<p>“To QwertyKey - the cold war definition inherently implies that all countries fall within a certain world. the paradigm i am specifically referring to is that which declares first world countries as all capitalist/US+its allies countries, second world = socialist/Soviet Union+its allies, and third world = everything else. So India would be third world, and communist China would be second world.”</p>
<p>In 2009 I’d say India is more like a 1st world country, unless you want to say the 1st world is USA and Britain and no one else.</p>
<p>I actually side with the shower-sac on this one. People, freaking figure out what the words you’re saying mean. If everybody else was wasting their time on senseless internet forums, would you do it? (oh wait…)</p>
<p>oh come on using “third world” to talk about poor countries isn’t confusing at all. </p>
<p>it’s not like Mr Payne decided to make up some silly word to talk about an idea and forced everybody to use it in this discussion–“third world” as poor countries is common use</p>
<p>discussions should be about ideas, not about words . . .</p>
<p>Definitions of words or phrases don’t stay the same forever. Meanings do change over time, new words get added to the dictionary, and some fall out of common use.</p>
<p>Why do so many people drop out of engineering their first year? I think a number of students take engineering, Math, science courses because it will allow them to pursue many majors. Honestly, the first year of engineering has a great deal of overlap with premed. Some students just can’t do the math. </p>
<p>I really think that some of these students, even as freshmen, may be worried about finding good opportunities as engineers when they graduate. The number of engineers graduating has been going down every year since around 1999-2000. This is right when the tech bubble burst. These freshmen may see the seniors not getting the types of engineering jobs they want, and may see many engineers landing more and better jobs as something other than engineers and wonder if the whole engineering major is worth it.</p>
Alarmist: A person who needlessly alarms or attempts to alarm others, as by **inventing or spreading false or exaggerated rumors **of impending danger or catastrophe.</p>
<p>Wow I’m speechless…
You got nothing else to say that you have to resort to ad hominem against me?
Which part of my statement was false or exaggerative? I simply pointed out the fact. Both U3 and U6 figure I quoted came from BLS. So you take U3 rate into consideration and ignore U6? </p>
<p>“Another classic example of ad hominem… O well… Some people don’t learn…”</p>
<p>I’d highly suggest laying off of me. Ad hominem or not, don’t wake this sleeping giant. I think you understand my discontent in using U6 figures when U3 are the common reference. Let’s leave it at that.</p>
<p>“Hey, don’t be mad… I did so on the follow up post, and you responded with ad hominem…”</p>
<p>Your follow-up was AFTER I called you out. Your presentation of unemployment (common figure, U3) didn’t even require Chauvenet’s criterion for debunking. THEN you reposted that it was a U6 data point to save face. 20% seems like quite a nice round number to throw on a forum. Appears imprecise with only one or two sig-figs…You didn’t say 20.1% or 19.8%… 20% sounds strangely convenient.</p>
<p>That, coupled with the sequence of posts and your pretentious use of epistemological catch phrases leads me to the conclusion that:</p>
<p>1) You simply made a mistake by initially stating a U6 figure without providing references or even stating it was U6 when it is common knowledge that U3 figures are the default comparison criteria.
OR
2) You initially threw out an arbitrarily high number and found data and a methodology (U6) to match your claims.</p>
<p>In any case, the common method for measuring unemployment (U3) is around 10.5%. This is useful for determining relative temporal economic stability though is not a perfect indicator for absolute unemployment figures.</p>
<p>I’ve known quite a few people who majored in pure sciences such as math and physics that went on to successful software engineering careers. However, the vast majority of them took CS electives and/or worked on numerous software projects on their own. If all other things were equal, and I had to choose between two candidates, one with a CS degree including a balance of theory and practical subjects, and a math major with much less software experience (if any), I’d be much more likely to pick the candidate with the CS degree.</p>
<p>Perhaps you should’ve gone to Cal Poly. In this (possibly) post-recessionary time, IMO it is important to get the most value for your money. Stanford, Berkeley, etc. cannot guarantee that you are going to earn more money after graduation, nor even that you will get a better education (depending upon what your goals are).</p>
<p>I try to encourage people to consider carefully their decision to go to a top name school, taking into account that there are ample opportunities to get a great education at a lesser name school, provided that the candidates are willing to take the initiative to explore those opportunities.</p>
<p>“I think the bigger point I was making though was…why work so hard to get a degree from Stanford/Berkeley/MIT, pay $40,000 a year in tuition, suffer through a ruthless and unbearable workload, if the end-game is just to work at a standard $50,000-$60,000 job that any cal poly student can get as well. I know the cal poly student COULD be just as bright as the MIT student, but regardless – if the cal poly student can get the same job that i’m competing for, then I feel like I’m not getting the most out of my degree…I would have just gone to cal poly also then, and have a much better time completing my degree.”</p>
<p>I’d say that about the name, but not about the education.</p>
<p>I don’t mean to make this specifically about my alma mater, but I went to Harvey Mudd. It cost my family nearly $200k to go there and quite frankly, it was worth every penny. The quality of education and the opportunities during and after attendance were spectacular. This didn’t manifest itself in a $50k-$60k job but rather an amazing opportunity that happened to be in the mid 70’s.</p>
<p>With that said, I truly believe that there are a few programs out there that really are worth it… and cannot be equated with a typical state school. Caltech, Olin, CU, HMC are just to name a few.</p>