Stay in School...

[grimcity]

hey, you forgot message board moderator!

Shit, it's at the top of my Curriculum Vitae. hehe

[lophatrophazoa]

Everyone in the class looked like they had been up since 6am, perfect makeup, perfect hair, senior rings blinging, showered, all that shit...

yah well not just accountants are like that. i dont fit in with anyone but i could care less cause no ones got no character. id rather walk around laughing at the variety of dick taters a school of 40,000 brings then make some fake talk with some standard joe/jane

[MAGIK INC GROUPIE]

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School worked out pretty good for me but it's not for everyone. For one thing, if your not going to major in something that is in demand then it might not work out so good, although lots of jobs will hire people with a degree regardless of what it is.

Good on ya Henry for the honesty. My experience has been a mixed bag with honesty and straight talk in the work place but I have to say that even when people don't like what you are telling them they will still respect your candor. I personally get put off by people who try to "talk the talk" and I will frequently shut people down for that kind of thing.

"blah, blah, blah, ..... blah, blah. You understand what I am saying?"

"no, but that's not important."

Definitely get a face made at you the first time but never had the same person try and talk shit twice to me.

My job is extremely tech though and I have spent years trying to build my skill set to a level where rules don't apply as much to me as they do to others and I am also playing up on the geek stereotype that is portrayed in the movies. In corporate america, people are so out of touch that they don't really know the difference between geek and skater and I really hate having to hide my personality at work so I have been taking advantage of that. I love that the sales kooks (jocks) think that I'm a introverted geek because it means they don't try and talk to me and will only give me the "did you catch the game?" once by the water cooler.

[close]

Not even sure what ya really trying to say but it don't matter to me. Alot of people probably don't like the "new me"
but fuck em. Why would I care? Skating is all dumb rumors and shit talking anyways. I've done what I'm setting out to do even if just one person reads this and gets a little more serious about school.

The reason I mentioned is obvious... up an comers and pros most likely say that same thing about school not being for everyone, which is true, but it's not sending the right message in my opinion.  I'm sick of all the sugar coating and how they portray skating as being so glamorous. It's not and kids should know this. I don't mind using myself as an example and don't care how it makes me look. Notoriety and how I'm viewed for my views means nothing. I've spent half my life riding my skateboard and never made 55k, yet I put in 2 years in school and can potentially get that when I start? My point is, kind of like you were trying describe, it's now easier. I didn't have to dress up for an interview. The skills  spoke for themselves. Life's not great with a whack job and time can catch up to anybody living a carefree life.  So yeah life is a heck of a lot easier if you go to school or get training for something. Having priorities straight at a young age can get anyone further in thier life.

[close]

Hope I didn't come across wrong Sanch. I think the message you are sending is a great one but I just wanted qualify it with "for something that can make money." School will enrich your life regardless but may as well pick the thing that you like the most that also pays decent so you don't end up another PHD working at a coffee shop in Austin.

Of course that's the most important. I feel I can more happier doing whatever as long as I get paid more. If I'm doing something I love and make more, it's like heaven.

[eight oh eight]

Reading all this makes me feel like I'm slacking.  Right now I'm in a post-grad slump with a BA in Anthropology/Int. Studies.  I thought about doing something in TESL or possibly linguistics, but after being the office manager for our school's ESL department, I noticed how insecure and unfulfilling the "free thinking social sciences" field really is.  A lot of the faculty are amazingly unorganized and complain daily about their workload and pay (or lack thereof) whenever they aren't exercising their God complex on their misguided students.  Needless to say, not really feeling this anymore and I gotta move on to something different.  I'm used to structured education so I'm considering taking advantage of the free tuition perk to get a second BA or go on to an MA but I seriously have no direction or any kind of aspirations.  Wish I had some skills rather than relying solely on merits.

[Sleazy]

I always wondered how professor life was from the front of the class. at my school a lot of prof's would require their students to use their or their colleages books. I figured that was how they made some cash.

[Blue Fescue]

It all depends on the person, my dad is a professor and he likes it a lot which translates to the teaching.  if it isn't for you then your skills as a teacher are weak.  professors at my current school are so pressured for research, because the school is desperate to be recognized on an international level, that the teaching can be severly lacking.

as far as books it is decided at department level but inhouse authors are definitely favored.  My wife is taking science courses and in one of them there is basically one book every english speaking school uses as the standard, except here because someone in the department wrote a different one.  the students get screwed because the inhouse one is shit and the teachers all reference the standard book anyway.

[eight oh eight]

Professors here are on contract and get paid for each class they teach.  That's pretty much it for them, and they don't see any of that book cash.  Combine that with asshole students and it's easy to see why some of them gradually become bitter.
If you wanna talk about raking in that edjumacation scrilla, check out the guys who run online schools like University of Phoenix.

[gub]

i went to school for a couple years and got burned out on it because i didn't really have a clue what i wanted to do, then worked full time doing a couple various manual labor jobs for about 3 years until i got sick of that and figured out what i knew i didn't want to do.  so i started playing cards to make ends meet.  even so, i don't have so much gamble in me as to try and plan my life around being a professional poker player.  that'd just be a display of bad judgment, just like planning your life around being a pro skater.  it's important to hedge your bets in life by having something to fall back on, which really means credentials or capital to do something else.  i've started going back to school recently to get a degree in accounting and then get a CPA.  the bottom line is money and job security.

fuck dead end jobs, fuck 30k per year salaries, fuck slaving outside in the heat and cold, fuck being the bottom man on the totum pole for the rest of your life.  i got bigger and better plans than that bullshit.

just out of curiosity greg have you ever thought about finance? there are more than a few professional money managers who played cards competitively when they were younger... i think stephen coen of SAC capital might be one. basically if you can understand numbers and odds, and have an understanding of risk, it's a matter of learning the rules and finding a way in. i know the chicago board options exchange employs a lot of young people on the floor as runners or whatever and i don't think you need a college degree, most of them wear tennis shoes and whatnot

[sebastian toombs]

Professors here are on contract and get paid for each class they teach.  That's pretty much it for them, and they don't see any of that book cash.  Combine that with asshole students and it's easy to see why some of them gradually become bitter.

contract 'profs' are sessional instructors-- its the part time, low wage army of higher education.  most everyone has to spend a couple years slogging through it before they get a crack at a tenure-track job.
trust me, there is no book cash unless you managed to write a textbook that is used across the country.  the 'money' from most academic books is from the promotion that you get for publishing books and articles with scholarly publishers.  only when you are a very big gun like, say paul kennedy (sorry!), and your books get picked up by large-circulation publishing houses might you see a bit of money in the form of royalties.
"asshole students..."   well, maybe not assholes.   i usually figure that half of them dont deserve to be there in the first place, once ive read their papers and listened to their comments in class.   a good chunk of them are functionally illiterate...  how did they pass high school, let alone get the grades to get into post-secondary?!   typically, more than half the students in a first or second year course either shouldnt be there at all, or else have no interest in the subject (or in university-level learning at all).   of the other half, maybe a quarter show signs of active engagement at a passable level.

almost all profs hate dealing undergrads and lecture halls.  thats the shit work they are forced to do in exchange for the privilege of pursuing research on their strange obsessions (for example, the historical place of 'automobility' in landscape change in the british columbia interior...), and getting together know and then with similarly obsessed people at confernences, and with up and coming obsessive people (ie: grad students).

[DrNewton]

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i went to school for a couple years and got burned out on it because i didn't really have a clue what i wanted to do, then worked full time doing a couple various manual labor jobs for about 3 years until i got sick of that and figured out what i knew i didn't want to do.  so i started playing cards to make ends meet.  even so, i don't have so much gamble in me as to try and plan my life around being a professional poker player.  that'd just be a display of bad judgment, just like planning your life around being a pro skater.  it's important to hedge your bets in life by having something to fall back on, which really means credentials or capital to do something else.  i've started going back to school recently to get a degree in accounting and then get a CPA.  the bottom line is money and job security.

fuck dead end jobs, fuck 30k per year salaries, fuck slaving outside in the heat and cold, fuck being the bottom man on the totum pole for the rest of your life.  i got bigger and better plans than that bullshit.

[close]

just out of curiosity greg have you ever thought about finance? there are more than a few professional money managers who played cards competitively when they were younger... i think stephen coen of SAC capital might be one. basically if you can understand numbers and odds, and have an understanding of risk, it's a matter of learning the rules and finding a way in. i know the chicago board options exchange employs a lot of young people on the floor as runners or whatever and i don't think you need a college degree, most of them wear tennis shoes and whatnot

Or you could just become a day trader. 

[bueno]

Sanch i hate school is it really worth it to stick with it or should i drop out?

[lophatrophazoa]

My wife is taking science courses and in one of them there is basically one book every english speaking school uses as the standard

yah the book i use for organic chemistry gets bgp's in Good Will Hunting (earlier edition of the book though). dat muss meen im very smarrt

[j....soy.....]

i went to college for a couple years and got some shit office job...i still got a shit office job but it pays a bit more and i didn't spend years of my life trying to figure out what i wanted to be...instead  bought a condo...it ain't perfect but i'm better off and often happier than people who i know that got degrees..... or those who just worked jobs that paid minimum wage while they waited to find themselves...

[DrNewton]

This thread is ironic because my friend got expelled today.

[DrNewton]

And charged with a felony.

[the j]

to me school is extremly overrated you hear this shit that we should takee advantage of our priviladges as americans but when you look at it your average high school these days hes maybe 20 teachers who actually give a fuck then they spit all this shit at you and dont live it themselves "you dont go to college youll work minimum wage" but then you cant help but ask what the fuck are you doin that so special. and instead of teaching kids the full spectrum of what you can do in life they teach you that no college= no life shit that pretty much makes anyone who drops out or dosnt decide to go to college thnk they are worthless, and the damn shit is rediculously overpriced my family is hardly recovering from my brothers tuition, why the fuck are we spending a sum total of about 70 grand to go to school and get a job that you prolly could have done without that degree

but shit im in high school i dont know anything

[lophatrophazoa]

wait, we have gone 4 pages without someone saying they went to the school of hard knocks?

[scott]

some perpetrate, they drink clorox!!!

[Sleazy]

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My wife is taking science courses and in one of them there is basically one book every english speaking school uses as the standard

[close]

yah the book i use for organic chemistry gets bgp's in Good Will Hunting (earlier edition of the book though). dat muss meen im very smarrt

I've heard that organic is one of the hardest undergrad classes out there.

[Sleazy]

to me school is extremly overrated you hear this shit that we should takee advantage of our priviladges as americans but when you look at it your average high school these days hes maybe 20 teachers who actually give a fuck then they spit all this shit at you and dont live it themselves "you dont go to college youll work minimum wage" but then you cant help but ask what the fuck are you doin that so special.

and when your an undergrad you will find that they don't even pretend to care anymore. my approach with school is that you assume that the teacher will suck and the book will be shit going in and when they don't consider it a bonus. If you get discouraged by every apathetic teacher you won't make it too far.

and instead of teaching kids the full spectrum of what you can do in life they teach you that no college= no life shit that pretty much makes anyone who drops out or dosnt decide to go to college thnk they are worthless,

It is complete bullshit. Most of the most sucessful people I know took a non-academic route. I know that one of them really regrets it because she is a managing director of an IT company and she feels like a second class citizen at times when people start talking politics, history, etc... But the others don't really seem to care or value education at all.

and the damn shit is rediculously overpriced my family is hardly recovering from my brothers tuition, why the fuck are we spending a sum total of about 70 grand to go to school and get a job that you prolly could have done without that degree

so if you decide to go, pay for it yourself them. Anyone can get school loans and if you work part time you can subsidize you lifestyle with your school loans. I brought my first car, furniture, computer, anything nice I had in school with school loans. My thinking was that if I borrowed then I would want to at least have a higher starting salary than what I borrowed and it was a great motivator for me. How you going to drop out when your facing a debt that requires a decent wage to pay off?

J, I definitely think their are legitimate reasons not to go to college and most people aren't cut out for it. That being said, I don't think you really put down any of the legit reasons. If you aren't in college, you will be working. There will be something that you do everyday during the day for the rest of your life. If you think teachers can be bad, bosses at shit jobs are way worst. So unless you feel you are the kind of person who has the hunger to work your way to the top or start your own company, why not spend a few years in college? It's a wonderful part of life. It's different than highschool. There are tons of girls, no bells, take what you want, etc... I met my wife in college which was awsome. Tons of good partys. And you can actually take some fun and interesting classes. You seem to be an intellectually curious person to me, so why let some apathetic assholes take that away from you?

For me it was a no brainer when I had to choose school or work.

[lophatrophazoa]

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My wife is taking science courses and in one of them there is basically one book every english speaking school uses as the standard

[close]

yah the book i use for organic chemistry gets bgp's in Good Will Hunting (earlier edition of the book though). dat muss meen im very smarrt

[close]

I've heard that organic is one of the hardest undergrad classes out there.

thats what the teachers say but i havent found it too difficult yet. I was laughing when i was checking my marks last semester cause every forth persons grade was a WD. a quarter of the people dropped it. i can cope with it and i only have three labs left and 11 more lectures and then i think im done with chemistry for life. i have had tuffer courses, i took a computer science class which was pascal programming, wanted to blow my brains out after 4 months of that. then to finish my credits i have to take a java programming class, did that for a month last semester and just gave up. that shit was awful

[Sleazy]

I feel you on the pascal but Java seems like it would be fun.

[lophatrophazoa]

no its raw java. like make a program from scratch, not heres a program now make a fun game using tools. it sucked more dicks then otto fellatio. i will have to take it again later unless requirements change, which i really hope will happen

[Blue Fescue]

I took JAVA and VB and some other programming in my undergraduate, it wasn't bad but it wasn't that fun either.  well  VB was but JAVA was rough because it was my first programming class.

I really like school now, i kind of wasted my undergraduate years in the normal ways, worked when i got out in my degree field, quit, traveled and moved to alaska.  Then got a job i really liked and went back to school in a related field.  postgraduate has been really good because i want to be here and put in the work. design studios are a lot better than business classes.

[biggums mcgee]

I took visual basic, c plus and java all in my sophmore year of high school..

[trent steel]

I took JAVA and VB and some other programming in my undergraduate, it wasn't bad but it wasn't that fun either.  well  VB was but JAVA was rough because it was my first programming class.

I really like school now, i kind of wasted my undergraduate years in the normal ways, worked when i got out in my degree field, quit, traveled and moved to alaska.  Then got a job i really liked and went back to school in a related field.  postgraduate has been really good because i want to be here and put in the work. design studios are a lot better than business classes.

design studio's in what field?

[Sleazy]

no its raw java.

yeah the good stuff, haha. It's the language that MS bit for C# which is my current weapon of choice.

[Blue Fescue]

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I took JAVA and VB and some other programming in my undergraduate, it wasn't bad but it wasn't that fun either. well VB was but JAVA was rough because it was my first programming class.

I really like school now, i kind of wasted my undergraduate years in the normal ways, worked when i got out in my degree field, quit, traveled and moved to alaska. Then got a job i really liked and went back to school in a related field. postgraduate has been really good because i want to be here and put in the work. design studios are a lot better than business classes.

[close]

design studio's in what field?

Landscape Architecture, it is a pretty diverse field, you can do a range of stuff.

[sebastian toombs]

you can come help me put a garden in my yard this summer!


do you know john stilgoe's works on american landscapes?  (i sometimes consider myself a landscape historian, whatever that might mean)

[Blue Fescue]

I could design your garden yes, but it wouldn't be that hard for you to depending on the size.  go get Garrett Eckbo's The Art of Home Landscaping or Landscape for living.  though his style would be considered dated, his principles can still be applied today and you would end up with a pleasing result

I am going to the library now to get some of stilgoe's books, most of my reading is concentrated in design theory, but i am pretty psyched to read some of his stuff thanks.  let me know if you have anyother authors that would be worthwhile.

The book i wanted was out so i got , metropolitan corridor, borderland and alongshore