It’s funny, I went to college and got my degree in mechanical engineering. I’m glad I went and it’s definitely made my career easier. However, as a power plant operator, in my state a degree isn’t needed, just licensing.
Sort of…
I did get accepted, but FUCKING DEPRESSION DERAILED MY LIFE
FUUUUUUUUUUU
i withdrew…
mom got so disappointed in me…
Not even an "A"sian anymore…
fuck my life
now I’m just a puddle of "D"epression
now my older brother has something to make fun of me about… he got a degree and now I bet he feels so smug about it…
like, bro: shut the fuck up bitch ass dipshit, you caused me so much trauma
/end rant
If he ever gloats about having a degree, I’ve had success with tossing back “in order for me to feel insulted, I would have to value your opinion”
Its made two relatives block me and my mother in law call several relatives to cry and moan about how evil and manipulative I am because when she responded with multiple gigantic run-on paragraph/sentences in a row, I hit her with “lol. I ain’t gonna read all that”
People who take pleasure in how much better they believe their lives or decisions are typically can’t stand it when someone else doesn’t fucking care
Yes, I did. Did my Bachelor’s and Master’s in computer science in media. Studying is almost free in my country and having a relevant degree gives you much better job opportunities. So there’s no real reason not to do it, unless you specifically want some non-academic job. And even then, spending a few years at college is a pretty good time and a valuable experience.
I wish studying was almost free here. Thankfully I got a good number of scholarships and worked the whole time. So luckily I’m not drowning in debt. I learned a lot but I didn’t live on campus or care about campus events. So I think I missed out on some of the experiences.
Yeah, I wanted to go and learn more shit, didn’t matter what (and my parents didn’t care either), I just wanted to learn more. Eventually landed on biology and got a BS. I still wanted to learn more so I got a PhD in biology. I’m a postdoc now and still learning and discovering cool things.
Relative to my qualification i’m paid like shit and nothing about my position is permanent, so it’s stressful. I love my job though, and don’t regret my path through higher ed…except maybe that I’d like to have learned skills to be able to fix my own car.
I got a bachelors and masters degree in engineering. I needed at least the bachelors degree for licensure.
I use it every day at work.
I did some community college, took all the “required” classes although every fiber of my being was angry & restless about it, intuitively knowing it was a waste of precious time, energy, money, resources,
even doing what was “required,” I felt like I was fucking around when I should’ve been out in the real world living my life because I’ve got SO MUCH LIFE IN ME and college sucks out the life force.
But I still needed money to survive because you can’t survive without money, so I spent a couple years in two vocational schools and now I am working in those fields.
Vocational schools are a fast track to employment. Employment needed to pay off the educational loans 🤦🏼♀️
I went and it’s the biggest regret of my life.
It took me 4 years to find a job after leaving because half of my prospective employers thought I was overqualified, and the other half said that completing university was no guarantee that I’d handle “real work”. My first (and current) job is only tangentially related to my field and doesn’t require a degree. Or any training, to be honest.
7 years before I bought my house, it sold for exactly half of what I paid for it. If I swallowed my pride and got a shitty minimum wage job straight out of high school, I wouldn’t have a student loan (where I live it’s interest free, but there’s a minimum weekly payment which is based on your wage), I would have been able to buy a house so much earlier, for so much less money, and I would have been paying off my mortgage for so much longer.
In hindsight, my perspective is this: The actual cost of going to university isn’t your student loans (which are still substantial, don’t get me wrong) - it’s time. Your degree has to make you so much more money than most people realise, because at a minimum you’re starting your working life 3 years later than you normally would - that’s 3 years you could have been working and saving, and 3 years of extra inflation to deal with.
I got tired of working crappy jobs for >$10/hr, so I went and got a 2 year degree in IT. A few months after graduation, I got a job in my chosen field, and a couple years after that, I landed a position specifically related to my degree. While a college degree isn’t necessary in every job/field, in my case, it’s been the wisest decision and had the most profound impact in my life so far.
Wanted to go to a trade school for welding when I was a teenager. Mother said no, because “you’re going to college”
I kept asking for help figuring out college stuff, mother kept saying “I’ll help you tomorrow/next week when I have time” (she was technically a substitute teacher but usually worked 1 day/wk)
Graduation came and went and I had no money saved up, no colleges looked at beyond what my limited googling skills could come up with, and absolutely no help from my parents with anything.
Good news though, since my parents collectively made enough money, I didn’t qualify for financial aid of any kind! Did I say good news? I meant bad.
And of course my parents lived paycheck to paycheck and we got EBT or medicaid for most of my childhood.
Now instead of an education or a trade that’s in demand, I have depression and a shitty 15/hr job that is destroying my joints.
Ain’t life grand?
I did and I became a better person because of it.
Yes and it was totally worth it. Got a number of jobs in my career that I would not have without the degree.
I live in the US. I went to college right after graduating high school and it was magical.
I did: Got a free ride pretty much so why not? I ended up getting multiple degrees in part just because they sounded interesting (I was also working 1-4 jobs depending on the time though, so some of it was part time).
I have not ruled out going back sometime in the future if the opportunity presents itself.
