Why do you go to College?

<p>So when I’m at a career fair will everyone be standing in line according to GPA and will I have to go over to the company’s desk that no one wants to work for?</p>

<p>I believe I’m destined to be an academic in the long-run. I love theorizing, philosophizing, and learning in general.</p>

<p>no prothero, but again, how are they going to see if candidate A or candidate B is more qualified if neither have any work experience? theres only so much you can do in an interview to “charm” your way through, assuming you get an interview. they can just randomly pick from two people with no work experience, they have to compare something</p>

<p>I hoped that by earning a strong GPA, I could compensate for my ineptitude, low IQ, and horrid social skills. Boy was I right.</p>

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<p>I think ideally we’d have a system where higher education would churn out a number of graduates that actually met demand instead of exceeding it 15-fold like it does in accounting or infinity fold like it does in philosophy or Math. The system we have wasn’t designed to support such a large number (majority) of never-to-be-gainfully-employed graduates. If there weren’t so many graduates then it wouldn’t be about choosing between a handsome, HR-approved 3.59, an asian, “awkward” (HR’s word, note mine) 4.0, or an affirmative-action 1.96. Ideally, all three would be hired, and the ones with the highest aptitude (IQ) and work ethic would last. (except the AA who would be retained for legal reasons). Leaving the sorting process to employers results in too much emphasis on GPA and too little on IQ, which is why most big four hires are female. If sorting was done moreso at the college admissions level (higher rejection rates), there would be more males hired because females rarely break 600 on any section of the SAT. A more male workforce is, as we all know but don’t admit, a more productive, more intelligent, less error-prone, more fireable (=higher slacker unemployment, lower hard worker unemployment), less fussy, higher-paid, and more future-time-oriented one.</p>

<p>@morrismm</p>

<p>Funny, it’s my experience using the internet for many years that people cast blank judgments and generalize based on their experience.</p>

<p>I’m sorry that your students are not up to your standards. Perhaps that is a reflection of your inadequacies, not your students. </p>

<p>Before every waking moment of my life was taken up by the business I run (putting me above the “average salary,” thank you very much) or going to school, I read/self taught myself things for 4-5 hours a day. Now, I try to spend at least 30 minutes to an hour reading a day. Does that time include WSJ, Economist, etc…? Sometimes but not exclusively.</p>

<p>I like to learn technical skills like programming, read books regarding philosophy or study how the world is shaped today because of history. Rather than spending my time staying in the top 10% of the class, I wish I could better apportion that time to learn things outside of the curriculum. I choose mathematics because I thought it would allot opportunities to jump into other academic fields of my interest later in life. Possibly, I’ll have a chance to pursue further learning in the sciences. </p>

<p>Please, preach other places.</p>

<p>For money, power, job security, flexibility, skill-based, and job stability. I wont even try to tip toe around this. The reason being i see many threads that attack people for simply wanting to get a job that establishes them and their families in the upper class. </p>

<p>Whenever someone asks what the salary for a doctor is, I always see some jackass say “forget doctor, get an mba”, without realizing that an MBA offers jobs that, although pay alot, don’t offer much job security once it’s lost. The reason many of us wont even consider pursuing a career in business is because it’s a gamble. Being a ****ty doctor still pays at minimum $100,000 and any other health profession requiring professional school. If you quit, and move from one place to another, most likely an job for any health profession is readily available. And there are people out there who say “if you don’t like your job, you’ll never succeed at”, this too is bs. There are tons of people who hate their jobs, yet still do it for years on end to support their kids. When these people attend college to get a better job, solely for money because they don’t give a crap about what job it is, they get cussed out of forums, degraded by peers, and forced into lying about their motivations. I dont say this to spite any specific person, only so that people are forced into such hiding, like me, to know they’re not alone. </p>

<p>And also, who gives a crap if they do it for money. If someone works hard and produces better work than another person, why shouldn’t they deserve the job they wanted? Because of ethics or morals? What’s ethical then in these people’s eyes are to deny the American dream to those they deem morally and ethically unfit. I hate how the American Dream and the pursuit of happiness is nothing more than a sin for hippies to his at these days. And if someone wants to go into business for money and are willing to work hard and take the risks, then they already earned what they put in.</p>

<p>I care if people do something just for the money. If we have more people basing career decisions on just the money, then we are going to have a lot more miserable people in society, and I feel like we already have enough of those. We are social beings and we affect each other’s emotions whether we want to or not. People should pursue that which brings them satisfaction and happiness so that when I run into them they will have good vibes instead of ugly ones.</p>