My brother and I both worked thirty six hours a week while in college. If you manage your time, you can do it.
Funny story - I worked at Circle K and Mother’s Mattress Factory (a bar) in Corvallis, and it took me 5 1/2 years to graduate.
My brother worked at Cubberly Library and 42nd Street bar in Palo Alto as a bouncer (he was 5’9", 150 pounds). He graduated from Stanford in 3 1/2 years with two degrees.
It can be done.
It’s kind of like Pistol Squats… They can be done… but, it’s hard.
I have respect for those who worked through college for tuition money.
But I believe that they would have been better off going to a state university or community college and being more studious and getting straight As instead.
I say this cause I know a couple people who thought they were doing the right thing by “working” during college (couldn’t pay off their tuition anyways), and sacrificed grades to do so. It seems backwards in my opinion.
NOW, if you worked for tuition money + got straight As in non-stupid courses… You’re awesome.
I agree, with the exception of a few schools. I went to Oregon State, paid $2100 a year in tuition in 1981-1986.
My brother went to Stanford, paid about $25K in tuition 1980-1984.
I got about $200 in Pell grants. He got about $15K in scholarships.
Clearly, Stanford was a better deal.
My other brother went to Pacific Lutheran. Paid about $20K in tuition, 1978-1984. He got grant in aid for basketball. Ended up going to Willamette Law and NYU Law.
So, not sure where the fuck I am going with this, but, my brother that went to Stanford ended up going to Med School and did well before he passed in 2001.
My other brother that went to PLU is also doing very well - but I think that is because he is smart, not because he went to PLU, or Willamette, or NYU.
Gladwell wrote about this.
Funny story - we belong to a community in California and my brother from PLU is now the President of the board and shit is going to hit the fan.
Sorry, didn’t mean to shit in this thread.
I graduated Magna Cum Laude from Economics and Finance for Undergrad and Cum Laude from Analytics for Masters … both degrees I worked full time whole managing a full time course load…
I’d say it just depends on the individual, their goals and discipline…
I think there’s a hidden benefit here as well. Not only does it teach you how to really work (which, even when I was young, was a concept that escaped a lot of young people), but it also helps highlight the value of investing early in your career. Nothing like a low paid, tedious, physically difficult job to teach you the value of qualifications and advancing your career.
It depends on your career choice. No one ever questioned my GPA. Yeah, generic resumes ask for it, but no on really cares as long as you have that piece of paper. If you need a high GPA to move on to the next level of education (like the medical field) then that’s one thing. I’m pretty sure you just need your bachelor’s degree to go on and get your masters. I’d be shocked if you presented a MBA to someone and they were like, “Yeah, but he only had a 2.8 gpa…”
increasingly so, however the standardized tests for different masters/advanced or professional degrees are still required, I think, for a lot of programs. As always, though, these can be waved depending on level, breadth and depth of experience…
again, depends on the program prestige … I’d imagine most state school MBA programs, this isn’t an impactful criteria, HBS on the otherhand…highly selective and GPA would play a factor along with experience and GRE/GMAT or TOEFL…
In the UK certainly, education is only there to prepare you for the next stage of education. Once you have your A-levels, no-one cares about GCSE’s. Once you have your uni place, no-one cares about your A-levels, etc. In my n=1 experience, this continues in the workplace. People only care about the last thing you did.
Exactly, I didn’t graduate high-school, but have several AAs and a Bachelors. Never found a job app that said anything other than ‘what’s your highest level of education’.
Exactly. I dropped out of high school to go to college early and it literally never comes up in job applications (or anywhere else). And no one asks about GPA. I don’t even think it was a factor for applying to grad school.
It was for me - they used my undergrad GPA to waive the GRE requirement
We get it, you were cum louder… sheesh, you over-achievers are worse than vegan cross fitters who adopt rescue animals.
Funny story - I was at a job fair about twelve years ago and went to the Copiague table. They had a sign up that they would only consider a 3.5 undergrad GPA. Well, I was 41 at the time and had an MA in English with a 3.9 GPA, but my undergrad was 2.28 back in 1986.
They refused to interview me.
Copiague is a shitty district and now I work in a neighboring district with much better demographics and money.
Guess I am glad I almost flunked out of college.
Funny thing - real life and academics. Our personnel in charge of screening police applicants aren’t the cream of the crop. I think they’ve been assigned to doing background checks and applicant interviews to protect the world from them. They can’t screw up a criminal case. They can ruin a person’s potential career, but no one seems to care about that.
We get these green, 4.0 academic types instead of the rough around the edges types. The former is smart and follows the rules. The latter has life experience. Which one do you want when things go south and it’s time to kill or be killed?
These kids finish the academy and struggle horribly in the field training phase. They’re not used to confrontation. They’re not used to the loud and antagonizing way people talk to us.
As long as their mind is right (actually a cop for the right reasons), I want the guy with a 2.3 gpa and a history of fighting instead of the kid with a 4.0 who was head of the chess club.
I have a buddy who made it into and through police academy… I was completely shocked. Not because he is a bad guy, psychologically unfit (imo), etc., but because the dude has no life experience and can’t communicate under pressure from friends. He’s a traffic cop now. Nothing against the guy, just not who I’d expect to be selected.
Cops have a certain mentality that makes them unlike the rest of us. It’s a fact.
Tell the truth @Frank_C, when you go to a party, can you tell who is using? Who is an asshole? Who is drunk. Do you trust anybody?
Do you also feel because you are a cop, it’s okay for you to bend the rules?
Feel free to weigh in on this @mortdk.
I’ve never met a cop that didn’t bend the rules - my father in law, my brother in law, my nephew, my friend K, my buddy Arty O from the East Bay.
They let people off, they drive drunk, they falsify arrest records.
My brother in law was NYPD for 20 years, every arrest report was “Perp made a lef hand turn against a light, hit the lights, followed him, driver threw something on the floor of the car, pulled him over.” 1700 summonses all started with a guy making a left against a light - they were all black.
My best friend went on a ride along with Portland Police in 1980, he benched 275, they lifted together. They asked, “You like hurting people? Wanna be a cop?”
One of my childhood friends is married to an Oakland cop. He drinks on the job, they sleep on the job, they smoke in patrol cars.
It’s a tough fucking job, and I am glad some of you are willing to step up and do it. And, I’ll tell you the truth. My brother in law claims you can’t call him a racist until you have taken a baby out of a freezer.
And, he is right.
End of rant.
I can’t really answer this because I socialize with a very small number of people. The asshole one is easy though. That one reveals himself in the first minute.
Nope. And it depends on the rules. Do I speed? A little. I go 8-9 over but I don’t write speeding tickets until 11-13 over the limit. I try not to be a hypocrite. Here’s an honest nugget: I don’t think I’ll get a ticket for 8-9 over, but if I get stopped I think my credentials will get me a warning. I’m supposed to identify myself by our policy, so I’m not using it as a “cop out”. But if I get a ticket, then I will fully accept it because I earned it.
Letting people off is called discretion. There are some things we can do that with and some things we can’t. Have I ignored a marijuana roach? Absolutely. Have I let some potential assault/battery LEO charges slide? Yes. I’m not that sensitive. Do I drive drunk? Not anymore. I think I’ve driven after drinking too much twice since becoming a cop. I won’t do it again. But you are correct, a lot of them do.
The last one - falsifying arrests? That doesn’t happen anymore. We wear body cameras and everything is recorded. I’ve never known someone to try it, but if they did then they’d get caught and fired.
A lot has changed in the past 40 years. In the 90s my Department was ruthless and it seems to be the only effective method for the gangs. There was an unwritten rule that if someone ran their mouth or touched you then you hurt them. The process was simple: hurt them, take them to the hospital, then book them. That doesn’t happen anymore, and it shows. We get no respect. I don’t agree with unnecessary and excessive force, but now we have to coddle these jerks. Case law says we have to have thick skin so we can’t react to the filthy stuff they say to us.
Oakland is not a good place. Each Department is going to be different.
People confuse racism with experience. I work in a black community. I have experience in dealing with teenagers who are a pain in the ass. If you observe the same behavior out of a demographic over and over then it’s a cultural observation. I don’t assume they’re stealing because they’re black. I assume they’re stealing because I’ve caught them stealing in the past. Their parents steal. Their older siblings steal.
They cry racism to try to get out of their consequences.
Although not in law enforcement, we have the same issues at our work and that pisses me off. Our job is physically demanding and very hard, and the people doing the interview have never done manual labor or even know exactly what we do. They hire people who aren’t even remotely qualified and then look to us for answers when they don’t work out.
I’m convinced it’s this that will be a HUGE problem in the future.
Really nice post, I appreciate it.
You realize, of course, that this
is profiling, and racist.
However, I get it.
Thanks!