Key EDS Witness Bought Internet Degree 258
An anonymous reader writes "EDS's key witness during the firm's court case against BSkyB was shown to have bought his degree online – but still managed to get a worse mark than a dog. Joe Galloway said he had a degree from Concordia College in the US Virgin Islands and gave detailed evidence on how he took plane journeys between the islands and attended a college there. But while questioning Galloway in court, Mark Howard QC managed to obtain exactly the same degree as Galloway from Concordia College for his dog 'Lulu' with one key difference – the dog got a higher mark."
My dog is smarter than your dog. (Score:4, Funny)
My dog is smarter than your dog.
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Want a degree (Score:5, Informative)
Here you go: http://thunderwoodcollege.com/ [thunderwoodcollege.com]
My dog is your manager (Score:2)
You better obey him, or else [jankarlsbjerg.com]
Re:My dog is smarter than your dog. (Score:5, Funny)
Squirrel!
Bad for Internet PR (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Bad for Internet PR (Score:5, Insightful)
"reliable and accurate information on Internet"
Best. Oxymoron. Ever.
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Don't be so harsh, there surely is some reliable information out there. Of course, there still remains the problem of finding it, a process which, even with aid of a search engine, most closely resembles searching for diamonds in a septic tank with a single pair of rubber gloves and a ladle...
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Don't be so harsh, there surely is some reliable information out there. Of course, there still remains the problem of finding it, a process which, even with aid of a search engine, most closely resembles searching for diamonds in a septic tank with a single pair of rubber gloves and a ladle...
Woah...where'd you get the ladle?
Does it matter? (Score:5, Insightful)
The fake-degree guy got fired from his job not for performing badly but for having a fake degree. What does this say about people who have a real degree that they didn't notice a difference in performance or at the very least that it took so long to find out?
Re:Does it matter? (Score:5, Insightful)
He could have manipulated someone else into doing the work for him or cut corners to obtain the result that was sought in perhaps undesirable or illegal ways.
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The fake-degree guy got fired from his job not for performing badly but for having a fake degree. What does this say about people who have a real degree that they didn't notice a difference in performance or at the very least that it took so long to find out?
Maybe they got their degree from an equally respectable institution?
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How do you know? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Having read a good portion of the Judge's findings, lying about the degree, wasn't the only thing that the guy showed himself to be deceitful about. This wasn't just "he lied about one thing under oath, so here you go BSkyB". It was obvious that this particular individual could throw around lies with exceeding ease. Not a trait that is uncommon in IT Consulting. BSkyB just finally caught someone out.
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So we should just be tolerating dishonesty?
>What does this say about people who have a real degree that they didn't notice a difference in performance or at the very least that it took so long to find out?
At every place I worked, the good people took up the slack from the bad people. Im sure the competent people there are looking forward to hiring a competent person they no longer have to babysit.
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The fake-degree guy got fired from his job not for performing badly but for having a fake degree. What does this say about people who have a real degree that they didn't notice a difference in performance or at the very least that it took so long to find out?
Far too often I run into people who have degrees, who know absolutely nothing. Far too often having a degree is simply used as a socially acceptable means to discriminate against those who do not. I've spoken with many who said I shouldn't look at it that way. Think of it as a character test to show who can follow through and who have proved they want something bad enough. When I ask, what about those who were excluded and are now actively punished because they had a broken home, a sick parent, minor legal
Concordia College(s) (Score:3, Funny)
its true (Score:2)
there's no concordance in this college name
I guess it really is true (Score:4, Funny)
On the internet, no one knows you're a dog.
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/gerv/archives/2007/images/internet_dog.jpg [mozillazine.org]
Re:I guess it really is true (Score:4, Funny)
Both Galloway and Lulu were unavailable for comment at the time of writing.
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This isn't the first time a dog has managed to wangle its way to a degree.
Go to this [wikipedia.org] page for one of the funniest articles on Wikipedia. Basically, there are a lot of disreputable correspondence courses out there.
Why is this tagged "Australia"? (Score:3, Informative)
BSkyB and EDS are British firms, the collage in question is in the US Virgin Islands. This was reported by itweek.co.uk, itnews.com.au just copied the article so that doesn't qualify as an excuse.
Wrong, wrong and wrong (Score:5, Informative)
From TFA (Score:2)
Google brings up the High Court of England and Wales as first result of "British High Court" so it appears we are victims of bad reporting.
But that not withstanding, the jurisdiction is in England as that's where the contract took place.
BTW, we Australians maintain to this day that Rupert Murdoch
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I just love looking at collages in the British Virgin Islands...
Of course the dog got a better mark... (Score:5, Funny)
...it really grokked Tail Recursion.
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Not to mention the puppy's software start-up, eats it's own dog-food...
But it had a real problem with cat (Score:2)
Thank you, will be here all evening. Try the beef bone.
RSS advert for article was for an online degree :) (Score:4, Funny)
In my RSS feed for this Slashdot article there was an advert saying "Online Master Degrees, learn more now". Strangely relevant and yet embarrassing at the same time...
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Why embarrassing? Was it you alma matter?
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just take the extra t and change it to an r and put it at the end of the word "you" in my post while you're at it.
I always said... (Score:4, Funny)
I always said my dog could run a better network than EDS. Talk about prophetic.
One of the cardinal rules in IT is you never give EDS a working application.
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As far as "useless" goes, okay, I probably use at most about 5% of what I learned at university. So it has actually been useful - just not as useful as one might expect. Of course, even most of that 5% I could have learned from textbooks, but the course structure gave me a little context. It told me what there was to know. I have no idea whether I'd have learned about functional programming languages or Hough transforms without university guidance. I wouldn
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Even if you never had to program in a functional language later, the very fact that you have learned one has affected your thinking (in ways not necessarily obvious), and very likely has made you a better programmer even in traditional imperative and object oriented languages.
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But there's a lot of stuff that's been indirectly relevant - communication theory kicks in when you start talking about protocols. Database design lets you slap people upside the head for using a spreadsheet for server con
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I daily see the difference in perspective my degree has given me - I'm thinking a different way to most of my colleagues who just 'sort of ended up' in IT.
OK so your testimony below is that something broadens your horizons, and your statement above is that its degrees that do it. My experience on the job is the primary way to broaden my horizons has been certifications over time, not a one time degree.
For example, I was doing a lot of BGP and OSPF work. When I went for my CCNP in the early 00s, I didn't really even study for the routing/BGP tests because I didn't have to (other than studying ISIS and CLNP, does anyone actually use that in production?), but
Re:Diploma mills prove the worthlessness of degree (Score:5, Insightful)
I actually use 80% of my EE degree. It puts me way above the other programmers because I actually understand how the computer works and the other hardware works.
It's all how relative your career path and degree part are, Programming and electronics are hand in hand. Now my Chemistry degree, that's not so useful... Unless I become a programmer at a chemical plant.
Re:Diploma mills prove the worthlessness of degree (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, a degree is ultimately a bit of paper.
But, a human is ultimately a bit of meat that hasn't spoiled yet. So, that little bit of paper is what tells me that the bit of meat sitting in front of me will do some good work before it spoils.
Or, something like that.
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I have to be difficult here.
A degree from the Colorado School of Mines is not just a bit of paper. This is because they print the degrees on silver. No joke. So my degree is worth whatever a few grams of silver is, something like $40. I could easily trade it for a pizza, if the person that owns the shop is also a precious metal dealership.
Re:Diploma mills prove the worthlessness of degree (Score:4, Insightful)
College degrees are way overrated.
Not really. It's Human Resource people who make the hiring decisions who are over-rated. They look for degrees, good references and personality to make their decisions, instead of looking at a person's ability. Like the article said;
He gave his evidence [on going to the college] in the same confident, secure manner as he gave his evidence about the EDS representations.
Smart people usually aren't confident because they know how ignorant they are. HR people look for confidence in a person when hiring. Confident people also get promoted. It's all about sales, not ability. I'd rather hire an insecure person who wasn't confident in his abilities to do differential equations than hire somebody who confidently lies about his ability because he thinks (and knows) people are stupid enough to judge him based on how he presents himself.
Presentation is everything, that's why PowerPoint is so popular with business and sales people. It's quite useless, but it's pretty and it looks smart.
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I'm not sure why the parent was marked "insightful".
The crux of the parent post is: "smart" people lack confidence, therefore confident people are not smart.
It's hardly stupid that HR people look for degrees (an indication that the applicant has completed a course of study), good references (an indication that the applicant has performed favourably at their previous job) and personality (because, believe it or not, personality counts and in itself is not a negative trait).
Here's the news: Most jobs require
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It's hardly stupid that HR people look for degrees (an indication that the applicant has completed a course of study)
Which is quite meaningless. In this case it's not even true. I remember hearing about a study that found half of the civil service managers hired in the US lied about having a degree... OK it's been a few years and I can't remember the details, but I thought it was worth mentioning 'cuz it's something that I'd never forget). And, just because you go to driving school don't necessarily mean you should be driving. Personally, most people that I've met who have gotten middle-class or managerial jobs have admit
Re:You can't cheat on homework (Score:4, Insightful)
I could name at least 7 people who have degrees at "real" universities because I did _all_ their course work. They were not able to understand what the assignment was in some cases, and in others barely able to write English. Coursework assessment is a great idea, but it should not count towards the degree!
In Cambridge (England) Your final exam is a "tripos" - you sit on a three legged stool in the centre of the Quadrangle, and ANYONE can ask you questions! No cheating there!
A distance learnign exam is not worth the cost of the e-mailed accreditation pdf. HR people are there to cover their arses. Do you think they would be in HR if they could do a real job? They are their cos they knew someone who owed them a favour.
Re:You can't cheat on homework (Score:4, Interesting)
>i>It is not possible to cheat on homework.
I could name at least 7 people who have degrees at
"real" universities because I did _all_ their course work.
You do realize that you are a huge part of the problem, right?
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Most dont. They want degree first and you almost never get to where you can show references if you dont get past the gatekeeper. SO my recommendation to many is to obfuscate. Have an ASS degree but 20 years experience? Put down BS degree if it's required, you can explain in the interview if asked that you put down what you have plus experience to get past the HR filters. Any competent interviewer will fully understand that. you need to get your references in their hands and they dont even want them u
Re:Diploma mills prove the worthlessness of degree (Score:5, Insightful)
I spent a lot of time to get my advanced degrees, but I have no illusions about their actual value. My real value comes from my work experience and successes in my field.
Just to take the devil's advocate position here: you essentially are implying that you learned nothing in school and could have had the same successes without taking the courses you took?
I (owner of a piece of paper that says I am a medical doctor) agree that at the end of the day a degree is just a piece of paper. The real value is what you yourself put into the course, it's not "granted" to you by some outside force. I know people with exactly the same degree I have who, frankly, I would never let near my children. I myself used my training as an excuse to spend as much time as possible with patients, including weekends and holidays when I really didn't have to be there. So in essence I agree with you, it's not "the degree" that has given me a far more profound understanding of medicine than most of my classmates (who did the bare minimum). Rather it's my attitude towards learning, problem solving, and work that let me get ahead in my field.
However there has to be some objective method of classifying a potential employee, and the degree (and where it came from) is a very simple test. Yes there are bound to be highly efficient individuals who lack university degrees (my grandfather made millions - far more than I could ever hope to earn - and never had more than 3rd grade). And there are bound to be slackers who despite having prestigious degrees are absolutely useless. That's why hiring isn't (or shouldn't be) done on solely a candidate's degree. It's just another tool when sifting through the work-force to help identify the individual you think will be of greatest use to you.
However, all else being equal, I would be more inclined to trust someone with a Harvard degree than a degree from "Concordia Online College"...
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Make sure to check your references [dilbert.com].
Re:Diploma mills prove the worthlessness of degree (Score:5, Insightful)
At the end of the day, the value of having a degree depends very much on which area of employment you are in.
I have a degree in Electronics Engineering and yet I work as a Software Engineer. In practical terms my degree only really helps me in two ways:
- The one major thing I learned from University was how to learn things fast. This can be used with anything - just recently I managed to learn ski from total newbie to intermediate/advanced level in 1 week - since the observational and analytical skills to do this are generic.
- It gives me a large pool of background knowledge which can help me deduce things faster in other areas: many patterns of "the way people make things" are applicable to all areas of human engineering.
However, 95% of the information I learned for my degree is worthless for what I do now (with the notable exception of CPU design, things like Queue theory and some areas of Mathematics like statistics and numerical analysis).
The diploma itself was only usefull in getting me my first job: from then onwards my CV and the knowledge I display in interviews have been the things that matter.
The reason for this is that I work in IT. This area is still very much an Artisanship - it's practice is missing the predictability and repeatability which are the essential fundations for robust Engineering practices - and as such (outside Academia) proven hands-on experience is vastly more important than scholastic knowledge.
That said for many areas a degree is very important: how many of us would knowingly put the health of their children or the safety of their bridges to people that do not have a degree in the appropriate area?
Re:Diploma mills prove the worthlessness of degree (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a degree in Electronics Engineering ... just recently I managed to learn ski from total newbie to intermediate/advanced level in 1 week
You are confusing #2 as being the result of #1, when in reality both are the result of already being intelligent.
The diploma itself was only usefull in getting me my first job: from then onwards my CV and the knowledge I display in interviews have been the things that matter.
Blatantly false. Trust me, when you have a stack of resumes, the first thing you do is toss out the simple demographic ones like no degree. Because of HR, there is literally no way Linus could possible be hired as a Linux sysadmin or Linux developer at 99% of companies in the US, unless he has a degree (which luckily for him, he does). Doesn't matter what you write in the experience section, if they toss the resume out because of the education section first. I know I went from unemployable to easy street when I finally got my degree...
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I don't have a degree.
I don't include the education section.
No one asks why I didn't.
I have no problem getting hired at large companies and government organizations in the US.
If you don't show them certain things they don't think about them, as we've established, HR isn't the brightest bunch. If you aren't smart enough to get by them, its probably in the companies best interests that you don't.
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Two, about those slackers, I don't know what to say. Did they cheat to get their degrees?
Even a mediocre person can get an advanced degree if they are good at taking tests. Testing is by no means an accurate method of gauging a person's understanding of material, only their knowledge of it at that moment in time. Most testing is based on evaluating the knowledge of facts. Testing is easy for institutions to implement and it's supposed to provide a sort of objective insight into the st
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Even a mediocre person can get an advanced degree if they are good at taking tests. Testing is by no means an accurate method of gauging a person's understanding of material, only their knowledge of it at that moment in time.
That's only true of sit-on-ass testing. There's also practical testing. That's not practical for medical school, but an ASE-certified mechanic has had to not just fill in a scan-tron (although that is part of it) but also demonstrate an ability to repair some things and find some problems.
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That's not practical for medical school
Hah. If only you knew :) We have a lot of "practical" tests too.. I remember the first sutures I did on a patient. Poor guy ended up looking like a pin-cushion my hands were shaking so badly. Moral of the story: never be the drunk guy getting stitched up at 3 am after a bar fight...
I don't know what it's like in the 'states, but in my country the whole intern year is all about running a ward in a hospital. The more you ask fo
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As a doctor, I find that knowing more facts can lead to fewer mistakes.
I agree. But if you have a sound understanding of the underlying processes, the basic medical sciences: the facts are not hard to remember at all. They are perfectly natural, logical conclusions if you understand the physio/patho/pharmacology. I'm sure it's the same in any other professional field.
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Two, about those slackers, I don't know what to say. Did they cheat to get their degrees? Or did they forget a lot of what they learned due to not applying it?
Some people probablly do outright cheat but I suspect a lot more are merely taking advantage of the testing system while staying within the rules.
It is often possible to get through a course with a good mark without really understanding what you are doing as long as you have a reasonable skill in applying mathematical methods and can cram a series of
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He said the piece of paper was worthless, not that the schooling was worthless.
Er, the piece of paper represents the schooling. That's implicit. Which is why he followed up with "My real value comes from my work experience".
They didn't have very high English requirements at your school, I take it?
This made me laugh considering the above is a case of logic, not language. I hope you feel better after venting your anger in a passive aggressive manner with your person
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But the real question is, would you trust the Harvard Man, or your grandfather?
True. My grandfather of course. But only because of his track record. If you offer me a Harvard man or some random guy off the street, I'd have to opt for the Harvard guy. I'm willing to bet that the proportion of absolute ineptitude is lower (although not exactly zero) among the better educated than the general population, especially for a specific task. Although I am open to the idea that there are some fi
Re:Diploma mills prove the worthlessness of degree (Score:5, Insightful)
Somehow I really, really doubt you went to MIT, Harvard and Oxford. If you went to any of those institutions, you'd know the connections you make during school at those types of institutes are invaluable for networking later in life.
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Somehow I really, really doubt you went to MIT, Harvard and Oxford. If you went to any of those institutions, you'd know the connections you make during school at those types of institutes are invaluable for networking later in life.
Maybe he didn't go to school to socialize. Though we all know how much more important socializing and networking is than actual ability.
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MIT was instrumental for me leaving the BuyMore and becoming a part of Roark Instruments.
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Case in point: George W. Bush graduated from Yale. Doubt the BA in Arts helped more than the connections to become president.
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You're making the standard mistake when assessing the value of education. Your criticisms would be valid if all education was supposed to do was provide utility to companies.
Regardless of what education is "supposed to do", the fact is that the incentive for most people to pursue one is very much to demonstrate their utility to employers. Again, as you point out yourself, your employer didn't hire you for what you learned in school, he hired you because it "proved you could think".
The point here is that your employer used your education as a proxy for an aptitude test, he didn't hire you because you actually knew anything useful to him. The employer could just as easily have gi
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Education doesn't show an ability to learn. how do i know this? because I know people with degrees who won't learn a damn thing that college didn't teach them. I also know people without degrees that not only learn something new every day, but try to build on that.
All a degree shows is that you sat through boring lectures and accepted the knowledge passed in them. All it shows is that you can sit in a 9am management meeting without falling asleep.
A degree does give you specialized knowledge that on the
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Education doesn't show an ability to learn
When will people stop asserting blanket statements as though they were fact - and then backing up their 'facts' with anecdotal evidence??
Simply because you know some people with a degree and no aptitude to learn this does not imply that having a degree is not in some way a useful gauge to someone's aptitude to learn. If I stated that I knew some graduates who were good at learning new things and some non-graduates who were bad learners would you take this as evidence enough to change your view? No, I did
Re:Diploma mills prove the worthlessness of degree (Score:2, Insightful)
College degrees are way overrated. This is coming from someone with multiple degrees from MIT, Harvard, and Oxford.
Maybe you did something wrong. Personally, I learned a lot in school, and when studying. Including a ton of stuff I would not have learned if I had spent the same amount of time working, but which turned out to be a tremendous help when doing actual work (stuff that immediately comes to mind would be how to write an application in assembly and C, and how to write an operating system, which makes it easier to figure out what's going on when you're programming in a higher-level language; also, how to write a
Re:Diploma mills prove the worthlessness of degree (Score:5, Insightful)
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Heh, I don't got much fancy book learnin, but I done started going to work early in life. I would agree that personal contacts are key, being good at your job counts for nothing, IMHExperience. If you are really good at your job you get to train some graduate to be your boss. Even while you are showing him how everything works, he will be getting more pay than you.
So.
1 Get a degree by any means.
2 Lie, lie and lie again to get a job
3 Lie and bluff through the job whilst shmoozing your way to the next job
4 Pr
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You know, this could just work.
Nobody ever wanted to see my degree. They asked whether I have one and I told them, and that's it. I always wondered what if I didn't actually have one? And why the heck did I choose my university instead of claiming I have one from MIT instead?
Not that my university is any less reputable (actually one of the leading places to study CS in Europe), but MIT has such a nice ring to it. Maybe I should beef my resume up a bit...
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This happened at three or four companies when I went to a careers fair that wasn't organised by my university:
[Bored IT company rep]: "Yeah, we use Java and you get free coffee, etc, blah, bored blah. Do you study IT or computer science?"
[Me]: "Computer science, at Imperial College [London]"
[IT rep]: "Ooh, OK, here, take my card. Email me your CV, you don't need to do the online application thing"
Another example: when Google came to the CS department to do a presentation they said noone needed to do a phone
Unfortunately, incorrect (Score:5, Insightful)
I've only been to one university - though I have plenty of vocational qualifications. Although what I learned at Cambridge was rapidly obsoleted as knowledge - and I work in a field which did not even really exist when I was there - what I did there benefits me almost every single day of my life. I learned the things you mostly do not learn at work.
Specifically I learnt the critical attitude - to take nothing at face value. At a University famous for its experimentalism, I learnt how to design experiments and test the results. I learnt how to use statistical and probabilitistic analysis to eliminate false results. I learnt to distrust the wisdom of crowds. And I learnt how to learn.
Ever since then I have discovered that many people simply do not think but accept what is perceived as the norm in their industry or group. That is why you get everything from religious cults to stock market bubbles. Anyone who learnt experimental technique as I did could never be fooled by the early-80s boom. Anyone who learnt those techniques (as I did) would be able to go away, analyse the quality records of their company and suddenly realise that what "everybody believed" about a major industrial process of the company was quite wrong - and, after nearly getting fired for whistleblowing, convince the CEO (a Cambridge PhD) and end up as CTO.
When I had to learn some metallurgy and electrochemistry in a hurry - I knew where to go and how to do it. When I suddenly needed a working knowledge of technical German and French - I knew how to do it.
Vocational courses are great when you have a vocation. But a good University is not a vocational school. It expands your mental horizons and it shows you how to both access knowledge and bend it to your purpose.
It has been estimated roughly that an engineering, science or maths degree from Oxford or Cambridge has a net worth of over $300000 - that is the increase in annual income over life, minus the three years out of the workforce and the costs of doing the degree. This benefit is leveraged by vocational courses - I have obtained distinctions on every one of mine by applying proper habits of study.
Unless you sleepwalked through those universities and did not take full advantage of what they offered, I suspect that you've never really been there.
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It has been estimated roughly that an engineering, science or maths degree from Oxford or Cambridge has a net worth of over $300000
Do you have a source for this claim? In particular I'd like to know what if any steps they are taking to control for the fact that oxbridge takes the cream of Britain's students.
Re:Diploma mills prove the worthlessness of degree (Score:5, Insightful)
ROFL multiple degrees from MIT Harvard and Oxford, really. Not one from each place but multiple.
I think you should reconsider the value of a good education. For example, if you had a good education, even at a half decent state school, you would know how to lie more convincingly.
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ROFL multiple degrees from MIT Harvard and Oxford, really. Not one from each place but multiple.
I think you should reconsider the value of a good education. For example, if you had a good education, even at a half decent state school, you would know how to lie more convincingly.
Everyone knows the only Bachelor of Bullshit worth it's salt comes from Cal Tech. He picked the wrong Uni.
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Everyone knows the only Bachelor of Bullshit worth it's salt comes from Cal Tech. He picked the wrong Uni.
I couldn't agree more, but even the math majors know to spell it Caltech.
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Actually you need learn some reading comprehension. And you need to be careful about calling people much smarter than you "idiot", because that only makes you look like an idiot.
So here is a quick lesson in advanced reading comprehension. It will probably be way over your head, but hey lets give it a try.
Human language is usually structured as to convey information efficiently. Thus, proper use of language usually avoids providing redundant information. Thus, if a properly formed sentence has multiple meani
Re:Diploma mills prove the worthlessness of degree (Score:5, Funny)
College degrees are way overrated. This is coming from someone with multiple degrees from MIT, Harvard, and Oxford.
Are those colleges doing a bulk deal if you buy all of them at once?
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College degrees are way overrated.
You're talking about arts degrees right?
the moment you joined the workforce
wait... maybe not :)
Seriously though, if you learned nothing of value from your university degrees then you did it wrong and you did indeed waste your time. The fact that those universities gave you those degrees without having learning anything of value makes me think a lot less of them too.
It's not black and while of course, and each field is different, but would you rather have your appendix removed by a doctor who has completed (or maybe is completing) university
Re:Diploma mills prove the worthlessness of degree (Score:5, Insightful)
College degrees are way overrated. This is coming from someone with multiple degrees from MIT, Harvard, and Oxford.
College mostly is what you make it. Yes, you can go through MIT, Harvard, and Oxford, learn little, and still get a degree. But if you do that, that's your own fault. Many people do get useful skills out of those institutions.
Or does it? Since experience and personal contacts mean much more than degrees, the earlier you can get a job, the better.
Except, of course, that college is an excellent place for getting to know people that you can later network with. You may have missed this opportunity when you were in college and grad school, but other people take advantage of it and it helps them a lot.
I spent a lot of time to get my advanced degrees, but I have no illusions about their actual value.
Value in what sense? If your goal is to maximize your wealth, then it's no secret that you shouldn't get advanced degrees; it's something many graduate schools tell you explicitly (college, however, does pay off).
But not everybody lives in this world to maximize their wealth anyway. People who get advanced degrees don't do it to do well in the workforce, they do it because they are interested in the subject.
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College degrees are way overrated.
That's what you think. In the meantime I've got dibs on hiring that dog !
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I'm confused... Where's the analogy?
Re:Diploma mills prove the worthlessness of degree (Score:5, Insightful)
Or does it? Since experience and personal contacts mean much more than degrees, the earlier you can get a job, the better. Wasting your time in actual school taking actual classes is a net loser compared to getting a cheap diploma from a diploma mill and getting a paying job today.
Yeah, except for all those fields where you actually require certification that you have the knowledge you're supposed to have such as medicine, law, education, engineering, etc.
What, do you think that if you had connections they would let you be the lead architect on a building project? Do you think they'd just let you have a go at brain surgery or teaching a group of third graders for a week? "Hell, this guy knows the mayor, let's let him be a cop for a day!" A degree is more than a "piece of paper" that is superseded by connections. Connections aren't going to magically give you the knowledge it takes to do certain jobs you daft waste of oxygen.
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You really need to get out more.
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A recent exchange I had:
Me: "I wonder whether $PROMINENT_INTERNET_SITE would be interested in working with us. This $THING we're creating is something they'd be interested in."
Partner: "Let me see whether I know anyone who works at $PROMINENT_INTERNET_SITE."
Me: "What about the front fucking door? We can just go through normal channels."
A business degree is like a lobotomy.
Re:Diploma mills prove the worthlessness of degree (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's suppose you're not full of shit. Still, the very fact that you believe mentioning your degrees increases the credibility of your post points towards degrees in general having value, and refutes the rest of your post.
Posts here regularly run counter to ivory-tower elite liberal lies like history, thermodynamics, and economics. But it's still relatively rare to find a single post that disagrees with itself.
Re:Diploma mills prove the worthlessness of degree (Score:2)
I don't know what country you come from, but in the US it's been illegal for companies to give IQ tests since the 1970's. So employers are forced to find another proxy to measure aptitude. Of course, IQ tests were deemed "discriminatory" because the subject matter was not deemed directly related to job qualifications. Of course, frequently enough, neither are college degrees. The value of the college degree isn't so much the subject matter mastered, but as a signal [jstor.org] that the holder has the aptitude and perse
Nonsense (Score:2)
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I would argue it depends on what degree you get, and from where. This coming from someone who's about to get his first degree. ^_^
You say connections trump little sheets of paper - surely MIT, Harvard, and Oxford were good places for networking at least?
My compsci classes also taught me some very handy stuff - Big-O notation, database normalization, data structures, Berkeley sockets, threads, and other OS concepts. Granted, some of it I might have learned on the job, but having those extra tools complete
Only two of those are great Universities (Score:3, Funny)
This is coming from someone with multiple degrees from MIT, Harvard, and Oxford.
Oxfords a complete dump! [youtube.com]
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This is a logical as saying, why should I study, Einstein couldn't even speak until he was 12. Buddy you're no Einstein. if you can't score a job after getting a bunch of degrees you occupy the other end of the spectrum. One with all that paper work and you are still a dunce.
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Dr. Dre can suck my dick,
that bitch got no PhD,
I lost count of mine,
I got stupid whack degrees.
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College degrees are way overrated. This is coming from someone with multiple degrees from MIT, Harvard, and Oxford.
More specifically, they're supposed to mean something but they don't, not always. Same goes for technical certification. An employer wants to look at these things and know someone with them meets certain standards. Can you be taught? Do you have drive? Are you unlikely to flake out? And it's really tough to measure any of that. And as others have pointed out, it's possible to go through the process, get the degree, and know less than before you came in. But it's the hoops you jump through.
I'm doing some cer
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Yes and no.
If the CEO or HR director thinks that everyone at the place MUST have a BS degree then you cant get past that gatekeeper even if you have 30 years of experience in the field and may even designed most of the tools used in that field.
A degree is great for personal growth and enlightenment. Getting a PHD in History does not make you employable (actually most of the time it makes you LESS employable. Overqualified) But it did give you access to the subject you loved and several years of studying t
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