BF2S Forums College discussion thread

Uzique The Lesser wrote:

right so it's academically weak, but has an applied/vocational focus, leaning from the military. exactly as i said, then. you can stop trying to 'out-do' people who went to selective and elite academic institutions now.

No, not really. Every engineering program in America has the same standards and teaches to the same criteria. The differences between programs/schools are budgetary and student population, with larger schools being able to afford newer, cooler equipment while offering more wide ranging electives. My professors were from Princeton, and MIT and the like so it's not like I was taught by community college graduates...

Uzique The Lesser wrote:

oh sorry i didn't realize you went to cornell and did a humanities degree in a previous life. if you took a business/IT degree (which you flunked out of yourself, i probably don't need to add), i'm willing to bet you weren't at a place that was any more of a hot-shit academic location than suny maritime. i mean, i don't know for sure, but i'm willing to hedge a bet, here. i don't really know many prestigious schools with 'business studies and IT' repute.

basically, it's just like i said: you've never been exposed to a serious academic humanities environment. but you'll continually shit-talk it. even at your own admission, going to an applied/vocational college, with no humanities students at all, you'll still try to denigrate them at every turn. who is your accomplice in this tired trade? dilbert. wanna know what you have in common? dilbert went to a university that solely focuses on sciences, too. funny how that works. always the experts with the credible opinions.

Look, it gets shit talked in America to such a large extent because American degrees are expensive. Even if you go to a state school you're going to rack up nearly $60k in debt. You brag about how useless your degree is, well, that's a luxury. Most kids going to school don't have an ATM for a father that can shovel money at them and allow them to study whatever it is their heart desires. It's like kids going off to Harvard and Yale from lower income families and expecting to work as philanthropists at non-profits. It just doesn't work unless you have the bankroll to support it.

I really don't care what people study, and my heart has never really been in the humanities-engineering debates because of it, but I wish people would make better decisions taking into account their place in the world and their future prospects. Not everyone needs to be an engineer by any means, it worked for me, but I'm thinking a lot less people need to be going to college to study things that don't lead directly to a well paying job, especially when they are spending their future paltry earnings on said education now. I can't tell you how many people I've heard say they want/wanted to go to college for 'the college experience' when they should've sat their townie ass at home and been as slutty as they wanted to be while waiting tables at the local diner. If you've got money, sure, take a luxury degree. If you don't, it's not worth the stress of opening up a loan statement every month for the next fifteen years after graduation.

loads of small colleges in the US are ranked very highly, are very highly selective, and considered academically prestigious. liberal arts colleges, for a start, even though they produce literally no research/postgraduates. many of the small ivy institutions are 'colleges', for e.g. dartmouth college. it seems like a minor semantic point. i just don't know why you chase this line of argument so doggedly. everytime you try to one-up someone on this forum, as i said, literally every other member could just turn around and say "yeah but my education is far more prestigious than yours". macbeth at rutgers would whup your ass with his polisci degree. i think this basic fact is what makes you uncomfortable, and wanting to impress.

Jay wrote:

I really don't care what people study, and my heart has never really been in the humanities-engineering debates because of it, but I wish people would make better decisions taking into account their place in the world and their future prospects. Not everyone needs to be an engineer by any means, it worked for me, but I'm thinking a lot less people need to be going to college to study things that don't lead directly to a well paying job, especially when they are spending their future paltry earnings on said education now. I can't tell you how many people I've heard say they want/wanted to go to college for 'the college experience' when they should've sat their townie ass at home and been as slutty as they wanted to be while waiting tables at the local diner. If you've got money, sure, take a luxury degree. If you don't, it's not worth the stress of opening up a loan statement every month for the next fifteen years after graduation.

well i'm glad to hear you say "you don't care for the debate". that's a nice thing to hear. it would just be nice if you didn't feel the need to disclaim every mention of the humanities with some lame-o comment like "they get to play video-games all the time". not only is that anecdotal and spurious at best, it just kind of reeks of insecurity/jealousy. i'm only jesting when i say that humanities degrees are "willfully useless". i just think humanities degrees (particularly at top schools) are concerned more with 'knowledge for knowledge's sake', and the actual instruction of humanities/philosophy, rather than "adapting to an ever-changing job market". that just sounds a little vulgarian and silly for a 200-year old department to fuss over. humanities degrees in the UK/europe have incredibly good employment prospects. their average earnings may be lower, on account of them not having medicine/finance careers to drag the mean upwards, but humanities are far from the 'unemployable' and 'useless' category here. so your constant portrayal of them as "no effort", "useless" degrees is a little rankling. it's mostly just an unnecessary and silly thing to say. you could even talk about your own education, and people could want to engage you in conversation, if it wasn't for the fact it was always barbed with this semi-defensive "yeah and/but the other degrees are so shit" type talk. it just derails it into meandering conjecture and blind prejudice again.

Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-05-01 09:18:24)

Jay wrote:

Uzique The Lesser wrote:

loads of small colleges in the US are ranked very highly, are very highly selective, and considered academically prestigious. liberal arts colleges, for a start, even though they produce literally no research/postgraduates. many of the small ivy institutions are 'colleges', for e.g. dartmouth college. it seems like a minor semantic point. i just don't know why you chase this line of argument so doggedly. everytime you try to one-up someone on this forum, as i said, literally every other member could just turn around and say "yeah but my education is far more prestigious than yours". macbeth at rutgers would whup your ass with his polisci degree. i think this basic fact is what makes you uncomfortable, and wanting to impress.

Lol. Ok child. Back to ignore you go.

i'm just dealing with the statistics and facts here. not anecdotes, which seem to be your main method of 'debate'. the last 2 pages you were literally n+1'ing every single fact or figure that people were forwarding. now i'm saying your own education looks crappy on paper, according to fact and figure. trying to differentiate between 'college' and 'university' doesn't really seem like the best path of defense. by all accounts - including your college's website - it is set-up and branded as an applied/vocational college. like i've said all along, not the sort of credential you'd expect someone to have who constantly tries to denigrate "humanities" educations, as if he's ever been in an environment that is academic or prestigious. instead you'll argue til blue in the face with someone like that nuk guy, who is at yale doing engineering. he is entitled to make a balanced critique, having been in the academic environment and seen both sides. but he speaks favourably of humanities. so you'll argue pointlessly against him and call me a "child". i don't think i'm the one being unreasonable here.

Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-05-01 09:22:56)

they do on bf2s

Jay wrote:

DrunkFace wrote:

Jay wrote:

It has zero research profile because it's a college, not a university.

There's a difference?

I just thought it was some dumb American thing like when you call universities schools.

Colleges, for the most part, don't have graduate programs. Universities do. It's a matter of size.

But yes, the word college is a catch-all for both colleges and universities here in America. People never say they 'go to uni' or 'are at university' or any such nonsense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dartmouth_College

small, has graduate program. highly ranked. highly selective. a 'college'.
suny maritime just isn't a strong academic school. why is it hard for you to accept? saying its status as a "college" explains it is a bit lame.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/11/fashi … l&_r=0

'Colleges' in Australia don't offer Degrees, the 'best' qualification you can get is a diploma. They are mostly for trade training, some of the private ones are to referred to as a college but the most well know and biggest is the Government funded TAFE institutions.

Universities (always referred to as universities) is where all (and only) degrees and higher are offered.

Schools only refer to K-12.

DrunkFace wrote:

'Colleges' in Australia don't offer Degrees, the 'best' qualification you can get is a diploma. They are mostly for trade training, some of the private ones are to referred to as a college but the most well know and biggest is the Government funded TAFE institutions.

Universities (always referred to as universities) is where all (and only) degrees and higher are offered.

Schools only refer to K-12.

'School' refers to anything from kindergarten to trade schools to doctoral programs.

Jay wrote:

Macbeth wrote:

I sometimes refer to college as uni. Then again I have picked up some phrases from this site over the years. I read on CNN that due to the internet British and Americans are trading phrases more.

It's mostly people trying to sound sophisticated by adopting a foreign turn of phrase. It's lame.

I've used it as well like Mac does just for the sake of clarity. My school was a university, after all, and within that system we had colleges (like science or liberal arts) and schools (like nursing).

Macbeth wrote:

Jay wrote:

Macbeth wrote:

I sometimes refer to college as uni. Then again I have picked up some phrases from this site over the years. I read on CNN that due to the internet British and Americans are trading phrases more.

It's mostly people trying to sound sophisticated by adopting a foreign turn of phrase. It's lame.

I don't think so. We consume a lot of each other's media. Half of the ultra right wing links on drudge report are from U.K. papers for instance. Of course Americans are going to borrow terms. I just wish the relationship we have with Europe wasn't so lopsided. Most white Americans fantasize about living in Europe and think they are really posh. Most Europeans hate is.

The only white Americans that fantasize about living in Europe are ultra liberal idiots that think living in a socialist society is superior. It's romanticism.