For the past two hours now I have been searching for and applying for scholarships. I am exhausted and more depressed by my situation than when I first started. I'm starting to wonder if it's all worth it. Do I really need a college degree to get a job as a photographer? A friend told me the other day that a Bachelors Degree today is almost equivalent to a high school diploma/GED. She went on to talk about how these days it's hard to find a good paying job with just a Bachelors Degree - a Masters Degree is needed if you want to make a good living. There have always been those people that are outside the norm though. The ones that can get a good job doing what they want to do without shelling out $100,000 plus interest to begin with. I interned for a man who went to Vietnam right out of high school, came back and didn't go to college, but now owns his own photography studio and does really well for himself. Maybe a lot of it has to do with luck. Should I bank on luck and see if I can make it without a Bachelors Degree? Right now, that seems like it would be a lot more fruitful than trying to make my way through the next two years living paycheck to paycheck and digging myself farther in debt than my current $15,000.
College vs. the Real World
By chic8felicia11 - Posted on March 27th, 2009
You should not be going to college to try to get a job. Getting a degree in engineering does not guarantee a job in engineering, it just qualifies you for it. You should be going to college for the...
you want to pursue.
Personally, for a long while, I did not think I needed school, but we have a system here in the US, where they look upon degrees or graduates as highly qualified, even if sometimes, they aren't.
Most of the time, college does teach you things that you can apply to yourself in the real world situations. You shouldn't give up hope for school just because you don't have money. You can always get a Stafford loan through the borrowers that want to lend money to students.
The problem is that there is a lot of help out there for students but students don't know where to look. I can say that I have had a really tough time accepting that we need to make the system work for us even though the system is built so that we sometimes don't even know how to work with it.
“You cannot wean away an addict from the drug. It is not possible for me to walk away from Ranjha. If it is our destiny to be together then who, other than God, can change it?”
she's a spaceman, no walker, dreamer...maybe
Go to Community college to get an Associates degree in what you want to, then transfer to a four year state owned college to get a Bachelors or Masters degree. A full course load at my local community college is less than $3,000 a semester and its a great college. I can't imagine you'd find career and transfer counselors at other (especially private owned) colleges that are as helpful and devoted as they are at my campus. Tutoring services are offered free of additional charge if you need it. Despite what you may hear about community colleges they are the smart choice. The instructors and professors are all top quality college educators and the atmosphere is very friendly. I don't feel bad about going to community college rather than an over-priced and not as helpful university. If anybody wants to tease me about how its not real college (which is total bullshit) I'll tell them I'll be sure to wave from the airplane on my trip to Hawaii a few years down the road while they're working their butts off to pay ridiculous student loans. And maybe I'll ask them if, when in a few years, they are throwing their income down the toilet to pay rent because they're student loans prevent them from getting a small house with a mortgage, they'll reconsider their attitude about community college. People can demean me all they want but I know it is me that will be laughing at them when reality sets in and their $100,000+ loans prevent them from enjoying their life. They'll realize that they could be working the same job with the same income by spending less than $30,000 total for a Bachelor's from a state owned college after transferring from a community college. I will be going to the local state owned college and since I can commute everyday, the tuition will only be like 10% to 15% higher than community college. The college happens to be one of, if not the, best colleges in PA for Education majors and teacher certification and I plan on being a secondary school teacher. Well, whatever you decide, Good Luck!
I agree. Although I'm at a private college you so vehemently derided, I think that community colleges have an unfair reputation. My sister started off at one, then went to complete her degree at a business school. She now has a management position in the legal department of a major company. I like to say that colleges only educate students to a certain degree. The rest is up to the student- how he uses those tools a college gives him to educate himself. The student makes the different- not the college.
If you recognize that community colleges are not bad then why are you at a private college rather than a community college or state owned college? I don't get that logic one bit. It's like finding a product that you want or need for a ceratin price but then you decide to buy that exact same product for over 4 times the cost from a different store. It makes no sense.
Scholarships. I'm paying pennies for my particular private school.
Oh I see now. I guess I can't give you any more touble then huh? Oh well I'll find someone else. With all seriousness, thanks for replying and good luck with the private college.
Uhh... the total cost for my bachelor's degree, including room and board for three years, was about $30,000. And I didn't transfer from a community college. And, I didn't have any student loans until I got some post-college education. Now I have about $3,500 in student loans that I fully intend on paying off by the end of the year.
I also went to a college that had ample opportunities for research and other activities, something that's rather limited at community colleges, simply because they don't receive quite enough money for those activities. I wish I had done some things differently, but choosing the college I went to is not one of them.
~C
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A college education is an investment in yourself. Just like all investments, there are costs and risks, but when you invest wisely, you will reap the rewards.
Your friend is wrong. A high school diploma is not equivalent whatsoever to a Bachelor's degree. Of course, money is not the truest measure of one's success or happiness, but consider that the average college graduate earns tens of thousands dollars more than a person with only a high school diploma (you can search around the US Census website for more specific information).
Furthermore, a Bachelor of Arts degree from a liberal arts college can be sufficient in gaining entry in a diverse number of fields. For example, you may think that someone who graduates with a history degree has to enter a career that has something to do with history- such as education. But that is simply not true. History majors can be found in business, law, government, etc.
Master's degrees are also helpful if your major concern is career advancement. For example, if you're content just taking photographs, a master's is not probably not necessary. But if you want to teach photography at a college, then you'd better get one. Besides, there's no need to worry about master's degrees now, since it's better to get work experience after college before applying for graduate school.
Oh, and don't bank on getting lucky. Your former boss is an example from a bygone era. In the 60s and 70s, it was easier to start a business or advance in a career than it is now. You need formal education to get anywhere.
Of course, it all boils down to what makes you happy. If you've done your research, and discover you don't need a college education to do what makes you happy, then don't waste your money or your time.
A bachelor's degree is equivalent to what a high school degree was 20 years or so ago. It's basically a requirement for any number of jobs, but doesn't really do much to prepare you for any of those jobs. In that sense, it's very much like a high school diploma.
Which is precisely why it doesn't mean much except the fact that you have it. There are very few jobs that require a certain degree... if you want to become a medical technologist, you better have a degree in either biology or medical technology. But if you want to be a teacher, you can have a degree in history, math, science, or secondary education, and you don't necessarily have to teach the subject you have a degree in (you just have to have a certain amount of background in the subject you do end up teaching). Some jobs don't even require a degree... some private schools will hire someone without a bachelor's to teach (first hand experience tells me that; a friend of mine dropped out of one of her required classes her last semester in college, so she wasn't officially allowed to graduate, and a private school near her home offered her a job, because they were so desperate for teachers in her field).
~C
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I'm surprised that a Bachelor's degree is supposed to be like a high school diploma from 20 years ago- I don't know how anyone could determine that, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. It's somewhat alarming though, since you'd like to think that as time goes by, educational standards go up and not down (what I mean is, why is an additional degree required nowadays for the same amount of education you got for only one degree a few decades ago?).
Still, I find it hard to believe that an employer, when faced with two job applicants with similar qualifications except that one has a college degree and the other doesn't, would choose the applicant without the college education. My point is ultimately that if you want to be more competitive for more jobs, a college degree gives you a clear advantage. (I agree that with a liberal arts degree, it almost always doesn't matter what specific degree you have, just so long as you have one). Your friend seems to me to be in an extenuating circumstance (after all she was getting a job in a field with no competition; if she was in a competitive field, she wouldn't have a job right now), and like I said originally, you'd better not depend on extenuating circumstances (aka luck) to get you a job.