Tundras live: Dumb Dad Jokes, Incorrect Opinions, and Relationship Advice.

Appreaciate it. But I don't have anything much to add other than troll the snowflake.

 

And have way less debt to boot.

 

I was stumped for a bit but did get them all figured out...

 

A for effort.

 

The only hard one is the center…Eagle Eye Cherry? Gin Blossoms?

 

Oh. Of course. Helps if you can tell what it’s supposed to be.

 

What if the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs was actually a spaceship, and we're all the aliens?

 

And the one to the left of that?

 

No way. Not possible. There has to be better aliens in this universe than us.

 

There's a band that's so good I forgot about them until just now.

 

I don't understand the hate for getting a degree. Trade experience and scholastic knowledge both have their place.
I went to, then called, VPI for a year and quit. I liked working and making money more than school. I took an apprenticeship, 10 hours a week classroom, 30 working in my trade. As I was at the end of my apprenticeship I was walking from the gate 3/4 mile to the job site, in 45F rain. Decided I was going back to college, uni.
I went on third shift and attended college full time. It was tough with a wife, kid and mortgage but I stuck it out and graduated.
I could have made good money without a degree. I couldn't have made what I made without it. Probably couldn't have made what I made without the trade experience either.

I have countless stories about tradesmen thinking they were engineers but were wrong. Likewise about engineers with zero common sense. Don't get me started on admirals who think because they say something it can be done.

There seems to be a lot of work from home IT type guys on here. I never got that, but I've had some help me out over the years. I don't know if they're self taught or formally educated. Makes no difference to me if they can do their job.

Bottom line is you do you.

 

I understand that. But would you rather drive across a bridge designed by a guy that doesn't understand why 1 is better than 2? Not by common sense, this is a very simplified example. What if they were T, I, L shaped?

To understand where bending stiffness comes from, picture a simple deformable bridge, like a flexible ruler. Flexible rulers are easy to bend in one direction, and difficult to bend on their side. Is there some science behind this?


This phenomenon is due to something called “the area moment of inertia.” In layman’s terms, it is the resistance to bending due to the shape of the cross-section of an object. The higher the area moment of inertia, the stiffer the part.. For a rectangular cross-section shape, which applies to sheet metal, the area moment of inertia formula is:



I also agree that many people end up in fields that aren't remotely relevant to their degree. But I find that less true with STEM degrees.
Still doesn't mean that experience > degree, or that degree > experience. They both have their place.

 

The stereotype is that a lot of people blow serious money on a degree that they don't use.

No hate towards earning a degree from me though, it works for a lot of people.
They both definitely have their place, awesome it worked out for you

 

You guys already covered this ^^ don't mind me!
I pulled a @Tripleconpanna and didn't read ahead

 

You can't do that as an engineer in Canada. We have very specific continuing education requirements we have to meet every year, including X number of hours actually doing engineering work.

 

I don't think there is hate for those getting degrees and using them. However, I do think there is a feeling of wasted money if you don't use it accordingly though. I am personally one of those who didn't need to go to school but did. I got my degree in communications, minoring in journalism. Yet here I am running a beverage program at a restaurant/bar for a small growth minded company with 10 locations. If I didn't go to school I think I would've ended up in the same line of work, as bartending is what put me through school.

A trade can put some pretty good dough in one's pocket these days with less than the cost of college tuition. I know electricians making upper 100's and the same with all my MTN Recovery friends who started their own towing/recovery business. They are clearing well above other tradesmen I know. Are they rich? Nah, but they all get by just fine living in an overpriced state.

 

I'll bite on this discussion.

I'm a 45 yo with a high school degree. I'm just now paying the price for my decision not to go to school, and it's only because of my decision that I'm doing so.

Everyone has their baggage. I have mine. I didn't go to college for various reasons. Has the choice, didn't go. Thought retail was just fine paying my bills. Went right into night shift after graduation. Got lucky and found a warehouse job at a start-up IT company, completely by chance. Was lucky because I "GOT IT" from a process perspective and worked hard, so they took a chance and put me on a technicians bench testing incoming returns. Somehow, again, "GOT IT", and then made the most of my abilities and started down a new career path, thanks mostly to amazing supervisors who saw something in me and my work and who didn't care about the paper.

Fast forward to today. I work for the govt in a pretty wild role. Because I've hit a ceiling due to my lack of degree, they've sent me to college so I can come out and continue climbing the ladder. This again due to amazing supervisors and managers. I'm rather humbled by the whole thing, actually. While not required, they value education and they put their money where their mouth is. I'm impressed and reinvigorated because they are actually helping lift that ceiling I'm under. Pretty cool knowing I'm not going to be the "where there's a will, there's a waiver" guy.

So, while I would never change a thing about my career path, I will say that the importance of the paper varies. If I had the paper, I probably would have been content slow rolling my career a bit. Because I don't, I've had to work 2x as hard to keep pace with the well educated people I'm surrounded by and I've carried a chip in my shoulder to never be technically less than someone I'm a peer to. That chip is why I'm in this program, because I'm still hungry and don't know how to slow down. My path has made me eligible and placed me in this position for consideration for this opportunity.

Since I've often argued against a degree for the reasons everyone has already discussed, I had someone once give me a pep talk. As I've been told, the degree isn't just about the paper. It's about time mgmt, it's about networking and interactions (less now with online programs), it's about seeing something thru that is a long-term effort. I can see all of this now that I'm in it. It's crystal clear and is more focused on the soft skills. Now that I'm older, I appreciate this aspect because I relate more to the trades and I'm def the blue collar guy in a white collar room, for better or worse. Sometimes it's good to be different, sometimes different needs to STFU. One thing I'm appreciating right now is the saying "You have 2 eyes, 2 ears, and 1 mouth. You should act accordingly." is such a great lesson, regardless of career path.

So, in my experience, I agree that the paper is just a paper, until it is not. I also agree that the EN career field is (generally) rather impressed by their own credentials because the first question they ask one another is "where did you go?" which is always a fantastic topic. Most people think I'm BSing them when I say i didn't, but then you have the fucktards that use it against you and try to shit all over you because, you know, how dare an uneducated person try to tell a PhD they're perhaps not as correct as they believe they are. I'm not shitting on educated folks, either. It's a PhD that got me accepted into this education program and who got me promoted to where I was able to apply. There's just as many good eggs as there are bad eggs.

So, some luck, finding good people, some critical thought to bring life experience to the table, and lots of humility and open recognition that you don't know it all seems to be the path to success in the white collar world without a degree. You get to an age where most (certainly not all) people stop caring and if you're at a certain level, it's because you belong there. It's that lower and middle mgmt pool you gotta survive first. And that kinda sucks.

I was really hopeful when organizations started talking about and removing education requirements in favor of OJT and relevant experience. I think that is a step in the right direction. Some of the most successful people I know are in the trades and own their own businesses. I don't think there is a right/wrong so long as you can support your lifestyle and contribute to society in some shape or fashion.