The importance of university and higher education?

If you ask any educator if you need a degree to get anywhere in life Im sure they will say YES, and then bend over backwards to explain to you why it is, but what I want to know is can I do it without fucking three years of studying? I mean does everybody need one, and just because i have 'potential' must i do this, incur massive debt, and drag my ass to class everyday. Its just that recently i have almost lost the will to study anymore, and i feel like dropping college, as this place seems to have alot of 20+ folk i would like to know what your intake on this is, is it as important as everyone makes it out to be? Because its making me sick.

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The importance of higher education?

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The school of hard knocks vs degree program . . . ya spent years working low paying jobs to learn (apprenticeship) certain trades yet does that provide proof of ability or comprehension any more or less than a degree or certificate? No, but it does carry weight with others especially when it comes to employment.
We do seem to want to know that the craftsman we hired to remodel has the experience or knowledge to do the job just as we want the bookkeeper to do a good job on figuring out our taxes or our paycheck?
Funny thing being educated doesn't prove ability but we like some (re)assurance.

Let's face it. School doesn't prepare you for the world. School is an alternate universe in which peoples' value are defined by how much time he/she spends studying his/her ass off.

Is it as important as people make it out to be?
Two answers, yes and no.

No, because what you study and grades and certs tell absolutely nothing about you. Only how much you can conform to the academic system and bootlick your professors.

Yes, because it's an entry ticket to even begin in society.

I disagree with Turtle because As do not reassure me. I don't care whether it's As or Fs. (I am not jealous/in denial. I get As.) I KNOW this stuff tells NOTHING about who I am and my ability. So what does and A mean? It means that I'm willing to work my ass off. That's what society wants, isn't it? Good employees.

I speak of the British education system. I have no idea what others are like, so I have no basis for comparison. But that's my take on it.

You can make it without three fucking years, but it would be faster and easier with those three fucking years because everyone only conforms and gloats about their As. So prove it to them that you are- and then show them more.

Depends on what you want to do. I spent two years at college (half the reason being pressured to go and the other half not wanting to work some shitty job) and just took classes that interested me. Currently I'm taking a year off and working.

I don't believe you need college if you have enough motivation to do what it is you want to do without being led by the hand by some teachers. If you want to be a scientist or any kind of teacher though I think you have to go to college.

It seems that nowadays degrees are at once almost worthless (well humanities ones at least) but highly desired. So many companies want you to have a degree that thousands of people go to university to get horrendously drunk on a daily basis, and perhaps attend 3 hours a week of lectures, just so that three years down the line they have a piece of paper that says they went to university (NB most employers don't seem to care what subject it was whose lecturers you slept off your hangover through). The question is will you be better or worse off going to university, you will almost certainly be able to reach the same level in many jobs without a degree, but in many cases a degree means that you start of higher up and better paid So do you work up to that level and never incur the initial debt, or go to uni and hope that the pay difference makes up for the debts you incurred.

There is a difference in science and engineering, there your degree actually has some implications as to what you will do with your future, it proves that you have knowledge of the field in which you wish to work. You will still learn a lot more "on the job" once you graduate, and it is still possible to get there via an apprenticeship or whatever, but there is a definite glass ceiling that you will hit where people will require you to have a degree.

Something I've always felt strongly about- people's attitudes towards the humanities. Worthless? I ask you to suspend your judgment and actually look into and understand more on what you are commenting on. I am not going to debate with you on this because I have done so on too many occasions with too many people and I am tired of it.

All I ask now is for you to look into it before you slap the label of worthlessness onto the Humanities. Look at it from both sides. Or at least try to be objective. Put aside your stereotype and assumptions.

I apply the label worthless to the humanities subject in the context of the use after university. While I will admit that some few may happily go on to use their degree in theology as a lecturer or theologian, many will promptly forget the majority of the course content and use the degree as a piece of paper that gets the into a reasonably paying office job. Thus to them the content of the degree is in fact worthless, they could do almost any degree and still achieve the same result. Which I believe should prompt us to ask why they are required to have a degree in the first place?

As for the subjects content, I am interested in many aspects of philosophy and theology for instance, and place great value on literary works, but as nothing more as a passtime. Others such as psychology and anthropology are also fascinating, but I would go so far as to claim these were at least verging on scientific in their truest incarnations, though not all practitioners would hold to good scientific practice for their research.

Languages are perhaps the only intrinsically useful humanities subject, however their study usually boils down to relatively little practical teaching, with a broader focus on aspects of the history and politics that are largely forgotten to the native speakers of the language. Thus one such as myself, who studies engineering with a language, and am currently spending a year speaking that language studying in a foreign country, receives as much practical language usage and up to date cultural knowledge, with the advantage of having further marketable skills.

And as you're not arguing with my I won't go into mickey mouse subjects such as media studies and music technology, the existence of both of which has caused no notable improvement in their respective industries.

[citation needed]
Anecdotal evidence is not sufficient for such a broad assumption. Especially for your first paragraph. All I see is theoretical speech and opinion.

BUT! I will not debate on this with you. I am sick of this topic.

That said, I keep my stand. Education today is done wrong. (At least in my country, I cannot speak for others)

Ok some evidence. Here is some evidence for you:

Bristol Uni theology graduate career paths

This is the sectors of employment that theology graduates went into after finishing their degrees. Even if we are to assume that all students entering the "Education" and "Other" categories were working in a theology related job (eg RE Teacher, Theology lecturer, Religious leader), which is I feel unlikely, that is still less than half of the given intake for that year who are using their course material in a Job. Similar graphs for the other humanities subjects show similar results. Even a humanities subject such a politics which could have a logical career path shows the same kind of spread.

I admit that this is only one university that I have given here, but every university in England publishes these types of statistics, and my comments were based on the general overview given by these.

Before you further jump down my throat for not having a leg to stand on, my descriptions of the courses are based on the course material covered by friends studying these subjects. The friends studying languages for example have spent the majority of their time writing essays (in english) on the sociopolitical implications of various events in the history of their target country (in more detail than most of them have ever considered British history). And how can you honestly consider any degree to be of worth when your £3000+ per year earns you a grand sum of 4 hours a week contact time.

I agree with you that the higher education system has it's flaws, I think we perhaps disagree on what those flaws are.

I suppose the logical question would be to enquire as to what the source of your information on universities is? I'm at university at the moment and had to look at courses a few years ago to compare their relative worth for looking into getting a job. You however (if your age is correct on here) are still in school, and not even at the age where schools start throwing information about universities at you. What is the grounding for the worth you place on humanities?

You can't simply attempt to shoot me down for my comments and the claim you refuse to debate the issue, to do so would be to leave your self open to being held in contempt.

So "usefulness" is only reflected if we use what we learned in the courses in a job? What about personal development? Here is one area- Take essays for example. To write a proper essay, a person has to explore an issue thoroughly, more so than an average person would casually do. This is not useful? Higher order thinking is a valuable ability, says my education system.
Money is not related to the quality of learning, I believe. If they can do well enough with four hours, need they calculate the time involved against the amount paid?
I do know enough universities in my area, because yes, my school DOES throw information about universities at us, even though I AM 16. Such is the system in my country. Or at least my school.
I don't want to debate on this because as I have said, I have done so on the same topic too many times. Oh well. Here we go again.

Essay writing is a useful skill, but it's practice is by no means limited to the study of humanities, as is also true for the other practices learnt through it's study. So thinking purely from a further employment point of view (as I have been since the start as this is generally considered one of the main purposes of higher education for those who lack the money to do it out of interest) why study a subject where the course material is irrelevant, and the skills are generic, and available to you through the study of other more practical subjects. Perhaps I have been a bit unclear in decrying the humanities subjects as generally pointless, I was giving an opinion as to their lacking worth (in the context of obtaining postgraduate employment) in comparison with more scientifically grounded subjects. For this reason I can't see why we are having this debate, as you have no backing except to claim that my original statement was overly harsh, which I will admit it was. You say that you have seen material about the universities, I will assume this includes (as comparable material I received did) information on average graduate pay, and assuming that things are the same in your locale as mine, engineering and sciences generally lead to a higher likelihood of being employed within 6 months of finishing your degree, and better starting pay. With that information in hand how can humanities not be considered less useful to someone searching for a job? Humanities are not worthless, but there are things that are more useful to study.

From the point of view of personal development, the content is by no means useless. How could I possibly think so while still maintaining membership to a forum a such as this (ignoring my leave of absence, though many of the same topics have come back round since I left), I enjoy philosophy and literature, but prefer to look into them in my own time.

Hmm. Okay. So you end up attacking my lack of experience. No, the stuff I have is pretty relevant. Admission criteria, course content, areas of study, who teaches what etc. The teachers are bent on making us pick what we want to do. There is also such a thing as Google. I go to an elite school, you see. We all have to plan ahead, apparently.
Anyway. Let's not get too personal. Maybe I started it. I've always thought humanities gave much aid in personal development, and personally speaking it has. (You may probably not think so though)
And I spoke of humanities from a student's pov., not a person in need of a job. Adhering to a social obligation is a must, but morally speaking I don't see it as useful as personal development. A;though realistically speaking, everyone needs to eat.
I love philosophy and literature, and am planning to make it my profession.

The attack on your lack of experience was due to irritation at your decry my statement on the usefulness of humanities without providing any relevant information as to why.

I would disagree with humanities necessarily being the best aid to personal development (though will admit that it probably was at school level). As an engineering student a fair amount of effort is put into our development as people, largely in areas such as public speaking, problem solving (though generally that skill is fairly high in anyone with any engineering bent anyway) and teamwork.

I am aware that future employment is not the entire reason for a degree, for many it allows them to gain relevant life experience while further researching a subject that interests them, but all previous comments in this thread appeared to be erring towards that, with comments about apprenticeships etc.

If you plan to use the course content of whatever you study in a future career then I have no argument with you, my main argument comes from humanities students that end up in management roles in engineering companies (while Dilbert's boss is somewhat OTT, it's not hard to see where he comes from).

Now everything I say is invalid because I'm 16? It's tempting to agree, but really.
Living in this world is a lesson on personal development, if we go that way.

That's not what I said. I said that my comments on your age and school year were a stupid Ad Hominem attack (which to be fair in most cases would probably be a relevant point, most people your age are not particularly well informed about universities, not needing to consider it for another year or so), that I made in response to the lack of evidence you provided when calling my posts unsupported attacks on Humanities.

We seem to have reached some sort of agreement on how to view humanities worth as a degree subject, and can agree that your opinion is no less valid than anyone else's as long as it is equally well backed by evidence. Thus it's probably a good point to leave this thread to others who wish to share their thoughts on higher education.