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Does a University Degree really matter?
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with a business related ba, i dropped out of a relatively unknown mba school seeing what you saw...there was no need for taking the same stuff again in school
now if i wanted to get into banking or start a small business and i had a bachelor's degree in french literature or anthropology, then i think the mba, even from an unknown school, might be a good thing
the only reason i would put off work if i had a business bachelor's, especially in a lucrative job, would be to go after that harvard, stanford, or wharton mba, but i would not go after an mba that wasn't world recognized in your situation if you are already doing well
if you expand your top five mba list to include maybe top 30 or 40, which would allow for some publicly funded universities, then you can find cal, michigan, ucla, uci, texas, or indiana as good choices, and a lot cheaper than harvard business school
where stanford business school usually ranks in the top five nationally, but is pricey, cal berkeley, which has ranked between #9 to #20 in most rankings i saw in the early to mid 90s when i considered mba schools, is probably as good as stanford business school
i think cal, and related univesity of california schools in the bay area is suitable for any career that needs a degree, and in the region, the main reason someone may mention stanford would be some one-upsmanship type of comment saying, "i did better than that cal person over there"
so an mba ranking could also be a "private" club type of stamp as non-private, for the rest of us universities like cal, michigan, or indiana could very well be as good as harvard, stanford, and wharton in substance, forgetting about some sort of snobbish reputation which smacks of andover/exeter exclusiveness...heck, it sure didn't make our commander in chief any smarter
Plenty of "Cement Pool Pouring" people make more money than those with a degree. Hell, I know people that cut grass for a living and make over $100K per year as I sit in an office with a degree making 80K
In South Florida - seems MANY MANY people who hold "lower professions" with "no college" make money hand over fist while I pay back massive students loans and they drive better cars than I do (no student loan debt too!)
Oh believe me, I know you can make a lot of money in construction fields. I happen to have a father who worked in construction and many family friends who still do. But here's the deal: I can make the same amount of money as many contractors and construction workers, sitting in a nice office, with air conditioning, a leather chair, and a nice kitchen. I've done a few manual labor jobs, as well as some nice office jobs, the office ones win hands down (both payed the same). I got more perks in the office: once monthly massages, get taken to lunch often, monthly birthday celebrations with excellent (and expensive) cakes, etc. While I actually do enjoy doing manual labor, I'd much rather be inside doing something on the computer.
Also, there are a good number of people who graduate without student loans. I won't have any. Scholarships, junior colleges, state schools ($5000 a year), and living at home all make college a hell of a lot cheaper. I'll graduate with zero student debt after four years because I'm on half scholarship at a private university and live with my parents. Even if my parents didn't pay the other half of my tuition, I make enough at my part time job to pay it, so i'd still likely have zero student debt. There are ways around student debt, if more people were willing to make compromises regarding what school they attended, where they live, etc, less people would have large amounts of student loans from their BA or BS. I understand there are instances when people must go away to college or whatever, in those cases large students loans might be inevitable, but scholarships aren't all that hard to get, and even $500 helps.
Great example = love it!!
Plenty of "Cement Pool Pouring" people make more money than those with a degree. Hell, I know people that cut grass for a living and make over $100K per year as I sit in an office with a degree making 80K
In South Florida - seems MANY MANY people who hold "lower professions" with "no college" make money hand over fist while I pay back massive students loans and they drive better cars than I do (no student loan debt too!)
haha i just like how you find a few success stories and claim that those are the norm over statistical data
is life fair? no but having a degree sure gives you a hand and to deny that is well ignorant
how many non-degree people make 100k? i know of no one in that category.......i see alot working at manufacturing plants, retail stores, grocery stores, etc
to claim that while you make 80k/year (i know REAL POOR MONEY lol
) and be mad that there are some that make 100k with no degree is just stupid. everybody is dealt a different hand in life...the sooner you realize that the betteri mean maybe those people without a degree came from wealthy famlies, married well, had a great idea, or just was in the right spot at the right time
meanwhile i bet if you were to ask factory workers if they wish they had a degree i bet they would say YES
i just remember when i was working on oil drilling rigs as an intern back in college that the rig hands (who had the SAME JOB) would comment how its unbelievable that an INTERN was making more than they were after quite a few years working.
or explain to my mom who has a 2 year degree and 25 years of nursing but wants to sell pharmaceuticals but she cant even get a foot in the door without a 4 year degree IN ANYTHING (not even has to be medical related)
in summary, a degree is a SAFER bet and is reccommened than not having a degree any day of the week in my opinion
haha i just like how you find a few success stories and claim that those are the norm over statistical data
is life fair? no but having a degree sure gives you a hand and to deny that is well ignorant
how many non-degree people make 100k? i know of no one in that category.......i see alot working at manufacturing plants, retail stores, grocery stores, etc
to claim that while you make 80k/year (i know REAL POOR MONEY lol
i mean maybe those people without a degree came from wealthy famlies, married well, had a great idea, or just was in the right spot at the right time
meanwhile i bet if you were to ask factory workers if they wish they had a degree i bet they would say YES
i just remember when i was working on oil drilling rigs as an intern back in college that the rig hands (who had the SAME JOB) would comment how its unbelievable that an INTERN was making more than they were after quite a few years working.
or explain to my mom who has a 2 year degree and 25 years of nursing but wants to sell pharmaceuticals but she cant even get a foot in the door without a 4 year degree IN ANYTHING (not even has to be medical related)
in summary, a degree is a SAFER bet and is reccommened than not having a degree any day of the week in my opinion
i think, in most areas, that's a safe bet and i totally agree with you
in silicon valley, many come here, but are not born here and are naturally inventors and thus their "look how well i did and i am a millionaire/billionaire dropout" stories abound around the region
i did grow up here when silicon valley was mostly orchards, and hp was that calculator company, so it was interesting seeing the transition
a lot of nerdy teen programmers get to flying high in big bucks before they are of age to graduate from college
and of course, even very young, talented high tech people find their way into the valley when an enterprising parent notices that their 9 year old is programming in java
and then there are those who are the kids of silicon valley industrialists (jobs, ellison, etc), or spouses and there is no "degree" required to be a spouse or kid
in a more brick and mortar city, outside of silicon valley, it would make sense to have a business degree, civil engineering degree, teaching credential, metallurgial engineering degree, and many others
many in san jose scoff at the traditional 4 year college degree concept and then taking two decades to climb a corporate ladder at some other major city aluminum casting company or major furniture making plant...and those are not bad long term plans, either
northern california is in love with those young entrepreneurs who seem to come up with hit after hit that change the world we live in and it often takes young minds like gates, jobs, ellison, woz, and others to be that innovative and it's not likely that some 60 year old business veteran with his/her harvard mba would ever come up with an oracle, apple, microsoft, or pixar
the innovative spirit even spills off into other areas where genius is really rewarded like, let's say golf, where bay area college student tiger woods droped out before attaining a 4 year degree and won/wins championships or michelle wei makes a 7 million dollar endorsement while still a sophomore in high school
in areas not keen to innovation, someone like a tiger woods may have just stayed in college and became a golf shop pro somewhere and michelle wei would just be happy being the best on her hs golf team
the mindset is what is the engine of silicon valley, not the older, traditional ideas that work elsewhere
we are in the 21st century and all ideas of a brick and mortar society may not hold as time goes on
Its interesting that you focus so much on the entrepreneurs. Sure, a lot of them dropped out of college, but who are the backbone of the companies the started? Mostly college graduates. Who runs the legal department, the IT department, the marketing department, R&D, finance, etc, i'd bet most of them are college graduates. For every one person that makes it big there are hundreds of thousands of college graduates working for, supporting, and eventually moving to high level positions within these companies.
Also, Tiger Woods could have been a pro long, long before he attend Stanford. Saying being in NorCal brought out this in him is off track. He won three US Junior Amateurs and three US Amateurs. He was going to be a phenomenal professional golfer when he was barely in his teens. Also, Michelle Wie is from Hawaii, was pro before attending Stanford, and is completely ineligible from team play at Stanford. So your examples are really irrelevant to innovation. Since when does golf reward genius, I've been playing for 7 years and carry a four handicap, the only thing golf has ever rewarded for me is creativity and hard work.
College is one idea that is going to be holding for quite sometime. The trend really isn't away from college, its towards more education. As a current college student I see requirements for entry into the "real world" and requirements at college continually rising. The emphasis is on more math and quantitative skills, better writing skills, better oral presentation skills, better networking skills; these can all be somewhat difficult to acquire for many people outside of a college environment and grads expecting top positions and top companies better have all of them if they expect to get hired and succeed.
basically, the strive to succeed on one's own terms is all over the place in northern california and it could be a gold rush mentality that has transposed to the modern day
the closer you are to san jose, the more you see those self starters
i am just one unconnected middle class guy and just for example
1) when i was just out of college i met david packard and he told me that i should be an entrepreneur, or anybody who can tackle those headaches that come with it
2) the cio of apple sold me his first mac which introduced me to modern computing, as opposed to dummy terminals that i only knew about in the 70s and 80s
3) the local junior college had a very young geek, at the time, visit and lecture about silicon valley to data processing students...his name, bill gates
4) i go into my friend's bookstore to help him out a few days and i meet a college dropout of a high tech company i never heard of that he co-founded, sun microsystems
5) and for your golf example, michelle attended york school in monterey, california where she took classes when she could while making millions before her first big time tournament
and monterey has another likely candidate for golf greatness, and when he asked me where i went to college, i told him...when i asked him what school he was going to, he told me, the pga tour
that really sums up what i have seen here and many others
you can't travel 15 seconds on the highway in certain nor cal towns and not pass a mansion of a self made millionaire, and often a very, very young one
...look at the current issue of san francisco magazine...the guy on the cover lives in that loft in a four block radius that once housed 200 startups and i couldn't help but notice since i went to school right in the middle of soma in sf
that being said, when i visit friends or family in west la, it's amazing how many people are connected with the movie industry and how many people, even not in the industry have seen movie stars and big directors
hollywood and its surrounding cities is a microcosm much like san jose is with its innovators
there is nothing wrong with your degree, and i am happy with mine, but live here for some time and you will see that the word entreprneur in nor cal is spoken much like the word "gold" probably popped up here on people's tongues in the mid 19th century
when i talked about college, i didn't diss it since i have two degrees already and working on a third, but i also mentioned very specifically that san jose and a few counties north and south of it, or the more built up sections of nor cal, are different from other brick and mortar type of regions
anywhere else, i would say, the big time innovators are few and far between, but silicon valley breeds them or attracts them from all over the world
birds of a feather
And how many people in the world get to be Obama?
I'm sure the same was said of the current CEO's.
Im sure the same was said about Obama.
Im sure the same was said about many things you may now LMAO about
he he
i know of one former first lady that wished she was him, or in his position
...she could still at least be near him on campaign buttons...hint, hint
I would bet that percentage of young people going to college in NorCal is just as high as the percentage of young people anywhere else going to college. There is no reason for it to be different. Those young, rich enterpreneurs represent a few thousand people of the population of the world, your average NorCal young person is smart enough to go get a college degree.
Thats the thing, Silicon Valley "attracts" them. Most of these entrepreneurs come from other places, its not Silicon Valley that brings it out in them. Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, they were all ideas born on college campuses. The proportion of entrepreneurs that are born in Silicon Valley is probably about the same as anywhere else, but the proportion that move there (if they happen to be in the tech industry, I'm sure the amount of fashion, banking, and other entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley is much more proportional) is quite a bit higher.
I always say go to college. Tiger, Gates, Jobs, I'm certain they don't regret their choice to attend.
Also, I'm fairly certain that Wie attended and graduate from high school in Hawaii. I can't find mention of her attending that school anywhere, even wikipedia says she graduate from Punahou School in Hawaii. Maybe she did take classes at that school, but again, Wie started playing mens PGA Tour events in Hawaii in 2004 (I believe), and turned pro at 15 in 2005, she would be on the LPGA Tour regardless of what school she attended or where it was, her parents, her teaching pro, and her hard work are the reasons she's on the LPGA tour.
first off so people joining this thread know where i stand, for the vast majority of us who can go to college should, even if for a semester, and kudos to anyone who sticks it out for four or more years...even two years for an associate's or one year for a certificate...so i am saying college is good, and grad school is good, and trade school is good
......
golf:
wie is a cultural hero in monterey but admittedly, york school is only 100 students so it's not big on the radar of a wikipedia
the monterey county herald mentioned her, and with monterey having less than 30,000 people, she sticks out big time
also, the area's bobby clampett is also not a common fact outside of monterey
unique region of silicon valley, however small it is on the map:
heck, most people cannot think of anything culturally important outside of john steinbeck and cannery row when thinking of monterey on a global scale
where you are, los angeles, has so many world class icons it's hard to pick one...malibu, hollywood, the doors, van halen, the movie industry, paris or britney shopping on rodeo blvd. and a gazillion other things that make the news on major tv networks
if you want, i could dig up the info on the transplanted michelle wie material from the monterey area small rag, and post it on wikipedia
i have tons of respect and knowledge of la as do many people around the world since it is one of the hot spots for news and events...silicon valley does not have the headlines every day on tv like so cal
silicon valley, outside of high tech and pixar, are mentioned far less in the media, of course, but all i can say is not to believe me or anybody who has lived in northern california, near san jose, for four decades, or even two or three decades, but just to come up here and live in the san jose area culture for some time
san jose is not la, and la is not san jose...that's all i can say...you will see if you move up here
just like you cannot travel far in beverly hills for a day and not bump into somebody in the movie or entertainment industry whether you are aware of it or not, it is almost impossible not to run into some young, self made high tech icon, or at least icon in the sense of a geek like me
when i was in high tech microsoft tech school, working on my MCP certification, i met a young man who was vp at creative...he wrote the sound driver software drivers and he was...young, and self taught and had a very cushy job
i used to unwind in the old days at a nudist colony, and it was tons of silicon valley high end techies talking business...and they were not college folk and down to a "T", they were all self made before they were able to drink and were a lot like woz
...and woz lived just a few miles away
again, as much as hollywood has a big slice of the movie and pop music recording industry, san jose and surrounding area is full of innovative, young, and self made millionaires and billionaires who carved their own path like gates and jobs
it's the norm, not the exception, and many brick and mortar "climb the ladder the old fashioned way" types bypass my neck of the woods
anywhere else, like i stated before, people believe in the college degree and getting rich slowly, and for most of us who are not young genius types, that is ok and necessary
but silicon valley breeds genius and attracts genius, high tech style, like no place in history so far
all i can say is come here before you make assumptions about a place you have not lived in for four and a half decades
many areas break the mold, and not everywhere is exactly like where you live
sure, la and san diego dwarf san jose, but we are still unique in ways your region's big cities are not ... we are different and not better or inferior
skeptics from all over have come here thinking the high tech stuff was all hype
one good friend of mine came here from washington state and within one year of being here made 14 million dollars in a little known concept called, "software" ... and no, he didn't study computer science but had a literature degree
i don't think anywhere in the world will have the same huge concentration of big success stories in computers that this region i live in has ... but that is neither here nor there ...it's a fact like hawaii has warmer weather than sweden, that's all
oh, and that high tech school i went to...the dean's brother bought a property for several million and renovated it after the santa cruz earthquake and sold it to some then unknown cell phone company called nokia for $300 million dollars at the height of dot.com....right next to the parti time office of ceo chambers of cisco, another name that didn't come about until more recent years, as compared to ford or at&t
i am sure you have similar stories you have heard in la about some waitress or washed up comic moving to la and becoming a household name overnight
as much as actors in san jose, and there are many in the arts, want to make a name for themselves, they cannot do it here like they can in your neck of the woods
