Going back to finish my Degree at age 40: Civil Engineering or Computer Science?

[acklac7]

I guess you told us in a very clever way ! Love it ! I think we were so busy arguing we didn't hear rodney

 

[unodelacosa]

TLDR below

I would so much rather go back to school for Civil Engineering, as I would get to study Chemistry, Geology, Physics etc…

• You'd study other subjects, but only intro level. Same as a Computer Science major, and regardless, you "get to" study these things anytime you want on your own, and don't forget about electives.
• Keep in mind: Comp Sci intersects w/all those fields now, including CivEng. itself. so don't worry – you won't miss Chemistry and Physics and could always take Geology as an elective.
• A CS degree opens more doors and could still lead to a civil engineering job – worth more than "following your passion" which is almost always bad career advice, but good hobby advice.
• Don't follow your passion, be passionate about what you do.
• Become really good at something and that thing will begin fueling your passion for it as you get better and better. Trust me.

Specialize in your field so your value goes up with your skills + knowledge. And since this narrows down the competition and considering how scarcity raises value, the trick is to go into something you don't mind doing, and becoming more and more of a specialist in that profession. We all like things we're good at, and the more we practice a thing, the better we become at it. So become good at lucrative things, and spend time practicing and building up that skill set and the passion will quickly follow.

I mean I'm good with computers, real good.

That phrasing does not inspire my confidence here, I gotta tell ya.

I'm not some guru, necessarily, I can't code, (well sort of but not really)

Getting worse. And please… with the term "guru". It wasn't even a good buzzword in the 90s. I'm sorry, that's snark AF of me to say, but I don't want to kid yourself about your actual skills.

but I'm rather well-versed in from an IT perspective.

• IT is hardware and networks.
• Comp. Sci is software.

That said, I'm just not sure I'd enjoy the coursework involved in a Comp Sci program as much:

Of course not; it's a bunch of busywork and weird math you have to figure out initially by hand using binary and hexadecimal systems and shit like that. Usually all coursework amounts to this. Then you'll be writing and compiling little programs of your own that are oddly satisfying to make work and see breath intelligence into an otherwise non-telligent, if you will, world of inanimate objects. I'm of the opinion: If you want to learn something the right way, ultimately even with the help of a "teacher" everyone has to teach that thing to themselves. It's a pet theory. But I think no one is an exception to this.

If you want to have a piece of paper that legitimately proves you graduated from a University, then go graduate from a University and earn a diploma or buy or make a convincing counterfeit of same. Either way, you'll have to prove you know your shit eventually, so know your shit.

You seem to have made up your mind that you're not going to like computer science though, and you seem to be conflating the concept of "computers" in general with more specific technology related fields. Careful to look deeper first.

I'm not sure I would "love" to be an IT guy for the rest of my life.

I think you're applying the term "IT guy" as an umbrella term for anyone who works in a very technical way with computers. I.T. is “Information Technology”, and while the Venn diagrams overlap somewhat, they're not the same profession or field. IT is setting up, maintaining, improving, securing, and testing … networks. It involves a lot of hardware and specific software to facilitate same. Meanwhile computer science focuses on the development of software and abstract data structures. It really has a lot to do with logic, binary math, data abstraction, and how math underpins everything.

But see you've already developed an opinion on this matter without having learned enough to even be sure if you'd like it. You might hate it, but you might in fact fall in love with it, too. You never know. Knowledge opens up opportunities.

Haha, do you remember the SNL skit with Jimmy Fallon called something like "Nick Burns Your Company's IT Guy"?

It would be a job, sure, but I wouldn't "love" it.

No, not with that attitude

He'd come up to someone's desk who'd explain some problem they were having with their computer and he'd just go, "MOVE! … "

You know what they say, do what you love and the money will follow.

Bad advice. Really bad, stupid advice. What if what you love doing is compulsively gambling for the rush despite the financial ruin. The Money doesn't follow there I imagine.
Become so good at something, they can't ignore you. That's how you command a higher salary. But to make the really big bucks? You have to start your own company.

I would however love to engineer highways, engineer dams, engineer buildings, that would be awesome. I would also love to learn basically every last GEC course involved in a Civil Engineering program, too.

It's probably not as magical as you think it is. I imagine working in something like that is absolutely mired in political red tape, and it's govt.-related, it's probably highly stressful and competitive, and involves a SHIT TON of AutoCAD, which can be a massive pain in the ass, even if you have processing power that slaps… you rarely work alone. Other people's shitty machines will corrupt files and such… it's its own special vibe. … Shit you'd probably have to start out as a junior technician at some civil engineering firm and work your way up the shmooze ladder to ever really get ahead… Ah, fuck, sorry, I'm being cynical again. Time to take my medicine (200µg LSD).

There is one IT job I would love to do, and that would be working for the @CIA hacking cell phones, infrastructure systems, IOT devices, vehicles, like all the crazy Vault7 stuff they do. That would be an AWESOME job.

Yeah I read a lot of stuff published by Eric Snowden, and from hearing his accounts of the day-to-day activities of his job, that sounded heinously boring. Not a job I would want, even without the whole evidence of govt. spying scandal thing which only makes that job sound that much worse. Thank the lucky stars he was on enough ADHD meds to notice what was really going on with project PRISM and had the nerve to blow that dangerous federal whistle, and the guile to have secured political asylum in Russia.

I must admit though that I think digital forensics is seriously a cool line of work.

That said, I doubt I'd be able to get clearances to work for them with my past history of Meth use and mental illness, along with whatever is in the file they have on me at the moment.

Again, you have to become so good they can't ignore your obvious skill. To do this, you probs have to put in 10,000 hrs of practice at a thing. But the proof is in the pudding. If you're that good at something, records from way long ago are easily ignored or swept away.

Which drug doesn't matter, and they can't discriminate against you for a mental illness…

Plus, you sort of need to be gifted in IT to work for either the NSA/CIA, and while I'm far from stupid, I'm not gifted in IT, and likely never will be.

Again: different thing altogether.

TLDR: Yeah well… we don't all get to be Robert Moses, you know?

 

[imo_incolae]

Why a degree? You don't NEED a degree in today's world to get a good job. A degree doesn't guarantee you success either. There are lots of employers who would rather employ someone without years of studying at a higher level who can demonstrate practical abilities and firm understanding of a subject, than someone who rides the whole interview on the basis a piece of paper secures the job. There are lots of people out there in the world with pieces of paper but it doesn't imply they know what they are doing or even fit for the job. And that's where it can become a trap. You believe a degree entitles you to success, happiness, wealth etc but it doesn't. You are just subscribing to the mainstream collectively agreed reality. Just because everybody believes that is how you prove yourself and how you "make" it in the world doesn't mean it actually is.

I know more people who didn't finish or even get to university who are now more comfortable than those who did. At the end of the day, those who dropped out of high school or somewhere close to high school, and those that didn't, live in similar houses in the same town I grew up in. They drive similar cars (most of them rented because the price of cars is so expensive) and most of them needed their parents/family anyway to get a mortgage. So where is the dream the former were promised? Sure, they were the boffins in school and many of them got the best grades but that's only a label you wear when you are living in that world for a particular period of your life. You can't use the brownie points you got from high school when you're in your thirties/forties. Nobody gives a fuck if you were a prefect. When it's all said and done, no-one I know is living a grand life somewhere far away from those who didn't go to university. It's actually pretty funny really because we were all made to believe those who became what they were told to become would somehow make it, and those that didn't would amount to nothing.

Don't be sold by the fairytale ending my friend. It's nice to think like that but it's not how the world works. You have been conditioned to believe higher education equates to success and happiness and endless wealth. It kinda makes sense too when you think about it because education does help in a whole array of areas in life, but it's not the be-all-end-all. It's the conditioning of many generations who themselves were conditioned to believe higher education propelled you above others, and this comes from a time when only the rich and those with adequate social status could afford access to academic institutions and so you were part of an exclusive group if you went to university and graduated, which pretty much guaranteed you success in a world where most people couldn't even get access to the basics in life. This dogma formed in high social status circles still permeates the societies we live in today. People want to ascend the social ladder because they believe it will give them something they don't already have. They come out of university with a degree and nothing changes. They've done everything they were supposed to do and then they find out there is yet more to do, more hoops to jump through, more labels to accrue and titles to achieve, more expectations. It goes on and on until you reach the old age game where it becomes not about your education but how close to death you are. "I'm older than you and so I'm better".

These games permeate life and you can never win because the game is simply not winnable.
You will succeed when you discover what YOU want to do and understand WHY you want to do it and you will want to do it so much that it becomes about fufilling your desire to chase your dreams, not because society told you to do so, not because your parents told you or what you are bombarded with by pop culture and mainstream TV. You will fufill your desires because you are putting all that aside and seeing all that for it is - background noise, distractions, a trap etc. Sure, degrees are great. But why are they great? Because we are told they are through culture and society based on old fashioned stigmatizing discriminatory and outdated beliefs (which is where the notion of meritocracy comes from)? Or because they really are great? And how can we know the difference?

Why do you want to do what you want to do? Why do you want to do anything at all for that matter?
Whose speaking for you? Whose reality are you living? Whose rules are you playing by?

I'd rather someone say they want to become a stripper because it fills them with energy, than someone who wants to don a suit and tie to go to a 9-5 job that any Bob or Britney can go to, in a building like any other on a street like any other, just so they can try and squeeze some semblence of validation from their environment for putting all that effort in to wearing a suit hoping people think he/she is the shit. Same with university. I'd rather someone study art or some pointless course that likely won't equate to a career than someone who simply assumes a superficial role in a system tries desperately to fit a particular role expected in society that will eventually drown him/her later down the line. I'd rather someone drop out of high school yet setup their own business and become successful taking those risks, than someone who never takes any risks and forever is bubblewrapped by a facade that leaves him/her unfulfilled. I'd rather, going even further, someone choose to empty dumpsters for a living but within themselves be more closer to who they are and be more clearer on where they are going. I've met so many people who according to the rules of society are 'at the bottom' who actually have more going for themselves than people I've spent time around who are apparently 'going places' with their life.

Again, this isn't to say university is bad, degrees are bad etc. Not at all.
But just like the idea of capitalism isn't bad in and of itself, if you become trapped by the dogmas and ideology of capitalism you are firmly trapped in a never-ending cycle of never having enough and forever being a failure when you compare yourself to those who have apparently played the game successfully. If you assume that is all there is ie consuming, competing for resources, always looking for the next 'solution' to make life worth something etc, you miss out on everything and only get a tiny little prize for your efforts, and that is one that reads "You never really made something of yourself". You are essentially the loser. And so, how many people in today's modern world are actually losers? How many are losers in winners clothing? How many are truly happy? Successful? How many are truly living their dream life? How many are actually winning?

When you ask these questions, the superficial layers start to peel away and you are left with more profound questions. These are the questions that will guide you.
This is when people who embarked on the white picket lifestyle, who signed up for the dream life, suddenly decide it's all bullshit. That's when Wall Street bankers find themselves at ayahuasca retreats realizing their entire life has been one big lie. When what lies beneath all this starts to have more importance, and well, you were born with what lies beneath, it didn't go anyway, we were just made to believe there was somewhere else and something else we needed to be/go/feel etc. When you stop trying to achieve something you will never achieve, not because you are not capable of it, but because it doesn't exist!

Don't follow the masses. Define yourself. Have the courage to stand up and then stand by yourself (if you have to). And that takes balls. Not many people can do it. And many people are scared to be rejected, abandoned, called crazy, mocked and vilified etc. It's a hard road going through life remaining true to yourself and striving to bring into reality YOUR reality. You might lose friends, family, you might face isolation sometimes, you might lose things you thought you cherished, needed, valued. But it all teaches you what you REALLY want and what you THOUGHT was real but what you find out really was something or someone else telling you what was real. During these times you embark on the real work to becoming who you want to become and what you really want in life. And that's worth more than any degree. You don't teach you that in school. You never find these lessons pinned on the work whiteboard. They don't find themselves being mainstream knowledge and education. You are taught to get indoctrinated into systems and then put to work. Those who challenge those systems are the ones we remember. We don't remember those who look and talk and act like everyone else. We notice the ones that stand out. Why is that? Why among the masses of people do we only notice and want to pay attention to the ones that change the way we see ourselves, others and the world? Who do something that shifts our perceptions and causes a reaction within ourselves? It's because we are searching for those people and I think we searching because deep inside we are lost and we are trying to find purpose, meaning and identity in a world that keeps feeding us the same script that never yields what we are promised it will yield. We want something new. We want something refreshing.

You don't have to wait for that to come along. You can simply choose to be that. And you don't need to be that by being something so completely far removed from who you truly are and what you truly want to be. You don't need to be huge, famous, rich, powerful. You can be more than that by simply choosing to walk that path.

Life is about becoming. We never reach the point where we become and yet we are told constantly throughout our lives that we can become and that one day the journey will be complete if we do X Y Z and assume X Y Z roles. The reality is, your university will still be here in a hundred years time. So will people who go to that university and you know what? Nothing extraordinary will change. Things will still be the same around here. You can pack up and leave and come back and it would be like nothing changed. And so, you're not missing out on anything! The world will still keep on turning with or without you. And the same conveyor belt will still keep on churning out the same people who do the same things and believe the same things reading from the same book.

Walk that path with faith my friend. Have trust in the process. All the best!

 

[MysterMe]

Looking to go back and finish up my degree in the Fall, trying to decide what route to take, as I see it there are two options I really want to pursue:

Option 1: Civil Engineering > Build SkyScrapers > Develop Cities.

This is the route I want to go most, I mean I would love to be a Civil Engineer. That said, I would be re-entering the Workforce at age 43 with little work experience from a Professional standpoint, and I'm afraid this may lead to problems gaining meaningful employment.

That said, I have several extended family members and friends that are worth Hundreds of Millions, and Billions. I'd like to play the connection man and connect them all togeather, along with maybe @arrall and @negrogesic and their connections in an effort to form some sort of massive major development corporation, and build some crazy cool shit. The likelyhood of that happening? Probably not so great, but hey, dreams are dreams, right?

Option 2: Computer Science > Stable Job Security > No Building SkyScrapers

The safer, more boring route. I'd be sitting at a desk all day playing with code, but I would be guarunteed a stable, reliable job right out of school, and bascially for the rest of my life.

Which would you all choose?

First look so promising

 

[unodelacosa]

If not I think you're too far along in life.

What are you talking about? My man is only 40. Definitely not "too far along in life" if even such a thing really exists. Did you know that Harland "Colonel" Sanders didn't start KFC until he was in his 60s, purportedly after he had started receiving social security. And he went around to established chicken restaurants offering to license his special blend of 7 herbs and spices in exchange for 7% of their sales. He was rejected 102 times before finally licensing his first Kentucky Fried Chicken establishment to Pete Harman, owner and operator of one of the largest restaurants in South Salt Like, Utah. By the time Sanders passed away in December of 1980, at age 90, KFC was in 48 countries across 6000 outlets worldwide with annual sales over $2 billion ($6.6 billion today). He stayed active until a month before succumbing to leukemia.

It's inspiring both because of his age when he started KFC and due to his tenacity in taking 102 rejections and not giving up.

 

[unodelacosa]

Oh wait, he asked my opinion. I'm all for living the dream but I have always been fearful of risk.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. There’s no reason to fear failure. Think of it instead as learning opportunities, and in this sense there is no such thing as failure, only outcomes we didn’t expect. And there’s definitely no need to fear success even though it frequently requires change, something people sometimes fear to the point of paralysis through analysis.

The first step in freeing yourself from this fear is to modify: 1. how you think, 2. how you regard success, and 3. how you speak to yourself. Self-communication is often the most important communication we do, the pivotal difference between realizing goals or settling for less.

Hence, bought a home one income would cover ( in case ) just me the way I think.

You should consider developing streams of ”passive income”.

Debt scares me.

Scares you how? There is no debtor’s prison anymore, and most times debts can be settled and/or consolidated under more favorable terms if they start burying you. Understand: I get it; I don’t desire to be in debt either; but sometimes it just makes more sense. I‘m sure you mortgaged that house, for example, and it makes more sense to do this because at least this way you build owner’s equity instead of throwing away money to rent each month, making some landlord rich instead. Don’t let debt scare you; but high interest rates, on the other hand…

He said 43.

Yeah you’re right. The title is misleading for saying “40”. But whatever. It hardly matters. Think about how fast a smart, well executed startup can become successful and lucrative… Moreover, getting into new stuff is important for your brain, health, and happiness, plus it’s a good chance to network w/others.

Timing and networking are everything.

And with what happened to me, it colored my view.

Join the club.

Can't imagine feeling normal

Me neither; I don’t think “normal” is but so useful of a term. What’s normal, really? No one person is “normal”.

 

[AbbeyLee]

@Shady's Fox wanna cyber?

 

[AutoTripper]

Looking to go back and finish up my degree in the Fall, trying to decide what route to take, as I see it there are two options I really want to pursue:

Option 1: Civil Engineering > Build SkyScrapers > Develop Cities.

This is the route I want to go most, I mean I would love to be a Civil Engineer. That said, I would be re-entering the Workforce at age 43 with little work experience from a Professional standpoint, and I'm afraid this may lead to problems gaining meaningful employment.

That said, I have several extended family members and friends that are worth Hundreds of Millions, and Billions. I'd like to play the connection man and connect them all togeather, along with maybe @arrall and @negrogesic and their connections in an effort to form some sort of massive major development corporation, and build some crazy cool shit. The likelyhood of that happening? Probably not so great, but hey, dreams are dreams, right?

Option 2: Computer Science > Stable Job Security > No Building SkyScrapers

The safer, more boring route. I'd be sitting at a desk all day playing with code, but I would be guarunteed a stable, reliable job right out of school, and bascially for the rest of my life.

Which would you all choose?

I would go rightt for 2 I think myself.

Overall I see it being a relative park walk, less grating through time, easier to mentally rest at work and blend your free time feeling into work time and vuce versa.

But that's me, I seek a comfortable, easy, restful unpressured life.


I worked lots different jobs in past, many very physical but a real variety.

I have always felt though, thank goodness other men build the bhildings bridges etc.

I did work on building sites though.

Was interesting to observe the work progressing in days and weeks.


Ground workers! Never wanted their job.


They seemed like quite an unhappy, v weird bunch too.

The roofers were well chill.

Forklift drivers could be facesty and bit aggressivve, IME.

Scaffolders were probably the most privately content.

 

[JamieFinn]

Why a degree? You don't NEED a degree in today's world to get a good job. A degree doesn't guarantee you success either. There are lots of employers who would rather employ someone without years of studying at a higher level who can demonstrate practical abilities and firm understanding of a subject, than someone who rides the whole interview on the basis a piece of paper secures the job. There are lots of people out there in the world with pieces of paper but it doesn't imply they know what they are doing or even fit for the job. And that's where it can become a trap. You believe a degree entitles you to success, happiness, wealth etc but it doesn't. You are just subscribing to the mainstream collectively agreed reality. Just because everybody believes that is how you prove yourself and how you "make" it in the world doesn't mean it actually is.

I know more people who didn't finish or even get to university who are now more comfortable than those who did. At the end of the day, those who dropped out of high school or somewhere close to high school, and those that didn't, live in similar houses in the same town I grew up in. They drive similar cars (most of them rented because the price of cars is so expensive) and most of them needed their parents/family anyway to get a mortgage. So where is the dream the former were promised? Sure, they were the boffins in school and many of them got the best grades but that's only a label you wear when you are living in that world for a particular period of your life. You can't use the brownie points you got from high school when you're in your thirties/forties. Nobody gives a fuck if you were a prefect. When it's all said and done, no-one I know is living a grand life somewhere far away from those who didn't go to university. It's actually pretty funny really because we were all made to believe those who became what they were told to become would somehow make it, and those that didn't would amount to nothing.

Don't be sold by the fairytale ending my friend. It's nice to think like that but it's not how the world works. You have been conditioned to believe higher education equates to success and happiness and endless wealth. It kinda makes sense too when you think about it because education does help in a whole array of areas in life, but it's not the be-all-end-all. It's the conditioning of many generations who themselves were conditioned to believe higher education propelled you above others, and this comes from a time when only the rich and those with adequate social status could afford access to academic institutions and so you were part of an exclusive group if you went to university and graduated, which pretty much guaranteed you success in a world where most people couldn't even get access to the basics in life. This dogma formed in high social status circles still permeates the societies we live in today. People want to ascend the social ladder because they believe it will give them something they don't already have. They come out of university with a degree and nothing changes. They've done everything they were supposed to do and then they find out there is yet more to do, more hoops to jump through, more labels to accrue and titles to achieve, more expectations. It goes on and on until you reach the old age game where it becomes not about your education but how close to death you are. "I'm older than you and so I'm better".

These games permeate life and you can never win because the game is simply not winnable.
You will succeed when you discover what YOU want to do and understand WHY you want to do it and you will want to do it so much that it becomes about fufilling your desire to chase your dreams, not because society told you to do so, not because your parents told you or what you are bombarded with by pop culture and mainstream TV. You will fufill your desires because you are putting all that aside and seeing all that for it is - background noise, distractions, a trap etc. Sure, degrees are great. But why are they great? Because we are told they are through culture and society based on old fashioned stigmatizing discriminatory and outdated beliefs (which is where the notion of meritocracy comes from)? Or because they really are great? And how can we know the difference?

Why do you want to do what you want to do? Why do you want to do anything at all for that matter?
Whose speaking for you? Whose reality are you living? Whose rules are you playing by?

I'd rather someone says they want to be a writer. Yes, at the beginning of the journey, you need to work on the quality of writing, you need to read more, fantasize more and write more. I know many who have gone through this initial stage themselves, who have used https://essayreviewexpert.com/review/studydriver/ for helpful comments and writing tips. This is important because good writing gives the author the freedom to describe their thoughts, feelings, and ideas in words rather than images. It is unfair to ask aspiring authors to sacrifice everything but their time—family, friends, health, sanity—for mere financial gain. I'd rather someone drop out of high school yet setup their own business and become successful taking those risks, than someone who never takes any risks and forever is bubblewrapped by a facade that leaves him/her unfulfilled. I'd rather, going even further, someone choose to empty dumpsters for a living but within themselves be more closer to who they are and be more clearer on where they are going. I've met so many people who according to the rules of society are 'at the bottom' who actually have more going for themselves than people I've spent time around who are apparently 'going places' with their life.

Again, this isn't to say university is bad, degrees are bad etc. Not at all.
But just like the idea of capitalism isn't bad in and of itself, if you become trapped by the dogmas and ideology of capitalism you are firmly trapped in a never-ending cycle of never having enough and forever being a failure when you compare yourself to those who have apparently played the game successfully. If you assume that is all there is ie consuming, competing for resources, always looking for the next 'solution' to make life worth something etc, you miss out on everything and only get a tiny little prize for your efforts, and that is one that reads "You never really made something of yourself". You are essentially the loser. And so, how many people in today's modern world are actually losers? How many are losers in winners clothing? How many are truly happy? Successful? How many are truly living their dream life? How many are actually winning?

When you ask these questions, the superficial layers start to peel away and you are left with more profound questions. These are the questions that will guide you.
This is when people who embarked on the white picket lifestyle, who signed up for the dream life, suddenly decide it's all bullshit. That's when Wall Street bankers find themselves at ayahuasca retreats realizing their entire life has been one big lie. When what lies beneath all this starts to have more importance, and well, you were born with what lies beneath, it didn't go anyway, we were just made to believe there was somewhere else and something else we needed to be/go/feel etc. When you stop trying to achieve something you will never achieve, not because you are not capable of it, but because it doesn't exist!

Don't follow the masses. Define yourself. Have the courage to stand up and then stand by yourself (if you have to). And that takes balls. Not many people can do it. And many people are scared to be rejected, abandoned, called crazy, mocked and vilified etc. It's a hard road going through life remaining true to yourself and striving to bring into reality YOUR reality. You might lose friends, family, you might face isolation sometimes, you might lose things you thought you cherished, needed, valued. But it all teaches you what you REALLY want and what you THOUGHT was real but what you find out really was something or someone else telling you what was real. During these times you embark on the real work to becoming who you want to become and what you really want in life. And that's worth more than any degree. You don't teach you that in school. You never find these lessons pinned on the work whiteboard. They don't find themselves being mainstream knowledge and education. You are taught to get indoctrinated into systems and then put to work. Those who challenge those systems are the ones we remember. We don't remember those who look and talk and act like everyone else. We notice the ones that stand out. Why is that? Why among the masses of people do we only notice and want to pay attention to the ones that change the way we see ourselves, others and the world? Who do something that shifts our perceptions and causes a reaction within ourselves? It's because we are searching for those people and I think we searching because deep inside we are lost and we are trying to find purpose, meaning and identity in a world that keeps feeding us the same script that never yields what we are promised it will yield. We want something new. We want something refreshing.

You don't have to wait for that to come along. You can simply choose to be that. And you don't need to be that by being something so completely far removed from who you truly are and what you truly want to be. You don't need to be huge, famous, rich, powerful. You can be more than that by simply choosing to walk that path.

Life is about becoming. We never reach the point where we become and yet we are told constantly throughout our lives that we can become and that one day the journey will be complete if we do X Y Z and assume X Y Z roles. The reality is, your university will still be here in a hundred years time. So will people who go to that university and you know what? Nothing extraordinary will change. Things will still be the same around here. You can pack up and leave and come back and it would be like nothing changed. And so, you're not missing out on anything! The world will still keep on turning with or without you. And the same conveyor belt will still keep on churning out the same people who do the same things and believe the same things reading from the same book.

Walk that path with faith my friend. Have trust in the process. All the best!

I absolutely agree with most of what was said; the only exception is education. Nothing will help you get a job as a teacher if you do not have a specialized education. Although there are many smart people who could teach well. I know this from my own experience.

 

[imo_incolae]

I absolutely agree with most of what was said; the only exception is education. Nothing will help you get a job as a teacher if you do not have a specialized education. Although there are many smart people who could teach well. I know this from my own experience.

True but the same point applies. Why are people getting degrees? Is it to actually do what THEY want to do? Or is it to fit a particular role they are conditioned to assume will give them what they want? I think you can very easily be bought on romantic visions of success looks like, especially if you have prior experience in far darker places. You are sort of primed to believe the grass is greener on the other side due to the amount of stigma you face and how hard our culture tries to teach us what is wrong and right, good and bad, what is success and happiness and what isn't. According to popular belief, you NEED culture to 'set you right' because you're a bad person, guilty of doing things society doesn't want you to, you're not obeying the rules etc. You have to be careful you don't completely lose touch with reality and actually start believing all that stuff as concrete. You swap out one unhealthy life direction with an equally destructive one. At least you're not ripping up the sofa to see if you've dropped some bank notes days prior to getting high. But now you're on the treadmill like every other rat in the rat race. Now the beat of your drum doesn't beat to the euphoria of meth, it beats to the lifeless machine of the daily grind. You've gone from one foot out of the matrix, to every limb and your cat fully immersed in it. Remember, this is how most people get into drugs in the first place. Something doesn't sit right with them in how 'normality' is (for whatever reasons) and so they seek to change it. Although their decisions at that time in their life could be considered risky at the least, they were trying to find themselves, find something, among the chaos. And now you've gone straight back to bending over and taking the big d*ck of modern society thinking you missed something along the way.

You didn't miss anything. You just were not tuned in fully to the bigger picture. Could you stop taking drugs and f*cking up your life? ABSOLUTELY!
But does that mean becoming a slave to what society and culture expects of you? Those that are not taking drugs are still taking them. That drug is called reality and for most it's just as f*cked up as any powerful drug you can take. Why do we live in such a f*cked up world if what we call reality is where it's all at? This is my point. It might not be in drugs and sketchy lifestyle choices (it probably sure as sh*t isn't to be honest) but it's not in selling yourself out for a dream that if you're not very careful and very aware of what you are doing will wreck you just as bad and leave you hung up to dry just like any comedown ever will.

If you get yourself far enough into those dark places, it seems all too tempting to fall for the bait and believe you're missing out on something. You watch a wealthy man drive past in his Porsche and you think to yourself "That could be me if I had listened to my parents. I really have to sort myself out and one day that will be me". You don't look at that situation realistically. You see the wealthy man has having something you don't. The truth is, he might actually have LESS than you. You see things from the lens of a Hollywood movie. You're just a spectator being gradually conditioned to believe shiny things and shiny people means there's a party somewhere you're missing out on, there's a life you aint invited too. You've already jumped to creating this elaborate nutty story before you've even had the chance to assess the complexity of what you have just experienced as an adult in this weird and wonderful world.
You look at yourself as a failure, use the programming from your culture to gauge where success is, and then run with what you are conditioned to believe. Now you've got an even worse complex that goes beyond drugs.

The worst thing you can do to improve your life is look for normality.
That's the biggest scam there is and it's sold everywhere.
Get back on the straight and narrow, as they say here in the UK.
Life isn't straight nor should it be narrow. If you think it is you're likely completely lost. And that's okay but it probably isn't wise to use that map to find your way back. Or to use other peoples map when it got them lost. Who is lost anyway? Can we tell? And where are you going back to anyway? Where is reality? Where is the destination? Is it abstract or concrete? Where is what you are looking for? Is it over there? Over here? What is it that makes you think it's wherever it is? Those very same questions are what start off the journey and we end up playing different games that tell us that the rules are different to how they were with the last game we played. You did the drug game. Alright, that was good for a while but it got boring. I wanted out. Okay, fair enough. Now that game is over, how about this one? This game IS completely new and the rules ARE completely new too. That's what we tell ourselves anyway. Who actually gets to say they found the secrets to life? They solved the mysteries and know how to answers to the universe? Do we ACTUALLY make it in life?

I think the answers to many of those questions could give most people in the world a heart attack. Their worlds would come crashing down and they would have the most severe identity crisis. It would destroy them or so they believe. Usually though when the storms clear, there is clarity, potentially for the first time in their entire lives. People start seeing things as they are and not from the lens of years and years of conditioning. They start saying no to their sh*tty jobs. Get out of their f*cked up relationships. They stop trying to be what everyone expects of them. They stop destroying themselves when they see someone attractive on TV or social media and start comparing themselves to them. They stop chasing stupid sh*t looking for stupid solutions. They stop wasting their life obsessing over lifeless inanimate material possessions. They reconnect with themselves on a higher level and they start to heal, start to awaken, evolve, transform. Society might not 'like' what they become but society for the most part, in the modern world anyway, is sick. Sickness is not an accurate method of determining health. It's the other way round, not in our society and culture though. It's risky because you risk losing everything, at least the reality that held everything up anyway. But what exists beyond?

Most people will never know. They've done all they ever will do. Their work is done and they are essentially waiting to die. Because today we have so much available to us, people can distract themselves very easily. Gone are the many moments in life when you are left working out what it all means. Now you can ignore what really matters and order sh*t food, apply for sh*t jobs online, play sh*t addicting games on your smartphone and watch sh*t mindless content until you are blue in the face. And then when you're blue in the face, you can get sh*t prescription drugs that cause more harm than most, if not all, 'illegal' drugs and you get a sh*t diagnosis that throws a label on you and expects you to assume the core issues are now resolved. You are made to believe the world is plastic, disposable, superficial, predictable and convenient. While at the same time you're told you can be anything you want to be.

Funny that. Because to be anything you want to be you have to first say F*CK YOU to the very container that being anything you want to be comes suspended in.
But... here is the kicker... Society DOESN'T LIKE IT when you do!
In order to find yourself in this world, you have to look in all the places you're told not to look. Why is that? Why is there an incessant demand to restrict people finding out the truth in life? To actually explore what ACTUALLY works; for themselves, society, the world? Why is there an incessant demand to IMPLORE people to stop thinking for themselves, to believe everything they are told unquestionably and to close their eyes?

Be careful what you sign up for.

 

[JamieFinn]

True but the same point applies. Why are people getting degrees? Is it to actually do what THEY want to do? Or is it to fit a particular role they are conditioned to assume will give them what they want? I think you can very easily be bought on romantic visions of success looks like, especially if you have prior experience in far darker places. You are sort of primed to believe the grass is greener on the other side due to the amount of stigma you face and how hard our culture tries to teach us what is wrong and right, good and bad, what is success and happiness and what isn't. According to popular belief, you NEED culture to 'set you right' because you're a bad person, guilty of doing things society doesn't want you to, you're not obeying the rules etc. You have to be careful you don't completely lose touch with reality and actually start believing all that stuff as concrete. You swap out one unhealthy life direction with an equally destructive one. At least you're not ripping up the sofa to see if you've dropped some bank notes days prior to getting high. But now you're on the treadmill like every other rat in the rat race. Now the beat of your drum doesn't beat to the euphoria of meth, it beats to the lifeless machine of the daily grind. You've gone from one foot out of the matrix, to every limb and your cat fully immersed in it. Remember, this is how most people get into drugs in the first place. Something doesn't sit right with them in how 'normality' is (for whatever reasons) and so they seek to change it. Although their decisions at that time in their life could be considered risky at the least, they were trying to find themselves, find something, among the chaos. And now you've gone straight back to bending over and taking the big d*ck of modern society thinking you missed something along the way.

You didn't miss anything. You just were not tuned in fully to the bigger picture. Could you stop taking drugs and f*cking up your life? ABSOLUTELY!
But does that mean becoming a slave to what society and culture expects of you? Those that are not taking drugs are still taking them. That drug is called reality and for most it's just as f*cked up as any powerful drug you can take. Why do we live in such a f*cked up world if what we call reality is where it's all at? This is my point. It might not be in drugs and sketchy lifestyle choices (it probably sure as sh*t isn't to be honest) but it's not in selling yourself out for a dream that if you're not very careful and very aware of what you are doing will wreck you just as bad and leave you hung up to dry just like any comedown ever will.

If you get yourself far enough into those dark places, it seems all too tempting to fall for the bait and believe you're missing out on something. You watch a wealthy man drive past in his Porsche and you think to yourself "That could be me if I had listened to my parents. I really have to sort myself out and one day that will be me". You don't look at that situation realistically. You see the wealthy man has having something you don't. The truth is, he might actually have LESS than you. You see things from the lens of a Hollywood movie. You're just a spectator being gradually conditioned to believe shiny things and shiny people means there's a party somewhere you're missing out on, there's a life you aint invited too. You've already jumped to creating this elaborate nutty story before you've even had the chance to assess the complexity of what you have just experienced as an adult in this weird and wonderful world.
You look at yourself as a failure, use the programming from your culture to gauge where success is, and then run with what you are conditioned to believe. Now you've got an even worse complex that goes beyond drugs.

The worst thing you can do to improve your life is look for normality.
That's the biggest scam there is and it's sold everywhere.
Get back on the straight and narrow, as they say here in the UK.
Life isn't straight nor should it be narrow. If you think it is you're likely completely lost. And that's okay but it probably isn't wise to use that map to find your way back. Or to use other peoples map when it got them lost. Who is lost anyway? Can we tell? And where are you going back to anyway? Where is reality? Where is the destination? Is it abstract or concrete? Where is what you are looking for? Is it over there? Over here? What is it that makes you think it's wherever it is? Those very same questions are what start off the journey and we end up playing different games that tell us that the rules are different to how they were with the last game we played. You did the drug game. Alright, that was good for a while but it got boring. I wanted out. Okay, fair enough. Now that game is over, how about this one? This game IS completely new and the rules ARE completely new too. That's what we tell ourselves anyway. Who actually gets to say they found the secrets to life? They solved the mysteries and know how to answers to the universe? Do we ACTUALLY make it in life?

I think the answers to many of those questions could give most people in the world a heart attack. Their worlds would come crashing down and they would have the most severe identity crisis. It would destroy them or so they believe. Usually though when the storms clear, there is clarity, potentially for the first time in their entire lives. People start seeing things as they are and not from the lens of years and years of conditioning. They start saying no to their sh*tty jobs. Get out of their f*cked up relationships. They stop trying to be what everyone expects of them. They stop destroying themselves when they see someone attractive on TV or social media and start comparing themselves to them. They stop chasing stupid sh*t looking for stupid solutions. They stop wasting their life obsessing over lifeless inanimate material possessions. They reconnect with themselves on a higher level and they start to heal, start to awaken, evolve, transform. Society might not 'like' what they become but society for the most part, in the modern world anyway, is sick. Sickness is not an accurate method of determining health. It's the other way round, not in our society and culture though. It's risky because you risk losing everything, at least the reality that held everything up anyway. But what exists beyond?

Most people will never know. They've done all they ever will do. Their work is done and they are essentially waiting to die. Because today we have so much available to us, people can distract themselves very easily. Gone are the many moments in life when you are left working out what it all means. Now you can ignore what really matters and order sh*t food, apply for sh*t jobs online, play sh*t addicting games on your smartphone and watch sh*t mindless content until you are blue in the face. And then when you're blue in the face, you can get sh*t prescription drugs that cause more harm than most, if not all, 'illegal' drugs and you get a sh*t diagnosis that throws a label on you and expects you to assume the core issues are now resolved. You are made to believe the world is plastic, disposable, superficial, predictable and convenient. While at the same time you're told you can be anything you want to be.

Funny that. Because to be anything you want to be you have to first say F*CK YOU to the very container that being anything you want to be comes suspended in.
But... here is the kicker... Society DOESN'T LIKE IT when you do!
In order to find yourself in this world, you have to look in all the places you're told not to look. Why is that? Why is there an incessant demand to restrict people finding out the truth in life? To actually explore what ACTUALLY works; for themselves, society, the world? Why is there an incessant demand to IMPLORE people to stop thinking for themselves, to believe everything they are told unquestionably and to close their eyes?

Be careful what you sign up for.

I agree. But not everyone wants to think, it's much easier to go with the flow.

 

[TheLoveBandit]

I think Civil Engineering is one of those professions where the degree is a ticket to entry but requires several years of structured and progressive on-the-job experiential training and development.
...
Computer Science on the other hand

Agree on a lot of this, as it matches my perspective. Most of my friends that went Civil Eng did so right out of HS, got the entry level positions and progressed traditionally. Trying to jump that train later in life is possible, but time for ladder climbing will be much shorter, thereby providing a lower ceiling. Anyone I know that has worked in CS, with a degree or without, has generally remained well employed (esp with Covid pushing the remote work part further). Both have skill sets that should remain in demand going forward, but CS might ask for a bit more flexibility and learning over time as applications and languages change; engineering doesn't really change much. My point being CS allows you to jump in at any age, and go as far as talent can take you. CE is more traditional, and a long slow grind for most.

TLDR below

I'd typically multi-quote this whole damn post and respond to bits her and there, but the whole thing was so good overall. Very good. I'm somewhat stupified to respond.

One thing I will offer, not in response to either quote but to the OP, is consider a means to combine them. The CS gets you into the workforce, allows you to pick and choose a bit, move a bit, grow a bit. Get a few years CS work under your belt and then target Civil Engineering firms to do the CS work for. It'll get you into the industry without the slow slog of career progression. You obviously have a personal interest in CEng, but the quicker path may be via CompSci. Just a thought.

= = = = =

Don’t let debt scare you

Great topic for a different thread, but my .02 is that people are generally scared of what they don't understand. A lot of people these days don't understand debt. And while the post I quote-clipped got into the idea that it can be managed, and leveraged if done properly, the vast majority of people these days can barely balance a check book. Bottom line, if something scares you, set aside the time to investigate and understand it, then you won't be afraid and can make it work for you.

 

[acklac7]

• IT is hardware and networks.
• Comp. Sci is software.

IT also encompasses OS configuration, virus detection/removal, and user account management, it's not necessarily all networking.

You seem to have made up your mind that you're not going to like computer science though, and you seem to be conflating the concept of "computers" in general with more specific technology related fields. Careful to look deeper first.

But see you've already developed an opinion on this matter without having learned enough to even be sure if you'd like it. You might hate it, but you might in fact fall in love with it, too. You never know. Knowledge opens up opportunities.

I'm not great at math, never have been, so if math is what underpins CS, man, I just don't know how much I would enjoy it.

Again, you have to become so good they can't ignore your obvious skill. To do this, you probs have to put in 10,000 hrs of practice at a thing. But the proof is in the pudding. If you're that good at something, records from way long ago are easily ignored or swept away.

True, very true.

What do you do for a living, out of curiosity?

 

[acklac7]

Why a degree? You don't NEED a degree in today's world to get a good job. A degree doesn't guarantee you success either. There are lots of employers who would rather employ someone without years of studying at a higher level who can demonstrate practical abilities and firm understanding of a subject, than someone who rides the whole interview on the basis a piece of paper secures the job. There are lots of people out there in the world with pieces of paper but it doesn't imply they know what they are doing or even fit for the job. And that's where it can become a trap. You believe a degree entitles you to success, happiness, wealth etc but it doesn't. You are just subscribing to the mainstream collectively agreed reality. Just because everybody believes that is how you prove yourself and how you "make" it in the world doesn't mean it actually is.

I know more people who didn't finish or even get to university who are now more comfortable than those who did. At the end of the day, those who dropped out of high school or somewhere close to high school, and those that didn't, live in similar houses in the same town I grew up in. They drive similar cars (most of them rented because the price of cars is so expensive) and most of them needed their parents/family anyway to get a mortgage. So where is the dream the former were promised? Sure, they were the boffins in school and many of them got the best grades but that's only a label you wear when you are living in that world for a particular period of your life. You can't use the brownie points you got from high school when you're in your thirties/forties. Nobody gives a fuck if you were a prefect. When it's all said and done, no-one I know is living a grand life somewhere far away from those who didn't go to university. It's actually pretty funny really because we were all made to believe those who became what they were told to become would somehow make it, and those that didn't would amount to nothing.

Don't be sold by the fairytale ending my friend. It's nice to think like that but it's not how the world works. You have been conditioned to believe higher education equates to success and happiness and endless wealth. It kinda makes sense too when you think about it because education does help in a whole array of areas in life, but it's not the be-all-end-all. It's the conditioning of many generations who themselves were conditioned to believe higher education propelled you above others, and this comes from a time when only the rich and those with adequate social status could afford access to academic institutions and so you were part of an exclusive group if you went to university and graduated, which pretty much guaranteed you success in a world where most people couldn't even get access to the basics in life. This dogma formed in high social status circles still permeates the societies we live in today. People want to ascend the social ladder because they believe it will give them something they don't already have. They come out of university with a degree and nothing changes. They've done everything they were supposed to do and then they find out there is yet more to do, more hoops to jump through, more labels to accrue and titles to achieve, more expectations. It goes on and on until you reach the old age game where it becomes not about your education but how close to death you are. "I'm older than you and so I'm better".

These games permeate life and you can never win because the game is simply not winnable.
You will succeed when you discover what YOU want to do and understand WHY you want to do it and you will want to do it so much that it becomes about fufilling your desire to chase your dreams, not because society told you to do so, not because your parents told you or what you are bombarded with by pop culture and mainstream TV. You will fufill your desires because you are putting all that aside and seeing all that for it is - background noise, distractions, a trap etc. Sure, degrees are great. But why are they great? Because we are told they are through culture and society based on old fashioned stigmatizing discriminatory and outdated beliefs (which is where the notion of meritocracy comes from)? Or because they really are great? And how can we know the difference?

Why do you want to do what you want to do? Why do you want to do anything at all for that matter?
Whose speaking for you? Whose reality are you living? Whose rules are you playing by?

I'd rather someone say they want to become a stripper because it fills them with energy, than someone who wants to don a suit and tie to go to a 9-5 job that any Bob or Britney can go to, in a building like any other on a street like any other, just so they can try and squeeze some semblence of validation from their environment for putting all that effort in to wearing a suit hoping people think he/she is the shit. Same with university. I'd rather someone study art or some pointless course that likely won't equate to a career than someone who simply assumes a superficial role in a system tries desperately to fit a particular role expected in society that will eventually drown him/her later down the line. I'd rather someone drop out of high school yet setup their own business and become successful taking those risks, than someone who never takes any risks and forever is bubblewrapped by a facade that leaves him/her unfulfilled. I'd rather, going even further, someone choose to empty dumpsters for a living but within themselves be more closer to who they are and be more clearer on where they are going. I've met so many people who according to the rules of society are 'at the bottom' who actually have more going for themselves than people I've spent time around who are apparently 'going places' with their life.

Again, this isn't to say university is bad, degrees are bad etc. Not at all.
But just like the idea of capitalism isn't bad in and of itself, if you become trapped by the dogmas and ideology of capitalism you are firmly trapped in a never-ending cycle of never having enough and forever being a failure when you compare yourself to those who have apparently played the game successfully. If you assume that is all there is ie consuming, competing for resources, always looking for the next 'solution' to make life worth something etc, you miss out on everything and only get a tiny little prize for your efforts, and that is one that reads "You never really made something of yourself". You are essentially the loser. And so, how many people in today's modern world are actually losers? How many are losers in winners clothing? How many are truly happy? Successful? How many are truly living their dream life? How many are actually winning?

When you ask these questions, the superficial layers start to peel away and you are left with more profound questions. These are the questions that will guide you.
This is when people who embarked on the white picket lifestyle, who signed up for the dream life, suddenly decide it's all bullshit. That's when Wall Street bankers find themselves at ayahuasca retreats realizing their entire life has been one big lie. When what lies beneath all this starts to have more importance, and well, you were born with what lies beneath, it didn't go anyway, we were just made to believe there was somewhere else and something else we needed to be/go/feel etc. When you stop trying to achieve something you will never achieve, not because you are not capable of it, but because it doesn't exist!

Don't follow the masses. Define yourself. Have the courage to stand up and then stand by yourself (if you have to). And that takes balls. Not many people can do it. And many people are scared to be rejected, abandoned, called crazy, mocked and vilified etc. It's a hard road going through life remaining true to yourself and striving to bring into reality YOUR reality. You might lose friends, family, you might face isolation sometimes, you might lose things you thought you cherished, needed, valued. But it all teaches you what you REALLY want and what you THOUGHT was real but what you find out really was something or someone else telling you what was real. During these times you embark on the real work to becoming who you want to become and what you really want in life. And that's worth more than any degree. You don't teach you that in school. You never find these lessons pinned on the work whiteboard. They don't find themselves being mainstream knowledge and education. You are taught to get indoctrinated into systems and then put to work. Those who challenge those systems are the ones we remember. We don't remember those who look and talk and act like everyone else. We notice the ones that stand out. Why is that? Why among the masses of people do we only notice and want to pay attention to the ones that change the way we see ourselves, others and the world? Who do something that shifts our perceptions and causes a reaction within ourselves? It's because we are searching for those people and I think we searching because deep inside we are lost and we are trying to find purpose, meaning and identity in a world that keeps feeding us the same script that never yields what we are promised it will yield. We want something new. We want something refreshing.

You don't have to wait for that to come along. You can simply choose to be that. And you don't need to be that by being something so completely far removed from who you truly are and what you truly want to be. You don't need to be huge, famous, rich, powerful. You can be more than that by simply choosing to walk that path.

Life is about becoming. We never reach the point where we become and yet we are told constantly throughout our lives that we can become and that one day the journey will be complete if we do X Y Z and assume X Y Z roles. The reality is, your university will still be here in a hundred years time. So will people who go to that university and you know what? Nothing extraordinary will change. Things will still be the same around here. You can pack up and leave and come back and it would be like nothing changed. And so, you're not missing out on anything! The world will still keep on turning with or without you. And the same conveyor belt will still keep on churning out the same people who do the same things and believe the same things reading from the same book.

Walk that path with faith my friend. Have trust in the process. All the best!

That's some deep stuff...

At the end of the day, I genuinely enjoy the educational experience: I genuinely enjoy learning new things. Also, it's important to my (Harvard-Educated) Father that I get a degree. I mean that's really all he ever wanted out of me was to get a degree and become a successful corporate guy like himself. I got the corporate success part down, now I just need a degree. But a degree in what?

I'm not sure now what I really want to do, I mean the civil engineering/skyscrapers thing would be cool, but would all that fame, money, and notoriety really bring me pleasure at the end of the day? I just don't know if it will.

The other option is neuroscience, that's a fascinating field, I think I might be happier in that field than all of the others I've previously mentioned, although I just don't know.

 

[Nid Styles]

Flip a coin, you’ll have better luck finding what you’re into then.

 

[imo_incolae]

That's some deep stuff...

At the end of the day, I genuinely enjoy the educational experience: I genuinely enjoy learning new things. Also, it's important to my (Harvard-Educated) Father that I get a degree. I mean that's really all he ever wanted out of me was to get a degree and become a successful corporate guy like himself. I got the corporate success part down, now I just need a degree. But a degree in what?

I'm not sure now what I really want to do, I mean the civil engineering/skyscrapers thing would be cool, but would all that fame, money, and notoriety really bring me pleasure at the end of the day? I just don't know if it will.

The other option is neuroscience, that's a fascinating field, I think I might be happier in that field than all of the others I've previously mentioned, although I just don't know.

Enjoying education and being successful are two different things when the assumption is you WILL succeed for getting educated.
What people usually enjoy is not what makes them successful, not in this world unfortunately as it stands. If you do get to enjoy what you do and are successful because of it, you're in a pretty sweet position in life. If you get your dream job through your education, you're among a small portion of the population. And when I say dream job, I don't mean your second, thrid or fourth choice. I don't mean settling for the next best thing because your degree grants you some freedom to choose. I mean a dream job. If you want to work for Tesla and pilot a space flight to the ISS. How many people go to university to one day expect to be walking past the office of Elon Musk? How many ACTUALLY get to do that? I'm not shitting on anyone's dreams. I'm just being realistic. If someone said to me they want to go to university to learn space so they could become an astronaut I would warmly and authentically shake their hand and wish them well.

If you enjoy education, do it because you enjoy it. But don't expect it to make you successful.
All the biggest players in most industries dropped out of higher education. Your Zuckerbergs, Musks, Gates, Jobs etc.
Then let's think about all the self employed business owners in the country. Many of them simply started up one day and worked hard. They didn't take a degree in how to be successful in business.

Associating fame, money and notoriety with getting a degree in engineering is bordering on delusions of grandiosity too.
I think you're mistaking the job for elite level athletics or something. You will find all those aspects in the highest level of sport but probably not in civil engineering. You'll be in an environment somewhere among your typical office setting with people using lots of computer software, lots of recording and sharing information, and lots of company paid traveling. Nothing exotic about it, except perhaps visiting places you've never been before.
What makes you think you will become famous for working in civil engineering? Skyscrapers get put up all the time. Do you know the people who put them up? How about the Empire State Building? Who was the architect for it? Without looking on Google first. What company built the last skyscraper in your city? Who is planning to build the next one?
Are people waiting on autographs of the executive team responsible for making the project happen when they turn up to the site?

If you want those things, you want to be finding yourself in an environment where the stakes are high and super competitive and where there are big risks being taken with necks on the line.
Most engineering jobs are just guys and girls who like complicated subjects and getting down with the numbers. Their places of work are pretty regular; factories, offices, project sites etc. Engineers are a particular type of person. And I wouldn't say any of what you mentioned in terms of traits exist in them, except maybe the money, but that comes naturally and doesn't need some grandiose backstory. They earn good money because they do good work. Most engineers I have met have been reserved and don't like too much fuss made over them. Give them something to work out and they will do it and do it well, but they don't make much noise about it and they don't live extravagent lives.

Neuroscience is interesting. Again, hardly the sort of job you mention. Lots of work goes on behind the scenes and often with very little wider recognition other than within the scientific community itself. Lots of selfless effort, lots and lots of stress and expectations, long days no doubt and probably lots of time spent doing things that are anything other than what you got into neuroscience for in the first place and exploring the functioning of the brain. It also depends what you end up doing in neuroscience. You could be a lab assistant, in which case, you are at the bottom of the scale and likely on some sort of average wage. If you are a professor, you will be privy to far more exclusive access to the field as well as resources. If you are developing methods for understanding the brain - higher up the scale. You could work for an organization that specializes in neuroscience and never see the science. You could be punching data into spreadsheets, handling accounts, a chef in the on-site cafeteria etc. Your degree could simply put you in front of a computer doing nothing of the neuroscientific wizardry you imagine. Could be boring and tedious as shit. Lots of people get into a field they enjoy, only to find themselves a number on a payroll card shuffled into the back of the picture.

Realistic expectations are important and that involves sometimes pulling your head out of dream land and sucking up the truth. That doesn't mean seeing emptiness in all you want to do. It simply illuminates the real opportunities and gives you real pursuable goals to make them happen. Instead of being the kid tuggling on his fathers shirt bragging about how one day he will fly into space and then turning into a grown man only thinking of what could have been, and not what could be if he had chosen to wake up from dreaming.

 

[unodelacosa]

IT also encompasses OS configuration, virus detection/removal, and user account management, it's not necessarily all networking.

Whatever you say, hoss.

I'm not great at math, never have been, so if math is what underpins CS, man, I just don't know how much I would enjoy it.

Well, probably no, not with that attitude. Look, firstly, math is what underpins any and all sciences.

And secondly, computer science math is a completely different type of math. And it's only a little bit of initial stuff with binary math and hexadecimal, shit like that. Then it's all about data objects and cleverly storing stuff, recursion, namespacing/staging, creating functional loops, avoiding repeating yourself but not at the expense of almost always writing human-readable code. It's a whole thing, and it's satisfying to learn in so many ways. Moreover, being good at writing code is really all about being good at logic, puzzle-solving, and being detail-oriented.

What do you do for a living, out of curiosity?

I make music to make drugs to make music to take drugs to… something like that.

 

[acklac7]

Enjoying education and being successful are two different things when the assumption is you WILL succeed for getting educated.
What people usually enjoy is not what makes them successful, not in this world unfortunately as it stands. If you do get to enjoy what you do and are successful because of it, you're in a pretty sweet position in life. If you get your dream job through your education, you're among a small portion of the population. And when I say dream job, I don't mean your second, thrid or fourth choice. I don't mean settling for the next best thing because your degree grants you some freedom to choose. I mean a dream job. If you want to work for Tesla and pilot a space flight to the ISS. How many people go to university to one day expect to be walking past the office of Elon Musk? How many ACTUALLY get to do that? I'm not shitting on anyone's dreams. I'm just being realistic. If someone said to me they want to go to university to learn space so they could become an astronaut I would warmly and authentically shake their hand and wish them well.

If you enjoy education, do it because you enjoy it. But don't expect it to make you successful.
All the biggest players in most industries dropped out of higher education. Your Zuckerbergs, Musks, Gates, Jobs etc.
Then let's think about all the self employed business owners in the country. Many of them simply started up one day and worked hard. They didn't take a degree in how to be successful in business.

Associating fame, money and notoriety with getting a degree in engineering is bordering on delusions of grandiosity too.
I think you're mistaking the job for elite level athletics or something. You will find all those aspects in the highest level of sport but probably not in civil engineering. You'll be in an environment somewhere among your typical office setting with people using lots of computer software, lots of recording and sharing information, and lots of company paid traveling. Nothing exotic about it, except perhaps visiting places you've never been before.
What makes you think you will become famous for working in civil engineering? Skyscrapers get put up all the time. Do you know the people who put them up? How about the Empire State Building? Who was the architect for it? Without looking on Google first. What company built the last skyscraper in your city? Who is planning to build the next one?
Are people waiting on autographs of the executive team responsible for making the project happen when they turn up to the site?

If you want those things, you want to be finding yourself in an environment where the stakes are high and super competitive and where there are big risks being taken with necks on the line.
Most engineering jobs are just guys and girls who like complicated subjects and getting down with the numbers. Their places of work are pretty regular; factories, offices, project sites etc. Engineers are a particular type of person. And I wouldn't say any of what you mentioned in terms of traits exist in them, except maybe the money, but that comes naturally and doesn't need some grandiose backstory. They earn good money because they do good work. Most engineers I have met have been reserved and don't like too much fuss made over them. Give them something to work out and they will do it and do it well, but they don't make much noise about it and they don't live extravagent lives.

Neuroscience is interesting. Again, hardly the sort of job you mention. Lots of work goes on behind the scenes and often with very little wider recognition other than within the scientific community itself. Lots of selfless effort, lots and lots of stress and expectations, long days no doubt and probably lots of time spent doing things that are anything other than what you got into neuroscience for in the first place and exploring the functioning of the brain. It also depends what you end up doing in neuroscience. You could be a lab assistant, in which case, you are at the bottom of the scale and likely on some sort of average wage. If you are a professor, you will be privy to far more exclusive access to the field as well as resources. If you are developing methods for understanding the brain - higher up the scale. You could work for an organization that specializes in neuroscience and never see the science. You could be punching data into spreadsheets, handling accounts, a chef in the on-site cafeteria etc. Your degree could simply put you in front of a computer doing nothing of the neuroscientific wizardry you imagine. Could be boring and tedious as shit. Lots of people get into a field they enjoy, only to find themselves a number on a payroll card shuffled into the back of the picture.

Realistic expectations are important and that involves sometimes pulling your head out of dream land and sucking up the truth. That doesn't mean seeing emptiness in all you want to do. It simply illuminates the real opportunities and gives you real pursuable goals to make them happen. Instead of being the kid tuggling on his fathers shirt bragging about how one day he will fly into space and then turning into a grown man only thinking of what could have been, and not what could be if he had chosen to wake up from dreaming.

First things first: I've already accomplished my dreams. Dreams to me mean nothing. I've accomplished every last thing I ever wanted to in life. All I ever wanted out of life was to become successful, just once. All I ever wanted out of life was to become a "professional" - just once.

I went through hell-and-back single-handedly fighting my Dad through cancer, only to have him lose his ability to walk immediately afterward, as I then began to lose my ability to walk, and absolutely nobody could tell us why.

I never thought I'd work again, I'd never thought I'd become someone, become anyone, again. I was a lost cause, I was done for. There were routine talks about going on disability for the rest of my life, as in all likelihood I just wasn't going to be able to hold a job ever again.

I slept a lot, I cried a lot, and I thought about ending my life a lot.

And then I went on low-dose meth and Oh.My.God did my life change

So I've been there, man. I've pondered life, I've pondered ending it. I've pondered all that bullshit that haunts most. I've accomplished everything I ever wanted to accomplish. Just now? Now I don't know what to do next, nor whether I even need a degree to do what I want to do next?

Say I want to build a Skyscraper. Do I really even need to work for a firm? Do I even really need a degree? I don't want to own it. I just want to build it.

I'm quite sure between the money in my family, the audience here, and the audience over on SkyscraperPage.com I could get the money to build the damn thing, do I really need to go to school? Really? I mean I know there are some big-time players on Bluelight (perhaps you're one of them), do I really need to get a degree to do all this? The guys on Skyscraperpage say to "just do it", so should I "just do it"?

I mean look at this view, tell me a Skyscraper with a rooftop Casino isn't going to work at this location!?

 

[acklac7]

I make music to make drugs to make music to take drugs to… something like that.

Well, you should do more than just that, you smart motherfucker you

 

[imo_incolae]

First things first: I've already accomplished my dreams. Dreams to me mean nothing. I've accomplished every last thing I ever wanted to in life. All I ever wanted out of life was to become successful, just once. All I ever wanted out of life was to become a "professional" - just once.

I went through hell-and-back single-handedly fighting my Dad through cancer, only to have him lose his ability to walk immediately afterward, as I then began to lose my ability to walk, and absolutely nobody could tell us why.

I never thought I'd work again, I'd never thought I'd become someone, become anyone, again. I was a lost cause, I was done for. There were routine talks about going on disability for the rest of my life, as in all likelihood I just wasn't going to be able to hold a job ever again.

I slept a lot, I cried a lot, and I thought about ending my life a lot.

And then I went on low-dose meth and Oh.My.God did my life change

So I've been there, man. I've pondered life, I've pondered ending it. I've pondered all that bullshit that haunts most. I've accomplished everything I ever wanted to accomplish. Just now? Now I don't know what to do next, nor whether I even need a degree to do what I want to do next?

Say I want to build a Skyscraper. Do I really even need to work for a firm? Do I even really need a degree? I don't want to own it. I just want to build it.

I'm quite sure between the money in my family, the audience here, and the audience over on SkyscraperPage.com I could get the money to build the damn thing, do I really need to go to school? Really? I mean I know there are some big-time players on Bluelight (perhaps you're one of them), do I really need to get a degree to do all this? The guys on Skyscraperpage say to "just do it", so should I "just do it"?

I mean look at this view, tell me a Skyscraper with a rooftop Casino isn't going to work at this location!?

Nice, man, I'm happy for you
Sounds like you've got it all together then!
Just build the damn skyscraper then! :D

You aren't going to build a skyscraper off the bat. I'm not an expert but there's probably vast areas involved in building one, most of which are not solely confined to engineering. You wouldn't be able to build one on your own because of the sheer scale of what is involved. You could be the brains behind it's design though and head it's development. I don't think you'd ever be able to say it was YOUR skyscraper though. It's a product of the workforce that goes into making it a reality.

As for big players, I'm just an average guy. Nothing big about me. And I like to think the same for everybody else.
Big players don't exist. Take them away from whatever field they dominate and you'll find a human like anybody else. Elite level athlete, politician, musician, CEO etc. They bring a big game to the table when they have to turn up. But at the end of the day if they really have their shit together, they are no different from anyone else in what they are fundamentally made of and how approachable and available they are, unless they've taken the idea of big player to their head (whether their success is imagined or not) and drank their own kool-aid, in which case you're probably dealing with someone who is really a shadow of the person they claim to be. In which case, nothing big about that! I'd rather meet someone who is on the ground, not several hundred feet in the clouds.
People are just doing the best with what they have. There are probably celebrities lurking behind usernames on here, as well as feds.
Everyone has a reason for being here. It's not my place to judge whether that reason is justified and acceptable