Why Do So Many Would-be Engineers Quit?
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This article on CNN asks the question[^], and UCLA contributed a study. Did it occur to them that it's Hard To DoTM? Four year degrees are great for the fuzzy subjects - a little light reading, cram and regurgitate for exams, and carefully gauge answers to agree with the teachers opinions. When the answers are all subjective, and truth is a matter of opinion, it's easy to complete the requisite units in 4 years, with plenty of time left over for developing social skills and learning to hold your liquor. When facts matter, and mastering the rudiments of how the Universe really works is important, it takes a little longer, and few have the stamina to stick it out. Maybe it would help if they started preparing us a few years earlier; the 4th grade would be about right. How long did it take you to finish your first "4 year" degree? If you finished in less than 5 years, do you feel yourself to be as well qualified to perform your job as others who took longer? I ask that last out of personal curiosity. I took 5 years to do mine, carrying a full load, working full time, and never taking a summer off. Later I hired a number of people who went to "better" schools than I, finished in the programmed 4 years, and were useless for the first 3 to 5 years on the job. They could run circles around me in talking theory and writing equations, but they couldn't design a circuit that actually worked. What's your experience?
Will Rogers never met me.
I didn't finish high school. I WAS kicked out of home, which is why I passed year 11. I wasn't lazy, per se, I just preferred programing to school work and was undisciplined. So, I can relate to what they are saying, although I found a work ethic pretty quickly in the 'real' world, as a teenager, I probably would have dropped out, too.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
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I too was not career oriented that time - programming was a thing I did out of interest and curiosity. Same month I started, I got my first part time job offer to teach in that particular institute. But I denied it. ;P After 12th I started to prepare for aeronautical engineering but soon reverted back to programming as I enjoyed it more. So I can say that I am lucky enough to work in a field which I is more of a hobby for me.
Awesome! :-D I'm glad you turned down the teaching option - it would have killed the fun - though you might reconsider later in life. One of the students I knew was what we called a "lifer." He'd been there for 10 years already, and never seemed to get any closer to graduating. The school was after him to graduate so they could hire him, him being extraordinarily brilliant. But back in the '70s there were constant new products appearing, really new, not like today. Fundamentally new stuff, like PMOS, NMOS, CMOS, VFETs, etc. Steve couldn't resist ordering samples, then we wouldn't see him on campus for 3 months as he was too busy learning how each new device worked and exploring all the things one could build with it. I learned a bunch from him, but only late at night in coffee shops and diners. If he'd become a teacher at that stage in life, it would have killed his creative spirit, or he'd never show up for class. :laugh:
Will Rogers never met me.
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This article on CNN asks the question[^], and UCLA contributed a study. Did it occur to them that it's Hard To DoTM? Four year degrees are great for the fuzzy subjects - a little light reading, cram and regurgitate for exams, and carefully gauge answers to agree with the teachers opinions. When the answers are all subjective, and truth is a matter of opinion, it's easy to complete the requisite units in 4 years, with plenty of time left over for developing social skills and learning to hold your liquor. When facts matter, and mastering the rudiments of how the Universe really works is important, it takes a little longer, and few have the stamina to stick it out. Maybe it would help if they started preparing us a few years earlier; the 4th grade would be about right. How long did it take you to finish your first "4 year" degree? If you finished in less than 5 years, do you feel yourself to be as well qualified to perform your job as others who took longer? I ask that last out of personal curiosity. I took 5 years to do mine, carrying a full load, working full time, and never taking a summer off. Later I hired a number of people who went to "better" schools than I, finished in the programmed 4 years, and were useless for the first 3 to 5 years on the job. They could run circles around me in talking theory and writing equations, but they couldn't design a circuit that actually worked. What's your experience?
Will Rogers never met me.
The work is just not for everyone I suppose. I took like 7 years with working in the meantime. I still do nothing related to the degree (Industrial Automation) but some coursework was fun, just some. I just didn't get along with the mass memorization required for most of the classes so I either aced where it was a matter of thinking or horribly failed when I had to memorize (having ADD while trying to cram and no meds is kinda fun, about 5 minutes study, 10 doing other random stuff). For some odd reason I've also always been able to focus when the teacher is decent, just like listening to a story and absorbing stories (by whatever means) is one of the few things I don't daydream out of. Been programming various stuff for 20 years now though the first couple of years was mostly drawing circles in BASIC on a Z80. Went through Basic, Pascal, ASM on DOS, VB3, Delphi, PHP and finally C++ then C. The first time I actually got interested in something related to my degree was my current job where I work really close to the hardware department and can't help but catch on some of the stuff they do (debugging is sure as hell very similar, different tools though). Our company also gets students for their graduation thesis and to be honest most are totally worthless about anything, incapable of even basic thinking let alone some decent work. The only ones that actually are good have had it in their blood since childhood or at least got into it on their own.
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This article on CNN asks the question[^], and UCLA contributed a study. Did it occur to them that it's Hard To DoTM? Four year degrees are great for the fuzzy subjects - a little light reading, cram and regurgitate for exams, and carefully gauge answers to agree with the teachers opinions. When the answers are all subjective, and truth is a matter of opinion, it's easy to complete the requisite units in 4 years, with plenty of time left over for developing social skills and learning to hold your liquor. When facts matter, and mastering the rudiments of how the Universe really works is important, it takes a little longer, and few have the stamina to stick it out. Maybe it would help if they started preparing us a few years earlier; the 4th grade would be about right. How long did it take you to finish your first "4 year" degree? If you finished in less than 5 years, do you feel yourself to be as well qualified to perform your job as others who took longer? I ask that last out of personal curiosity. I took 5 years to do mine, carrying a full load, working full time, and never taking a summer off. Later I hired a number of people who went to "better" schools than I, finished in the programmed 4 years, and were useless for the first 3 to 5 years on the job. They could run circles around me in talking theory and writing equations, but they couldn't design a circuit that actually worked. What's your experience?
Will Rogers never met me.
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This article on CNN asks the question[^], and UCLA contributed a study. Did it occur to them that it's Hard To DoTM? Four year degrees are great for the fuzzy subjects - a little light reading, cram and regurgitate for exams, and carefully gauge answers to agree with the teachers opinions. When the answers are all subjective, and truth is a matter of opinion, it's easy to complete the requisite units in 4 years, with plenty of time left over for developing social skills and learning to hold your liquor. When facts matter, and mastering the rudiments of how the Universe really works is important, it takes a little longer, and few have the stamina to stick it out. Maybe it would help if they started preparing us a few years earlier; the 4th grade would be about right. How long did it take you to finish your first "4 year" degree? If you finished in less than 5 years, do you feel yourself to be as well qualified to perform your job as others who took longer? I ask that last out of personal curiosity. I took 5 years to do mine, carrying a full load, working full time, and never taking a summer off. Later I hired a number of people who went to "better" schools than I, finished in the programmed 4 years, and were useless for the first 3 to 5 years on the job. They could run circles around me in talking theory and writing equations, but they couldn't design a circuit that actually worked. What's your experience?
Will Rogers never met me.
Reality bites !!!
Steve Naidamast Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@ix.netcom.com
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This article on CNN asks the question[^], and UCLA contributed a study. Did it occur to them that it's Hard To DoTM? Four year degrees are great for the fuzzy subjects - a little light reading, cram and regurgitate for exams, and carefully gauge answers to agree with the teachers opinions. When the answers are all subjective, and truth is a matter of opinion, it's easy to complete the requisite units in 4 years, with plenty of time left over for developing social skills and learning to hold your liquor. When facts matter, and mastering the rudiments of how the Universe really works is important, it takes a little longer, and few have the stamina to stick it out. Maybe it would help if they started preparing us a few years earlier; the 4th grade would be about right. How long did it take you to finish your first "4 year" degree? If you finished in less than 5 years, do you feel yourself to be as well qualified to perform your job as others who took longer? I ask that last out of personal curiosity. I took 5 years to do mine, carrying a full load, working full time, and never taking a summer off. Later I hired a number of people who went to "better" schools than I, finished in the programmed 4 years, and were useless for the first 3 to 5 years on the job. They could run circles around me in talking theory and writing equations, but they couldn't design a circuit that actually worked. What's your experience?
Will Rogers never met me.
Did my BS in four years, counting a couple of summers. Did my MS in 2 years. Worked part time programming, and as a teaching assistant. But I lived at home with my folks, and didn't care for beer. Got a full-time job while finiishing up my thesis. Got married to my highschool sweetheart 3 months after starting work, and moved out of my parents' house and in with my wife with money in the bank. Wife finished her BBA (in accounting, natch) the following spring. Is that geeky or what? I was the kind of fool who went to college to get a good education, so I had way more credits than I needed to graduate. I only discovered computer science by accident, though I'd been trying to program since I was 16 (harder when you don't have a computer). In the late 1970's, in-state tuition at the University of Washington in Seattle (fanciest public college in Washington state) was $188 per quarter. It was the bargain of the century. It's like $8k nowadays.
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This article on CNN asks the question[^], and UCLA contributed a study. Did it occur to them that it's Hard To DoTM? Four year degrees are great for the fuzzy subjects - a little light reading, cram and regurgitate for exams, and carefully gauge answers to agree with the teachers opinions. When the answers are all subjective, and truth is a matter of opinion, it's easy to complete the requisite units in 4 years, with plenty of time left over for developing social skills and learning to hold your liquor. When facts matter, and mastering the rudiments of how the Universe really works is important, it takes a little longer, and few have the stamina to stick it out. Maybe it would help if they started preparing us a few years earlier; the 4th grade would be about right. How long did it take you to finish your first "4 year" degree? If you finished in less than 5 years, do you feel yourself to be as well qualified to perform your job as others who took longer? I ask that last out of personal curiosity. I took 5 years to do mine, carrying a full load, working full time, and never taking a summer off. Later I hired a number of people who went to "better" schools than I, finished in the programmed 4 years, and were useless for the first 3 to 5 years on the job. They could run circles around me in talking theory and writing equations, but they couldn't design a circuit that actually worked. What's your experience?
Will Rogers never met me.
Did my BSCS in 3 years part-time and 3 years full time including summer sessions, and senior year coop while taking a 12 credit load. I saw many of my fellow students and friends give up on CS and EE degrees because of the hard work involved. The joke is our school was if you cannot make it in engineering, you go into physical education........
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This article on CNN asks the question[^], and UCLA contributed a study. Did it occur to them that it's Hard To DoTM? Four year degrees are great for the fuzzy subjects - a little light reading, cram and regurgitate for exams, and carefully gauge answers to agree with the teachers opinions. When the answers are all subjective, and truth is a matter of opinion, it's easy to complete the requisite units in 4 years, with plenty of time left over for developing social skills and learning to hold your liquor. When facts matter, and mastering the rudiments of how the Universe really works is important, it takes a little longer, and few have the stamina to stick it out. Maybe it would help if they started preparing us a few years earlier; the 4th grade would be about right. How long did it take you to finish your first "4 year" degree? If you finished in less than 5 years, do you feel yourself to be as well qualified to perform your job as others who took longer? I ask that last out of personal curiosity. I took 5 years to do mine, carrying a full load, working full time, and never taking a summer off. Later I hired a number of people who went to "better" schools than I, finished in the programmed 4 years, and were useless for the first 3 to 5 years on the job. They could run circles around me in talking theory and writing equations, but they couldn't design a circuit that actually worked. What's your experience?
Will Rogers never met me.
Never got an engineering degree. Got a couple of patents instead. Retired now. But ... I did take pertinent technical courses throughout my career, to keep myself on the cutting edge.
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This article on CNN asks the question[^], and UCLA contributed a study. Did it occur to them that it's Hard To DoTM? Four year degrees are great for the fuzzy subjects - a little light reading, cram and regurgitate for exams, and carefully gauge answers to agree with the teachers opinions. When the answers are all subjective, and truth is a matter of opinion, it's easy to complete the requisite units in 4 years, with plenty of time left over for developing social skills and learning to hold your liquor. When facts matter, and mastering the rudiments of how the Universe really works is important, it takes a little longer, and few have the stamina to stick it out. Maybe it would help if they started preparing us a few years earlier; the 4th grade would be about right. How long did it take you to finish your first "4 year" degree? If you finished in less than 5 years, do you feel yourself to be as well qualified to perform your job as others who took longer? I ask that last out of personal curiosity. I took 5 years to do mine, carrying a full load, working full time, and never taking a summer off. Later I hired a number of people who went to "better" schools than I, finished in the programmed 4 years, and were useless for the first 3 to 5 years on the job. They could run circles around me in talking theory and writing equations, but they couldn't design a circuit that actually worked. What's your experience?
Will Rogers never met me.
I took 4.5 years to get my degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics, if you don’t count the two years screwing around in community college – zero credits transferred. At the Univ of Washington, they used two courses to weed out those not committed to engineering. The first was Physics. The first quarter, the class was held in a movie theater size hall & most seats were filled. The second qtr it was held in a large hall, maybe 200 students. The third qtr was held in a normal class room with maybe 40 students. The optional (for my degree) second year courses were only 15 or so, mostly serious physics majors. Math was the other make or break set of courses. The dropout rate was not as high, but by the time I had my required math courses, I was only a few credits from qualifying for a Math degree. On the other hand the U of W recognized that engineering majors were deficient in the fuzzy language skills and had special ed courses just for engineering majors. Topics like Report Writing, study of Science Fiction, etc fulfilled the language arts requirements to graduate!
Melting Away www.deals-house.com www.innovative--concepts.com
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This article on CNN asks the question[^], and UCLA contributed a study. Did it occur to them that it's Hard To DoTM? Four year degrees are great for the fuzzy subjects - a little light reading, cram and regurgitate for exams, and carefully gauge answers to agree with the teachers opinions. When the answers are all subjective, and truth is a matter of opinion, it's easy to complete the requisite units in 4 years, with plenty of time left over for developing social skills and learning to hold your liquor. When facts matter, and mastering the rudiments of how the Universe really works is important, it takes a little longer, and few have the stamina to stick it out. Maybe it would help if they started preparing us a few years earlier; the 4th grade would be about right. How long did it take you to finish your first "4 year" degree? If you finished in less than 5 years, do you feel yourself to be as well qualified to perform your job as others who took longer? I ask that last out of personal curiosity. I took 5 years to do mine, carrying a full load, working full time, and never taking a summer off. Later I hired a number of people who went to "better" schools than I, finished in the programmed 4 years, and were useless for the first 3 to 5 years on the job. They could run circles around me in talking theory and writing equations, but they couldn't design a circuit that actually worked. What's your experience?
Will Rogers never met me.
Frankly, I haven't taken a shred of what I learned with me after I graduated. I've been coding since I was 8, starting on a Tandy TRS-80 with BASICA and moving up the ranks over the years to more modern machinery and languages. In the end, regardless of education, I'll always hire someone who has a passion for the field. You can't teach passion! I sure as hell can teach you dozens of different design patterns, but if you aren't interested, I might as well be taking to the wall. Every great programmer I've ever worked with was more or less self taught. Continuous learners, inquisitive by nature and unafraid of taking risks....that's the recipe for a great programmer! I can't tell you how many egg-heads with Masters or Doctorates I've had to suffer through. When we get into crunch-time and a package has to be deployed that night, these academic folks would rather spend time discussing why we should have implemented a Facade or Observer pattern and how we can reduce the number of objects in the heap if we refactor this or that...Come on guys, lets get this god damn thing out the door and we'll revisit it in our next iteration. They don't see the forest, or even the trees, they worry about the one wildflower that just sprung up and squabble over whether it is a native or invasive species. Programming is hard. It doesn't matter if Microsoft continues to release products like LightSwitch or Razor that further obfuscates the technology, programming will always be hard. You had better enjoy it because if you don't, spending two days chasing down some obscure sequence of events error that corrupts the stack, but is working fine on your machine and a bank of virtuals, but is reproducible on their computer, only to find out that the user is missing a patch released 18 months ago because their IT department determined that it would break a 10 year old inventory tracking system written for Windows 98 by some company that is now out of business and this nimrod calls you every 20 minutes for a status update, telling you that it is in his critical path and he's dead in the water until you push out a fix just might drive you to drink! Uhhhh...... so I've heard.
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:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: Good old Cal Poly! I started in '75 and graduated (with one of the last BSEEEs) in '80. How the hell did you survive 24 units? My normal load was 18, though some quarters I had to settle for less because the classes weren't offerred, and it damned near killed me. Their computer systems still aren't up to date, as the last time I tried to order a transcript online, my PIN was invalid - not enough digits. :-O I guess they have to go into the secret bunker under Kellogg Hill to dig out the clay tablets...
Will Rogers never met me.
It wasn't easy. I did live and work on campus, so I didn't have to worry about commute time. I knew I needed to get a (real) full time job soon, so I loaded up for one of my Senior year quarters knowing I would not be able to do that after I started working off campus. The rest of it was just working with the instructors (I had two classed that overlapped) and toughing it out.
Steve _________________ I C(++) therefore I am
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This article on CNN asks the question[^], and UCLA contributed a study. Did it occur to them that it's Hard To DoTM? Four year degrees are great for the fuzzy subjects - a little light reading, cram and regurgitate for exams, and carefully gauge answers to agree with the teachers opinions. When the answers are all subjective, and truth is a matter of opinion, it's easy to complete the requisite units in 4 years, with plenty of time left over for developing social skills and learning to hold your liquor. When facts matter, and mastering the rudiments of how the Universe really works is important, it takes a little longer, and few have the stamina to stick it out. Maybe it would help if they started preparing us a few years earlier; the 4th grade would be about right. How long did it take you to finish your first "4 year" degree? If you finished in less than 5 years, do you feel yourself to be as well qualified to perform your job as others who took longer? I ask that last out of personal curiosity. I took 5 years to do mine, carrying a full load, working full time, and never taking a summer off. Later I hired a number of people who went to "better" schools than I, finished in the programmed 4 years, and were useless for the first 3 to 5 years on the job. They could run circles around me in talking theory and writing equations, but they couldn't design a circuit that actually worked. What's your experience?
Will Rogers never met me.
In a way, I've taken 25 years to get my degree. After a failed attempt to be a classical musician, I bailed the college scene and went to technical school. After a few years in the real world, I was moved into engineering because I worked for a lazy engineer who had me do all his work for him. But, with the latest round of economic hickups, I've had a very hard time securing a job at the engineering level without the degree, so at 43, I started college again. Since it's been over 20 years since any credit is valid, I'm starting from scratch. I'm working full time and taking 13 hours per semester along with every compressed and summer course available. I'll have my Associates by next May, enough pre-requisites to transfer to a "real" school in another year, then 2 more to finish up. So, I'm looking at 5 year total to get a sheet of paper saying I'm qualified to do what I've been doing for the last 20 years. :| But, I'll be damned if the lack of a B.S. will stand in my way again!!!
____________________________________________________ I'd rather have a frontal lobotomy than a bottle in front of me... Bill W
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This article on CNN asks the question[^], and UCLA contributed a study. Did it occur to them that it's Hard To DoTM? Four year degrees are great for the fuzzy subjects - a little light reading, cram and regurgitate for exams, and carefully gauge answers to agree with the teachers opinions. When the answers are all subjective, and truth is a matter of opinion, it's easy to complete the requisite units in 4 years, with plenty of time left over for developing social skills and learning to hold your liquor. When facts matter, and mastering the rudiments of how the Universe really works is important, it takes a little longer, and few have the stamina to stick it out. Maybe it would help if they started preparing us a few years earlier; the 4th grade would be about right. How long did it take you to finish your first "4 year" degree? If you finished in less than 5 years, do you feel yourself to be as well qualified to perform your job as others who took longer? I ask that last out of personal curiosity. I took 5 years to do mine, carrying a full load, working full time, and never taking a summer off. Later I hired a number of people who went to "better" schools than I, finished in the programmed 4 years, and were useless for the first 3 to 5 years on the job. They could run circles around me in talking theory and writing equations, but they couldn't design a circuit that actually worked. What's your experience?
Will Rogers never met me.
took me 4 1/2 years to get my BSEE including two long summers and flipping burgers at Wendys most of that time
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Did my BSCS in 3 years part-time and 3 years full time including summer sessions, and senior year coop while taking a 12 credit load. I saw many of my fellow students and friends give up on CS and EE degrees because of the hard work involved. The joke is our school was if you cannot make it in engineering, you go into physical education........
:laugh: At Cal Poly, Pomona, the joke was: What do you call an engineering student who can't do math? Business major.
Will Rogers never met me.
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This article on CNN asks the question[^], and UCLA contributed a study. Did it occur to them that it's Hard To DoTM? Four year degrees are great for the fuzzy subjects - a little light reading, cram and regurgitate for exams, and carefully gauge answers to agree with the teachers opinions. When the answers are all subjective, and truth is a matter of opinion, it's easy to complete the requisite units in 4 years, with plenty of time left over for developing social skills and learning to hold your liquor. When facts matter, and mastering the rudiments of how the Universe really works is important, it takes a little longer, and few have the stamina to stick it out. Maybe it would help if they started preparing us a few years earlier; the 4th grade would be about right. How long did it take you to finish your first "4 year" degree? If you finished in less than 5 years, do you feel yourself to be as well qualified to perform your job as others who took longer? I ask that last out of personal curiosity. I took 5 years to do mine, carrying a full load, working full time, and never taking a summer off. Later I hired a number of people who went to "better" schools than I, finished in the programmed 4 years, and were useless for the first 3 to 5 years on the job. They could run circles around me in talking theory and writing equations, but they couldn't design a circuit that actually worked. What's your experience?
Will Rogers never met me.
I completed my BE Elec (Hons) in the normal 4 years, but added an extra year before final year to complete a BSc in computing. I was always one of those who use to play around with electronics as a kid, so I always wanted to be an engineer. When I started the course, the class size was around 350 - for final year graduation there were 50 of us left. I think it does help having some practical knowledge before hand - whether it be through hobby activity or some previous work experience. Even in final year, it was pretty obvious a good 50% of the class had never held a soldering iron before. It just makes it all that little bit harder. It probably also helped that Universities were free when I went through (Australia 35 years ago) - not like that now, but one does have the option of paying the the fees off after you start work. I think if I needed to work during my course, I would have found it a bit more difficult - I got pretty good marks, but still had to spend the time and study quite hard.
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This article on CNN asks the question[^], and UCLA contributed a study. Did it occur to them that it's Hard To DoTM? Four year degrees are great for the fuzzy subjects - a little light reading, cram and regurgitate for exams, and carefully gauge answers to agree with the teachers opinions. When the answers are all subjective, and truth is a matter of opinion, it's easy to complete the requisite units in 4 years, with plenty of time left over for developing social skills and learning to hold your liquor. When facts matter, and mastering the rudiments of how the Universe really works is important, it takes a little longer, and few have the stamina to stick it out. Maybe it would help if they started preparing us a few years earlier; the 4th grade would be about right. How long did it take you to finish your first "4 year" degree? If you finished in less than 5 years, do you feel yourself to be as well qualified to perform your job as others who took longer? I ask that last out of personal curiosity. I took 5 years to do mine, carrying a full load, working full time, and never taking a summer off. Later I hired a number of people who went to "better" schools than I, finished in the programmed 4 years, and were useless for the first 3 to 5 years on the job. They could run circles around me in talking theory and writing equations, but they couldn't design a circuit that actually worked. What's your experience?
Will Rogers never met me.
I'm in the "it just happened" category. I went to the University for Spanish. Screwed up horribly --not drinking, but working 45 hours a week, living off campus, and trying to fit 15 credits into an already full life. I ended up at the Technical School a few years later, needing to be trained in something, and I simply flipped the pages and picked one. I knew how to type and use my email...barely. 2 1/2 years later, I had an Associate Degree and stepped into my new line of work -- Software Engineer. Programming wasn't ever anything I thought I would "grow-up" to do. But as it turns out, I'm pretty good at it. In my book, it's just another language -- and language is my thing. The problem with language, is that if you don't use it, you lose it. It's been 13 years since I've read or spoken Spanish. I'm not very good at that anymore. I think it really comes down to motivation. Interest maybe...but my motivation to succeed went further for me than any kind of passion for programming, because I was the epitome of "newbie".
"Is it normal to hear 'My server doesn't work. Did you rebuild the database?' " - quotes from old work places lead to the most interesting conversations....
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This article on CNN asks the question[^], and UCLA contributed a study. Did it occur to them that it's Hard To DoTM? Four year degrees are great for the fuzzy subjects - a little light reading, cram and regurgitate for exams, and carefully gauge answers to agree with the teachers opinions. When the answers are all subjective, and truth is a matter of opinion, it's easy to complete the requisite units in 4 years, with plenty of time left over for developing social skills and learning to hold your liquor. When facts matter, and mastering the rudiments of how the Universe really works is important, it takes a little longer, and few have the stamina to stick it out. Maybe it would help if they started preparing us a few years earlier; the 4th grade would be about right. How long did it take you to finish your first "4 year" degree? If you finished in less than 5 years, do you feel yourself to be as well qualified to perform your job as others who took longer? I ask that last out of personal curiosity. I took 5 years to do mine, carrying a full load, working full time, and never taking a summer off. Later I hired a number of people who went to "better" schools than I, finished in the programmed 4 years, and were useless for the first 3 to 5 years on the job. They could run circles around me in talking theory and writing equations, but they couldn't design a circuit that actually worked. What's your experience?
Will Rogers never met me.
Why work hard for a STEM degreee -- your pay is half that of the idiot managers who undercut your work with incredibliy bad decisions and generally make your life miserable. The smart folks are majoring in management or finance, and the rest aren't bright enough to get through the technical program. Although in my experience, liberal arts courses are much tougher than STEMs.