The "Education" Thread

[Dak]

It's great when you meet an undergrad with actual goals and effort.

 

[crimsonfloyd]

It's great when you meet an undergrad with actual goals and effort.

What sort of shithole school did you go to? I'm not saying that I didn't come across my fair share of slackers at UCSC and LMU, but there were also tons of intellectually engaging undergrads. Those schools certainly weren't the sort of intellectual wasteland you portray your university as being.

 

[Dak]

What sort of shithole school did you go to? I'm not saying that I didn't come across my fair share of slackers at UCSC and LMU, but there were also tons of intellectually engaging undergrads. Those schools certainly weren't the sort of intellectual wasteland you portray your university as being.

I'd guess we have different standards and/or conceptions about what qualifies as intellectually stimulating. But I was talking about having solid goals and putting in serious effort towards those goals, not intellectual stimulation. One doesn't have to be the slacker in the back of the class to be going through the motions towards getting a degree they kind of think they want because it's what they are supposed to do. I fell in that "going through the motions" group pre-military tbh. But I realized it wasn't getting me anywhere and forced a change in discern.

Most have goals of some sort, but a fraction are putting in the effort towards more clearly defined goals. It's nice when you meet someone with that combination. They still may not be intellectually stimulating (usually aren't) but I can learn something about an area of human living I didn't know as much about. But learning some new basic facts doesn't necessarily qualify as "intellectually stimulating". Someone is intellectually stimulating if they are injecting new thought potentialities into my awareness. Grad school has been quite the improvement.

 

[Carpe Mortem]

I still have a long way to go at community college before I need to make concrete decisions, but I've been restless lately contemplating my future and what I want from it. Trying to determine my passions, which have always been various and contradictory. I lean towards mathematics-focused disciplines and in particular have a strong interest in robotics but at the same time I have this enormous urge for something engaging almost on a 'what is the meaning of life' level. I mean, ideally I'd have a career throttling the research towards more advanced AI, but there's a lot of amazing things to do in this world and one of them needs to be the money maker as I continue my studies into Alzheimer's.

So I'm curious, what has everyone's education composed of? What has been your career path and where are you headed? What exactly do you do? What's satisfying about it? I'm kinda canvassing for ideas I might not have considered.

Also relevant, do you have family obligations where perhaps stability of income and hours has been most important versus marrying your career?

Talk about yourselves and let me be a humble padawan in existential crisis, desperate for insight of direction.

 

[Dak]

I'm just a poor lowly graduate student.

Good article on education:

https://aeon.co/essays/can-school-today-teach-anything-more-than-how-to-pass-exams

 

[Baroque]

I still have a long way to go at community college before I need to make concrete decisions, but I've been restless lately contemplating my future and what I want from it. Trying to determine my passions, which have always been various and contradictory. I lean towards mathematics-focused disciplines and in particular have a strong interest in robotics but at the same time I have this enormous urge for something engaging almost on a 'what is the meaning of life' level. I mean, ideally I'd have a career throttling the research towards more advanced AI, but there's a lot of amazing things to do in this world and one of them needs to be the money maker as I continue my studies into Alzheimer's.

So I'm curious, what has everyone's education composed of? What has been your career path and where are you headed? What exactly do you do? What's satisfying about it? I'm kinda canvassing for ideas I might not have considered.

Also relevant, do you have family obligations where perhaps stability of income and hours has been most important versus marrying your career?

Talk about yourselves and let me be a humble padawan in existential crisis, desperate for insight of direction.

You know, I identify a lot more with people like you, wondering about the universe and what is a good career path to do work at the highest levels of knowledge, than people who seemingly (or want us to think they) have it all figured out,


The important thing (and I seem to be preaching to a choir member) is to continue to Do as you wonder. Many people at NASA had a similar career trajectory, they didn't necessarily plan to work at NASA they just studied math and science and with the skills they acquired it wound up being the best fit.

I went to a talk with the project lead on the Cassini mission and my professor asked if he had any career advice for the interns. He said to "remain a generalist for as long as possible". If you study engineering, you will be an engineer. If you study a field of science you will be stuck in that field of science. If you study mathematics, statistics, maybe computer science, these kinds of things leave the world open to you. To coordinate project among different disciplines you need the skills to understand those different disciplines, and to understand them, chiefly is often a strong background in math.

Currently I'm back to being a phd student in statistics and applying for the next jobs and internships. But I would be completely happy to continue being a student for decades to come, there is so much to learn. I've even considered applying to PhD programs again after my 2nd masters (because PhD programs pay you to go to school) and just continue getting as many masters degrees as I want. I'd like to study computer science the proper way, most if not all of my knowledge was gained during free time. I'd like to work on AI as well. It'd be cool to get a degree in another language, or go back and finish my music degree finally. I'd like to study physics more in depth as well.

Charles Elachi the recently former director of JPL has 5 masters degrees and speaks several languages. If that's not a good role model I don't know what is.

So yeah I think being undecided in a way is a positive thing, as long you continue to learn and develop, and give yourself a strong background in math and computer programming. Those skills are useful at any high knowledge level job these days.

 

[Dak]

If I were single, staying in school like you are talking about would have some appeal.

 

[Carpe Mortem]

Hella valuable advice, thanks buddy. And that's what I'm struggling with, in a nutshell. What studies can I pursue that will be ultimately useful for multiple instances while also keeping me engaged and far away from being thrown into a box oblivious to other possibilities. I've been leaning towards higher mathematics at the very least as a hobby, and I think programming would make an excellent secondary pursuit which could cater to my interests and evidently be broadened for other applications.

I think the AI field in particular is of interest because I see it as a study in tandem with our own (im)mortality and consciousness. It would be hands on engaging with that added meaning of life element, and even being on the lower end of the totem is to be part of a rapidly accelerating and exciting new field.

That, and I desperately seek to ease the machine's pain.

 

[Dak]

It seems kind of a no brainer to roll the maths route if you have the mind for it.

 

[Carpe Mortem]

The thing is, studying mathematics to the bitter end can be at the expense of a more specialized skill set. It's a good thing to have for a career, but I'd imagine the only place it's applicable purely of its own merit is as a professor or independent research into the great unsolvables.

 

[Dak]

The thing is, studying mathematics to the bitter end can be at the expense of a more specialized skill set. It's a good thing to have for a career, but I'd imagine the only place it's applicable purely of its own merit is as a professor or independent research into the great unsolvables.

I didn't pursue a graduate philosophy degree for similar reasons. I don't want to be limited to probably just being a professor.

 

[Baroque]

The thing is, studying mathematics to the bitter end can be at the expense of a more specialized skill set. It's a good thing to have for a career, but I'd imagine the only place it's applicable purely of its own merit is as a professor or independent research into the great unsolvables.

This is a very good point as well, if you focus too much on pure math you end up with a similar problem, only one type of job, teaching. I would recommend double majoring in math (or statistics or physics) and some sort of applied math that you find most interesting (science/engineering/programming). If you have the units for it that is. I know at the undergraduate level you can only get financial aid for so many units.

 

[Einherjar86]

Coming from the humanities side of things, there are other opportunities other than teaching, although education tends to be the career path that most graduates choose. We're living in a moment educational crisis right now, for students as well as for instructors: that is, students are graduating with degrees that don't mean as much as they used to, and post-grads are having a more difficult time finding steady work. Competition for positions is fierce, and opportunities at upper-tier R1 universities are few and far between.

Aside from the teaching route, plenty of humanities post-grads go into journalism, editorial positions, or publishing.

 

[Carpe Mortem]

I think it's great that you guys teach and inspire a zest for learning as you guide folks towards self improvement, but ultimately that requires a certain interest in helping others. I think careers boil down conservatively to two specialties: client focus, and product focus. I'm definitely more of a product focus person. Although it's difficult to determine where teaching falls since the client is the product.

 

[arg]

forget teaching, become whores and man-whores in asian and arab countries, that's where the money's at

 

[Elric of Melniboné]

forget teaching, become whores and man-whores in asian and arab countries, that's where the money's at

Was that your career path?

 

[arg]

yea man taking it in the ass from smalldick chingchongs all day

lol no im on the consumer end of that arrangement. just giving out advice to teachers

 

[Nephilim96]

forget teaching, become whores and man-whores in asian and arab countries, that's where the money's at

wouldn't you make more money as a whore in a western country?

 

[arg]

you can but that's somewhat on the decline, meanwhile oil tycoons in the middle east and manufacturing overlords in asia pay big bucks for white ass

 

[Funerary_Doom]

If I could be in school forever with no loans I totally would. Actually, I'm usually not one to say things run in the genes but I definitely do think the science gene runs in my family. I have several cousins who her doctors, my father is one, my sister is a clinical lab scientist and my brother works for CU doing science. Me? I actually scored the highest on my chemistry regents in high school. Math I could never focus on(and totally admire people who can) but science I always loved.

But when I was younger I've always wanted to be an actress so I got a degree in theatre and history. Mostly because I can't sit still and the artsy side of me likes to push myself in every which way and experience everything just so that I could reflect on it. I auditioned a lot worked shitty restaurant jobs just to audition and do plays and stuff. I love it because you're not doing the same thing all the time and it's challenging emotionally and physically. It was loads of fun. But my mom retired and got some health issues, and I felt like a bad child not helping meanwhile my siblings were. So I took a job as a job coach for people with developmental disabilities from a non profit organization.

I started getting bored with that after being there two years. It's just shit tons of policies and laziness with nonprofit organizations. Everywhere I go I like to do an exceptional job and if something is stopping me from doing a good job I get really annoyed. I can't be in a lazy environment because then I start getting lazy too, and thats not fair to the individuals who were in the program and wanting to experience or learn new things. So applied to the New York City teaching fellows and now I'm a special education teacher. It's tons of work. Yes teachers get a lot of days off but they are working to catch up on plans and grading on those days. It's stimulating rewarding and something new every day. Don't know if I see this as my forever career I see why many teachers get burned out. Also again I got ants in my pants too, but you know. I'm just trying to figure shit out too.

Anyways I think it's awesome to learn and want to learn. However, I also think too that you can learn outside of school as well and if you are able to balance your work life and real life schedule you can put some more learning in your real life (I.e. Learning an instrument, language, travel, hobby etc) and that is just as valuable. I think my generation we are focused on school and college readiness but I've had friends teach themselves computer science and have their own companies with that. Experience is a great teacher as well and you get that from living life.

My brother has 3 science MAs and he's getting one in engineering. He's also in his mid 30s never had a girlfriend or a best friend. My siblings are my best friends but I do actually have friends outside of them. They, however, do not though many people would think they are successful. Work is great and it's good to love what you do and to invest time searching for something that gives you meaning but I suppose I'm saying that thing that gives you meaning doesn't always have to be found in work. It could be a hobby too.