The Gaming Den

Wrenfield wrote: Please don't tell us you got a degree in economics from your esteemed university.

Fortunately not. And as a result I might end up one day working in the field of economics.

Of the relatively few people I still keep in touch with who also have degrees from my university, not a one of them is working in the field they are qualified for, or for that matter in particularly good jobs at all. (some of us have done so, but not any more).

Well, except for my sister, but she gets away with it by employing herself.

And they claim our country is sufferring a "skills shortage" and "full employment". My ass it is.

I'm a qualified and experienced Computer Scientist working unpaid part time in the unskilled specialist horticulture industry for gods sake.

It get even wackier with getting a degree in Fine Arts. Being an Artist, I have no intention on compromising my Art by shaping and molding it into a packaged commodity for an employer to gain financial benefit. Many other Artists I know who went to Cooper Union, Parsons, and the other NYC art schools feel the same way.

This obviously, is a counterintuitive approach to actually "working" for a living. Unless of course, you create your Aart, sell it to people who love and appreciate it ... and as a result, actually earn enough money to live comfortably. Which is rare amongst my brethren.

But, ya know, I'm gonna try it. And so far, I'm doing okay. There's a real sense of fulfillment knowing that there is no middle-man, corporation, or marketing mechanism that stands in the way of a relationship between an artist and an appreciative patron.

Wrenfield wrote:It get even wackier with getting a degree in Fine Arts. Being an Artist, I have no intention on compromising my Art by shaping and molding it into a packaged commodity for an employer to gain financial benefit. Many other Artists I know who went to Cooper Union, Parsons, and the other NYC art schools feel the same way.

That's ... one way to look at it.

My sister's an artist. She paints in her free time and works as her local newspaper's graphic designer.

Heh, I dropped out of college, and I have a pretty solid career myself.

Right now, in my uneducated and probably incorrect opinion, there are a glut of college educated people, and not enough positions for them. As a result, those of us who opted to learn a trade have less competition, because no one wants to lay brick (Until they find out how much a certified bricklayer makes) or run a sewage plant (until they figure out that there will always be more people, and all of them shit from time to time) or become an electrician (even though there is constant need for wiring and such to be done.)

And really, outsourcing is not a huge problem, there's precious few illegal immigrants that are certified masons, or have a wastewaterworks operators liscence, or are liscenced electricians.

Trust me, learning a good trade is the way to go.

On that sewage treatment plant thing... You know you can make like $3000 a month here doing that?

That's more than what I'm making right now, but not enough to justify me moving to the complete opposite side of the country. But thanks for the tip.

Count_Arioch_the_28th at [unixtime wrote:1116259887[/unixtime]]
Right now, in my uneducated and probably incorrect opinion, there are a glut of college educated people, and not enough positions for them.

Like all broad generalizations this is both true and untrue. It really depends on what your degree is in plus other factors like are you willing to move, what kind of salary do you want, etc.

Most engineering degrees for instance will still get you a job straight out of college unless you're hardheaded on the relocating or salary requirements. An Education degree or a degree in a general study like Biology, Mathematics, Physics, etc and a willingness to teach can land you in a pretty steady career.*

Health professionals are a lock for good jobs, especially if you're willing to live in the country. Georgia for instance offers a tax break on doctors that live in rural areas, because most doctors would rather live in the cities.

What you study in college is really just another life decision that will have consequences if folks don't think about it what it could mean moving forward with their lives. Not getting a degree and learning a trade is a highly valid choice, especially when you look at the economics of it. My brother is an auto-mechanic. He's been doing it since he was 18 years old. He loves what he does and makes decent money with it. Plus he works for the state of North Carolina so his health and retirement benefits are outstanding.

Enough rambling for now. I guess my final thought is that how you approach higher education is very important now. It used to be that you just had to go to college to separate yourself, but you really have to approach college in the same way now as if you're deciding between being an electrician, a plumber, a mason, or any other skilled tradesman.

*Your ability to find work as a teacher is very good and you'll most likely be paid pretty well. The problems in education usually come in environmental stresses more than anything else.

P.L. wrote:And they claim our country is suffering a "skills shortage" and "full employment". My ass it is.

Well, in some key professions, this is true. In NYC and NJ for example, there are nowhere near enough nurses (RN's, LPN's, Nurse Practitioners, etc.) coming out of the nurse colleges. The hospitals are being forced to recruit heavily in the Phillipines, South Korea, and eastern Europe and to help facilitate the transfer of said nurses to the States.

This is happening even as nurse wages and benefits are being increased, while hours-per-week are being decreased (in this locale at least). As my friend Cecilia said yesterday, "If I could stomach dealing with viscera and poop all the time, I'd be a nurse toot sweet". Sadly, she's not thinking about the noble humanitarian aspects of the profession. But hey, kick-ass cash/bennies and 30 hour flexible work weeks should hopefully compel more kind-hearted Americans to return to this time-honored and neccessary profession. Very strange ...

You see, here it's the opposite. There are too damn many people in nursing school, they make less than I do, and they work crazy hours.

Doctors are in short supply though, but that's something that's going to happen as long as our medical system is su fvcked beyond any recognition.

I would just like to say, as my father is currently in a rehabilitation center, that you can never have enough nurses. Especially ones that want to work weekends.

I would also want to say, seeing my father in bed, not able to stand up and getting an upper respiratory infection to boot, God bless the hands that handle the bed pan. (Oh and the gout was so bad he could not use his hands.)

Oh footnote, those currently on the path to be a teacher, please double check the requirements. In New York they seem to change every year. Last time I checked every teacher needs 6 semester hours of a college level foreign language course. Those thinking of being a teacher should probably be prepared to take emergency courses as they will probably throw in some new moronic requirement two months before you graduate!

Oregon, Washington, and California have requirements, too.

...For some reason, though, now some voices are saying that apparently to get better education for our children we should wave the qualifications required to teach various subjects.

Yes, Mr annoying, we should have gym teachers teaching biology or advanced math classes because that's so much better than an incompetent teacher... Wait! It's the same! ...Except costs less... I think I'll prefer my teachers to pass their exams, thank you.

-Crissa

I'm all for waving some requirements under the assumption that the person is making a good faith effort to meet those requirements. Consider me for example.

I have all the necessary requirements (MA Computer Science) to teach as an adjunct professior in a two or four year college and in fact that was what I did, both for Hofstra University and for Suffolk County Community College.

Given my basic requirement, I can't teach Computer Science at the High School level. This is in part because Computer Science is not a credited subject in New York. Ironically my BS is in physics and since it is credit hour based I can teach Physics assuming I take a few general education semester hours and those annoying sememster hours of a foreign language. (At one time I really thought about spooning the system and studying Latin.)

I'd much prefer a teacher who can get their students to pass their exams than a teacher who can pass their own exams. Sometimes the two are linked although one should never put the cart before the horse. (One can put the cart before the push-me-pull-you, but then again one has to put the cart before the push-me-pull-you even if one has put the cart after the push-me-pull-you.)

That seems more a problem of not having an accredited computer courses in high school than anything... And Language requirements are common requirements of an arts degree.

Language (foreign or otherwise) is about communications, which is what teaching is about. Besides, you'd have to be in a really small town or isolated suburb not to interact with a student of another language - and learning even a dead language gives you tools and understanding to be more open to that difficulty.

We're a pretty rare country in which our primary level students aren't expected to even have a vague understanding of more than one language.

-Crissa

PS: Often computer languages count, if fluent.

The problem with the language is that it wasn't there a few years ago. I know because I go through these mid life job crises every five years and start thinking about going over the deep end and become a low paying teacher.

The lack of Computer Science accreditation is just New York state being stupid, slow and dumb. Most probably come from math degrees.

Heck at RPI when I went there wasn't even an English requirement for engineering or science. We used to complain about that like ... (the joke about the Scots bartender who was given too much money from a foreigner, he tried to get the leaving man's attention by tapping on the glass briskly with his ... bar sponge) ... well we did mention it on occasion.

The University I went to had English, Lit, and Technical Writing as requirements for every BS degree.

...And my state moved computer science into requirements for high school while I was in, and computer sciences were vocational and elective options even at the edge-of-the-world school I went to. I graduated fifteen years ago.

O-o

-Crissa

Crissa at [unixtime wrote:1178747139[/unixtime]]The University I went to had English, Lit, and Technical Writing as requirements for every BS degree.

I needed Composition 1 and Composition 2 to get my BS degree. And I still didn't learn about passive voice until a few years ago when I started writing...

...And my state moved computer science into requirements for high school while I was in, and computer sciences were vocational and elective options even at the edge-of-the-world school I went to. I graduated fifteen years ago.

O-o

-Crissa

Computer Science 1 & 2 were both electives in my high school, too. And I graduated 19 years ago.

wrote:Computer Science 1 & 2 were both electives in my high school, too. And I graduated 19 years ago.

Now I did computer science because programming was a field I loved, I'd been writing software since I was in primary school, hell I wrote a nifty, if in retrospect grossly inneficient, colour (yeah, COLOUR) PCG platform game on the MICROBEE before I went to high school.

But. About a decade ago when I left high school.

Our education system really didn't begin to support me till a University level.

At my high school they did not offer ANY HSC level computer courses. The only School Certificate level computing course they offered (sort of) was typing.

In the two FIRST years of highschool they offered a computing course. Which was taught by someone who knew nothing and consisted entirely of typing. You partnered up, got a computer typed out what you saw on a sheet of A4 paper and when you were finished you played tank wars for the rest of the period. Since I could already type me and my lab buddy played a lot of tank wars.

The first lesson we went to was the most educational. The teacher turned up, waved a disc in the air and said "I think there are some games on here, I don't know how to run them, but I gotta go, here..."

I'd never used DOS before that, and for whatever reason it was down to me to make the disc run, but we were playing tank wars within the first ten minutes of the period.

I'm still not entirely sure how I figured that out that fast.

And let me say that my opinion of the education they provided at the university level is not significantly better than the tank wars course I did in years 7 to 8.

This thread makes me glad that I live in Radnor.

Except for the Tank Wars thing, that sounds awesome.

Sounds like my experience with computing in school until grade 8. After that the subjects actually taught programming. My guess is PL is 5-10 years older than me.

I just finished my first real programming class (I took a fake one in junior high), and it was great: Entertaining, and it answered a lot of questions I hadn't known how to ask. It was also damn' easy. I don't know what's up with with these CSci majors who can't program their way out of a box.

Also, one of my TAs was a grad student who had never gone to college (self taught programmer). What the fuck? You can do that?

wrote:My guess is PL is 5-10 years older than me.

Me leaving high school a decade ago should be a firm hint...

But also be aware I went to a disadvantaged school in a disadvantaged area.

Also my year was extra big and the record holders for most notifications and least comendations in the history of the school.

Thats in a school in which the OTHER years got us banned from Sydney zoo for feeding glass to the monkeys and banned from the local technical college for tearing the paintings of the wall in the auditorium and riding BMXs on them.

They weren't game enough to ever let MY year go on any excursions in the first place. Ever. Me and my buddies snuck onto another years excursion to Lucas Hieghts once as our only trip anywhere. (yes thats right we were banned from the zoo and they didn't trust us to go to 'Wonderland' but if you pulled the right strings we could sneak into the countries only nuclear power plant...)

They cancelled the peer support program when we entered it, then didn't restart it until we were too old to be the peers doing the support.

As for the classes...

Computing was Tank Wars class. And occasionally Fight Club (no computers involved unless people were throwing those old extra weighted mouse balls at you).

There was history, which was mostly Swing off the fans and Jump out the Windows class (literally, and while the teacher was there, poor old lady). And then sometimes it was fight club.

In maths, at least in year 10, in the advanced class we had a guy who sat up the back and did nothing but drink burbon and coke. And also. Fight club.

PE was, well, Fight Club, only with weapons. They only ever gave us javelins that ONE time. Unfortunately I was NOT lucky enough to be in the year where the mixed PE classes saw the girls strip off and run around topless...

English had some pretty hard ass teachers, so there was generally some discipline. Except with that one plagurism incident, with that teacher who stole and commercially published a bunch of childrens stories she made us write...

Science, well we had one of the best teachers in the country, went off to NASA on a yearly basis, so of course she tought the BOTTOM class... Meanwhile by school certificate in year 10 the TOP science class was cutting out stencils of dinosaurs. In the HSC our Chemistry teacher hardly ever bothered to show up, seriously DIDN'T read a chapter ahead in the text book when he did. We trained his subsitute to play 500 with us. In the earlier years they were rather leery of letting us do proper experiments, not that that stopped the fires and borken taps (gas and water). So by year 10 we had done TWO experiments, we had boiled water and killed a bean in a jar of wet tissue (in the conclusion we had to write why we thought the bean growth had failed, "Probably because Daniel spat in it...") For years 8 and 9 we mostly just played periodic table bingo. In year 10 it was Spoons.

I don't talk about the Drama classes any more.

Most everything else was a "bludge" subject, alternating with fight club.

Recess and lunch were Fight Club.

Sport, and walking accross town to sport, was Fight Club. Only with the wider community involved.

Waiting at the bus stop was extra double Fight Club with added riot level crowd action during the afternoon event.

Travelling ON the bus was moving fight club, with metal poles to ram people into (I used THOSE to my advantage, being a bit of a bantam weight).

So yeah, on the plus side I played tank wars and graduated from Fight Club with a pretty high ranking.

On the negative side I knew people who went crazy and became paranoid or otherwise messed up and others who suffered potentially trauma related brain aneurysms.

Edit: found spelling errors, left them in there. Hey, its thematic.

Hmm, only three years older.

Cielingcat at [unixtime wrote:1178755567[/unixtime]]This thread makes me glad that I live in Radnor.

Radnor, PA?

Catharz wrote:I just finished my first real programming class (I took a fake one in junior high), and it was great: Entertaining, and it answered a lot of questions I hadn't known how to ask. It was also damn' easy. I don't know what's up with with these CSci majors who can't program their way out of a box.

There were plenty of people in my college classes who couldn't write a "Hello World" program. Yet somehow they kept passing, because they kept advancing along with me.

Yes, Radnor, PA.


I had a kid like that in a typing/MS Word class my Freshman year; he literally had to copy off of me to scratch out an F, which the teacher upgraded to a D- so that she wouldn't have to get him again.

Zherog at [unixtime wrote:1178812231[/unixtime]]There were plenty of people in my college classes who couldn't write a "Hello World" program. Yet somehow they kept passing, because they kept advancing along with me.

That's sad. Considering the types of languages they use in most college courses. I think I could easily write a "Hello World" program in IBM 370 assembler and I was a humble physics major at the time. Now COBOL, I can see, as one has to write at least 3 pages of code just to be able to write a "Hello World" program.

What's worse than having to convert an assembler program? Having a magazine of very early (pre IBM PC) basic code where almost everything was done by machine specific peeks and pokes to hardware memory addresses.