<p>OK, so 14% of Google employees don’t have a college degree. But 86% do.</p>
<p>The article also points out that people who are very successful without a degree tend to be unusually driven and talented, and that for most, a degree is still a good bet. If someone chooses not to go to college, that person still has to find a venue in which to demonstrate his talents such that an employer like Google will consider interviewing. Not that easy to do. </p>
<p>I agree that college has benefits that outweigh the drawbacks, but simply having a bachelor’s in anything isn’t enough. The United States doesn’t need people with bachelors in history or English; it needs people with degrees in areas like computer science. I know a person who attended my local university and majored in computer science; he then took his GMAT and got a job with $60,000 starting salary. According to a quick Google search, starting salaries at the Silicon Valley can be as high as $156,000. Also, if you go on to medical school with a bachelors in a STEM field, you may amass lots of debt initially, but you’ll be able to pay it off rather quickly. </p>
<p>Emeraldkity4, The graduation rates are pretty low for nontraditional students: its tough to finish a degree while working and/or raising a family, and tough to pay for too, even with financial aid. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You don’t need a bachelor’s in STEM to go to medical school. </p>
<p>Doctors do not pay off their debt quickly. And compensation in medicine is falling. Doctors have to take what insurance companies and Medicare will pay them; they don’t command their own rates, generally. No one should go into medicine nowadays and expect to make a lot of money over a lifetime.</p>
<p>It is “14% on some teams”, according to the article.</p>
<p>In any case, CS is one subject where the barrier to entry for self-education is relatively low, and it is not as difficult as some other subjects to demonstrate one’s ability in the subject (while those who have poor or no ability in the subject are easily screened out). So self-educated (not uneducated) people in CS do have more ways into the industry than in many other subjects and job types.</p>
<p>This stands in contrast to some other lines of work. For subjects where there may be much more content to know than what can be shown in an interview setting, the credential of a degree indicating such knowledge (in engineering, nursing, architecture, accounting, etc.) becomes more important. For jobs with little specific knowledge or ability required, and which screening tests specific to the job do not exist, employers may use the bachelor’s degree as a credential to reduce the number of applicants to a manageable number, even if that does not have that good a correlation with actual ability to do the job in question.</p>
<p>That is more or less how my company works. You don’t need a degree to work in my field by any stretch of the imagination, but my company requires one-- any four year degree in any discipline, it just has to be a 4 year degree. Mainly just because it feels good and they can’t interview everybody. Our receptionist has to have a bachelors degree. Our mail room kids must have a bachelors degree-- they dont even get a desk but they need a degree.</p>
<p>I will say, my dad is a software developer at the top of his field and when he got laid off in the late 90’s, it took him six months to find another job and as I understand it his lack of degree was a factor. Ultimately it was just a speed bump in a long and prosperous career but even in fields that are more open it can be hard-- and that was 15 years ago, I am sure it is even tougher now. </p>
<p>My fiance is in the market for an additional job at the moment, and he is having a hard time finding a position he isn’t overqualified for in terms of skills and experience because so many positions seem to be designed with inexperienced 20 year olds in mind and the pay is garbage. I can see getting stuck in an education gap here, where he isn’t qualified for the positions that expect a degree whether he needs one or not, but he is MUCH too skilled for many of the jobs that don’t require a degree. But he’s only been looking for a couple of days, so we’ll see what he finds. But, quite frankly, that’s not that much difference from my experience with my degree. There are a select few jobs that I am qualified for without being too overqualified to be considered. A STEM degree rather than poli sci might have fixed that, but I don’t have the skills for one. </p>
<p>emeraldkitty, I find it hard to believe you wouldn’t be irritated if your child were required to sit through mandatory meetings with their GC in which they were told to ignore everything you say about college and what you can afford. Indeed, I think you would be on CC complaining about it, too. I can’t believe that you don’t agree that butting out altogether would be preferable to misdirection and manipulation, and it seems awfully silly not to agree that it would be nice if schools could help guide kids on a variety of options that are appropriate for them. I’m not sure why you’re picking apart my posts.</p>
<p>Its funny because what you dont realise is that, a college degree is never a guarantee for a successful life or a happy one. Infact there are millions of people out there who have more than a college degree, a masters or a Phd but are still struggling to make ends meet. On the other side there are those people who never went to college like rappers we see on TV or drop outs like Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates who are making millions and millions of money. So when it comes down to it, our success depends on two things: the economy which determines the availabilty of work and our individual creativity and drive. The more I see the world and observe its people, the more I understand that a college dgree is becoming nothing more than a paper with a name and seal on it.</p>
<p>@DesperateGirl
You obviously sound desperate. Zuckerberg and Bill Gates went to college!!!<br>
They dropped out of HARVARD!!
They were already doom to excel, so please don’t compare to the rest.
Yes, they are a lot of graduate students struggling to make ends meet, but what did they majored in? Keep that in mind when choosing a career</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not all STEM majors have good major-specific job prospects.</p>
<p>If the baby boomers would just retire already then maybe young people like myself will be able to get jobs. </p>
<p>Baby boomers can’t afford to retire - they work in jobs with no pensions, their 401Ks are tied to a stock market that lost a huge percentage of its value in the past 7 years, and they’re in debt for their children’s college education!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>My husband and I said the same thing about older people when we got out of school in 1986. It took sending out 270 resumes, looking for many months, and moving 2,100 miles for us to get engineering jobs after completing our master’s degrees with high GPAs.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>A stock market which has since rebounded higher than 2007 levels…</p>
<p>What’s up with this?
Seemed like a perfectly good post to me.</p>
<p>@saona63
Well my post doesnt show any signs of being desperate. I am simply stating out a fact, I dont know why it bothers you but then again the truth is something that the majority of people in this world cant accept. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>CC is a moderated site, please review the Terms of Service regarding Moderation:</p>
<p><a href=“https://auth.collegeconfidential.com/module.php/hobsonspolicies/policy.php?policy=tos”>https://auth.collegeconfidential.com/module.php/hobsonspolicies/policy.php?policy=tos</a></p>
<p>The reason the post looks ‘perfectly good’ and doesn’t ‘show any signs’ of impropriety is because inappropriate comments have been edited out of the post by a moderator. </p>
<p>This new system is taking some getting used to, but if you have concerns, please use the Flag/Report functions rather than discussing moderation on open forums (as directed in the TOS).</p>
<p>“A stock market which has since rebounded higher than 2007 levels…” </p>
<p>Except for those companies that haven’t… like the ones in my own 401Ks… </p>
<p>The youngest Baby Burners turn 50 this year. And a lot of us still have kids in high school. So, no, retirement is but a distant dream. </p>
<p>@DesperateGirl
I am a 50 year old woman, immigrant who came to this beautiful country I call USA 24 years ago. I came and lived/baby sit for family of very renown doctors in NY. Learned the language, went to CC nights and weekends. Came with absolutely nothing but a suitcase, and now after NO government gave anything I live comfortably!
My friend you sound young and angry:( There will always be people like rappers and the likes of Gates that will be millionaires, but those are the ones with unique abilities!!!
Just don’t think like that cause you will be an angry person. Go out and do your best!! BTW, yes, choose a career right. Wish you the best:)
STEM, regardless of what people say one of the best career path if you can handle it, or
Show the world your creativity and you might be the next millionaire</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Then they will vote for politicians who will raise their Social Security and Medicare benefits, along with the payroll taxes on young people like yourself to fund such benefits.</p>