intercst
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I dunno. I think âpurposeâ is a trap. Youâre trained that you must have a purpose. I like not having a purpose. Yeah, I watch YouTube videos. Some are fluff, but some are instructive (e.g. science, cooking). But I also travel. When Iâm in the mood, I edit my recent photos from wherever I travel. I do whatever Iâm in the mood for, in fact. Whatever will make me happy at that moment.
I agree with him about wealth. At some point it is just keeping score. We have enough to cover our lifestyle, which is solid middle class. Our health scares in 2019/2020 made me realize that. And that if you put off what you want to do till âsomedayâ, you may end up suddenly having a situation (health) that prevents it. Possibly for the rest of your existence. We were lucky our scares didnât result in that. But one day we wonât be able to travel as we doâŚjust part of aging regardless of some crisis.
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Having more stuff donât make us happy. Doesnât me, anyways. Basic needs plus some extra for travel, charity, helping others, hobbles. Thatâs all I need.
Deep human relationships are the key.
Autonomy through financial independence is a worthy goal.
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Same guy talking about his family budget ($60k/year, family of 4) and FIRE:
Nothing new if youâre already familiar with FIRE.
Our family of 5 spends quite a bit more than that, but we all drive, need cell phones, etc.
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Yep. I never saw any âpurposeâ in sitting in a classroom or an office, but I realized it was necessary to tolerate it long enough to earn sufficient money to fund my exit.
intercst
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I would differ on the classroom. I like learning stuff. Sure, itâs purpose was to make me educated enough to get a good job so I -eventually- wouldnât have to work anymore. But I like learning stuff. Itâs been several months, but I like watching NOVA and other nature/science programming. We just got back from a cruise, and a lot of the onboard activities were lectures by folks knowledgeable about history and science. Plus, no homework! So I could just sit back and take it in. So, if Iâm happy, thatâs good enough to serve as a purpose for my needs. It lessens the experience if I have to study for exams and such. but I didnât regard classrooms as a necessary evil.
But thatâs just me.
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I like learning stuff, too. But you donât need to sit in a classroom to do it.
I can read a text a lot faster than listening to someone explain whatâs in it.
Most of the 15 minute videos on youtube could be reduced to one 8-1/2 X 11 sheet.
The engineering school I attended prohibited professors from taking attendance, or including âclass participationâ in your grade. If you thought you could learn Fluid Mechanics by reading the text, have at it. But you still had to hand in the homework and pass the exams.
It was a much more time efficient way to get an education.
intercst
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âŚwhich is why itâs somewhat irksome when people post a video with no comment or discussion about what the videoâs argument is, or why theyâre posting it. As was done in the OP here. If this software engineer has thoughts about the âliesâ he was told about work, maybe the person who watched the video and decided to link it here could give us a two or three sentence overview of what those thoughts are.
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I like learning stuff, too. But you donât need to sit in a classroom to do it.
Skool was the biggest impediment to learning. First, they made it nearly impossible to learn while simultaneously destroying your desire to learn anything else. It was the 80/20 rule. 80% of the students ruined it for the 20% of the students who were trying to get an education. And donât get me started on the teachers.
I can read a text a lot faster than listening to someone explain whatâs in it.
Most of the 15 minute videos on youtube could be reduced to one 8-1/2 X 11 sheet.
Even Iâll admit some things need to be explained but yes, 15 mins videos have about 2 mins of relevant data and itâs mostly obscured by âcontent.â i.e. excess rambling to fill the other 13 minutes
The engineering school I attended prohibited professors from taking attendance, or including âclass participationâ in your grade. If you thought you could learn Fluid Mechanics by reading the text, have at it. But you still had to hand in the homework and pass the exams.
Man, if I had heard of that school I might have gone to college myself.
It was a much more time efficient way to get an education.
At the age of 30 with no formal classroom smoke blowing time, I cold tested out of degrees in History, Sociology, biology and just missed one in mathematics. If I had taken those tests within 4 or 5 yrs of HS Iâd have at at least scored the minimum. College (except for the bs you have to put up with) canât be that hard. (Another institutional lie btw. No, you DONâT use that stuff after high school unless your job requires it. The kids were right. The teachers were wrong.) You only need to be reasonably well-read to pencil-whip your way through at least the first 2 years of college.
And I know what youâre thinking about the history and soc. Hey I didnât want to have to do lab courses. I already had a job and just wanted one of those pedigrees. The degrees were irrelevant.
And I didnât go to some elite preppy high school. It was a pretty plain vanilla Catholic school so I wasnât surreptitiously specially groomed. It was shut down about 4 or 5 yrs ago.
What does it mean to âtest outâ of a degree?
I asked Google. It said:
âNo accredited university lets you take one giant test to get a full bachelorâs degree. Instead, you stack multiple individual test credits together.â
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You want me to do more work than linking the video ??? Come on. {{ LOL}}
intercst
I didnât take âone giant testâ and I didnât say I did. Why would you even bring that up? But I was shocked at how many schools actually let test your way through. Thatâs why I gave it a try. But it is, as Iâve seen it, restricted to the liberal arts/humanities/non-technical degree fields for pretty obvious reasons.
Theyâre not doing that any more â too many students were flunking the Competency Exam required for graduation, and they went back to the system where you just collected credit hours and didnât have to demonstrate you knew anything.
https://web.wpi.edu/News/Journal/Spring97/plans-col.html
{{ The importance of the graduation ceremony assumed leviathan proportions in the minds of parents unable to participate. One set of parents would not leave President Edmund Cranchâs office. Some students who failed the March exam could not bring themselves to tell their furious parents until the last minute. We became increasingly concerned about what some failing students might do in their state of depression following the exam. One student actually disappeared for two weeks, which caused enormous concern until he turned up in Marine boot camp at Parris Island, S.C. The name of the examination was also a problem. One father wrote to me complaining that he had spent $50,000 only to have his son declared âincompetent.â
The percentage of students failing the Comp became a constant, like Pi. It was right around 30 percent every single time the examination was given. About 20 percent of students received a grade of Distinction (equivalent to an A). Many of us became increasingly concerned about the cause of the failures, their validity, and our ability to deal effectively with failed students. If a student failed because he did not know enough thermodynamics, the answer was simple - take the needed course work. But some students had top grades in all the courses they might be expected to take, but could not handle a comprehensive problem. We organized problem-solving seminars for them, tried to boost their self-confidence, and let them practice with old examinations. It helped, but not that much. }}
intercst
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So, did they just spook on the test?
*But some students had top grades in all the courses they might be expected to take, but could not handle a comprehensive problem.
That could be a âteachingâ or presentation problem. I suppose one could be quite expert in every sub-component but not be able to âfollow the larger threadâ and put it all together.
I suspect thatâs true today.
As I explain in a post up thread, the engineering school I attended in the 1970âs (WPI) had a Competency Exam as a graduation requirement that 30% of the students failed on the first attempt. You were then sent for remedial education to correct any deficiencies. The problem was that despite top grades in all their classes, some students could not handle a comprehensive problem and reach a solution.
intercst
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In âreal lifeâ engineering youâre âsolving a problem and producing a cost effective resultâ. Being a good test taker doesnât always produce that ability.
In my first job out of college at Corning Glass, after about six months, one of the senior engineers said to me. "You know when we hired the MIT grad in the next cubicle last year, he didnât know anything. We had to show him where to buy drafting instruments so he could make construction drawings and heâd never seen the âSteel Handbookâ or the âConcrete Design Manualâ, etc. (Of course, the MIT grad was a quick learner and got up to speed after a few months.)
We didnât know what to make of you (i.e. intercst). You came in here with your own drafting machine and all the required reference manuals, and were immediately productive. Weâd never seen anything like that."
intercst
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The guy who hired me out of academia said words to the effect of âyou got a masters, and that showed you could learn; and the interview showed me how you thinkâ. I was a physicist (astro!) hired into a job populated by EEs.
He had unique interview questions. He said I was the only one who ever got them all correct. But college/grad-school showed him I could learn, and it also taught me how to think analytically (hard sciences tend to do that, or you end up flunking out of them). He could teach me what I needed from there.**
I still couldnât design a circuit to save my life. But I could look at a layout and figure out what individual gates were doing. A quick chat with a designer, and usually I was set.
**Even EEs arenât really taught failure analysis, which I moved into after being hired. You have to be taught it on the job. I may not have known a flip-flop when I saw it, but I could tell them âthis line is shorted to that nodeâ when I was done.
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Some people, while knowledgeable, are incredibly bad at taking tests. They just froze. Test taking is a skill.
Back when I taught on the university level, I had several students who performed terribly on tests even though their attendance and classroom engagement were excellent, and they delivered solid written work. After I concluded that they did know the material, I ended up offering a few the option of oral exams. My recollection is that most did quite well.
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I asked you what you meant by âtested out of degrees in History, Sociology, biology and just missed one in mathematics.â
It sounds like you are saying you have degrees in History, Sociology, and Biology, which you got by âtesting outâ. I just didnât know that was possible.
Gemini: Can you test out of a degree in Biology?
You cannot test out of an entire biology degree, but you can test out of introductory general education biology courses using exams like the Biology CLEP exam
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Yes, but I am not writing or speaking for the ages here. I was not awarded the degree in biology because I didnât want to take time off from work to do the lab and other lab-related courses. Which of course changes nothing vis a vis the academics. Yes, I guess it sounded cornfuzing but wrt just how difficult a bachelors degree is youâre petty-fogging the situation. All those PHDâs and multiple MAâs and MSâs in Biology and other fields who designed th3 tests and analyzed/graded the results said "Kid if you score âXâ on this test even we 'll concede you know as much as we would expect somebody who sat through four years of college and actually worked would know. Thatâs them talking, not me.
Yes, I took a ton of Clep and Dantes tests (which btw were so easy they were a joke) but the coup de gras for upper division credits and the BS was the Graduate Record Exams. (which I understand are no longer a thing but were still in use then)
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