Just How Hard is University to Overcome
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@tim_g said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
Example, I could go get an MBA when I was 30. What would have happened (maybe)...
- I would not have been able to learn other things as much as I did.
- I would have been preoccupied at work and not gotten offered SVP level before turning 31 - maybe because I would not have moved up as quickly being so busy, maybe because they would have known I wasn't done with school and wanted to wait.
- I would have lost all kinds of money that could have gone to things like labs, volunteer work or whatever.
The list goes on and on. There is always an alternative. Some alternatives are silly like spending all the time and money on beer and watching reality TV. Some are neutral, like getting an MCSE. Some are hugely beneficial, like putting in extra hours, volunteering for projects and trying for a promotion.
Some good food for thought. (not just this post of yours, but all, and others')
I'm at a point now where I need to figure out... if I wouldn't go for an MBA, what could I realistically accomplish in place of that time spent that would get me further. And if the answer is that I wouldn't do anything better, then the obvious choice would be the MBA.
So, perhaps a fork topic to ask what can one with a really busy home life do at mid-career in place of the time spent getting an MBA?
Worth its own topic, for sure. But there are lots of things. Which is right for you will vary by a lot of things, including is it to move up in your current job or to find a new one. But, some ideas...
- Work harder. Sounds silly but this is what I did and I went from newbie at the bank to SVP equivalent in under a year. It can really work.
- Volunteer. Build experience in ways you can't at a normal job.
- Entrepreneur. Get out and start your own thing! This is a little like doing an MBA equivalent in a home lab. Oh, I need a video for that.
- Study on your own. Study business, IT, whatever you want to be advancing it.
- Side job. bring in extra money and broaden your experience.
- Certifications. Even business has these.
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@tim_g said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@tim_g said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
But I would be doing it while working full time and continuing investing in SP500 and 401k... that wouldnt' stop.
Everyone makes this argument. But for this to make sense you have to assume that you could not do other work, could not do other education and so forth. Is that true? Is getting a degree the only means of utilizing that free time?
Well if I want to break into management at some point in my life, an MBA will more likely get me there than an MCSE.
I broke into management at 19 with no certs, degree, nothing. Management is not a hard thing to get into. It's a career field like any other. Doing a lateral move from senior tech to senior management makes it a lot harder.
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@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@dashrender said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@brrabill said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@brrabill said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
However, most 17 year olds are probably closer to $20K yearly than $38K. And the college goer can offset that by working. They work 20 hours a week? Then the non college goer only gets them by $10K.
This is incorrect. Typically a teenager can work as much as they want, but that's not really the issue as we are really talking about people who are or are nearly full adults. At 17 yes, jobs might be a struggle, but not realistically for anyone that could have gone to college, they are only a struggle for those that could not have. And a college goer cannot offset lost work, ever. That's not possible. This is a myth.
Anything that a college goer can do, a non-college goer can do plus all the college time on top of it. So if a college goer can work 20 hours a week, a non-college goer can do 70 hours a week.
Typically we assume that full time college requires about forty to sixty hours a week of student time. That's how much someone not going to college can put into a job on top of any time that a college goer can put into a job.
When I was going to college triple full time, I was still working 50 hours a week to pay for it (because I had to pay out of pocket.) I could have worked 110 hours a week, made way more money and had more time to relax and learned more (because I learned more on the job than at college) and gotten more career opportunities (I got into my career from my side job, not from college). So you have to compare against the full offset of college.
The trick that people often use to make college sound good is pretending that people who go to college can work twice as hard (college + work) as people who don't go to college. But that is simply not the case. We aren't talking about two pools of people, one lazy and one not. We are talking about a single person considering two different approaches.
But if the answer to making more money is to just "work more" ... then that isn't a good answer.
The same person could work just as many extra house once they leave college, and at a higher average salary.
Have you lost the years at college? Sure, but you could catch up to it pretty quickly in the couple years after.
AGAIN, not considering tuition here. Any time you are throwing 100-200K into this equation, it hugely shifts the balance the other way.
I think Scott's claim here is that the non-college person can make the same as the college person, even after the college person has their degree - so you two fundamentally disagree on this point currently.
Yes, exactly. There are two ways to look at it...
- In the huge pool of all people, college grads earn a little more per week, but only enough to offset the TIME of college, not the cost of it, over a full lifetime.
- In the REAL statistically meaningful comparison of people, college grads earn much less per week forever and are a loss not just up front, but over time as well.
I suppose it completely depends on the field. How do you become a medical doctor without going to college?
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@tim_g said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@dashrender said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@brrabill said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@brrabill said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
However, most 17 year olds are probably closer to $20K yearly than $38K. And the college goer can offset that by working. They work 20 hours a week? Then the non college goer only gets them by $10K.
This is incorrect. Typically a teenager can work as much as they want, but that's not really the issue as we are really talking about people who are or are nearly full adults. At 17 yes, jobs might be a struggle, but not realistically for anyone that could have gone to college, they are only a struggle for those that could not have. And a college goer cannot offset lost work, ever. That's not possible. This is a myth.
Anything that a college goer can do, a non-college goer can do plus all the college time on top of it. So if a college goer can work 20 hours a week, a non-college goer can do 70 hours a week.
Typically we assume that full time college requires about forty to sixty hours a week of student time. That's how much someone not going to college can put into a job on top of any time that a college goer can put into a job.
When I was going to college triple full time, I was still working 50 hours a week to pay for it (because I had to pay out of pocket.) I could have worked 110 hours a week, made way more money and had more time to relax and learned more (because I learned more on the job than at college) and gotten more career opportunities (I got into my career from my side job, not from college). So you have to compare against the full offset of college.
The trick that people often use to make college sound good is pretending that people who go to college can work twice as hard (college + work) as people who don't go to college. But that is simply not the case. We aren't talking about two pools of people, one lazy and one not. We are talking about a single person considering two different approaches.
But if the answer to making more money is to just "work more" ... then that isn't a good answer.
The same person could work just as many extra house once they leave college, and at a higher average salary.
Have you lost the years at college? Sure, but you could catch up to it pretty quickly in the couple years after.
AGAIN, not considering tuition here. Any time you are throwing 100-200K into this equation, it hugely shifts the balance the other way.
I think Scott's claim here is that the non-college person can make the same as the college person, even after the college person has their degree - so you two fundamentally disagree on this point currently.
Yes, exactly. There are two ways to look at it...
- In the huge pool of all people, college grads earn a little more per week, but only enough to offset the TIME of college, not the cost of it, over a full lifetime.
- In the REAL statistically meaningful comparison of people, college grads earn much less per week forever and are a loss not just up front, but over time as well.
I suppose it completely depends on the field. How do you become a medical doctor without going to college?
You can't, which is both why it is not a competitive field and not in the pool of decision factors. It's in the video that isn't done editing yet, but has been submitted to the editor. That careers like MD require a degree actually is part of why the numbers as to the value of a degree are skewed to make university look better than it really is.
Just as how there are people that can't handle the academics of college and are in the pool too, just on the opposite end. Both throw off the numbers dramatically and are useless and misleading for a decision matrix.
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What's amazing is that even when doctors and the illiterate are included in the entire economic statistical pool, university STILL can't make its numbers look viable. The degree of false value inflation and government involvement to prop it up are amazing and still failing.
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Gotta say that's not where I thought the whole doctor question was going...
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@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
I went from newbie at the bank to SVP equivalent in under a year. It can really work.
On it's own, this is a meaningless statement. Please expand upon it.
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@brrabill said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
Gotta say that's not where I thought the whole doctor question was going...
Where did you think that it was going?
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@dashrender said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
I went from newbie at the bank to SVP equivalent in under a year. It can really work.
On it's own, this is a meaningless statement. Please expand upon it.
What do you want expanded on? By working hard and doing my job it was easy to get recognition for my work and demonstrate my work because I was busy producing value for the bank rather than sneaking off to spend my free time taking classes that didn't make me any better at my job.
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I'm really not trying to be a smart a$$ there. Not sure what you are looking for about job promotions.
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@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@dashrender said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
I went from newbie at the bank to SVP equivalent in under a year. It can really work.
On it's own, this is a meaningless statement. Please expand upon it.
What do you want expanded on? By working hard and doing my job it was easy to get recognition for my work and demonstrate my work because I was busy producing value for the bank rather than sneaking off to spend my free time taking classes that didn't make me any better at my job.
What is a newbie at a bank? That could have meant you were a director, or whatever is one step below an SVP, who was promoted to SVP inside one year.
We need to know where you really started to know if there is any value in that statement.Also, what levels, if any, did you skip over going from "newbie at bank" to SVP? etc.
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Here is a quick video explaining the doctors and illiterate thing for @scottalanmiller
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lol I wrote this before Scott posted his video.. probably while he was making that video.
Careers that are held hostage by college requirements aren't really part of the job pool that is used in these discussions because of that requirement - college.
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@dashrender said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
What is a newbie at a bank? That could have meant you were a director, or whatever is one step below an SVP, who was promoted to SVP inside one year.
SVP goes to EVP to Director in a bank.
I was untitled, pure tech labour.
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@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@dashrender said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
What is a newbie at a bank? That could have meant you were a director, or whatever is one step below an SVP, who was promoted to SVP inside one year.
SVP goes to EVP to Director in a bank.
I was untitled, pure tech labour.
please list all levels between pure tech labor and SVP.
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@dashrender said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
We need to know where you really started to know if there is any value in that statement.
"Senior Individual Contributor" is what it is called. I was experienced enough to get the senior title, but no authority. Basically paid higher for technical experience, but was not in charge of anything.
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@dashrender said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
Also, what levels, if any, did you skip over going from "newbie at bank" to SVP? etc.
I skipped Lead, Manager, AVP and VP.
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OK so I watched the video - and my first question is - of all people going to college, how many of them do you think fit the mold of the pool that you're talking about - and additionally, please provide a list of at least 5 careers that can be good financially without college.
Possible careers I can think of
IT - duh
programmer/developer
entreprenuer -
@dashrender said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
OK so I watched the video - and my first question is - of all people going to college, how many of them do you think fit the mold of the pool that you're talking about ...
This bit doesn't matter. Because what does matter is that it is 100% of the people of whom we are ever talking about. Whether this number is 1% or 80% of potential university goers is irrelevant. It's all of the people that you will ever talk to about this. Because someone who has to go to school there is no discussion to have. People who can't there is no discussion to have. People who are going for non-career reasons it's obvious that the discussion is nonsensical. Only those pondering how to advance their career are in the pool and are 100% who we are discussing.
So where it matters, it's 100%.
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@scottalanmiller said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
@dashrender said in Just How Hard is University to Overcome:
OK so I watched the video - and my first question is - of all people going to college, how many of them do you think fit the mold of the pool that you're talking about ...
This bit doesn't matter. Because what does matter is that it is 100% of the people of whom we are ever talking about. Whether this number is 1% or 80% of potential university goers is irrelevant. It's all of the people that you will ever talk to about this. Because someone who has to go to school there is no discussion to have. People who can't there is no discussion to have. People who are going for non-career reasons it's obvious that the discussion is nonsensical. Only those pondering how to advance their career are in the pool and are 100% who we are discussing.
So where it matters, it's 100%.
I know it doesn't matter in this specific context, but it does matter in the general conversation about college attendance. For example, is most people going to college have no clue where they are going for a career, then college in general, i.e. for the masses, might be a good thing. And IF that's the case, then I think a short mentioning of something like that should be included in these topics to help remind people that these topics are specific to those who know their goal and are working toward it. Of course, just stating that along should be enough, but come on - we come back to this point of a narrow group of people we are talking about so often that including this specific bit should help get rid of the constant ask.
