It sounds like you wasted your time. I didn’t waste mine, and @sarchertech didn’t waste theirs.
I have asked some 30 year olds, in addition to reading quite a bit of research on this topic. I’m not at all surprised some people find their time in college to be mostly useless. Some people are lazy and contrarian and see school as authoritarian and useless from the start, and so they don’t pay attention and getting nothing out of it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy - something they did to themselves because of their attitude. Maybe you’re one of those people. That reflects on their attitude and choices and not on school in general, since it’s a fact that many other people find their time in college valuable, many people take advantage of the time and seek out classes that teach them things they want to learn. My school had lots of choices for classes that fill gen ed requirements, and I chose my gen eds wisely.
The research that has statistically sampled all 30 year olds found that on the whole they are learning things and taking skills away from their university experience. It would be totally weird if they weren’t. Your point makes very little sense that people would spend 4 years of their lives learning and end up not learning. I think @sarchertech is right that you’re projecting your own experience on everyone else, making the incorrect assumption that because you didn’t learn much then nobody did.
> This isn’t about the degree it self being something that is used to gatekeep and lead to higher salaries
Yes it absolutely is. A degree that gets you into a 2x better paying job has utility, and is not useless, even if you waste your time and learn nothing.
Nothing you’ve said yet addresses the point that even though people could learn on their own everything that college teaches, we have loads of evidence that it just doesn’t happen very often.
BTW, I think you meant “you’re”. I wouldn’t have said anything, but you did it 4 times in a row.
You said college was a “waste of time” and “useless”. If you’re not talking about the choice to go or not, and you’re not talking about the pay benefits, then what is your point?
I have asked some 30 year olds, in addition to reading quite a bit of research on this topic. I’m not at all surprised some people find their time in college to be mostly useless. Some people are lazy and contrarian and see school as authoritarian and useless from the start, and so they don’t pay attention and getting nothing out of it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy - something they did to themselves because of their attitude. Maybe you’re one of those people. That reflects on their attitude and choices and not on school in general, since it’s a fact that many other people find their time in college valuable, many people take advantage of the time and seek out classes that teach them things they want to learn. My school had lots of choices for classes that fill gen ed requirements, and I chose my gen eds wisely.
The research that has statistically sampled all 30 year olds found that on the whole they are learning things and taking skills away from their university experience. It would be totally weird if they weren’t. Your point makes very little sense that people would spend 4 years of their lives learning and end up not learning. I think @sarchertech is right that you’re projecting your own experience on everyone else, making the incorrect assumption that because you didn’t learn much then nobody did.
> This isn’t about the degree it self being something that is used to gatekeep and lead to higher salaries
Yes it absolutely is. A degree that gets you into a 2x better paying job has utility, and is not useless, even if you waste your time and learn nothing.
Nothing you’ve said yet addresses the point that even though people could learn on their own everything that college teaches, we have loads of evidence that it just doesn’t happen very often.
BTW, I think you meant “you’re”. I wouldn’t have said anything, but you did it 4 times in a row.