It’s what being an adult is like. You don’t study for the fanfare, you study for a goal or for yourself.
That and if you have a significant other, you might also score a celebratory shagging.
Edit: Never mind, just realized this is an anon on 4chan posting about engineering school.
You’re still right, but OP’s SO is their dominant hand.
I’m kind of surprised; most colleges and universities I’ve seen still have a ceremony for people graduating at the end of the fall semester. It’s not nearly as elaborate as the one ending the spring semester, but it’s still something.
Still, most of life is going to be like that. Usually no real ceremonies for the last day on the job. Move out of your old house/apartment is a lot of work at the end and then you lock the door for the last time.
Congratulations, you’re an adult now.
Slight difference; being an ex on has the opposite effect on your ability to get a job.
Agreed, Exxon is a horrible company but I hear the pay is good. It would be tough for an ex-con to get a job as well.
Oof, touché.
Leaving it as is.
I’ve never attended a singe scholarly celebration since my middle schools where I went and realized that it was completely pointless
plus the whole preparation and fanfare is draining for me, id like to actually celebrate by relaxing not stressing over an event
I feel that. Too many people, and most are just sitting there, looking at other people and clapping.
Validation need not come from anywhere outside yourself. Set your own goals. Do your best. Pat yourself on the back. People who ‘recognize’ you only do so superficially anyway. No one can truly know what you’ve done or where you’ve been.
I mean, sure, but it is still nice to have some external validation now and again you know?
…said the mouse in the maze.
How about climbing over those walls, up the leg of the biggest scientist, enter through the eye socket, and hollow out that skull. That’s all the validation anyone needs. Yum!
Now you made me want to read Enders Game again. Cheers!
Two things. 1. If you hated it maybe it was the wrong choice, 2. You can walk in the spring commencement if you want to, that’s what I did for grad school.
I love engineering, I hated University. The framework of school is not for everyone and reading 300 pages of complex stuff every week for 4 years is boring to death and it isn’t for me, and for a lot of people.
School of all levels caters to one type of learning, and not everyone is good with that style.
I experienced a wide array of learning types. Some profs rely on student-led learning from book readings and assignments, some relied on in-person lectures, some worked through examples in class and had similar examples on homework along with challenge problems that extend the examples in new ways, one had us use mathcad to build a model of increasing complexity with each lecture.
Saying university caters to one type is an absurd reduction. Unless that one type is “learning”.
Engineering is a skilled trade with a long list of topics that have to be covered. You don’t have to be an engineer, you could do a two year tech school or just DIY and roll your own, prove yourself through your work to get into engineering-like jobs.
Good for you. My experience is that the program was geared towards people that would continue to masters and PhDs.
I had an exam every two weeks, hundreds of pages every week to read and the professors weren’t really available for us, and teaching assistant didn’t really give a shit.
The labs were mostly just math labs, with really specific applications.
My only real project was the end of program project that lasted a bit short of 2 years. And the professors that were supposed to help us and support us told us that the project would fail for a good part of a year and a half. And when the project was a success and gave exposure to the school, the same professors that gave us shit for almost the entirety of the project took the credit for a successful project.
If you wanted to do hands on engineering, you had to join extra curricular teams.
My opinion on the matter is certainly tainted by my awful experience, but I did a program to become a technician in my field before going to engineering school and it was much more appropriate for my learning style.
- if you hated engineering in uni, will you love the work afterwards?
Depends if who you work for. If you work for bad management prepare for some goon to tell you what you should be doing, be wrong about what they tell you, not know what they want, and to demand it sooner than you tell them it will take. They will then change their mind and still expect it to take less time. They will be constantly frustrated with you and you will hate it.
Good management will find work with clear value to customers and you will feel valued and be given *mostly adequate time to do your work. You will put in your hours and be paid. You’ll still be jerked around by typical corporate politics, but it’s everywhere so buckle up. Better than ditch digging unless that’s what you want.
Good management should insulate engineers from most of the corporate politics. My manager, for example, knows we get surprises, so they add in extra time to whatever estimate we give, and he tells stakeholders that this is a firm estimate, which they’ll inevitably push back on and they’ll concede down to something a little higher than our initial estimate (i.e. handle the corporate politics).
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Does it matter if you hate the work if it’s the only thing you can find that pays more than subsistence wages?
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Do any of our lives matter in this hell?
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Depends on the person, depends on the University.
From what I’ve seen (very old anecdote here, take with salt) some engineering colleges will do everything within the ethics/honor code to obstruct your path to 2nd year. Then they do it again for 3rd. The result are brutally hard classes that are designed to weed students out more than teaching the subject at hand. Even on its best day, school doesn’t mirror the real world, but neither does semester after semester of arbitrary hurdles for a degree. The workplace simply has entirely different, but far more palatable, bullshit on offer. IMO, it’s completely valid to hate school but love your job afterwards.
I just didn’t go to my graduation ceremony, despite there being free dinner. Was (and had been for ages) struggling with pretty bad depression and didn’t feel I deserved any of it.
I’ve got 3 degrees and have a Gold Duke of Edinburgh award (if you do bronze, silver, and gold, you get to shake hands with a failed king)
- Never went to any graduation ceremony
- Never went to Buckingham Palace to shake hands with Prince Philip.
I am right now, sitting at home in my jammies eating burritos. I regret nothing.
How do I become smart? All I do are online courses for tech and such. I have an established career. Good money, house family and shit…but I want the prestige of at least having a degree. But I’m functionally retarded with math.
How do I become smart? All I do are online courses for tech and such. I have an established career. Good money, house family and shit
Congrats, you are smart.
The challenge you have now is to acknowledge and feel it.
but I want the prestige of at least having a degree
So here’s the problem. you want the prestige, not the intelligence. You can get a degree in various ways if you want, and have the time. You can attend a university course part time, or through their online facilities. Choose a topic you’ve done a lot of online courses for and try for a degree.
But I’m functionally retarded with math.
There’s resources online to help with this, maybe the new methods will help you understand math concepts better. Common core, khan academy, and the sponsor of this lemmy post, skillshare
For some tracks there are even speedrun/lower-cost guides for online degrees through places like WGU. They except transfers from online courses as well. You can do it cheap, especially if you get tuition reimbursement.
I just found out my state (Massachusetts) offers associates programs at any state CC for anyone who doesn’t already have a degree. For adults over 25 the program is called MassReconnect. I’d have to look into transfers, but I imagine those could be transferred to WGU towards a 4yr or post-grad degree. Some of the CC programs can also be done all (or mostly) online.
I do want to earn the degree. Not fast track my way through or anything. Im 33. I skipped higher education for CS, MS, Networking certs. The general ed courses are my only stopping block. And widdling that down more it really is math.
I won’t commit until I put my money where my mouth is most of the time. I’ve learned that from burning myself out with certs.
The general ed courses are my only stopping block. And widdling that down more it really is math.
It sounds like you’re from the US. Some of the international universities might have paths that don’t require strict maths… maybe a logic course? Not sure.
Anyway, part time education doesn’t fast track, it’s usually the opposite. Check out some courses to see if they might offer you a path that’s more suitable.
For example, this course from London Met doesn’t have any maths requirements :
However, part time/remote options aren’t very clear on that website.
You can do this course remotely with the Open university , but it has maths requirements
most important is that you enjoy it. Not having the degree didn’t stop you achieving before, so it should be for self fulfilment. I also don’t have a degree per se (more a diploma/dropout) but it’s fun to look into this stuff and play pretend with a stranger’s life from time to time.
Best of luck with everything, dear stranger.
You don’t need to be smart. Back in my uni, there were student initiatives to record the questions and answers of previous exams. The Math department itself gave out previous years exams to study from.
The key to remember: exams aren’t written my professors, they’re written by the postdocs who have better things to do, and so they just rehash the same stuff from the year before.
If you want to get a useless piece of paper that tells you that you are an expert in topic X, then don’t learn X, learn to pass the papers for the X exam, and learn X later in your free time if you’re still interested in it.
Hmm…sounds like something I need to look into. I do want the useless piece of paper. But I want to earn it. For myself lol
Something, something judging a fish by it’s ability to climb a tree
I think you’re a smart person that’s terrible at math. It’s ok to be bad at math, I am too and I have a degree in computer science with a union job. Now that I’ve thrown away a bunch of money, I’ve learned that CS is awesome and I love it but I don’t feel like I can qualify myself as being smart with it. With age I learned that I’m really smart with labor militancy and history, and if I could go back I’d get a degree in labor studies. I think you just need to find your topic.
I also think I can be a smart person that is terrible at math. I have so many niches of hobbies that I’ve gotten into, and my boss has already reiterated that a degree isn’t going to help my tech ical skills at this point. But it’s something I’d like to earn for myself. So the sky (and my wallet) are the limit on the degree I’d get.
I graduated in the winter in 2023, didn’t attend the ceremony or anything. I have really bad social anxiety so the ceremony seemed like more stress than a celebration for me, I just ordered food and relaxed. But I do remember, after walking out of my last final, thinking “damn do that’s it huh”, I know it’s just a bachelors degree but I didn’t believe in myself enough to even think I’d ever actually graduate. Things turned out okay though, even had a job lined up before graduation which was lucky given the current job market for software engineering. Believe in yourself, your hard work got you that degree, proud of you man!
Thanks. I’ve done pretty well for myself, I’d like to say. I landed a nice job around six months later and have been able to show my talent pretty well. Due to fighting with depression I entered the workforce around ten years after most of my peers. As an engineer, I’ve caught up the median pay for my peers with 15 years more experience. Can’t complain.
I also skipped my graduation. But just because I don’t like that kind of stuff.
Why do you feel like you didn’t deserve to graduate? I’m sure you did deserve it.
Felt I didn’t deserve to celebrate. Depression messes up with your brain big time.
I get you. It’s hard to think otherwise when all the world is a grey mist.
Didn’t go to any of mine outside of high school because I was a kid and my parents could force me on that one. By the time I finished grad school I really felt like I was just another person in an increasingly growing rat race. It’s not even that I haven’t accomplished anything so much as I haven’t accomplished anything particularly unique that sets me apart and grants me intellectual value.
I skipped as much as my parents would let me get away with, because in my mind, walking for graduation is give the graduate’s family and friends a chance to formally congratulate them. I hated every minute of it, but I can deal with that for one day to make my family happy.
When I finished school, I was already working full-time in my career (internship turned into a FT opportunity), so walking didn’t feel valuable at all.
I finished university at the end of 2019. My graduation ceremony was supposed to have happened in 2020 but uh, other things happened. It took me until the latter half of 2022 to even get my hands on my diploma.
Getting out of the military is a lot like that as well
… and then i walked out of the Outprocessing building and took off my beret while still in uniform and walked to my car.
I had my CO sign a paper and then I grabbed my two bags and walked off base. Got an uber to the airport and that was that. Most anticipated but anticlimactic day of my life. I did smoke weed for the first time that day though so that was fun
If one is not inclined to social gatherings but still feel a need for something to signal this passage (or any other), a good option is to perform a personal ritual of choice.
Human brains seem to be inclined to appreciate symbolism.
While I agree with the sentiment, I don’t think that the lack of ritual is the underlying problem here.
idk
frfr
Yeah I just had em mail me the thing
Why you do graduation ceremony btw? We don’t do that here.
It’s a pretty big accomplishment so the schools like to throw a little party. It also allows students to invite family to see the campus and get an idea of how fast they can chug a beer.
First you listen to a bunch of speeches. Then they call everyone’s name individually, and you walk across a stage, shake hands with some people, get handed a degree. Then maybe everyone throws their hat in the air.
The worst part for me was that during my high school graduation, I was expected to shake the governor’s hand. I had been quite involved in politics that election, but not old enough to vote, and I really disliked out governor (they were in the majority party and barely won w/ <200 votes after multiple recounts, when most major party governors won by >10%). The governor apparently attended my high school, hence the invitation.
Add to that the complete worthlessness of my high school diploma, because I was able to get a 2-year degree before getting my diploma due to concurrent enrollment at a local community college. So not only was it a worthless degree at a school I barely attended the last two years, I had to shake the hand of a politician I hated.
Screw graduation ceremonies, they’re complete wastes of time.
We are, we are, we are, we are
We are the engineers!
We can, we can, we can, we can
Demolish forty beers
Drink rum, drink rum, drink rum, drink rum
And come along with us!
'Cos we don’t give a fuck about anyone else
Who don’t give a fuck about us.
That’s what the first engineer I ever met said, but to be fair he was a combat engineer. Those guys are scary. Stick to electronics and bridges…
I wonder why they hated school. Maybe the problem was the school and not the topic? Otherwise I feel sad for them disliking the topic they chose as a career path :(
I feel like there’s so much interesting stuff out there, there must be something useful that they find at least interesting.
Engineering school is pretty brutal. I love the career and in many ways I loved the schooling, but it was long nights of hard work on difficult stuff, a lot of which you need to understand for the profession but won’t have to do personally outside school. As a whole engineering school has a reputation because of that disparity as well as because some people go through it because it’s a well paying career and not because it’s where they feel they will be happiest, and engineering isn’t a good choice for folks like that.
Fully agree. I’ve seen a lot of people going into engineering for prestige or “by default” because they weren’t bad at math. It always made me a little sad because I found a lot of the courses truly fascinating and eye-opening and I wanted to nerd out with my teammates!
Man, I know it. I love talking about work. I love the stuff i design. But I’m pretty much the only one in my office like that, and it’s kind of a bummer.
Educational institutions are mostly there either to make money or as a public necessity that the rich underfund to have a malleable electorate. The institutions are therefor often understaffed, incompletely equipped, or spending money on things of no benefit to education. The majority of lecturers are thus often quite underpaid, overworked, and unmotivated, which leads to many students being unimpressed.
There are very few institutions and staff that really can show up to work with a smile and be satisfied with their employment.
It’s at times baffling and yet understandable why people do not vote for people or parties that want to treat education as a priority. They are a product of the influence of the rich and powerful on our institutions. That this dude is unsatisfied is no surprise to me.
Dang, I did not have the same experience in education! I’m thankful that the situation seems less dire where I’m from. Professors are quite well paid, definitely upper class; while tuition costs are less than 1k€ per year (with financial help available). As they are public institutions, Universities in Belgium do lack funds and their equipment/infrastructure is sometimes in a worse state than American or UK Unis. But still not too shabby!
Thankfully there is often a pretty big difference between studying and working.
I found there to be a level of stress in my studies that I never had a problem with later. An idea that any moment not spent pouring over books was contributing, at least in my mind, to inevitable failure; doubly so with exams looming ahead.
For me finishing my engineering degree was such a massive relief and work is so much better. I’m in anon’s boat.
Life can definitely feel easier after you find a job with a steady workflow. It’s the slow creep of responsibilities that will eventually overtake the stress of having been a student.
Oh the people who managed a few critical but rarely used pieces of equipment left? Looks like you’ll have to figure out how to run it yourself now with limited notes. Your project is floundering because other departments aren’t being upfront about their workload? Now you’ll have to babysit their work and send constant emails asking them to do their job so you won’t fall behind schedule. Are you a doc approver? Better take your laptop with you during vacation to be available for signing off on it.
Yeah I can understand that sitting on a desk all day, reading and taking exams is a pretty harrowing experience for most.
It looks like it’s my personal tastes that allowed me to enjoy school. And I really did enjoy it! Hopefully other people find something to do that they love.
Yes, schools are prisons. Their purpose is not education at all but rather indoctrination, filtering, privilege, control, etc.
As a rule, strong feelings about issues do not emerge from deep understanding.
