Going to college/university (I’m in the U.K.) is great, as long as you work equally as hard towards getting a job in the field; whatever degree you have, hundreds of other people also have that degree and so you still need to find a way to make yourself stand out. I studied Biotechnology at University and did a Masters in Molecular Microbiology. I currently work in molecular and microbiology so that’s worked out well!

Navy vet (before college... learned what the real world had to offer), and then back to school (ages ago) Nuclear Engineering in Madtown.... that is how I put food on the table... standup comedy before school (and still periodically) keeps my sanity... now an engineering instructor for a nuclear utility AND an entertainment writer for Digital Beat Magazine (just highlighted Lords of the Trident) and photographer. Hoping that what I love to do (photographing and writing about shows) will someday (retirement... love being a boomer :) ) will put the same food on the table as engineering has.

I got a degree in mechanical engineering in the mid 90s from Carnegie Mellon University and have been working in that field since. As recently as a year ago, I used a derivative in Mathcad to find where the maximum stress would be in a varying cross section of a member. I directly use what I learned in my stress analysis course on a regular basis. I might be (probably am) in the minority though. I play guitar as a hobby and enjoy music - mostly metal ranging from 80s thrash to newer death metal, which is a bit of an odd mix with my educational background. I think it's a good balance. lol

Thank you for posting this Cole. Very good and mature video. Definitely helps with my current situation.

Great to see you back at it Cole, I appreciate this video a lot and alot of things you mentioned were factors that played into my decision to switch from Construction Engineering to Economics and History!

“Should you to college” Also shouts out to madtown 0:48

Overall I agree, but also know why you’re going. College is an investment above all else, and you should have an idea of what you’re doing when you go in. Of course, that may change, but try to know what to do when you go in.

My original degree was in electrical engineering. To say university did not prepare me for the real world is definitely an understatement. My career was very short lived as the market died a few months after I graduated. Now I’m a software developer, which turned out to be a much better fit for me.

@ColeDockter

3 жыл бұрын

IT is where it's at :)

Honestly it could be harder to become a successful musician than a doctor

i have deegre in mechanical engineering and i graduated in nov 2019. till know i didn't get any opportunities to work on this field. but since this pandemic i work as a freelancer for CAD and do some food delivery driver in my off day, maybe i didn't make a lot of money but still i believe some education in college is usefull to survive 😅 and now i try to improve my english to get opportunities work abroad.

Got a Software Engineering degree, currently work as a Software Engineer 🤷‍♂️

@ColeDockter

3 жыл бұрын

Damn you picking correctly.

I won't be done with everything before April but 20% of all geoscientists in Germany get a job outside the field. That being said, it's a wide field and we learn some stuff that's relevant to a lot of other industries. If you study it, it will probably get you a job but it will also likely not be the job that you were looking for. That being said yeah, agree with the learning a job vs learning how to learn a job bit. Also would recommend doing internships before studying.

As an engineering student (in a university in Finland) I think that college/university being structured like an apprenticeship would be garbage in my opinion. The same argument could be used for turning high school into something similar (we already have vocational colleges which do exactly that). The problem is, most people don't actually know what they want and even if they think they do, a lot can change in a few years. The point of a bachelor's degree for example is to teach the students the theoretical knowledge they need in order to work in that field in a variety of different jobs. Me for example, my major is automation and control engineering but I have no idea how much my eventual job will involve some of the skills I have picked up. I might just end up being a coder for a while and then transitioning into something different. In addition to what I've mentioned, the system in most places ensures that there are experts in very marginal fields but which are necessary. If everything tended towards apprenticeship, this might not be true. Also, having college turned into an apprenticeship program would bring about possibly insurmountable challenges. How will all the students fit into a very limited amount of places. Spoiler alert: they won't. This would also mean that a young student would have to pick a field they're interested in and committing to it without gaining the basic skills they might need in order to switch fields should they not like the job they're in. This sort of a program just really is not realistic and would end up making any educations system worse.

@ColeDockter

3 жыл бұрын

Hey! Good points. College definitely teaches you "to think." Under an apprenticeship route, students would get a better feel for what they'll end up doing. I think that would help solve the "I don't know what i want" type deal, and eliminate a LOT of student debt. Also - apprenticeships usually have coursework in addition to working on site. It's definitely not a perfect solution, but I wish I had the option to pursue an "Engineering apprenticeship" that would give me the same credentials without the student debt, and leave me feeling confident I would be a good entry level engineer. At the end of the day, I ended up teaching myself real world skills alone anyway (web dev) and landed a job in IT as an analyst (that has nothing to do with web dev). Funny how things work. I disagree that college gives you a bunch of theoretical knowledge needed for different careers, but that's my opinion. You learn a lot on the job & by doing. That's why the first couple of years & internships are so important to employers. Just my $.02.

@_veikkomies

3 жыл бұрын

@@ColeDockter One obvious disconnect I have to mention is the student loan and tuition fees. I basically pay next to nothing (depending on one's POV I get paid to go to school) for my education in a very respected and high-level university. Literally can't get better education in engineering in Finland in any other university according to rankings. "Under an apprenticeship route, students would get a better feel for what they'll end up doing." My problem with this is that most fields are so wide that a single apprenticeship will not give a wide enough understanding of the field. You are correct though, if I already know what I want to do for a living and know roughly the type of job I want, the apprenticeship will teach you how to do that and similar jobs. The problem is that for example in my field I could be designing test for industrial automation or work at a company that produces audio devices. Totally different jobs with different (with similarities of course) skill sets. To expand on the theoretical knowledge part: no, it won't give you total coverage of everything but my bachelors degree contains many different courses which apply to many different jobs. Of course I would need to expand on my knowledge later on but our bachelor's degree will give me a baseline understanding for applying to a wide variety of jobs (not senior level with a bachelor's) in several differing environments. 90% of students will also complete a master's degree (most programs you apply to are 3 + 2 years for a bachelor and a master) which will likely include some form of an internship. These internships and other similar jobs will teach you the specifics of that job and expand your skill set. With your studies alone you wouldn't be able to adequately perform most work tasks. But that's just the sacrifice for this type of system. We also have a vocational college and sort of university level vocational training which are more practical but they tend to be focused on a specific field and might lack the theoretical knowledge to perform extremely complicated tasks which will require a uni-trained expert.

@ColeDockter

3 жыл бұрын

FINLAND?! Come to the states! Hah. I got out lucky with 25k in student debt :)

My dad took a 2 hour machine shop class in his senior year and got a job at a machine shop right out of high school

I’ve got a physics degree, but I was never employed in that field. Been a full time musician for two years and never looked back 😎

@ColeDockter

3 жыл бұрын

A damn good one too! Let's hit main street this year! :)

@treyduncansings

3 жыл бұрын

@@ColeDockter absolutely!!!