The Education Monopoly... W.T.F?!!

[Five Star]

I really think engineering is an outlier here. I realize we have an engineer in the thread that thinks he wasted his time in school, but I've met very few, including many very rich, engineers who would agree. (unlike attorneys or doctors)

oh yea? how old are those "very rich engineers".

I'm also curious about the many very rich Engineers that you know? In what specific area did they make their fortunes?

I have a B.Eng (Hons) in Mechanical Engineering, and I don't know any rich Engineers. I currently work for a global Engineering firm, and it's a struggle to pick up a salary here over £30k even with 5 yrs + experience out of Uni.

Perhaps some Managers are on high £30k - low £40k but unless you've made it to the ranks of director the money isn't great.

For some reason though, the general consensus is that Engineers are some of the highest paid professionals! I strongly disagree.

 

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[Bouncing Soul]

I've typed a couple of responses, but they sound like Slowlane sales pitches.

I can tell you how to make TMF defined "good" money in engineering, but do you really want to? It's dang tough to walk away from to pursue great money.

 

[OscarDeuce]

In some other course we were allowed to hand write an 8.5/11 formula sheet but i made mine so dense with formulas that i was able to hide entire examples in the formula sheet!!!

I had a professor that allowed "one page of notes." Didn't say it had to be handwritten. I copied formulas directly form the book and reduced them in size using the Xerox machine at work. Got all the material covered by the test on one page that way. Come test time, I pulled it out and damn, it was too small to read!

Cheers,
O-2

 

[Delmania]

The whole software industry is so damn messy. I kept reading in college how in the real world project deadlines keep getting blown, often going overbudget. Maintaining old databases and infrastructure is a real hassle, i think only in the last 3-4 years medical insurance databases are finally being updated.
Everything was written in FORTRAN language or some shit lol and is completely obsolete.

There is a real need in the industry for efficiently updating old software infrastructure, lots of money to be made...

For your first point, that's well known and well studied, and it's why the agile methodology was created. Humans being humans, however, can't seem to think it's that simple, and thus add unneeded complexity.

For your second point, that is NOT a fastlane idea. Upgrading legacy systems is a major pain in the a$$. It's usually better to simply rebuild the system, that has to be done on a case by case basis, and it has extremely limited scale and command.

 

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[hellolin]

When I first came to the US as an immigrant, typically the first thing I wanted to learn is to speak English in an american way, however, 2 years of high school didn't teach me jack shit, so I enlisted in the military, spent 5 years, learn all but how to speak the most street version of the American English language.

Then when I was using my GI bill to pay for college (Never took any loan out for education), I made sure I have real world experience coupled with my learning, so I had over a year and half of internship experience. I though that was enough learning, until I stumble upon this form and the TFM book, noticed how far I need to learn. It helps that my second internship was spent at a silicon valley start-up like dot-com, which they are using modern business concepts like the lean startup and agile development, which opened a lot of insights on me.

School is never the only answer, it's not bad in nature, but many people think it's the only key to their life. More than 50% of people who never read another book after they get their degree, I wonder then what is the point of paying shit load of money to learn?

 

[luniac]

I had a professor that allowed "one page of notes." Didn't say it had to be handwritten. I copied formulas directly form the book and reduced them in size using the Xerox machine at work. Got all the material covered by the test on one page that way. Come test time, I pulled it out and damn, it was too small to read!

Cheers,
O-2

I would have quadruple checked my page, mock tested it in my palm, and found a cap to stick the pages in, then repeat the motions several times for safety. I wasn't gonna handicap my test passing chances over something silly like too small font

 

[luniac]

For your first point, that's well known and well studied, and it's why the agile methodology was created. Humans being humans, however, can't seem to think it's that simple, and thus add unneeded complexity.

For your second point, that is NOT a fastlane idea. Upgrading legacy systems is a major pain in the a$$. It's usually better to simply rebuild the system, that has to be done on a case by case basis, and it has extremely limited scale and command.

what do you mean not fastlane!!! if you own a company that deals with rebuilding systems then you get your contracts, hire employees, and reap the rewards for years to come because these are multi year deals! worth millions of dollars!

OH AND LETS NOT FORGET MAINTAINING THOSE SYSTEMS FOR THE CLIENT FOR THE NEXT 10-20 YEARS!!! BILLIONS OF DOLLLLLLAAAAAAAAASSSSS!!!


def pain in the a$$ though lol, but you can have 50 escorts massage your a$$ later to relieve the stress!

 

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[OscarDeuce]

I would have quadruple checked my page, mock tested it in my palm, and found a cap to stick the pages in, then repeat the motions several times for safety. I wasn't gonna handicap my test passing chances over something silly like too small font

In my world, there wasn't time for that since I worked full time and carried a full course load. Along with Maxwell's Equations, I learned the art of bi-location. Probably the most important thing I learned as today I occasionally find myself booked in meetings with two different clients at the same time. Yes, I've excused myself from one meeting to use the restroom, jumped in my car and raced across town to the other meeting, where I "returned from the restroom." Oh, and I passed the test anyway.

Cheers,
O-2

 

[luniac]

In my world, there wasn't time for that since I worked full time and carried a full course load. Along with Maxwell's Equations, I learned the art of bi-location. Probably the most important thing I learned as today I occasionally find myself booked in meetings with two different clients at the same time. Yes, I've excused myself from one meeting to use the restroom, jumped in my car and raced across town to the other meeting, where I "returned from the restroom." Oh, and I passed the test anyway.

Cheers,
O-2

lol sweet man.

 

[Five Star]

I can tell you how to make TMF defined "good" money in engineering, but do you really want to? It's dang tough to walk away from to pursue great money.

Yes please, do tell. I'm curious...

 

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[Bouncing Soul]

Yes please, do tell. I'm curious...

I'm an ME from Silicon Valley. Engineers cash in when they go to an industry/company in a rising tide that needs their skills to solve the problems of the day. I never had a six or seven digit liquidity event, but in my last office the neighbor on one side cashed in at Sun Micro, I can't remember what startup the lady had on the other side had been at but both were 7 figs. You're placing a bet without CONTROL praying your options/RSUs won't end valueless. The guys that went to Tesla did great, the guys that went to Solyndra not so well. The place I worked finished middle of the road, just good enough I didn't leave soon enough.

 

[luniac]

I'm an ME from Silicon Valley. Engineers cash in when they go to an industry/company in a rising tide that needs their skills to solve the problems of the day. I never had a six or seven digit liquidity event, but in my last office the neighbor on one side cashed in at Sun Micro, I can't remember what startup the lady had on the other side had been at but both were 7 figs. You're placing a bet without CONTROL praying your options/RSUs won't end valueless. The guys that went to Tesla did great, the guys that went to Solyndra not so well. The place I worked finished middle of the road, just good enough I didn't leave soon enough.

Point is, its still working for somebody else. Microsoft employees with stock also got rich when it first blew up, but its silly to spend 4 or 5 years in college for the off chance of getting into a company like that or whatever...
The best thing for me would have been to use that computer engineering knowledge to invent some new electronic device or something... and i still think it wasn't worth it, college is just too damn inefficient, too many useless courses you have to take just so the college makes money, etc etc etc... at the end of the day its a business too, a pretty sleazy one at that too.

The whole overpricing of textbooks is just wrong. No free lunch either... whatever man.

 

[Bouncing Soul]

Point is, its still working for somebody else. Microsoft employees with stock also got rich when it first blew up, but its silly to spend 4 or 5 years in college for the off chance of getting into a company like that or whatever...
The best thing for me would have been to use that computer engineering knowledge to invent some new electronic device or something... and i still think it wasn't worth it, college is just too damn inefficient, too many useless courses you have to take just so the college makes money, etc etc etc... at the end of the day its a business too, a pretty sleazy one at that too.

The whole overpricing of textbooks is just wrong. No free lunch either... whatever man.

I typed out what you quoted by request from another member...like I said before, it sounds like a "slowlane sales pitch".

 

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[Hurdlerwayne]

From day 1, we are told that the only place we can learn is in a school. Maybe not in so many words, but, think back... to the first time you ever started doing bad in school. Your parents probably told you that you were supposed to be learning in school, and asked you what you were doing. This IMPLIES that if you are getting bad grades, you are not learning... but more than that, it implies that SCHOOL is the only place you can learn.

How screwed up is that?

I have learned so much outside of school... only lately did I realize it. Hell, I've learned that some of the things I've learned in school aren't even true! Yet, it seems like everyone I talk to is borderline-OBSESSED with college/uni. Why? People have literally told me it is the ONLY way to succeed in the world, yet all I've seen coming out of higher education is mediocrity, and sometimes outright failure. Was that loan really worth it...?

It makes me wonder if the college system has made a concentrated effort to make college seem like the only option...if they did, it sure did work. The masses walk blindly to universities, thinking a masters or doctorate or Phd is somehow going to be their ticket to paradise... where is the rational thought? It horrifies me.

/endrant

I can say that I definitely wasted my time in college. After my sophomore year I got all that I needed out of College. My parents both have Ph.ds. They told me to finish so it did. Now that I have been in school so long I actually missed out on years of income and business opportunities. I'm still angry that I listened to my parents to this day.

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[Pilot35]

On the bright side, it keeps the entrepreneurial space from getting too crowded. There's not enough room for everyone at the top.

 

[thinkandgrowrich]

Colleges are factories that manufacture human beings into subservient employees, who if they are lucky enough, put in the decades of time, and pull a few social power moves, they can eventually become the boss and work longer than they did when they were just an employee.

In a corporate setting you have little to no control over the direction of your life, your time is not yours and you can be the most competent, intelligent, and certified person in the building and you will still not be the boss, becoming the boss requires years of tenure and social maneuvers to help you get to the top of the corporate food chain.

Now some people have no choice but to go to college for their career choice, such as doctors and lawyers, and for those type of professions a formal education is necessary. But this is not the case for the majority of people who go to college. The majority of people who attend university are delusional, thinking that their degree will lead to their dreams of riches and luxury, and many others that decide to go make a decision that is fear based. When has making a decision that was fear based ever lead to someone living their dreams and attaining wealth?

If you decide on going to college go because you actually WANT to, go on your own terms and not because everyone says so. Do NOT listen to anybody, people 9 times out 10 give advise based on what they themselves would do. That guy who just told you to go to college and that college is a neccessity, guess what? He's an accountant that makes 90k after taxes. Do you want to be anything like that guy? No, so why would you take his advice on how to go about your future. That's like asking for relationship advice from someone who is divorced and has a history of domestic violence.

The problem is that ever since we are children college is presented to us as the only option available to become successful, to deviate from that norm makes you a failure in the eyes of others (till you succeed, then they are silent). Any other path in life is deemed risky, and society has been conditioned to be risk aversive. Or to put it in plain english, humanity has become a bunch of pussies.

But in life you are only rewarded for the risks you are willing to take, you get what you give. Anyone who is currently engaged in an entrepreneurial pursuit or some other unconventional path may be looked down upon for a while by those who get their degrees and get their nice jobs, but keep working hard and once you succeed it will all be worth it.

That's why I root for anyone that goes against the tide, shit is hard man. Really F*cking hard. But life is short, more short than you can imagine, so you might as well live how you want and get what you want.

We all have the necessary tools to succeed, we live in the greatest era in humanity's history, there is no reason to fail. Failure is not even possible.

 

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[MidwestLandlord]

Colleges are factories that manufacture human beings into subservient employees, who if they are lucky enough, put in the decades of time, and pull a few social power moves, they can eventually become the boss and work longer than they did when they were just an employee.

In a corporate setting you have little to no control over the direction of your life, your time is not yours and you can be the most competent, intelligent, and certified person in the building and you will still not be the boss, becoming the boss requires years of tenure and social maneuvers to help you get to the top of the corporate food chain.

Now some people have no choice but to go to college for their career choice, such as doctors and lawyers, and for those type of professions a formal education is necessary. But this is not the case for the majority of people who go to college. The majority of people who attend university are delusional, thinking that their degree will lead to their dreams of riches and luxury, and many others that decide to go make a decision that is fear based. When has making a decision that was fear based ever lead to someone living their dreams and attaining wealth?

If you decide on going to college go because you actually WANT to, go on your own terms and not because everyone says so. Do NOT listen to anybody, people 9 times out 10 give advise based on what they themselves would do. That guy who just told you to go to college and that college is a neccessity, guess what? He's an accountant that makes 90k after taxes. Do you want to be anything like that guy? No, so why would you take his advice on how to go about your future. That's like asking for relationship advice from someone who is divorced and has a history of domestic violence.

The problem is that ever since we are children college is presented to us as the only option available to become successful, to deviate from that norm makes you a failure in the eyes of others (till you succeed, then they are silent). Any other path in life is deemed risky, and society has been conditioned to be risk aversive. Or to put it in plain english, humanity has become a bunch of pussies.

But in life you are only rewarded for the risks you are willing to take, you get what you give. Anyone who is currently engaged in an entrepreneurial pursuit or some other unconventional path may be looked down upon for a while by those who get their degrees and get their nice jobs, but keep working hard and once you succeed it will all be worth it.

That's why I root for anyone that goes against the tide, shit is hard man. Really F*cking hard. But life is short, more short than you can imagine, so you might as well live how you want and get what you want.

We all have the necessary tools to succeed, we live in the greatest era in humanity's history, there is no reason to fail. Failure is not even possible.

My God that was well said.

Should be required reading for kids about to go to college.

 

[thinkandgrowrich]

My God that was well said.

Should be required reading for kids about to go to college.

God bless you lol

 

[ZF Lee]

Oh, the silly argument on education lol
Well, instead of complaining, why don't we all design our own education systems to train our own employees to grow our money trees?
hard, but not impossible, because

 

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[lifese]

I don't think the education system is complete bullshit.

Yes if you want to make money and find financial freedom there are better ways.

And yes you can learn anything you want virtually "on your own" (books and online).

But, and here's the kicker, we need workers. And we need these workers to have a certain level of competence. And we need to be able to sort these workers quick and easy. Do you really want to trust a self-proclaimed engineer who learned from youtube and google studies, or even want to take the time and capital out to interview everyone who claims this to find out if they really can bring the goods to the table? You don't have time to interview every single person who claims they are an engineer. It's just safer, faster and easier to pick the guy who has a nice title by his name from a University. Now whether he knows his shit or not is a different story, but hey he's got the title!

Moreover, if everyone was sold on the dream that is entrepreneurship and providing value, then we would have a lot of very depressed people. Because there isn't enough room for everyone to make it and those who didn't will have to go back to a slow lane job and most likely stew on their anger and prejudice towards fastlane rich guys. I'd rather be a "disguised" rich man and a superhero who made it in the eyes of others, then the prick that took their dream.

tldr; we need workers, we need a certain level of competence, and we need titles to be able to quickly and easily sort the Mcdonalds workers from the doctors that ask you to cough

 

[domefs]

Without the education system most people on here(me too) wouldn't have noticed, that they are different.

If you get a slave in school without ambitions after graduating and want to live a life of ease rather
than a life of service and adventure, you probably shouldn't choose the entrepreneurial road.

 

[Atticus24]

(i should get into the inventor fastlane lol...)[/QUOTE]

The inventor fast lane is a tricky, potentially expensive venture haha. Still pounding away at it but we may finally be on the tipping point leant towards success. That is if we don't run out of funds again. Doing everything without large scale investors makes it tough, but in the end owning the entire venture between two people seems more gratifying.

So far Ive sold almost all of my possessions, including vehicles, and at 27, driving a beater, going from 160k a year to about 20k, and sleeping once in a while isn't where I pictured my life...
But hard work pays off eventually so I'm told, and although this reply is fairly off the mark, I'll add that I lack even a high school diploma, only due to the rivalry I seemed to have with the faculty, not my capability to learn, which caused me to have to take most of my classes in what we called Alberta distance learning class, essentially a room full of "degenerates" that taught themselves with the textbooks and computer programs.

I had 15 credit points above the graduation minimal, yet was un allowed to the ceremony and did not receive a diploma by failing the c.a.l.m. class along with 6 others after our teacher was replaced by a sour old witch, who clearly had a poor understanding of the material being covered, which they deemed mandatory.

Why that is I'll never understand, as I've never had a single issue with income or career yet. Well until now during the "dark days" of marketing a brand new product that the world has not yet seen nor thought up.

In short, I've learned far more on my own than taught, but my determination to succeed not just for myself, but to be seen positively in the eyes of those who doubted me or saw me as one of the "degenerates" was extremely high. I excelled in everything I studied, and have started and failed two new to the world businesses as well.

Yeah they both failed after some time, but the knowledge gained from said failures, was worth unexplainable amounts in the educational bank of life, just merely changed the direction I was looking slightly. Comfort is for the majority, but I'm quite content riding the roller coaster without the harness, just so long as the loops don't eventually toss me out of the cart

End of rant



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[MidwestLandlord]

Mj covers education extensively in the book. It really depends on how you use the education. Are you using education to build your intrinsic value so that you are more valuable at a job? Then that is using education for the slowlane. Nothing wrong with the slowlane, if that's what you want. But none of us would be here if that's what we wanted. (duh)

I like using real life examples, so here:

I don't have a degree. I am now pursuing an Associates in Accounting because I want that knowledge, and it has already been used to make more money for me. I'd never go above an Associates in accounting because that's specialization of knowledge. It's useless to me.

My sister is pursuing a degree for a specific job, in a specific field. It's a good job for sure. It's not a job that is easily replaced by machines, and the aging population should keep this job in high demand. This education will cost her about $40,000. In the end she'll go from $35,000 a year to $50,000

Different roads, different ways to use education.

We have the benefit of seeing behind the curtain, and can use the asset of education as leverage for freedom instead of just learning how to be a better slave.

 

[luniac]

 

[AMotivation]

...

 

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[Pilot35]

 

[ZF Lee]

I don't think the education system is complete bullshit.

Yes if you want to make money and find financial freedom there are better ways.

And yes you can learn anything you want virtually "on your own" (books and online).

But, and here's the kicker, we need workers. And we need these workers to have a certain level of competence. And we need to be able to sort these workers quick and easy. Do you really want to trust a self-proclaimed engineer who learned from youtube and google studies, or even want to take the time and capital out to interview everyone who claims this to find out if they really can bring the goods to the table? You don't have time to interview every single person who claims they are an engineer. It's just safer, faster and easier to pick the guy who has a nice title by his name from a University. Now whether he knows his shit or not is a different story, but hey he's got the title!

I have to agree with you.
In fact, the education system is GENIUS.
A flawed education system that forces the disgruntled people ( those who are more independent and have more critical thinking abilities, the pinnacle of humanity!) to look for their own freedom....aren't we supposed to be making ourselves rich?
Come on, I'm not going to let another system decide my wealth growth! That's horrible!

That way, the best crop of the smartest and most passionate people are allowed to give MORE VALUE to the world. Money chasers who chase after 'I want to make $100,000 a year' or 'do what you love' are simply greedy people who love money-and they rightfully stay in the slowlane. And they said the rich were greedy?!

As for processing workers, it would be logical to check out their portfolio of prior work...in other words, see whether they are providing VALUE.

It's all about VALUE.

My high school Chemistry teacher was not a science genius, and yet he was accepted as a teacher because of his excellent co-curriculum involvement, in other words he was multi-skilled. And his multi-skilled personality boosted his Chemistry proficiency. Now that's value for you!