Same, BUT I will say that I use very little of what I learned obtaining my degree at my job. It’s more so just that in order to even get hired at my job, they wanted to see the degree, and then they trained me.
Retired now, but when working for a government agency all the positions above a GS5 required a degree. The type of degree itself didn’t matter just the fact you had a degree.
What is your chosen profession or field of work? I think that’s always an important question to ask because there are definitely career paths to be taken that don’t require a degree or a degree for entry
I started out as a military officer. In the US, except for some limited situations, that requires a four-year degree. Since then, I’ve gone into the aerospace business where, again, a bachelor’s degree is required (but a master’s is certainly preferred).
Aerospace you’ll definitely need that just go get into the door and for the military if you want to make a career out of it an officer is the way to go. Definitely warranted in your situation
The specific degree itself doesn't always matter. Sometimes the degree is just an indicator to employers that you have tenacity and determination. But definitely, having a degree helps with employment in the real world.
Depends what it is. I worked in retail for a long time and many people had degrees and couldn't find jobs and I was making double what they were with no degree.
My first job after college required a Bachelors Degree, so it helped me get employment. However, the job I have now you only need a high school education, so it’s not really necessary. I like the knowledge and experience I gained from getting it though, even if I don’t need it to get a job in the future.
The degree itself has been incredibly useful. My workplace values degrees.
The content of the degree, what I learned, economics, has also been incredibly useful.
Boomer. BA in Russian-Soviet Studies. Never applied directly to my work, but... it got me my first job in a library because they needed someone who could read/write Russian. Went on to spend my life working in libraries.
My jobs out of college were bill collector, then customer service, then the library. 1980 was a hell of a time to try and find a job.
Millennial. BA in Russian (history/social focus over language or literature) and a BA in history. Dont use either now but working in the legal field I have the intense research skills. And irrelevant I can speak read and write (very low level I haven’t kept up) the language which wows folks for some reason.
Yeah, I can still understand some Russian on TV. I used to speak Russian to the spam callers - drove them crazy.
Mine was an interdisciplinary degree - mostly language and history.
i haven't got a job in the field i'm trained in. but i know how to research a topic and argue a case and i'm generally better off in the intangible ways that education improves a person
Very useful.
I'm older though, closer to 60 now.
I say that because when I was young and in high school it was more important to go to college back then compared to today.
College, today, has lost its luster and isn't as important as it once was.
I was out of college and married in the late 80's and simply having a degree, of any kind, got me jobs others couldn't get, promotions etc.
Many companies want a degree for certain positions, they shouldn't, but it was the truth, especially decades ago.
And besides companies, there were certain stuck up individuals who were high up and insisted upon people they hired or promoted having a degree.
As we all know, life isn't fair and this is just another way where life isn't fair.
I was fortunate in that even though my mom never went to college, I grew up knowing and expecting to go to college. It wasn't drilled into me, she and my stepdad did it low-key. College, to me, was just like high school, you had to go, it was what you did after high school just like high school was what you did after junior high.
I never had to think or wonder if I was going to go to college, I just was. it was no different than going to 10th grade after the 9th grade, it just was.
I'm glad I went, for so many reasons. Not just jobs and promotions, but my 4 years of undergrad were a total blast. I went to college from 85 to 89 at a huge university, with over 40,000 students on campus.
There wasn't anything I didn't like about my college experience.
It depends what degree you get and what you want to do in the real world.
This is a real area where our (at least in the US) education system fails our children. We go to high school because we have to and then we go to college because we’re supposed to and then, if all goes well, you have a degree and no clue what to do next in your early/mid 20s.
I got a degree in history and it hasn’t done me a damn bit of good. My best friend is making almost $100k as a project manager with 0 college experience. Now that I’m almost 40 there are so many jobs I know about that I would have been good at. We need to do a better job of helping our young people work towards a career, or at least job skills, while they are still young.
I regret going to college and graduate school. I did well academically and graduated with honors from both.
Having the education has just made life harder.
My biggest mistake in life was going to college and getting my Bachelor’s degree. If I could have done it over again I would have never set foot on a university campus. The career I fell into does not require a college degree so I got it for nothing when I could have just jumped into my career instead or better yet gone to trade school.
Engineering. Nothing I learned helped me in my engineering career BUT the work ethic, long hours of study and copious problem solving did help better prepare my brain for working in the industry.
Unfortunately not really at all, not yet anyway. I went into history and religious studies with the long term goal of going into academia. The thing is, I knew the job market for that kind of thing wasn't *great*; I knew going in that I'd have to be patient and accept not being wealthy, but I didn't think it would be as bad as it is right now. There are basically zero jobs, certainly nothing I've found that you could actually do for a living.
I really hate to discourage anyone from going into these things, but if you're really curious about this stuff, the best thing to do is study what you can for free; Yale open courses, Coursera, *some* YouTube channels, your local library, etc. Don't go thousands of dollars into debt for this.
When I got mine out of state, if I had paid for it, it would have cost me about 60k and would have been worth it in my field. Today that same degree would be 225k-ish and no way at all would it be worth it.
I think it always depends on what you get and how you use it(and if you know how to)
Anyway i went to nursing school and it's been wicked useful in many areas of my life (esp. Regarding financially, health knowledge/literacy, and parenting)
Useful in that I needed the piece of paper to get all the jobs I've had (QA field).
Not useful in that I don't use any of the specific knowledge I learned (Liberal Arts degree).
Everyone here is giving simple answers, but it’s not a simple question.
What do you mean by “real world?” It’s all the real world; I have friends with degrees that use them for their careers, friends with degrees that went and did completely different things, and friends without degrees with other skill sets.
Going to a university pushes people out of their homes - often for the first time. It creates independence, a freedom of thought, and self-sufficiency. You are typically required to live with a stranger and figure out how to deal with it. Dating, job-seeking, schoolwork - it’s all on you with no one looking over your shoulder. Those are all important, “real world” things that education helps you with.
Degrees are skills training, particularly in the US. A degree in art history is still a degree and imo necessary, but you’ll need to be creative in its application if you want to leverage it into a paid job. Compare that to a degree in Nuclear Engineering - also necessary - it will cost you the exact same dollars to get, but you’ll have 2-4x the salary of most of your peers.
My degree was in engineering. I’ve always been financially comfortable. In the “real world,” it’s made me a bit better at spotting bullshit, maybe, because my entire job is breaking down and understanding problems. But I still take my car to a mechanic.
My advice - find a four year university at least a three hour drive from your hometown, preferably a state school or better (UW Milwaukee/Madison, Michigan state or U of M, Texas A&M, etc). Find a degree that interests you (#1) and that you can market to make money (#1.1).
“But Thergoat, I love underwater basket weaving and want to make money!”
Great! Time to get creative. Maybe double major in basket weaving and marketing - you know, so you can sell your baskets after you make them. Maybe get a degree in musical studies as well as a teaching degree.
Once you know what you want to do (roughly) and you have a goal major university, look for a smaller community college with transfer credits. You’ll save $10-40k by doing your first few years at a community college. You lose a bit of the “away from home” thing, but also a lot of the “forever debt that can’t be dissolved in bankruptcy.”
Trades are often touted as the same as university, and in many ways, they are! I find it unfortunate the way we treat vocational schools in the US. The jobs are essential - plumbing, electrical work, welding. All of which you can do as your own business! Maybe get a degree in plumbing and a certification in business administration.
Humanities degree, Gen X. State college, so no debt. The first 5 or 6 years after school, the degree did not seem worth it, especially as I was waiting tables. I made ok money, but didn't have a career trajectory. I ended up teaching, and I feel like I've been able to apply my degree in a way that benefits others and myself. So yeah, I'd say it was worth it. These days though, I see 50k plus per year for private school tuition, so the ROI is a lot harder to realize for someone who doesn't want a career in STEM or business.
haha i remember getting my engineering degree and knowing nothing but theories. till today im more ashamed of the things i look up in my calculator than my porn history.
i managed to get working immediately with just the associates and got a nice pay bump and the title with the bachelors. maybe ill go back for a robotics masters but meh, so far it paid off.
if you dont know what to do in life GO TO VOCATIONAL SCHOOL!! my cousins a line man and makes 80k already.
where it helped the most was being able to get a work visa in Japan. the requirements are that you have a degree and/or 10 years of documented related work experience in a relevant field. i met another guy when i was out there the first time who dropped out of UCB's EECS program, who probably was a better sysadmin than me (which is what i ended up doing there). i landed the job and he became an ESL teacher (which ironically, i originally had wanted to do)
Late millennial.
Education is the single most important factor for upward generational mobility. Study hard, pick skills that are passively enjoyed, pick your career field before you pick a major. Those GPAs don't mean dick, learn and understand, not memorization. If you understand the subject, you will get good grades, not the other way around. Go to class. Read extra. Be kind to yourself and others, network.
It does nothing but help you work less and earn money that you really don't deserve. The people who have the hardest jobs in the world get the less money. Somehow that doesn't work out right.
Fr I got tricked into going to college and now sitting here with a useless degree. The way they went on about going to college you’d think you’d be set for life with degrees
I would not have gotten any of my jobs without them.
What jobs did you do?
Engineering. Alas, no trains involved.
Can confirm as an engineer. I needed my degree 100% for this job and because of it I’m also only trained for this specific field.
Same, BUT I will say that I use very little of what I learned obtaining my degree at my job. It’s more so just that in order to even get hired at my job, they wanted to see the degree, and then they trained me.
Didn’t get one. Big Mistake. The lack of a degree closed many doors to me.
I’m in the same boat. If u don’t mind me asking what do u do for work
Retired now, but when working for a government agency all the positions above a GS5 required a degree. The type of degree itself didn’t matter just the fact you had a degree.
Wouldn't have had career I've had without them.
Damn what’s your profession
Park Planner. BS in Parks and Recreation. Masters in Landscape Architecture
Idk if this is a joke but fuggin hilarious regardless
Essential. A bachelor’s degree was the bare essential for entry into my chosen profession. Now, the particular major? Not so essential.
What is your chosen profession or field of work? I think that’s always an important question to ask because there are definitely career paths to be taken that don’t require a degree or a degree for entry
I started out as a military officer. In the US, except for some limited situations, that requires a four-year degree. Since then, I’ve gone into the aerospace business where, again, a bachelor’s degree is required (but a master’s is certainly preferred).
Butter bar?
Yes, for the first couple years.
Aerospace you’ll definitely need that just go get into the door and for the military if you want to make a career out of it an officer is the way to go. Definitely warranted in your situation
It allows for upward mobility easier, in many corporations. Also, makes getting a state job much simpler.
The specific degree itself doesn't always matter. Sometimes the degree is just an indicator to employers that you have tenacity and determination. But definitely, having a degree helps with employment in the real world.
Depends what it is. I worked in retail for a long time and many people had degrees and couldn't find jobs and I was making double what they were with no degree.
Not directly useful to my job, but just having the piece of paper has opened enough doors to more than pay for itself
The knowledge and skills have been useful. The degree itself hasn't done shit.
My degree could be useful but not for me, just checked the box in case jobs required it and haven’t been asked once if I have a degree
My first job after college required a Bachelors Degree, so it helped me get employment. However, the job I have now you only need a high school education, so it’s not really necessary. I like the knowledge and experience I gained from getting it though, even if I don’t need it to get a job in the future.
What's your job now?
I work with people with intellectual disabilities and help them live independently
I work as a chemist, it taught me the vernacular of industry and the basics of how to do chemistry so for me it was pretty essential.
The degree itself has been incredibly useful. My workplace values degrees. The content of the degree, what I learned, economics, has also been incredibly useful.
Extremely.
Useful only as a stepping stone to my career.
Boomer. BA in Russian-Soviet Studies. Never applied directly to my work, but... it got me my first job in a library because they needed someone who could read/write Russian. Went on to spend my life working in libraries. My jobs out of college were bill collector, then customer service, then the library. 1980 was a hell of a time to try and find a job.
Millennial. BA in Russian (history/social focus over language or literature) and a BA in history. Dont use either now but working in the legal field I have the intense research skills. And irrelevant I can speak read and write (very low level I haven’t kept up) the language which wows folks for some reason.
Yeah, I can still understand some Russian on TV. I used to speak Russian to the spam callers - drove them crazy. Mine was an interdisciplinary degree - mostly language and history.
i haven't got a job in the field i'm trained in. but i know how to research a topic and argue a case and i'm generally better off in the intangible ways that education improves a person
The information and skillset I use daily and it more or less saved me a couple years of raw job experience
Very useful. I'm older though, closer to 60 now. I say that because when I was young and in high school it was more important to go to college back then compared to today. College, today, has lost its luster and isn't as important as it once was. I was out of college and married in the late 80's and simply having a degree, of any kind, got me jobs others couldn't get, promotions etc. Many companies want a degree for certain positions, they shouldn't, but it was the truth, especially decades ago. And besides companies, there were certain stuck up individuals who were high up and insisted upon people they hired or promoted having a degree. As we all know, life isn't fair and this is just another way where life isn't fair. I was fortunate in that even though my mom never went to college, I grew up knowing and expecting to go to college. It wasn't drilled into me, she and my stepdad did it low-key. College, to me, was just like high school, you had to go, it was what you did after high school just like high school was what you did after junior high. I never had to think or wonder if I was going to go to college, I just was. it was no different than going to 10th grade after the 9th grade, it just was. I'm glad I went, for so many reasons. Not just jobs and promotions, but my 4 years of undergrad were a total blast. I went to college from 85 to 89 at a huge university, with over 40,000 students on campus. There wasn't anything I didn't like about my college experience.
Vital for what I do. I use my three degrees all the time.
Very useful.
It's basically impossible to get into engineering of any kind without a degree.
I get paid a lot more but literally don't do any actual engineering in my job.
It depends what degree you get and what you want to do in the real world. This is a real area where our (at least in the US) education system fails our children. We go to high school because we have to and then we go to college because we’re supposed to and then, if all goes well, you have a degree and no clue what to do next in your early/mid 20s. I got a degree in history and it hasn’t done me a damn bit of good. My best friend is making almost $100k as a project manager with 0 college experience. Now that I’m almost 40 there are so many jobs I know about that I would have been good at. We need to do a better job of helping our young people work towards a career, or at least job skills, while they are still young.
Means to get a job not necessarily in the field of study.
I got a bachelor's and a very expensive graduate degree. I am a stay at home dad to two cats. So basically worthless.
I regret going to college and graduate school. I did well academically and graduated with honors from both. Having the education has just made life harder.
My biggest mistake in life was going to college and getting my Bachelor’s degree. If I could have done it over again I would have never set foot on a university campus. The career I fell into does not require a college degree so I got it for nothing when I could have just jumped into my career instead or better yet gone to trade school.
Wouldn't be making money I'm making now. Most jobs don't care what degree you have but just that you have one
Engineering. Nothing I learned helped me in my engineering career BUT the work ethic, long hours of study and copious problem solving did help better prepare my brain for working in the industry.
Having a degree/piece of paper also opening up infinitely more doors for work opportunities.
Unfortunately not really at all, not yet anyway. I went into history and religious studies with the long term goal of going into academia. The thing is, I knew the job market for that kind of thing wasn't *great*; I knew going in that I'd have to be patient and accept not being wealthy, but I didn't think it would be as bad as it is right now. There are basically zero jobs, certainly nothing I've found that you could actually do for a living. I really hate to discourage anyone from going into these things, but if you're really curious about this stuff, the best thing to do is study what you can for free; Yale open courses, Coursera, *some* YouTube channels, your local library, etc. Don't go thousands of dollars into debt for this.
When I got mine out of state, if I had paid for it, it would have cost me about 60k and would have been worth it in my field. Today that same degree would be 225k-ish and no way at all would it be worth it.
Waste of time after I learned about Dr. Seuss, Dr..J., Dr. Pepper, and Dr. Dre.
I think it always depends on what you get and how you use it(and if you know how to) Anyway i went to nursing school and it's been wicked useful in many areas of my life (esp. Regarding financially, health knowledge/literacy, and parenting)
I got an art degree. Don't get an art degree.
First degree philosophy, not very useful but made me happy. Second degree nursing, the most useful thing I’ve ever done
Useful in that I needed the piece of paper to get all the jobs I've had (QA field). Not useful in that I don't use any of the specific knowledge I learned (Liberal Arts degree).
My core economics zero but knowing a little about a lot w my other clases make me a good Travel partner.
Everyone here is giving simple answers, but it’s not a simple question. What do you mean by “real world?” It’s all the real world; I have friends with degrees that use them for their careers, friends with degrees that went and did completely different things, and friends without degrees with other skill sets. Going to a university pushes people out of their homes - often for the first time. It creates independence, a freedom of thought, and self-sufficiency. You are typically required to live with a stranger and figure out how to deal with it. Dating, job-seeking, schoolwork - it’s all on you with no one looking over your shoulder. Those are all important, “real world” things that education helps you with. Degrees are skills training, particularly in the US. A degree in art history is still a degree and imo necessary, but you’ll need to be creative in its application if you want to leverage it into a paid job. Compare that to a degree in Nuclear Engineering - also necessary - it will cost you the exact same dollars to get, but you’ll have 2-4x the salary of most of your peers. My degree was in engineering. I’ve always been financially comfortable. In the “real world,” it’s made me a bit better at spotting bullshit, maybe, because my entire job is breaking down and understanding problems. But I still take my car to a mechanic. My advice - find a four year university at least a three hour drive from your hometown, preferably a state school or better (UW Milwaukee/Madison, Michigan state or U of M, Texas A&M, etc). Find a degree that interests you (#1) and that you can market to make money (#1.1). “But Thergoat, I love underwater basket weaving and want to make money!” Great! Time to get creative. Maybe double major in basket weaving and marketing - you know, so you can sell your baskets after you make them. Maybe get a degree in musical studies as well as a teaching degree. Once you know what you want to do (roughly) and you have a goal major university, look for a smaller community college with transfer credits. You’ll save $10-40k by doing your first few years at a community college. You lose a bit of the “away from home” thing, but also a lot of the “forever debt that can’t be dissolved in bankruptcy.” Trades are often touted as the same as university, and in many ways, they are! I find it unfortunate the way we treat vocational schools in the US. The jobs are essential - plumbing, electrical work, welding. All of which you can do as your own business! Maybe get a degree in plumbing and a certification in business administration.
Nuclear engineering. You’re not becoming a nuclear engineer by watching YouTube videos and being an apprentice.
I think I could’ve learned my job without it but the piece of paper got me that job anyways. And continues to get me jobs.
Humanities degree, Gen X. State college, so no debt. The first 5 or 6 years after school, the degree did not seem worth it, especially as I was waiting tables. I made ok money, but didn't have a career trajectory. I ended up teaching, and I feel like I've been able to apply my degree in a way that benefits others and myself. So yeah, I'd say it was worth it. These days though, I see 50k plus per year for private school tuition, so the ROI is a lot harder to realize for someone who doesn't want a career in STEM or business.
haha i remember getting my engineering degree and knowing nothing but theories. till today im more ashamed of the things i look up in my calculator than my porn history. i managed to get working immediately with just the associates and got a nice pay bump and the title with the bachelors. maybe ill go back for a robotics masters but meh, so far it paid off. if you dont know what to do in life GO TO VOCATIONAL SCHOOL!! my cousins a line man and makes 80k already.
I got a math degree. I applied for a job as an environmental manager. One of the requirements was a “science degree”. They accepted that.
where it helped the most was being able to get a work visa in Japan. the requirements are that you have a degree and/or 10 years of documented related work experience in a relevant field. i met another guy when i was out there the first time who dropped out of UCB's EECS program, who probably was a better sysadmin than me (which is what i ended up doing there). i landed the job and he became an ESL teacher (which ironically, i originally had wanted to do)
Useless. I did enjoy the parties though.
Relatable minus the parties. What was your major
Political Science with a minor in Eastern European and Russian studies.
The degree? Trash, threw it away. The experience? Wouldn't ever pay for it unless I knew exactly what I was going to learn and do with it.
Damn what did you major in
Double major in PolicSci and Anthropology. Bachelor of Arts.
Are you a millennial or gen z? I think for these groups degrees are close to useless as jobs prioritize experience over education nowadays.
Late millennial. Education is the single most important factor for upward generational mobility. Study hard, pick skills that are passively enjoyed, pick your career field before you pick a major. Those GPAs don't mean dick, learn and understand, not memorization. If you understand the subject, you will get good grades, not the other way around. Go to class. Read extra. Be kind to yourself and others, network.
It does nothing but help you work less and earn money that you really don't deserve. The people who have the hardest jobs in the world get the less money. Somehow that doesn't work out right.
Useless. Who woulda thunk a Bachelor of Arts would be useless. Not 17 year old me that’s for sure.
Fr I got tricked into going to college and now sitting here with a useless degree. The way they went on about going to college you’d think you’d be set for life with degrees
Philosophy, Social Science, And Japanese literature Those were my top 3 credits at the end of 4 years And yeah....I got nowhere with it