I wonder if there is a place for me...

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Well I attended college at a pretty nice university for a year - did well the first semester and terrible the second. GPA for the first sem - 3.0, second -1.7 with a cumulative of around 2.1 by the time I finished. Needless to say I withdrew and returned home - left home in 2 weeks and got a job at a webhost. I still am here, making a game and some books on the side and I even enrolled in a local community college with one course (Myth, a humanities), but starting this course the other day I realized somethings:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>I'm pretty stupid - I got around 1190 on my SAT and I have really poor math skills despite a passion for technology - I don't want to deal with calculus or any high level math as I cannot comprehend it at all - it makes zero sense and it bores me immensely.</p></li>
<li><p>Going through paid training at this webhost - I don't see why I wasted so much money at a college where I learned pretty much nothing useful, absolutely zero of my computer engineering classes applies to anything in my job as a support rep. In contrast I learned pretty much stuff that used to require a degree to get, I got paid to do it and did it much faster than many of my fellow employees, I thrived in training.</p></li>
<li><p>Going back to school the other day was awful - I got lost, the professor was a little incredulous that I found Eastern myth so much better than Western myth and I was older than 90% of the class. </p></li>
<li><p>The entire original reason for getting a degree - going to live abroad in the Eastern world, is not justifiable when a degree will probably cost me $50k, when I can take the same $50k and self-sponsor myself to Japan,</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Which brings the question of the thread - Is there a school where I can:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Get a degree and not wreck my bank?</p></li>
<li><p>Don't have to deal with GenED courses?</p></li>
<li><p>While learning in a hands on, non traditional environment with technology oriented degrees and not deal with the usual dreck in a school?</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Probably not, from what I see. I have a desire to learn - but not like I did at that college. I cannot take it like I did - I don't do well when grades weigh on everything. I'm actually heaving considering dropping this one class and just continuing with this job.</p>

2

<p>I will simply state that college is not for everyone. It is for many. Ultimately only you know if it is for you. It is possible to get a degree and not wreck the bank - Community Colleges are ideal for this and many employers will pick up some of the tuition for you as well. There are also technical schools where you can train in a trade or craft. </p>

<p>It is also possible to make a lot of money having never attended formal classes, but it tends to be in some very hard and manual type jobs, but thankfully, there are many people who this suits. I mentioned the other day that Caterpillar has a tough time finding maintenance technicians for their shops across the country to repair tractors. It is very hard labor, but the starting salary rivals the starting salary of someone with a Computer Science degree. (That said, the higher levels with the CS degree make quite a bit more than the most experienced and long term tractor repairman). </p>

<p>Chances are that if you stay at the webhosting company, you will never move up into management without a degree. That may be fine for you…My father never got a degree because he liked doing the more day to day work rather than managing people.</p>

3

<p>Interesting that you say that because I work side by side with comm. college and job corps people and I make the same amount that I do. Also, I don’t plan to go to any manager positions, I already have my one man development and tech. commentary group setup that I manage in my spare time. I plan to move up through the chain, save my cash and then, <em>if</em> needed, go to college again. I’m not a manual labor guy, but I don’t do well with formal classes because I don’t have the ability to make good grades. I can learn the material better than the guy next to me, but I always have notations and sources I use, I always memorize the key points whereas my notations and sources give me the process with which I perform. At work, this is encouraged, at college it isn’t allowed for tests.</p>

4

<p>You say you don’t plan to move up… but I assume you don’t have a family and kids to support yet. So while it seems okay now, your paycheck may not make you happy in 10-15 years. While college isn’t for everyone, lots of people find the Gen Ed courses somewhat boring and some of them difficult, but they grind through them. Maybe you need to consider a different major. Business majors don’t do a ton of higher level math – I took a semester of calculus, and finance had some math, but that was mostly it. Accounting is all adding & subtracting. And that degree could pay off for you in the long run.</p>

<p>It is tough when people figure out after they have a family to support and all the time constraints to go with it that they should have taken care of getting their degree before that.</p>

5

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<p>Ultimately the purpose of this thread is to see if anyone here has anything other than these pretty common run of the mill answers, like maybe a specific school that could be good for people who can’t do grades or tests well. I just don’t have the ability to parrot information like on a test and I gravitate to innovation and creativity rather than norms. Figuring out complex issues at work like going thru 16 Wordpress plugins on a customer’s site to figure out which one was breaking the site, or figuring out how to fix problems with an exchange POP3 connector pretty much are my strengths.</p>

6

<p>Most vocational/technical colleges will fulfill #1 and #3. Virtually every school will have general education requirements. But you can go somewhere with less of them. For example, my hometown’s community college has programs in radiologic technology. If you do the program, you do have to take 31 hours of GE courses - English, math, history, government, a humanities or arts course, and either chemistry of anatomy. But after that, you take all classes in radiology. You do clinical rotations and learn how to be a radiologic technologist. RTs make an average of $54,340 per year, which is pretty good for an associate’s degree.</p>

<p>I always tell the story of my brother on this board. My brother is an electrical line worker ([Line</a> Installers and Repairers : Occupational Outlook Handbook : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics](<a href=“http://www.bls.gov/ooh/installation-maintenance-and-repair/line-installers-and-repairers.htm]Line”>http://www.bls.gov/ooh/installation-maintenance-and-repair/line-installers-and-repairers.htm)). He always hated school, and wanted to do very hands on stuff. He went to community college for a semester and decided it wasn’t for him, so he left and did a 10-week training program in eletrical line work, then got hired as an apprentice at his electric company.</p>

<p>As you can see, the median pay for electrical line workers is $58,030 a year; for electrical power workers it My brother started out making about $40,000 as an an apprentice, but he had the opportunity work a lot of overtime and so he makes more than that, really. He’s been working there about 6 years and he’s up to around $45,000 now, but he’s also about to get promoted to journeyman, where he’ll get a <em>large</em> pay raise. The journeymen at his job average around $70K per year.</p>

<p>If you look at the BLS.gov’s “Occupation Finder,” you can find a lot of jobs that don’t require a bachelor’s degree but still have pretty decent salaries. Those include electrical line workers like my brother; claims adjusters; loan officers; elevator installers and repairers; train conductors and bus drivers; dental laboratory technicians; electricians; engineering technologists; mechanics; plumbers; and a variety of allied health workers like pharmacy technicians, nursing assistants, RNs themselves (although increasingly hospitals want BSN traind nurses), occupational and physical therapy assistants, radiologic technologists; medical sonographers; radiation therapists; nuclear medicine technologists; and medical and clinical lab technicians.</p>

<p>At college, they require you to recite things from memory because sometimes when you work on the job, you will need to be able to recall that information quickly without notes.</p>

7

<p>I would be remiss if I didn’t mention one other possibility - Joining the military. (I’m an Air Force veteran). Depending on your job, you may or may not spend a lot of time in traditional classroom learning (I happened to spend a great deal of time in classes, but not everyone does). Pay is good, benefits are unbeatable and after 20 years of serving you can retire and go back to work in your field or a different one altogether an make a happy living for yourself.</p>