me off quite a bit.

So, I mean, we all have different stories, and different problems.

I think though, as you pointed out, part of the problem is that people aren’t being challenged enough at the middle school and high school level, and so they come into college and either continue to coast, or get a bit of a rude awakening in an actual “hard” major.

Expectations were set wrong somewhere along the line, so there’s no real standard of “hard work”, and there’s a well established standard of “if I just do a little bit of work, I can get an A, or at least a B”.

One of my better professors taught a Computer Engineering class where he graded on a very pure scale. If you got the question wrong, you got it wrong; if you got it right, you got it right… no matter how you got there. There was no partial credit for being on the right track. As a result, many people who were used to getting As were now getting 50% or lower on tests. His actual grading scale made up for it (usually 40-60 was a C, 60-80 was a B and 80-100 was an A), but a lot of people dropped out, more focused on their GPA rather than on the material and lessons he taught.

That class went from 50+ students to no more than 10 by the end of the semester. When all was said and done, we all learned a lot, and I think everyone who finished it actually got a minimum of a B. (He was also way overqualified to teach that class, but I’m glad he did and I’m glad I took it.)

I hate to say we need some education reform… but we need some education reform.