If im gonna enter college..

[Kim Mango]

If im gonna enter college a few years from now and I had to choose a course... What should I go for? When Linus himself is whom I look upto? 

[YellowJersey]

Well, don't do what I did... I went to law school. Would not recommend.

[atxcyclist]

Honestly, think about areas of study you enjoy and use that as a guide, you will have a lot more motivation to learn if you are interested. 

[PlayStation 2]

8 minutes ago, YellowJersey said:

Well, don't do what I did... I went to law school. Would not recommend.

It could always be worse: you could've ended up as a politician.

[Sarra]

Make sure you've got a Plan B. Both forays that I experienced into College were utter wastes of time.

 

The first attempt was at University. It was a music program. I wanted to do music performance, but the program was geared 50/50 for either teaching or theory, neither of which really interested me. When I dropped out of the program, I had a GPA of 0.91.

 

The second attempt was at a community college. After 3 years, my 2 year degree was finally mine (I worked part time, school part time for the first two years), and my cumulative GPA was 3.1. However, I never ended up getting a career in the field I studied for, and despite the degree, I look at it as an abject failure, since my life did not change for the better after this... Several of my classmates are now in fields totally unrelated to that course.

 

I wanted to do computer programming at the university I attended, however, the first class in the series was offered, but none of the rest of the classes ever were.

[Bombastinator]

Marketing,  business, and math I guess.  Math would probably be the most useful.  Math would be for the more Antony type stuff, marketing for the “LTT store” type stuff and business for the running a business type stuff.  A lot of marketing is psychology and anthropology with the ethics removed.  Business and math are their own things though.  Math is often needed for both business and marketing.  Both use a lot of statistical analysis. Traditionally the weeder course for math is calc.  If you can’t do calculus it puts a lock on a whole bunch of different fields.  Not all of them, but a lot.

Edited December 5, 2020 by Bombastinator

[Letgomyleghoe]

Electrical engineering, Networking, there's money and countless job opportunities with both

[NeuesTestament]

47 minutes ago, YellowJersey said:

Well, don't do what I did... I went to law school. Would not recommend.

What's so bad about law school?

[mousesnob]

If you dont know what you want to do i recommend you either choose a broad degree  (depending on where you live) or dont go at all until you know what you want to do. Where i live college is nearly free so i chose a broad degree and during my bachelors degree i now know what i want to do a masters degree in.

[Teddy07]

It entirely depends on your preferances. I personally would avoud any course outside of natural sciences

[TetraSky]

Don't choose a course based on random people's suggestion on the internet.

Take a year off after high school, work a few jobs, see what type of things you enjoy. Be it talking to people, working with your hands, being logical with your head, etc etc.

Then, and only then, start thinking about what type of jobs would fit the things you actually enjoy doing.

 

As an option, you can take a 16personality test and see what type of field they recommend for others like you. It's not super accurate for everyone, but might still help you if you answer truthfully.

Do talk with the counselor at your school as well if you want a third party perspective on what you can do.

Investigate various type of jobs and what they do.

 

Personally, I'm between ISTP and ISTJ (depends on my mood I guess, basically a 50/50 on the P and J)

https://www.truity.com/personality-type/ISTP/careers

https://www.truity.com/personality-type/ISTJ/careers

 

I'm currently studying in electrical engineering, I LOVE it (It's suggested on both, too).

And careers to avoid? Pretty much everything I hate, having to interact with people in person and being creative.

 

Be aware that, personality types can change over time. Especially as you gain experience in the work field and find out you may or may not like something you thought you liked/disliked. Hence why I suggest taking a year off to work if you're still unsure. Better that, than getting into unnecessary debts on a course you'll hate/quit.

[Bombastinator]

8 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

Don't choose a course based on random people's suggestion on the internet.

Take a year off after high school, work a few jobs, see what type of things you enjoy. Be it talking to people, working with your hands, being logical with your head, etc etc.

Then, and only then, start thinking about what type of jobs would fit the things you actually enjoy doing.

 

As an option, you can take a 16personality test and see what type of field they recommend for others like you. It's not super accurate for everyone, but might still help you if you answer truthfully.

Do talk with the counselor at your school as well if you want a third party perspective on what you can do.

Investigate various type of jobs and what they do.

 

Personally, I'm between ISTP and ISTJ (depends on my mood I guess, basically a 50/50 on the P and J)

https://www.truity.com/personality-type/ISTP/careers

https://www.truity.com/personality-type/ISTJ/careers

 

I'm currently studying in electrical engineering, I LOVE it (It's suggested on both, too).

And careers to avoid? Pretty much everything I hate, having to interact with people in person and being creative.

 

Be aware that, personality types can change over time. Especially as you gain experience in the work field and find out you may or may not like something you thought you liked/disliked. Hence why I suggest taking a year off to work if you're still unsure. Better that, than getting into unnecessary debts on a course you'll hate/quit.

The question seemed to me to be what would a high school sophomore want to focus on high school class wise assuming he wanted to do an LTT like thing. 

[TetraSky]

1 minute ago, Bombastinator said:

The question seemed to me to be what would a high school sophomore want to focus on high school class wise assuming he wanted to do an LTT like thing. 

I get that, but lets be realistic, liking watching videos and actually doing it, are two different things. Doing the job Linus does is not just "get up and make videos" either. They likely don't know much about it and mostly see the whole "he get to build computers and make money from that?!".

So saying they look up to Linus is not really helpful as far as finding a course of study.

(And the fact Linus dropped out, so it's not like there's a specific field of study here)

 

 

The way I see things as far as high school goes, It's better to do more classes, than limiting yourself to just get the minimum for one specific college course.

Even more so considering they don't even know what they really want to do yet.

[CommanderAlex]

9 hours ago, atxcyclist said:

Honestly, think about areas of study you enjoy and use that as a guide, you will have a lot more motivation to learn if you are interested. 

This is the only thing I can suggest to you to do OP. Look at yourself and think about the things you enjoy and the core academia that you like/dislike. I.e. if you like math and science, look at fields that involve these two. If you hate literature, don't go to college for a English/lit degree. 

 

Personally, I'm in my local community college right now for my associates in engineering and will be looking to transfer Spring 2022 for B.S. Civil Engineering. 

[Guest]

I recommend going to community college for the first 1-2 years for the basic classes like math history English and whatnot. 

 

You don't have to go to college. Trade school, apprenticeships and the military are all places where you can go to learn things. You can also just go straight to work. 

 

If you go to college I recommend the big 3. 

Money, medicine, technical. 

People invest in money. 

People invest in their health. 

Technical stuff is hard. 

 

Engineers, computer people, so on all do difficult things others can't be bothered to learn. 

 

Pick a job before you go to college or choose a job before you go to pick your degree. You may not need college at all for your aspirations. 

 

Oh and if you're in the US and want to do military, here's a cheat code. 

Step 1: enlist in the military. 

Step 2: go to college. 

Step 3: join the rotc program for a different military branch. 

 

You're now stacking military service. What that means is you're getting paid for being in the military for longer than you actually are. Oh, and you go in as an officer. And your basic training counts as some of the college credits. 

[YellowJersey]

15 hours ago, NeuesTestament said:

What's so bad about law school?

1) It's expensive
2) The licensing process in Canada (at least in the jurisdictions where I'm licensed) are pretty onerous
3) Trying to find Articling (basically the apprenticeship) is extremely difficult, near impossible if you want to be paid even minimum wage
4) The market for lawyers is saturated; too many lawyers, not enough work to go around
5) Extremely long hours where you end up working for less than minimum wage at times
6) Very stressful (lawyers are eight times more likely to commit suicide and have drug and alcohol problems)
7) If you want to do anything else, all of a sudden you're "over qualified"

And that's just what I came up with off the top of my head. It's a shit show.

[Godlygamer23]

Even while you're still in the process of choosing your subjects, you can try doing general education in the meantime. That's what my community college would recommend. 

[PlayStation 2]

1 minute ago, Caroline said:

How's that worse? you're literally being paid to do nothing.

And if you're good at it you could end up being a third world dictator, you get your own AK, a red beret and tons of cash.

Politicians are lawyers who couldn't become lawyers because their law practicing skills are worse than what Lionel Hutz could offer.

[Bombastinator]

2 hours ago, YellowJersey said:

1) It's expensive
2) The licensing process in Canada (at least in the jurisdictions where I'm licensed) are pretty onerous
3) Trying to find Articling (basically the apprenticeship) is extremely difficult, near impossible if you want to be paid even minimum wage
4) The market for lawyers is saturated; too many lawyers, not enough work to go around
5) Extremely long hours where you end up working for less than minimum wage at times
6) Very stressful (lawyers are eight times more likely to commit suicide and have drug and alcohol problems)
7) If you want to do anything else, all of a sudden you're "over qualified"

And that's just what I came up with off the top of my head. It's a shit show.

This is a problem with all technical degrees.  Be they post secondary like doctor, lawyer, engineer, etc.. or post high school be they electrician, plumber, nurse, etc...  Any technical degree is direct employment training, and if the market for that employment has problems, problems will wind up being experienced.   Lawyer is possibly one of the hardest fields to retrain in because folks tend to be afraid of lawyers.

[YellowJersey]

5 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

This is a problem with all technical degrees.  Be they post secondary like doctor, lawyer, engineer, etc.. or post high school be they electrician, plumber, nurse, etc...  Any technical degree is direct employment training, and if the market for that employment has problems, problems will wind up being experienced.   Lawyer is possibly one of the hardest fields to retrain in because folks tend to be afraid of lawyers.

Unfortunately, unless you know someone, it's impossible to know just how bad things are in the legal profession until you're already in too deep.

 Also, don't go for an arts degree (I did English). It's not worth the paper it's printed on.

[Moonzy]

I love engineering

I studied engineering

I hate engineering

 

Interests change, things may not be what you expect them to be

Only you know what you want, tbh

 

But check your local market, see what kind of job is in demand right now and choose one that you would like

 

Also consider just jumping to work, instead of going thru college, sometimes it's not worth it depending on the field of interest

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, YellowJersey said:

Unfortunately, unless you know someone, it's impossible to know just how bad things are in the legal profession until you're already in too deep.

 Also, don't go for an arts degree (I did English). It's not worth the paper it's printed on.

That one I can confirm.  Placement rate at my school was something like 3% after 5 years.  All The performing arts are to a degree lottery jobs. This is part of why I say math.  It’s something not everyone can do, but pretty much everyone needs it done.

[MadAnt250]

Learn a trade or two.

[YellowJersey]

19 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

That one I can confirm.  Placement rate at my school was something like 3% after 5 years.  All The performing arts are to a degree lottery jobs. This is part of why I say math.  It’s something not everyone can do, but pretty much everyone needs it done.

If I were 18, I'd be looking at a trade or IT networking admin. I think those are relatively job-ready fields, particularly compared to what I did. Unfortunately, I was part of the 2003 uni intake before the "if you have a degree, you're set" mentality was proven to be completely not applicable anymore and graduated in 2008 (did a victory lap) right before the economy collapsed. So I went to law school because I had a BA in English and didn't know what else to do that wasn't a shitty minimum wage retail job; I wasn't like "Oh boy! I'm want to be a lawyer!"

[Bombastinator]

33 minutes ago, YellowJersey said:

If I were 18, I'd be looking at a trade or IT networking admin. I think those are relatively job-ready fields, particularly compared to what I did. Unfortunately, I was part of the 2003 uni intake before the "if you have a degree, you're set" mentality was proven to be completely not applicable anymore and graduated in 2008 (did a victory lap) right before the economy collapsed. So I went to law school because I had a BA in English and didn't know what else to do that wasn't a shitty minimum wage retail job; I wasn't like "Oh boy! I'm want to be a lawyer!"

“You take a degree you’re set was sort of true in the 70’s and 80’s.  Less so in the 90’s.  By 2000 it was mostly gone.  Could still apply to undergraduate in that if you have an undergrad degree in most anything you can get a grad degree in something useful.  Grad degrees are technical degrees though.   It can be argued that a doctor is a sort of really complicated plumber.