Would You Go Back to University?

[rudder]

When I was younger I went to the University and got a BA of General Studies. It certainly proved to be completely useless and has had no benefit for my post-university life whatsoever. I should've studied agriculture or something along those lines, because prior to the useless BA I got an AS in Horticulture.

Now, more than ten years later I have been toying with the idea of going back to the university and actually studying something useful like soil science.

I even went as far as to contact an adviser from the BA university and ask what general ed courses (if any) I would still need to take for their ag degree. Turns out a lot of the requirements are satisfied with the old credits of when I went to school way back when. Unfortunately, not everything though. I'd still need to take a couple semesters of math, which is a big turn off. Another big turn off is that they have some new diversity core requirement, so you'd have to take some sort of Native American studies or Food & Cultures course. A couple other things that are also irrelevant.

This is the problem with these university programs I see. Are there any ag-related programs, soil science, botany, or similar that don't require the student to waste time paying for and spending hundreds of hours studying irrelevant garbage to be a "well-rounded" graduate?

Is it true that much of society is still hung up on job applicants having a university degree?

Wouldn't the better job candidate be the one that just read the same core textbooks, and spent the hundreds to thousands of extra hours reading additional relevant texts instead of being forced to spend that time studying irrelevant topics in order to tick the box of having a university degree?

How are these universities staying relevant? I mean I went on libgen and downloaded a 700 page textbook for soil science and am reading it cover to cover. I don't see hardly any math involved, so it's not like I need to waste time studying two semesters of calculus to comprehend soil science.
How can they stay relevant? I thought people got fed up with universities when they started trying to force students to get covid jabs to attend. Then I noticed that the staff page of my alma mater's website includes a line under each staff member's photo: "Preferred pronouns: He, him, his" WTF?!

Seems pretty silly that the universities are inflexible with forcing you to study irrelevant topics. Couldn't you reason with them and say, "look I'm not going to give you money and attend your university if you make me study these irrelevant topics, so how about we substitute them for an additional chemistry course, or an additional ag course that's actually tangentially relevant to the degree I want."

[Natural_Born_Cynic]

I wouldn't.
American University is a waste of time and money right now. American University is a racket.
But if you must, why don't you go to University in the Netherlands or in Europe? Cost way way more cheaper than American university and education is just as good or harder. Plus you get to work in Europe if you manage to find connections there.

[Roccia]

University was horrible. My male classmates were all archetypal far-left soyboys. They were 'trust the science' types who always obediently wore their masks. I had several tranny classmates. I had a compulsory course with classes about gender and black 'culture'. This is why I scoff at people when they try to claim intellectual superiority because they studied at university. Most of the people there are borderline retarded and have zero independent thoughts. All they are capable of is absorb the propaganda fed to them.

[MrMan]

When I was younger I went to the University and got a BA of General Studies. It certainly proved to be completely useless and has had no benefit for my post-university life whatsoever. I should've studied agriculture or something along those lines, because prior to the useless BA I got an AS in Horticulture.

Now, more than ten years later I have been toying with the idea of going back to the university and actually studying something useful like soil science.

My condolences on your major. I was a little hesitant when they proposed a liberal arts program where I work. But I voted for it for the poor student who spins his wheels for years and can't get a degree. I could tell the dean proposing it did not like my question of where they could work with that degree. I recall going to law school as part of his answer. But I voted for it, and they approved it. I just wouldn't advise a student to take it, but it sounds better than General Studies to get a job.

I was a Linguistics major. And I did go back to school. I don't share my masters and PhD topic because I like to remain anonymous and I have shared so much detail on this forum, someone might figure out who I am. I have had that happen on another forum.

My question for you is if you are thinking of going back and adding courses to your Gen-Ed courses to get another degree, why not just get a masters degree? You may have to spend two years on top of the gen ed courses you earned. Maybe you get some credit for a 'general education' course that happened to align with what you want to study.

Right now, the third tier universities in the US can be a little desperate for students because of the population dip after 9/11 where people stopped having as many babies. Covid-19 was an excuse for dropping the SAT/ACT requirements for admission. They are desperate for student revenue, too, but they are trying to compete for students right now. It might be easier to get into that so-so flagship state university that is not in the top 50. Usually transfer students get into top 50 schools fairly easily compared to freshmen anyway.

My question would be what do you hope to do with a degree in agriculture? Is there anything you can do with a bachelors in agriculture that you cannot do with an AS in horticulture and a bachelors in general studies? Don't just blindly return to school hoping an ag job will appear if you get a degree. A general studies job that satisfied all your desires did not appear last time, did it? Can't you grow flowers or corn or soybeans with your current degree. I don't know much about doors ag-related degrees open, except maybe ag-econ, and I don't know all that much about that. But Amex hires economists to do stuff with their credit card calculations, I heard, and ag-econ will do.

I've got a PhD and four people I can think of off the top of my head that I knew growing up or in my early 20s doctorates. I have worked in academia. I know about certain fields of study and the job market. Agriculture isn't my area of expertise. But if you want a degree in agriculture, I'd recommend researching it fi4st. Look into some jobs that the degree will open up. If it doesn't open up any career opportunities, why spend money on the degree? Even if you got a free ride and you could have earned money for two years, you are out that full-time income, or the difference you would have made. Of course, doing what you are passionate about is worth something, too. But you could also work in a factory for years, save money, maybe borrow a bit if you have to, buy a house on some land, and open a big green house nursery and plant little plants they sell at Walmart in the spring or open your own tree nursery or farm. None of that requires a degree. An accounting class might help you with that if you were already a skilled farmer or gardener. My wife is a pretty good gardener. Other gardeners were impressed by the food jungle behind our house, and she is YouTube educated, YouTube and other stuff online and whatever else she studies.

I would imagine our farmer ancestors usually did not have degrees, except if your ancestor owned a big plantation or hacienda.

Get on indeed or maybe the state government job board and start look up jobs and throw in degree titles in the key words and see if there is a degree required for what you really want to do. If you work somewhere that just requires a degree, you have one of them.

Now, there are masters degrees that can train you in specific things. Back when I was teaching overseas with a Linguistics degree, I couldn't get a job at the higher paying international schools. I worked at a 'national plus' school teaching kindergarten because their accreditation did not require any special course path to teach kindergarten, but I figured out I wasn't cut out for that grade level and preferred to teach teens or young adults. I considered a MAT degree, a masters of arts in teaching, where they teach the subject matter in the masters, along with teaching. Most masters in teaching type degrees are for people who had an undergraduate degree in the area they were already certified to teach. I was looking into a TESOL degree, but I realized that it would be hard to work at an international school with that degree. It would be better4 to teach History or English or something else with an ESL add-on credential. I also wanted an education that could get me a job in the US. International school for my kids would be expensive. So redoing two years of a bachelors did not make sense. So I got a masters and a PhD and I can teach at the university level in another field.

If you have a background for it, a masters in engineering can pay quite well. There are people who get MBAs, which are good-- and they have them face-to-face or online, often for a year and a half if you go full-time. But it might be hard to get a job if you have no background in anything the MBA applies to. An MBA can tick a box to let you go up higher in a company. If you come from a non-business background through a top two-year top or second tier school to work in finance, that may help. I hear there is still a massive shortage of accounting PhDs, and it pays really well, but it would probably help to be an accountant first. I would imagine someone could do an MBA or Macc in accounting and then be a PhD in it or do something similar for finance, which also pays well but probably not as well as accounting.

If you want a masters in engineering, the sciences, economics, or business, it would help to know statistics, and you would probably need calculus for engineering and some of the sciences. You'd need calculus for economics, and at the doctoral level, you _might_ need it for business degrees depending on the school.

There are some hot fields right now. Cybersecurity is hot right now. A few years back, I heard there were associates degrees students making 90K. There are also people who come out of coding bootcamps who might be able to make 70. There are short courses. A dean of a community college told me about a short course on how to install cell phone equipment that pays in the 40's after a few weeks when you graduate. He had a short course to train people to work in manufacturing, a course in drones (maybe for the cell tower installers.) Some of these courses he had money for scholarships for locals.

Other things that require a short time of study include customs brokers (you have to pass a test or tests), real estate appraiser, real estate agent... there are a lot of other routes you could go.

I've got a nephew who a year or year and a half ago was in jail briefly for some legal problems as a 17-year-old. He'd stopped going to one of the top public schools in the state, and was vaping and drinking with buddies. He went to night school and didn't attend class, then finally got a GED. He was working at a chicken restaurant and quit his job. The last I heard, he was working for a tractor factory making $26 an hour. It was a lousy shift, but he doesn't have a degree. He works a lot of overtime, too. Baby boomers are retiring and there are good factory jobs out there.

You mentioned soil science. Do you live in a heavily agricultural area? I could see if there were a lot of farms where you live, that you might be able to earn a decent living doing that. But why not get a masters instead of spending the same amount of time on a bachelors? And see if European schools are cheaper. Europe has dirt, too. Google's generative AI says, "As of December 2023, the average salary for a soil scientist in the United States is $91,463, with a range of $60,000–$137,000. The average hourly rate is $43.97."

That looks like it could be okay for a masters degree, depending on what you are making now. And I'd imagine a lot of the jobs are where the cost of housing and land is cheaper.

[publicduende]

I am a product of the European engineering school system and, to be completely honest, if I had to pay even $5,000 a year for that course, I wouldn't have done it. The saving grace about European colleges are that courses are generally very cheap or even free, depending on the country. Universities are public and subsidised by the respective government.

If you happen to qualify for a European degree, I would warmly recommend you look at that option, prior to considering wasting tens of thousands for a US college. I am not sure the situation now but I am certain that, up until about 10 years ago, you could study in Finland for free, and they would even throw in free Finnish courses!

Another expression of the usual American exceptionalism, is to think that US colleges are better than their European or Asian counterparts. An engineering degree in Europe is usually 5 years and corresponds to an undergraduate + postgraduate course put together.

The problem with STEM courses is that they make for a great cultural foundation on which to build more specialised skills, e.g. postgrad or PhD level, but you come out with hardly anything that's appicable to real life jobs. I came out knowing (and quickly forgetting!) everything about the chemistry of switching devices, yet I was barely able to solder stuff on a circuit board. A vocational school graduate would know 10x better than me how to put electronics components together, or repair stuff.

All in all, if your vocation is agriculture, why don't you invest that college money in teaming up with like-minded people and create a startup that does something innovative with agriculture? Looks like you already have enough education. I think what you might need is resolve to use that knowledge to the Greater Good.

[gsjackson]

I agree with everything said above, but would point out one thing. What makes American grad schools exceptional -- the reason why so many foreign students attend -- is how much money they have. Many programs provide full tuition plus a stipend in the neighborhood of $1,500/month. Sometimes being a teaching assistant or research assistant is required in return, sometimes not. It all depends on the university and program. I wouldn't even think about going without first checking to see what kind of financial assistance is available and whether you can get it.

[Natural_Born_Cynic]

I am a product of the European engineering school system and, to be completely honest, if I had to pay even $5,000 a year for that course, I wouldn't have done it. The saving grace about European colleges are that courses are generally very cheap or even free, depending on the country. Universities are public and subsidised by the respective government.

If you happen to qualify for a European degree, I would warmly recommend you look at that option, prior to considering wasting tens of thousands for a US college. I am not sure the situation now but I am certain that, up until about 10 years ago, you could study in Finland for free, and they would even throw in free Finnish courses!

Another expression of the usual American exceptionalism, is to think that US colleges are better than their European or Asian counterparts. An engineering degree in Europe is usually 5 years and corresponds to an undergraduate + postgraduate course put together.

The problem with STEM courses is that they make for a great cultural foundation on which to build more specialised skills, e.g. postgrad or PhD level, but you come out with hardly anything that's appicable to real life jobs. I came out knowing (and quickly forgetting!) everything about the chemistry of switching devices, yet I was barely able to solder stuff on a circuit board. A vocational school graduate would know 10x better than me how to put electronics components together, or repair stuff.

All in all, if your vocation is agriculture, why don't you invest that college money in teaming up with like-minded people and create a startup that does something innovative with agriculture? Looks like you already have enough education. I think what you might need is resolve to use that knowledge to the Greater Good.

@rudder
Why don't you apply for student visa in the Netherlands and go to university there?

I mean the Netherlands have lot of those vertical farming startups.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... echnology/

Best agricultural university in the Netherlands
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-g ... l-sciences

The Dutch are world class in Building Dykes and vertical farming platforms.
Your degree will mean something and your tuition will be cheap.
You can work in a vertical farm startup and use your work experience somewhere else.

[publicduende]

@rudder
Why don't you apply for student visa in the Netherlands and go to university there?

I mean the Netherlands have lot of those vertical farming startups.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... echnology/

Best agricultural university in the Netherlands
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-g ... l-sciences

The Dutch are world class in Building Dykes and vertical farming platforms.
Your degree will mean something and your tuition will be cheap.
You can work in a vertical farm startup and use your work experience somewhere else.

@Natural_Born_Cynic is right. I personally wouldn't want to learn about "soil science" if the future of farming is soil-less (hydroponics). I don't even know where the state of the art lies but, surely, there are universities in Europe that can teach you that for a lower tuition fee than US colleges.

[Natural_Born_Cynic]

@rudder
Why don't you apply for student visa in the Netherlands and go to university there?

I mean the Netherlands have lot of those vertical farming startups.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... echnology/

Best agricultural university in the Netherlands
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-g ... l-sciences

The Dutch are world class in Building Dykes and vertical farming platforms.
Your degree will mean something and your tuition will be cheap.
You can work in a vertical farm startup and use your work experience somewhere else.

@Natural_Born_Cynic is right. I personally wouldn't want to learn about "soil science" if the future of farming is soil-less (hydroponics). I don't even know where the state of the art lies but, surely, there are universities in Europe that can teach you that for a lower tuition fee than US colleges.

@rudder
Yeah American Universities are way too overpriced and overrated. The only reason they get high score is all those rich kids attending, the amount of fancy buildings, the amount of endowments(University's hedge fund), and the amount of research and development. It's all giant bullsh*t.

Vertical farming, It's also innovative and cool too. You can perhaps set up a vertical farming startup in India or in Africa or other Third world countries in order to help feed billions of people worldwide. If you have a good heart or a living saint.

[publicduende]

Vertical farming, It's also innovative and cool too. You can perhaps set up a vertical farming startup in India or in Africa or other Third world countries in order to help feed billions of people worldwide. If you have a good heart or a living saint.

Interesting you say that. I guess the Philippines qualify as a third-world country and I personally know at least one guy who is running a startup, providing top quality herbs and vegetables vertically farmed. The problem he sees is scale: he is unable to scale because of the lack of space (partly his fault, as he chose to rent a relatively expensive warehouse in Makati) and the price tag of the basil, cilantro or mint he grows can only cater for top quality restaurants.

To revolutionise everything, one probably needs very large scale greenhouses, including highly serialised, hence cheaper, manufacturing methods for stackable hydroponic beds. Just my 2 cents based on what I saw and heard.

[Natural_Born_Cynic]

Vertical farming, It's also innovative and cool too. You can perhaps set up a vertical farming startup in India or in Africa or other Third world countries in order to help feed billions of people worldwide. If you have a good heart or a living saint.

Interesting you say that. I guess the Philippines qualify as a third-world country and I personally know at least one guy who is running a startup, providing top quality herbs and vegetables vertically farmed. The problem he sees is scale: he is unable to scale because of the lack of space (partly his fault, as he chose to rent a relatively expensive warehouse in Makati) and the price tag of the basil, cilantro or mint he grows can only cater for top quality restaurants.

To revolutionise everything, one probably needs very large scale greenhouses, including highly serialised, hence cheaper, manufacturing methods for stackable hydroponic beds. Just my 2 cents based on what I saw and heard.

I maybe a cynic, but I still have some good heart left(of course hidden under a thick layer of cynicism).
I mean the Netherlands are smaller than the Philippines and they manage to pull it off and become one of top food exporter...
I guess if the Philippino government supports the project.. then it can work. Too bad they corrupt and inefficient.

[MrMan]

I agree with everything said above, but would point out one thing. What makes American grad schools exceptional -- the reason why so many foreign students attend -- is how much money they have. Many programs provide full tuition plus a stipend in the neighborhood of $1,500/month. Sometimes being a teaching assistant or research assistant is required in return, sometimes not. It all depends on the university and program. I wouldn't even think about going without first checking to see what kind of financial assistance is available and whether you can get it.

At the PhD level, I hear some of the European schools are better, paying a better salary, but with more teaching, and the PhD is more like an internship there, with US schools focusing more on seminars (PhD talk for classes.)

[MrMan]

Not sure if vertical farming is the way to go. If they figure out how to make cheap energy out of nuclear fusion, maybe that will lead to cheaper light bills for the LED lights and more vertical farming, but there is still a lot of usable farm land on the earth.

[MrMan]

Vertical farming, It's also innovative and cool too. You can perhaps set up a vertical farming startup in India or in Africa or other Third world countries in order to help feed billions of people worldwide. If you have a good heart or a living saint.

Interesting you say that. I guess the Philippines qualify as a third-world country and I personally know at least one guy who is running a startup, providing top quality herbs and vegetables vertically farmed. The problem he sees is scale: he is unable to scale because of the lack of space (partly his fault, as he chose to rent a relatively expensive warehouse in Makati) and the price tag of the basil, cilantro or mint he grows can only cater for top quality restaurants.

I don't know why someone would choose expensive land with little room for expansion. What size is required to max out scale economies and what kind of scale is needed to be competitive. I'm thinking crops that require a lot of sunlight might be something to grow in the tropics at a place like that. But the crop that comes to mind are large onions for onion rings, since there isn't enough sunlight per day for those type of northern summer crops in the tropics. But onions like that are heavy, and I don't know if that would work well with the vertical setup, or if they are expensive enough for the money to work out. Don't mint and basil grow in the ground in the tropics? Would it be that hard to get fresh shipments from the nearest conventional farms.

[publicduende]

I don't know why someone would choose expensive land with little room for expansion. What size is required to max out scale economies and what kind of scale is needed to be competitive. I'm thinking crops that require a lot of sunlight might be something to grow in the tropics at a place like that. But the crop that comes to mind are large onions for onion rings, since there isn't enough sunlight per day for those type of northern summer crops in the tropics. But onions like that are heavy, and I don't know if that would work well with the vertical setup, or if they are expensive enough for the money to work out. Don't mint and basil grow in the ground in the tropics? Would it be that hard to get fresh shipments from the nearest conventional farms.

From what I understand, hydroponic beds are equipped with everything the plants need to grow and thrive, including a "closed loop system" (sensors regulating light, heating, ventilation, and irrigation). That means that the requirements for the enclosed space where those beds are located are almost irrelevant. Everything else being equal, there is an infinity of cheap warehouses all over the country.

My startup acquaintance probably acquired an expensive location in Makati to get the "zero mile" advantage, i.e. to be able to deliver the freshest produce to the high-end restaurants located in Makati or the other business districts nearby (BGC and Ortigas are both 20-30 minutes away, traffic permitting) as quickly as possible. I also know that, unfortunately, his expenses are high and, when investor support dries up, he might have a failing business model right there.

This is their website, if you guys are interested. https://www.eaturbangreens.com/