College Degree or Nothing?

Career Opportunities & Internships
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<p>Say for instance, if you were in a 4-year, 120 credit program, and you have earned those 120 credits in it (but are not awarded the degree since you failed one class more than twice, and this is one of your university's policies that prevent you from getting the degree), will you really be viewed in the work field as worth 120 credits in that degree program? Or, in the work field, do they simply think you’re either worth a lot (having a degree) or worth far less (having no degree) even in this case of have the same exact class credits? This is not my exact case currently but I'm trying to seek answers from a place I usually/think I'll get good responses in. The latter wouldn’t make sense but I’m posting this to find out. I think a good portion of people go to college to just take some classes (like Visual Basic and Java, for instance) that will increase their qualifications for a specific job, and if that is true, then simply the fact someone doesn’t have a degree doesn’t mean a lot, right? I mean, the one who finished with 120 credits in a program in my above example shouldn't be viewed so differently from the other who got 120 credits and earned the degree just because he/she didn't fail one class more than twice. I think pretty much the only downside is that you can't write on your resume that you got so-and-so degree, but you can write in its place "120 credits in [insert degree program]" (at least I would think). I would imagine employers would look at that and say hey wait a minute, isn't this kind of the same as saying you have that degree? I guess you can explain the situation then, but...in the work field, should they care? I mean, the one with the degree isn't the more knowledgeable/experienced applicant. The degree-less person just took another shot at a class. You having the degree doesn't help the employer. The employer just wants your skills, knowledge and expertise, right?</p>

<p>120 credits in UMBC Information Systems =(pretty much)= Bachelor Degree in UMBC Information Systems...</p>

<p>...such that the one without the degree took just two, or better yet, just one extra shot at passing a class.</p>

<p>Tell me what you think on this issue. I can already say that I understand the general rule: Employers pick their best applicant, but I want to know how different they would view these specific two example applicants I talked about (keeping in mind again that the only difference was that the degree-less person took one extra shot at a class; everything else is literally equal).</p>

<p>Thanks a lot guys.</p>

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<p>Kindly let me make this another post since I want it to be separate. I’m asking this question because, for so many years (practically all my life so far?) I have been under the stress of scoring certain percentages, a.k.a. getting good grades (I prefer more the “job” setting where you simply go somewhere, do work you already know how to do, get paid, then go back home and rest/relax for the rest of the day). It was not even like I was given “as many tries as I wanted…” at least from what I can remember, grade school wasn’t exactly that way. My community college was literally exactly that way, but I’m no longer with them since I graduated with the AA, and am now with UMBC.</p>

<p>Scoring certain minimum grades stresses the crap out of me…and this’ll not end for at least another 3-4 years from now…but I was thinking this non-repeating-class-twice rule was kind of senseless (especially since they’ll be taking your money again…so why don’t they like you repeating exactly? Even at least make you wait a while until you can take the class a 3rd or 4rth time…god), and thus those two job applicants don’t really look so different.</p>

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<p>@cellphonebooster: Good for Indians then.</p>

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<p>Anyone else?</p>

<p>Also, forgot to mention that the two applicants in my above example ALSO have the same GPA, the same amount of work experience…etc. Again, the ONLY difference is one had an extra shot at passing a certain class. Is that the ONLY difference employers will see in them (which, logically ought to be the case) or will they be like “lol this guy has a degree and the other doesn’t, therefore the guy who doesn’t totally sucks”?</p>

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<p>People aren’t going to research why you did or didn’t get a degree. Either you have a degree or you have some college education. The lack of a degree will sometimes automatically disqualify you, and other times it won’t. But either way, it’s always better to have a degree.</p>

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<p>And that’s what’s dumb about it. Is it seriously “a degree” or “some college education”? What if the “some college education” happened to be even more education (i.e. more college credits) than the degree? What if I earned the SAME EXACT credits that would earn me a degree, but don’t have the degree simply because of a stupid university rule saying I’m not allowed to repeat a class more than once in order to get the degree? Plus don’t a lot of jobs say “4 year bachelor’s degree or equivalent required” well what would the equivalent be? the same amount (and type) of credits I guess then?</p>

<p>Also, I didn’t say employers will research. I’m saying I don’t see why you can’t explain to them that you have the number (and types) of credits equivalent to a 4 year degree, just that you didn’t get the degree because of so-and-so silly rule.</p>

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<p>The reason is that a college degree is a 3rd party endorsement of your qualifications and education. A claim of “I have the same hours as a degree but…” is your personal endorsement of your qualifications and education. People will always trust a disinterested 3rd party over the person they’re interviewing.</p>

<p>Think about it from the employers perspective. If apply for a job that requires a college degree and say “I don’t have a degree but I have the same credits and here’s the reason why I don’t have the degree…” the employer either has to trust your response, or the employer has to research it (pull your transcript, look at the school’s rules, maybe call someone at the school). With the number of college graduates in the market place, that’s just not going to happen. They’re going to move on to the next candidate. That said, there are a number of jobs that don’t strictly require a college degree and you should be able to explain your individual qualifications to them. Though it still won’t be the same as a degree.</p>

<p>Think of it from another perspective. Let’s say you’re trying to hire a mentor to help your son get into Harvard. What’s more impressive to you: I had the grades to go to Harvard or I went to Harvard?</p>

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<p>Just so it’s known, I’m not saying having 120 credits in Information Systems = Bachelor in Information Systems. Of course having the actual degree is better (since it highlights that you met at least one additional requirement, for example, you didn’t have to take a class a third time to get the degree).</p>

<p>What I’M saying is, is that the ONLY difference that the employer will see (it should be, keep this in mind)? Or are they automatically going to say “so-and-so is 2 times better than you for that reason” because that would just be silly. The person with the degree just passed some class on the second try and the other person passed on their third (which caused the degree disqualification) - that’s it.</p>

<p>Let’s say the non-degree application has a crap load of other qualifications though. Multiple internships, and possibly even some certifications that the degree applicant does not have. You would think all that will overshadow that one small difference between the two applicants even if this degree / no degree scenario may seem to exaggerate the gap between them.</p>

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<p>If a job is posted, and you’re one of 3 people in the world that meet the requirements, then people will look at your special circumstance. However, you’re not a special snowflake. If an IT job is posted, there will probably be at least 100 resumes submitted (maybe 1000), and 20-30 people will fit the requirements of that job. The interviewer is only going to call 10 or so, so why would they spend time researching someone who doesn’t fit the requirements?</p>

<p>That said, only some jobs will require a degree. Others will require a college degree “or equivalent experience”. If you have years of experience in the field, you’ll be able to apply for these.</p>

<p>Bottom line: if you’re in a situation where you can’t graduate, transfer to a school that will let you graduate so that you have a degree.</p>

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<p>Your second paragraph deals with a whole lot of what I’m about to ask…so kindly read:</p>

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<p>I was wondering about something. You see, I’ve been in college since the start of the 07 academic year at HCC, and since then I’ve been having to deal with a lot of…well things I don’t like, and by that I mean things that don’t prepare me to do well in classes. These things can be instructors who make it hard to get good grades (like I am having now, but it was different in my previous semester), study guides that aim to be vague and not actually telling you what you need to study, and things of that nature.</p>

<p>I really don’t know how much longer this will last during my journey to a bachelor’s degree (doubt I’m going to do any more studying after that) so, I read that a lot of job descriptions say you need a bachelor’s degree “or equivalent experience”. The purpose of this topic is to find out what this “equivalent experience” means.</p>

<p>I can already tell it’s talking about relevant work experience, but here’s the thing. How much work experience is equal to, say, 3 college credits? Are the units of work experience the number of hours you worked (which is like the most accurate way to measure it)? Also, let’s say you’re applying for a job in IT, like “Systems Analyst” that doesn’t require any certifications, just a 4-year degree in IT, or “equivalent experience” like I said. This is obviously experience in the field, but can it be experience in ANY job within the field? Like what if I was a QA Tester, or Help Desk employee (but still in the IT category) for 4 years. Can this be considered as part of the “equivalent experience”, or by that do they mean experience in the SAME position you’re applying for (which would be kind of weird if you think about it…because how did you get experience in that position before when it said it needed a degree in the first place)?</p>

<p>Thanks and sorry if this is too much to ask…I’ve been doing research on this matter for quite a while, but didn’t get any answers clear to me.</p>

<p>I’m also guessing that the usual case with jobs in the IT field, is that they (employers) will request that you either have a degree, some college w/ work experience in the field, or a heck of a lot of work experience. I’m an IS major with a General Studies associate’s degree so far, and I’m just asking these questions because I don’t know what the future holds for me. Succeeding in some classes from this point forward kind of seems like a case of Russian Roulette (even when I’m trying the best I can, despite that this vagueness only helps to lessen the motivation), and I have to succeed in all of them for the degree. You also aren’t allowed more than 3 attempts for each class, and in some cases not more than 2, even despite that the college gets payed a grand for each attempt in a class you make; then there’s the fact a “D”, which in the college world is considered to be “passing”, is actually not at UMBC…***? They weren’t kidding about being an “honors university”. Even the IS curriculum at College Park is easier. </p>

<p>Something like work experience you have very little chances of failing in. Everything you must do is explicitly outlined and there’s no confusion involved, unlike in school sometimes. It’s things like this that make me wonder often how did so-and-so get a degree. Were they just that lucky? Did they get great professors each and every time? By the way, I use RateMyProfessors before enrolling in a class beforehand, but even that doesn’t guarantee you success, since sometimes there isn’t a “good” professor teaching the subject you need for the degree you’re trying to get, or they may be bias in the reviews.</p>

<p>Thanks all for your help.</p>

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<p>And finally about your last statement, yes, I have wondered about that too, but who knows, one may not even graduate there. It’s not like if you transfer because your current institution won’t graduate you is a guarantee of graduation at the next, but I’ll consider it if unfortunately some crap turns up.</p>

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<p>I actually don’t know of anywhere a D is still considered passing. It shows you didn’t completely fail a course, but you still demonstrated a fundamental lack of knowledge in the course you’re trying to pass.</p>

<p>And the reason why schools may discourage you from taking a course 3+ times is due the limited number of slots available to students. How would you feel if you were a student (in good academic standing) trying to enroll in a class, but you get blocked out because someone that’s already failed the class a few times is still trying to pass it.</p>

<p><a href=“I%20prefer%20more%20the%20%22job%22%20setting%20where%20you%20simply%20go%20somewhere,%20do%20work%20you%20already%20know%20how%20to%20do,%20get%20paid,%20then%20go%20back%20home%20and%20rest/relax%20for%20the%20rest%20of%20the%20day”>quote</a>.

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<p>Hate to break it to you, but unless you’re flipping burgers all day there’s always going to be some new problems to solve.</p>

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<p>It really sounds like you’re looking for an easy answer.</p>

<p>There is no formula for what counts as “equivalent experience.” Regardless, you will need to include your academic experience on your resume, and employers generally do not look so kindly on applicants with five+ years of university study who decide to not get their bachelor’s degree. It shows a fundamental lack of drive and focus and raises serious red flags about an applicant, regardless of how much experience he has.</p>

<p>Teachers and professors are not SUPPOSED to make it easy to get good grades. Study guides aren’t SUPPOSED to tell you exactly what to study. It sounds like you want to be told, “You’re having a test tomorrow. You will need to know how to graph y = 2/5x - 2,” rather than what is more useful to a student trying to learn - being told, “You’re having a test tomorrow. You will need to demonstrate thorough knowledge of slope-intercept form.” Professors often make their assessments based on the ability of their classes. If they are not grading on a strict bell curve, they will make tests that tend to put most people into the C+ to B range and allow the higest achievers to separate themselves with As while the lowest achievers fall to the C- and lower range.</p>

<p>A grade of D, as RacinReaver said, is failing almost everywhere. You may know enough to get credit for the course, but I don’t know of any accredited institution that allows students to graduate with a GPA in the D range.</p>

<p>As for the “job” setting, again RacinReaver is right. You will never find a job, ESPECIALLY in the IT world, where you already know all of the answers. You are going to school to get the TOOLS that you need to FIND the answers. It is difficult to find a job that requires a college degree or equivalent experience, pays well AND can be done in your sleep; if it is so simple, why would a company pay a college graduate when they could hire a high school kid to do the same job for a quarter the wages?</p>

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<p>^You can then tell me why I recieved a 4.0 GPA two semesters ago, a 3.3 last semester and yet I’m struggling to get a C in this one ahole’s class. The answer is he isn’t very helpful and just likes to be hard as heck.</p>

<p>“Hate to break it to you, but unless you’re flipping burgers all day there’s always going to be some new problems to solve.”</p>

<p>No I know that. It’s that at the end of the day you’re still earning work experience (similar to college credits) as well as getting paid as long as you put in the required effort (I’d be willing to put in more than the required) and using your knowledge and skillset (that you were hired for) to the best of your ability. THAT’s what I’m looking for, not a life where you’re flipping through hundreds of pages of math problems trying to memorize as much as you can even though there’s going to be only 10 problems on the test. Why can’t some professors at least detail WHAT question formats is going to be on a test? That’s what my last Business Calculus teacher did, and I came so close to an A.</p>

<p>If the typical response to this is that life just sucks and is hard, please, don’t tell me something I’ve realized for as long as I can remember. That’s more like a rhetorical question on my part. My question was dealing more with what work experience equals as far as college credits, and I got that answered, so thanks and take care.</p>

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<p>Edit time passed, but to address this again:</p>

<p>“Hate to break it to you, but unless you’re flipping burgers all day there’s always going to be some new problems to solve.”</p>

<p>Tell me a new thing college professors (who get payed a crapload of money I imagine, by us students) need to learn every day or week, just one. I’m not talking about IT professors who need to adapt quickly to new things. I’m talking about math professors who themselves speak of their lack of tech-savvyness or adapting to anything new for that matter, and instead talk about ancient mathematicians they look up to.</p>

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<p>The average math professor reads 3 academic papers per day introducing new ideas and writes 4-5 papers per year introducing and proving (or disproving) new concepts, supervises 2 or 3 PhD students working on writing a dissertation that introduces a new concept to academic knowledge, review 3 or 4 papers for peer review, and write a book about once every 10 years. But they’re not learning anything new.</p>

<p>Just because there haven’t been any advances in Algebra in a few hundred years doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been any advances in Math recently.</p>

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<p>“Equivalent Experience” is added to allow employers to hire people who are out in the workplace and who have done the posted job, but don’t have the degree required. This is a very handy tool because it enables us to put minimums on our listing, but still gives flexibility in the hiring practice. It relates pretty much just to work related experience, not school.</p>

<p>I think that you are looking for a way to say that passing classes is the same as earning a degree and unfortunately it is not. Employers are very busy and they don’t have a lot of time so in many cases you would get weeded out right away. All is not lost because you may be able to hire in at a lower level and then get promoted as you gain “equivalent experience”.</p>

<p>By the way, you are going to have bosses who give you ambiguous directions, short deadlines and unfair evaluations. Those things are not just school, they are in the workplace too.</p>

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<p>^ “who have done the posted job”</p>

<p>How would someone have done the posted job when the job in general requires a degree they don’t have? What’s the point of getting another job when you’re already working a job similar to it? Say for example there’s a Systems Analyst position saying you need a bachelor’s degree “or equivalent experience”. If this experience is “having done the same job”, then, you would have had to been a Systems Analyst before even when generally this kind of position, again, requires a degree you don’t have? Or are they saying you must have done the same duties, which I can’t imagine what “lower” job makes you do. Every job basically has its own duties pretty much.</p>

<p>“but don’t have the degree required”</p>

<p>In the case you’re talking about, it’s not required if it says “bachelor’s or eq. experience”. It’s one or the other (or both).</p>

<p>By the way, my point was that at work, even despite these short deadlines, unfairness from employers etc. you are still getting the work experience, which improve your qualifications similar to college credits - heck - college credits by themselves are even seemingly useless because it’s not like there are jobs out there saying “we’re looking for candidates with 75+ credits”. They’ll always say “degree” (90% of the time it’s a bachelor’s they want, or greater if you have that), AND you’re still getting paid in the job. With college it’s not like that at all. If you don’t get a 70% or higher in a class despite the bullcrap, you lose your tuition money. Worse yet, you fail a class TWICE, you can’t ever take it again (and hence can never get the degree you were trying to get - or any other for that matter that required that class, unless you TRANSFER TO ANOTHER COLLEGE; the more you have to do this the farther you’ll have to travel away; sometimes they’ll let you take a class a third time but even that’s not guaranteed, so let’s say 3 times, but THAT’s IT. After that you’re screwed with a crappy job unless you take great measures like moving out of state just to repeat the same bullcrap all over again). Same as work? My butt bro.</p>

<p>@CFB I’ll take your word for that. I’ll bring up a relative instead earning 55 grand a year working in a plans examining department in baltimore city, maryland. That person has a master’s and is an engineer; lives here also. Works from 8AM to 5PM, goes there in the morning, comes back in the evening, 5 days a week. Not once has the person ever had to do something for their occupation by the time they came home, nor obviously on the weekend (she’s more like an annoying housewife on the weekend). It’s literally do whatever the heck you want when you arrive home, but be sure to be back at work the following day (if it’s a weekday). This is not a “flipping burgers” job. It’s earning 55,000 yearly and in one of the more lowly areas (government-based) employing people. Generally this kind of occupation should earn you 60,000+, so imagine a job like that where you’re not having to do things on the side for your job. The person also does NOTHING new - or is always using the same knowledge and skillset that person already has. It’s a rinse&repeat thing.</p>

<p>Same for my brother. I’m damn sure when he gets home from work, all he ever does is get involved in things completely and utterly 100% unrelated to his job, and proves it all the time. He’s a systems analyst for Accenture getting 62 thousand yearly. This is what I said I was looking for, a life where I can work a job, be able to pay my expenses without having financial trouble, not be under the kind of pressure college brings that I highlighted above, and have a guaranteed 5:30PM - 10:30PM of free time…kind of like those two high-income earners I talked about.</p>

<p>Not really hard to understand.</p>

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<p>Company A posts a job for a burger flipper. You get hired and work behind the counter for a few years. Eventually you prove yourself and get promoted to assistant manager. After 4 or 5 more years, you get promoted to shift manager.</p>

<p>Company B posts a job for a shift manager, which requires a college degree or equivalent experience. You now have equivalent experience.</p>

<p>I’m not going to read the rest of your post because you need to learn to be more concise.</p>

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<p>The response about potential employees who may not have a degree but have previously done the job means that not all companies have the same requirements, or an employee was originally hired for a lower position and then rose through the ranks to the point where they are now in a job that would normally require a degree but they have developed the skills through their work.</p>

<p>IT jobs can be some of the most stressful around. If you are in IT and the system or a program goes down you will be getting lots of face time from the executive group until it gets fixed. working around the clock because the shopfloor reporting system is down would be normal.</p>

<p>You seem to be looking for a way to say that you have attended school, not done very well, but you want a job that requires more than that. Remember that work is not fair, it is a process for companies to make money. They will hire you if you can show them a way that you will make more money for them than what you cost them in wages and benefits. Hiring decisions don’t need to be fair, employers wants “low maintenance” employees who can step in and get the job done without drama. Your situation would scare many companies because of your potential to be “high Maintenance”.</p>

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<p>Seriously? Is anyone in this professor’s class succeeding? If so, have you spoken to them? If not, why hasn’t anyone brought the professor up to the department? Have you visited the professor’s office hours? When you get your mid-semester failure notice, have you done anything different to bring up your grade?</p>

<p>There is no justification for you failing a class twice. Plain and simple, no justification. </p>

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<p>He didn’t say anything about how MUCH one works. He said that unless you have a very basic, low level job, you will need to THINK at your job. Plenty of decent jobs still involve nothing more than 9-5, but don’t expect that it will be easy. Just because you work a normal 8 hour day, that doesn’t mean that you won’t have stress. </p>

<p>Use your brother at ACN as an example. If you make a MAJOR mistake in college, it affects you; you may have stress, but you only have yourself to worry about. If your brother makes a MAJOR mistake at ACN, especially if he is a project lead, he could cost his company millions of dollars; he could cost low level employees on the client side their JOBS (read: their livelihoods); he could permanently and irreparably hurt his upward mobility. He may be able to work 8 hour days under most circumstances, but his responsibilities are greater than yours.</p>

<p>In college, there ARE correct answers, and you have someone you can ask about them. In the real world, there aren’t always correct answers. Plenty of times, you will find yourself asking questions under the assumption that your superiors know the answers, only to realize that they can provide answers but that there may be better solutions to your problems.</p>

<p>Stop whining about not being able to pass a class and get some help from your professor, fellow students or other academic support systems. You can’t possibly say that the class is impossible to pass because if that were the case, this professor would not be teaching anymore.</p>