22 replies to this topic

[WreckWench]

Dave W...

Your best best is to perhaps start your own business. If you have a skill that can be marketed then you are ahead of the game. Or if you are ambitious you can sell for others and build a base that way.

What things are you interested in? Health & Nutrition? Energy? Travel? Legal Services? All of these industries are looking for good people willing to learn and willing to work hard for themselves. Some even offer health care plans after you achieve a certain level.

And truthfully individual health care plans are FAR more reasonable now having just gotten insurance myself earlier this year.

[Dave W]

Dave W...

Your best best is to perhaps start your own business. If you have a skill that can be marketed then you are ahead of the game. Or if you are ambitious you can sell for others and build a base that way.

What things are you interested in? Health & Nutrition? Energy? Travel? Legal Services? All of these industries are looking for good people willing to learn and willing to work hard for themselves. Some even offer health care plans after you achieve a certain level.

And truthfully individual health care plans are FAR more reasonable now having just gotten insurance myself earlier this year.

Answer: none of the above. I'm good at a handful of things: music and writing are foremost. I used to be very good at dealing with computers, but there are two roadblocks there: first, I've been out of it for ten years. That's like centuries in the computer biz. Second, I'm completely self-taught, and all the shops etc. want an armload of certifications now, certifications that I can't afford to get.

What I would love to do, sort of my dream if you will, is to open a dueling piano restaurant that's family friendly. This area has 3 or 4 dueling piano bars/grills, but nothing conducive to bringing your kids and having a good family time. I'd like to fill that gap. But of course, it requires $$$ and my credit rating is in the dumper at the moment, thanks to a massive collapse in the housing market back in Boise where I came from.

Okay, I think I'm rambling again...sorry...

[peterbj7]

I am a really sucky student, I don't test well at all, and I don't enjoy one second of it. I have failed many tests where I was the one that taught it to the rest of the class in study sessions. I am good at solving problems relatively efficiently but the whole academic aspect of giving a teacher exactly what they are looking for out of 800 possible solutions to a problem never clicked with me. I am a B student at best and sometimes worse than that. Grad school was no fun the first time so I don't really want to do that again for several years. After the class part is over it would be fine, until then I would be miserable

It may well be different in the UK by now, but it used to be the case that to be considered for a PhD programme you had to be EXCEPTIONALLY good in a relevant field. I know several brilliant people who went right through PhD programmes, submitted their theses, and weren't awarded PhDs. And at that level there was no "class" at all, just private research and study in conjunction with your Supervisor. But as I said, it might all have changed and it might now be easy to get onto such a programme and complete it successfully.

[peterbj7]

Peter this is a very controversial subject with no good solutions all of which are rooted in politics and therefore not appropriate subject matter for this site

Well I won't raise it then

[WreckWench]

Peter this is a very controversial subject with no good solutions all of which are rooted in politics and therefore not appropriate subject matter for this site

Well I won't raise it then

[drifter]

I am a really sucky student, I don't test well at all, and I don't enjoy one second of it. I have failed many tests where I was the one that taught it to the rest of the class in study sessions. I am good at solving problems relatively efficiently but the whole academic aspect of giving a teacher exactly what they are looking for out of 800 possible solutions to a problem never clicked with me. I am a B student at best and sometimes worse than that. Grad school was no fun the first time so I don't really want to do that again for several years. After the class part is over it would be fine, until then I would be miserable

It may well be different in the UK by now, but it used to be the case that to be considered for a PhD programme you had to be EXCEPTIONALLY good in a relevant field. I know several brilliant people who went right through PhD programmes, submitted their theses, and weren't awarded PhDs. And at that level there was no "class" at all, just private research and study in conjunction with your Supervisor. But as I said, it might all have changed and it might now be easy to get onto such a programme and complete it successfully.

Peter,
I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment that it takes talent to succeed in graduate school (I'll include the Master's level work as well).

I will say that perseverance and attitude are probably just as, if not more, important in the success rate. I've watched insanely talented students, who had a background that was off the charts, flunk out while less talented students fought their way through, and even blow me away with their work, becoming exceptionally successful simply because they refused to fail. Perhaps they were somewhat afraid of it, but they attacked it with a vengeance. There's a video on the internet called "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch. Really a good video to watch. In it, he talks about brick walls that are in your way and the fact that those brick walls are there to stop the "other guy". That's the kind of attitude that makes people successful in their life (imho).

As for classwork/research, that depends on a lot of variables. From what I've seen, most graduate programs in the US will require a mixture of the two.

[peterbj7]

As I said it may all have changed in the UK, but it used to be the case that there a PhD was awarded for a thesis based on original work (ie. no-one anywhere in the world had written on that subject), and there was no "class work" as such, and no examination - just the thesis and a "viva". A Master's was far less demanding and was largely taught in classes, with a certain amount of original thought expected but not intrinsic, and assessed by examination . A Master's was a big jump up from a Bachelor's but similar in nature - a PhD was a giant step up and quite different in nature. I know that the best PhDs are still like that, but I suspect that many have been downgraded into "examined" forms.

At bachelor level it's certainly changed a lot. When I did my first bachelor degree, I had (variably) around 10 hours of classes a week, plus 4 hours of tutorials. There was a departmental exam at the end of the first year, and a university level exam at the end of the second and at the end of the third (the end of the course). Each exam covered all material covered to date, not just since the previous exam, and (high) school work in the subject was equally covered. There was no continuous assessment and there were no "credits". Nor any other subjects - I studied one subject in greater and greater detail for the entire three years. By the time of the final examination over half of the initial group had been weeded out in one way or another. After that final examination degrees were awarded based on both university-level exams and on the views of the tutors. Degrees were in four classes - first, upper second, lower second, and third - and my year was awarded two firsts, the first time a first had been awarded on that course for three years. About 20% of the remainder were awarded upper seconds, 30% got thirds, and the balance got lower seconds. To be admitted to a Master's course one normally needed an upper second. To be admitted to PhD studies a first was almost invariably required.

Things have certainly changed since then! Now I believe there are more firsts that any other class, which says more about the courses and examinations than it does about the ability of the students. I had a number of friends reading English at bachelor level, and for many years before and after my time there was never a first awarded. Now they're commonplace.

Edited by peterbj7, 15 May 2011 - 07:14 PM.

[scubachick43]

Wow, reading this thread I know I am NOT alone. It's late here so for now I will just say. I do understand. I am in my 8th year of teaching Special Needs kids. I am ready for a change! More later!

Carolyn