I agree... As a younger man I didn't realize how much of a pain it was going to be to pay it all back. Not really at least... And I always felt pushed or at least felt the opinion of people all around me (peers, teachers, whatever) that if I didn't go to college then I wasn't gonna go anywhere in life or be anything worth a shit. Boy was I mislead by a lot of people!! College is an expensive daycare for 18+ year olds to fuck around mostly. There are a lot of students in degrees like medical, engineering (which I was a part of), and chemistry/physics type stuff where you definitely need a higher education to learn a specific set of skills or knowledge in a focused field. And even in the engineering field you have to work under a licensed engineer for X years, then take a hard as fuck test, THEN you start at the bottom of the barrel making decent money. But that's if you get to that point. Even then your student loan debt is still a real pain in the ass. Especially with compounding interest... Took my dad damn near 20 years to pay off his debt. Absolutely absurd. Fucking money magik is what that is
Both my grandfathers were chartered engineers - neither went to university. They started working in industry at 14 after leaving school and apprenticing and then as they got older and progressed they would go to a combination of night school and "day release" in order to gain a higher national diploma or something similar from a polytechnic. My one grandfather joined the army in 1938 and actually progressed very quickly when he had an aptitude for radio and radar which were new and experts were thin on the ground. Radio communications were rapidly expanded in the British army after the disaster of 1940. He built a radar station in Egypt from "flat pack" basically and then the Germans bombed it! He was someone who could read some books and obscure technical manuals and work it all out. He also taught himself German. He would never talk about what he got up to in Europe after he landed on Gold beach in mid June 1944. I suspect he may have done classified work.
So by the time both of them got their chartered status they actually had plenty of practical experience behind what the job entailed and had spent time working for actual chartered engineers learning the ropes of that job as well and both had plenty experience of having to work it out for themselves instead of being spoon fed.
The way many engineers are trained to day is a disaster - you need experience at the sharp end before you progress up to being an engineer. The older engineers I work with often rant and rave about things being designed by someone who had read a book but has no actual experience with press tooling or hydraulics or whatever.
Lol exactly. It's a joke. Old school engineers are a special breed of intelligent humans. A coworker of my dad was the head of the engineering dept at the local university and he's definitely old school. Great dude! And honestly where I was at the engineering department was so saturated that it was hard to stand out unless you were a 4.0gpa student in 3 clubs and an extra curricular sport club. Fair to say I didn't make it to the end... But I'm much happier and less in debt because of it!
I agree... As a younger man I didn't realize how much of a pain it was going to be to pay it all back. Not really at least... And I always felt pushed or at least felt the opinion of people all around me (peers, teachers, whatever) that if I didn't go to college then I wasn't gonna go anywhere in life or be anything worth a shit. Boy was I mislead by a lot of people!! College is an expensive daycare for 18+ year olds to fuck around mostly. There are a lot of students in degrees like medical, engineering (which I was a part of), and chemistry/physics type stuff where you definitely need a higher education to learn a specific set of skills or knowledge in a focused field. And even in the engineering field you have to work under a licensed engineer for X years, then take a hard as fuck test, THEN you start at the bottom of the barrel making decent money. But that's if you get to that point. Even then your student loan debt is still a real pain in the ass. Especially with compounding interest... Took my dad damn near 20 years to pay off his debt. Absolutely absurd. Fucking money magik is what that is
Both my grandfathers were chartered engineers - neither went to university. They started working in industry at 14 after leaving school and apprenticing and then as they got older and progressed they would go to a combination of night school and "day release" in order to gain a higher national diploma or something similar from a polytechnic. My one grandfather joined the army in 1938 and actually progressed very quickly when he had an aptitude for radio and radar which were new and experts were thin on the ground. Radio communications were rapidly expanded in the British army after the disaster of 1940. He built a radar station in Egypt from "flat pack" basically and then the Germans bombed it! He was someone who could read some books and obscure technical manuals and work it all out. He also taught himself German. He would never talk about what he got up to in Europe after he landed on Gold beach in mid June 1944. I suspect he may have done classified work.
So by the time both of them got their chartered status they actually had plenty of practical experience behind what the job entailed and had spent time working for actual chartered engineers learning the ropes of that job as well and both had plenty experience of having to work it out for themselves instead of being spoon fed.
The way many engineers are trained to day is a disaster - you need experience at the sharp end before you progress up to being an engineer. The older engineers I work with often rant and rave about things being designed by someone who had read a book but has no actual experience with press tooling or hydraulics or whatever.
Lol exactly. It's a joke. Old school engineers are a special breed of intelligent humans. A coworker of my dad was the head of the engineering dept at the local university and he's definitely old school. Great dude! And honestly where I was at the engineering department was so saturated that it was hard to stand out unless you were a 4.0gpa student in 3 clubs and an extra curricular sport club. Fair to say I didn't make it to the end... But I'm much happier and less in debt because of it!