My own experience (I've tried at school several times. I'm currently enrolled in the computer information systems "competency based" degree at nau.edu, but I've tried a bunch of others) is that school is actually way more difficult than industry. You can't just be brilliant twice a month, as is my experience of industry; you have to show up and perform at 90% every day which seems impossibly brutal to me. I mean, this is probably a quirk of my own personality; I'm actually really good at coming in and dealing with disasters every now and again, but my consistency is... really pretty bad.
I mean, I personally think that a love of and respect for learning is fundamentally more important than education; but I also think that education isn't nothing. There are a lot of people who do a lot better with some formal education, and there are a whole lot of jobs, that as far as I can tell, are almost impossible to do well without a good formal education. I personally don't think I'd let a self-taught doctor hack on me if I had any other choice at all.
My personal opinion is that if there are any young people with the capacity to be good at those things that require an education who are prevented from doing those things because of money, our society has made a huge mistake, one that will cost us much money in the long term, just 'cause having those people perform at peak value is hugely valuable to society. Further, I think that the unwillingness, as a society, to pay for the education of young people evinces a lack of valuation of learning that might be an even bigger problem.
'failure' in academia seems, to me, to be way harsher than failure in industry; Nobody brings up even pretty big failures of mine that occured even a few years back in industry, but my high school academic record, more than two decades back, still haunts my admissions efforts, so as far as I can tell, community college is the most prestigious route open to me, and I need to execute almost perfectly to graduate to the next level. I probably won't execute perfectly, especially as my work is a higher priority than school for me, (and my work record isn't perfect either) so I think this is the most realistic route to some sort of undergrad degree, even though I generally work a lot better in person than remote.
There are a lot of 'competency based' programs, and while I think something like that is the best chance I have of getting a degree without permanently marring my record in ways that makes doing academic things harder in the future, I have no idea if I picked the best competency based option. I do personally think that on the low end, you are way better off with a government school than with a private school; that was a big part of my decision. But, for instance, a friend was telling me about western governors university, and... that might have been better? they have an actual CS degree, which would definitely get me further.
Also, a degree is an important plan B... I mean, as long as I'm employed where I am, and as long as the industry doesn't change, a degree in and of itself won't help me all that much, though basic management writing might. but if industry changes, there are a lot of cases where having a degree means you are legally middle class. Right now, the pay cut I'd take working anywhere else in the world would mean I should probably just travel on vacation, but if that ever changes? a degree is almost essential to do my job for a non-US company.
Anyway, what sort of graduate work would you like to do and why?
And I’m surprised your academic performance in high school is still a hinderance. Do you also have not great test scores?
If you could get into someplace reasonably prestigious, would you go back to school full-time? Or is being able to go to school while still working important for you?
I actually don't have a project in mind at the moment. I have in the past wanted to do a lot more with pushing forward open source diagnostics tools, (and with proving the ESD problems in the way most people handle physical servers) - but I don't know that is what I want to do now; it's been a while since I've been serious about the physical layer, and it's really really unstylish right now; it would be better done once the outsourcing pendulum swings back to insourcing.
I am interested in graduate level work in part because my impression is that my work style would be a better fit; my impression is that if you do something recognized as really pretty great every now and then, they forgive you failures in the meanwhile. Like industry. (I also think I'd be more comfortable going to school with graduate-school age people than with undergrad-aged people. I'm pushing 40 at this point.)
>And I’m surprised your academic performance in high school is still a hinderance. Do you also have not great test scores?
Only okay. I'm held back by pretty terrible math test scores. almost average GRE quantitative reasoning (95th percentile verbal, which is good, but not good enough to make up for an average quantitative) I did pretty okay on the MAT, too, but I don't remember the score, and anyhow, if I want to do something with language or the arts, I really badly need an undergrad. I can mostly read okay and can talk about themes of the classics as well as an arts major, (though, uh, I probably cant speak of the criticism of those works the way they can) - but everything else in the arts I'm pretty terrible at.
(I do have plans to take the LSAT this coming year, with little study. I actively studied for the FE exam last year, but found I have another year of math before I can even try. The LSAT looks doable; I mean, I would be surprised if I do well on it, but I'd give myself better than even odds of doing better than average on it.)
I think bringing up my knowledge of basic maths up through, you know, at least GRE math levels is a moderately high priority, but I haven't quite figured out how.
>If you could get into someplace reasonably prestigious, would you go back to school full-time? Or is being able to go to school while still working important for you?
If I seriously thought that I had a 90+ percent chance of graduating... and I do think that the admissions committees are pretty good at judging that sort of thing, yeah, I would be willing to spend four years on it.
This, though, I think is the crux of it. They won't admit me 'cause I don't have a 90+% chance of graduating. Yes, it seems horribly unfair that they hold my bad behavior of 20 years ago against me, but the fact of the matter is that I still don't have that level of discipline.
I suppose that's another reason I want to go; I see this lack of discipline as a big weakness, and... well, where do I go to learn it? I mean, the good colleges could be said to not teach that sort of thing 'cause they filter out people who don't have it on the front end, so I guess I'm in the right place? but maybe not availing myself to the right bits of it? I mean, there's a very large chance that this will simply be something like handwriting, something that I will be terrible at for the rest of my life, and that I simply work around by not doing the things that require discipline, but... like even with handwriting, I spent a few years at calligraphy as an adult before I gave up on it.
It's really interesting 'cause the feedback at the online classes feels... a lot harsher than any I have ever gotten at work; I wonder how much of that is just what is expected in school vs. work? or if it's a class thing, like the school isn't prestigious, whereas most jobs i've had, well, it's usually obvious that I have a lot of other choices... or maybe that I'm really bad at this, and at work, well, there's enough I'm really good at that people treat me somewhat diffidently even in the areas where I'm really bad? I don't know, but it's an interesting experience in a lot of ways.
I mean, it's not bad really, just... really different from how I'm used to people giving me feedback.
But... yeah, I mean, to me it feels like you are paying for essay feedback. Like, they also provide PDFs, videos and reading materials, but I can get all those things on my own; it's the essay feedback, I think, that is the individualized thing.
College functions to get you out of your class bubble and expose other opportunities that you wouldn't otherwise have living at home. You play college right like many do, you advance up that economic ladder, and in the process set up your future kids for trivially easy success.
In a way, they form a bit of a poverty / class mobility trap for those who aren't well off enough to afford them on their own but are attracted by the idea of a purpose-driven life (social work, librarian, historian, identity studies come to mind).