[PATB]

BS Electrical Engineering, San Jose State University
J.D., Santa Clara University School of Law

M.S. in Musicology - Head-fi University (Go HFU!)

 

[purk]

B.S. Civil Engineering from University of Alabama
M.S. Civil/Structural Engineering from North Carolina State University
Phd.....Thought about it...but rather work and get a practical experience.

 

[Zanth]

There seems to be quite a few CS and EE majors but there are also quite a few lawyers on these boards (I suppose so surprise given the volume of lawyers in the US) and a fair bit of biomed eng and bio eng majors. The latter hits close to home for me during my early years of education.

Head-fi is definitely in the upper tier of educated membership likely because the hobby appeals to these types of folks. I would be intertested to poll the number of doctoral degrees (because PhD is just one of many) that make up this board.

For me, I have a few bachelor degrees, more than a few master degrees, two professional degrees (at the bachelor level - my law degrees) and I'm presently working on a double doctorate, one of which will be a PhD.

 

[atomic]

BS in Biochemistry from Beloit College, Beloit WI
PhD in something like Nutritional Biochemistry from...??? I'm sending out applications this fall.

Beloit is an...interesting...place. The city (pop. ~35,000) is pretty economically depressed, it's an old industrial town from which the industries have almost all moved away. It does have the largest Wal-Mart in the entire state of Wisconsin, but the downtown is full of vacant shops. And then there's this small liberal arts college on top of a hill, full of upper-middle class white kids. Beloit does, however, give quite a lot of financial aid for a school of its size, which may be one of the more popular reasons for attending the college. I myself visited Macalester (my top choice, but not as much financial aid as Beloit), Grinnell (ditto on the $$), Oberlin (ditto), Vassar (put on wait list).

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed quite a bit of my college experience. Beloit has some very good academic departments, I really liked all of my professors and most of my classes. It is also a very beautiful campus. Really it was just the social aspects that drove me crazy. It was just SO SMALL (~1200 students) and such a small campus that I saw EVERYONE EVERY DAY. It was impossible to avoid someone if you didn't feel like running into them... people had the same parties every weekend... and of course all the snow in winter...

And now they're building a new $30 million science building, of course, right after I leave

 

[Mr.PD]

There is an old saying that goes it's better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and prove it.
I'm going to open my mouth.
I went to Eastern Oregon State College (now a university) in 1976. I quit in 1977.
I wasn't in the frame of mind to go to school right out of high school. But I went because of grants and scholarships and pressure from parents. I should not have wasted my time or their money. Too bad I went nuts, and ended up with a wife and a career by April of '77. I might have gone back to school and gotten that engineering degree.
But I'm happy.

 

[purk]

Mr. PD,
As a young engineer, a good education really help me open many doors into the field, but it will only take me so far w/o dedication. I always feel that education and experience goes hand in hand when looking for the first job. After that, a solid working experience is more important. I wish I have more work experience myself. As an engineer and inspector in a construction business, contractor always give me hard time on my lack of experience. I'm sure you made the right choice. I feel that education is not a last word in everything.

 

[Wmcmanus]

Quote:

Originally Posted by purk I feel that education is not a last word in everything.

I totally agree with this, and it's something that I've talked with many of my students about over the years. I think one of the main functions of colleges and universities should be to help guide students in alternative career paths, and by this I mean seeing to it that they understand the world beyond their campus borders and are not always be predisposed to the "our way is the best way (or only way)" attitude.

Far too often, the small, private, liberal arts colleges that I've taught at fail to provide adequate assistance in this regard (and the major universities that I've attended are by far worse, because you simply become a "number" in the system). The small, private colleges may focus, for example, in making sure that as many of their undergrad bio and chem majors get accepted into medical school as possible, which is all fine a good. But what about everyone else? There are a TON of business school grads who leave campus without a job or understanding the first thing about career development, or even where to look for jobs that will get them on a path that works for THEM. In other words, while the overall mission of the place may be served by always striving for "the best" in curriculum development and so forth, there are practical aspects that can, and do, get overlooked.

The whole "college thing" worked for me in the sense that university life is where I started to feel my "groove" in life to the point that education itself became the source of my career. Now how cool is that? If you really enjoy being a student, you can just hang out and do it for a couple more years, teaching part-time as a grad assistant, and then eventually becoming a faculty member somewhere. I still remember my first eye opening experience as a student (I must have been about 19 or 20) when it occurred to me that I could do a better job at teaching our cost accounting class than the prof was doing! (Ok, so he was pretty lousy, but it was still a powerful feeling.) Soon I began to meet at the library with several of my friends who were in the class, and show them easier ways to solve the problems that we were doing in class. Something just clicked and I thought to myself, "Hey, I could do this." But I always wonder what would have happened if I had ended up working as an accountant at Caterpillar. Not a bad company, not a bad job, but it held zero interest for me, and I think a lot of college students face this same type of issue, "Now that I have this degree, what am I going to do with it?" This is where the bridge between the college/university and real life ought to be made stronger.

 

[The Monkey]

B.A., Vassar College
J.D., Hofstra University

 

[hongda]

I would be interested in reading what peoples opinions are on Graduate School from a faculty point of view. In one regard, graduate school is a preparation/training for things later in life, such as academia or management. However, as many people have pointed out, graduate school is not for everyone. Viewing grad school and our group as a PhD student, it's difficult to gauge whether a student should be in grad school or not. For a master's degree, especially in engineering, students seem to be in grad school simply because it is the next step. There are many students, previously and currently, that view graduate school as extension of undergraduate where they take course work and rely on the professor for every step of their research, gaining no independence or critical thinking. For me the difficulty comes in gauging when a student should have reached that independent phase of their education and whether the student just simply is not suited for graduate school or is ill-trained.

 

[Murdoch]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DanG I currently attend Williams College. The universities and colleges I've studied at, in chronological order, are: Boston University, Williams College, UMass Boston, Salem State College, and Williams College again.

My wife got her M.Ed. from UMass Boston! Took some classes at Salem State on the way to that masters too. Good schools. Someone once told her that UMass Boston was higher ed's best kept secret.

I got my BA from UMass Amherst, MAT from Tufts.

The Tufts mascot is an elephant- name of the sports teams: The Jumbos! I kid you not.

 

[Jahn]

For me, grad school was great, because i was old enough to appreciate education and just have fun with it. It's not like the pressure of undergrad, where you feel like you're in a rush to get somewhere else, like to the right job, the right grad school, the right life.

grad school for me was more laid back - like you knew where you were going and you were just enjoying the time to learn more about the journey. sounds hokey i know but it really helped me get the right mindset (and critical tools) to do what i do now - and it never hurts to have it on the resume, hehe.

 

[Jahn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Murdoch The Tufts mascot is an elephant- name of the sports teams: The Jumbos! I kid you not.

The only cool mascot i ever had were the Fordham Rams. Now that's a team.
Far better than the Oberlin Yeomen (yeo-what?) or the worst-

The University of Delaware Fightin' Blue Hens! Our mascot, a big blue fightin' chicken, is so ridiculous, that it's a perennial mascot on those college gameday promos on ESPN, right there with the Syracuse Orangemen lol.

 

[jpburton5150]

*DREAM*
BS EE University Illinois - UC
PhD EE Stanford University
(We have a long ling of PhDs and Proffs and a Nobel Prize Winner in the family </brag>)

Now if UIUC would ever put out their application
...jeeze, I mean I already was accepted to Purdue

 

[Jubei]

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Majored in English.

Nice campus, as some have already noted. A very different environment from education in Hong Kong - studying in the US is much more relaxed. I started my university education pursuing economics, but then midway, I decided I wanted to do something I REALLY liked.

I think the experience really changed me as a person. I had the best times of my life (so far) there. Did what I wanted to do without being hassled.

By the way, it is interesting that people in this forum seem very educated. And I would really like to see more people outside the US contribute to this thread!!

 

[BANGPOD]

Head-Fi'ers --

I am currently attending Emory University (Atlanta, GA).
Hopefully, that will be Harvard/Cornell University next fall.

Baseball is great here, but I need more academic challenges.

BANGPOD