oh and on pensions...

The state pension is NOT adequate to get by. If your mortgage is paid off and you have another meens of income it can tip the ballance, but people living entirely off state pension are below the breadline.

Private pensions crashed a few years back, the state pension is inadequate.

Personally I have not planned for my old age, I honestly didn't expect to live as long as I have - and now that i'm healthy it is something I am starting to think about and wondering just what i'm going to do, the most logical thing seems to be bricks and mortar - but as I never really settled I havnt even started buying my own home yet, I still rent.

So it's something of a sore point, and to say that you'll be paying for me in my old age is something or a sore point - you do realise that pensions is in an even bigger mess than education right? And has been for a decade.

Quote from PMD9409 :

I thought you went for the younger, not their mothers.

@jibber: Someone is excited.

@Klutch: She looks nice, now to wait for rave pics to see how crazy she is.

I have dated a few younger women, but honestly any younger than mid-late twenties and I just find them frustrating in the mid-term.

Quote from 5haz :

I don't, but then there are people who think all you need is experience, how do you get experience if you have nothing to start with?

Without stopping to think:

volunteer / learn off your own back / get an apprenticeship / get a related job / transfer from another department.

Quote from Sueycide_FD :

Come on. "Yo momma" died years ago

Yeah but this thread was around back then, so it still counts.

I know her! I had her mum.

I am being spoken about in this thread quite a lot, and it's had the effect that my position - by virtue of those arguing against me - has mostly been determined by those other people by their process of 3rd personing my perspective.

Unfortunately my positition has been grossly missunderstood, most notably by 5haz and Jakg who have consistently demonstrated such a poor grasp both of my position and of the subject at hand that it's no wonder they are fighting to get a university education - they need another 4 years of study just to cope with putting the latest XBox games onto the correct shelf at PC World for living.

I have not said education is a bad idea, I said it's nothing without experience and that students would be much wiser if they got some of that experience BEFORE university. And I have not said that education should be paid for up front by students. Intrepid spoke using my name to emphasise that point and that's not the case. Intrepid is a hardline conservative, I am a hardline liberal. We do not share this viewpoint, we just happen to be something of a coalition on this particular issue...

I think the students have a very generous settlement package and I think they should be very happy with it. The settlement package that they have - pay nothing back until you earn £21k, and the debt written off after so many years - is extremely forgiving!

If somebody wants to get themselves a university education - for whatever reason - and they believe that that deal is unfair in todays world then they are clearly to thick to get a degree, and a little bit of hard reality would serve them well.

I do think that we have far too many degree students in this country. This is because A levels have been reduced to such a meeningless standard now. I had a look at what is being taught in schools a few years ago, and it saddened me - the stuff exam students were expected to know I mostly covered in the 1st and 2nd year of senior school.

It's not the kids fault, the system has let them down because of a political need to show improvement... The way to do that is to dumb things down, "Our kids are 80% better educated now" based upon A levels issued rather than that piece of paper being worth what it's printed on.

For a university education to have any value at all we have to have a lot less places than we do now. University must not be the "norm". It should be for the top 3-5%.

If you're not in that top 3-5% then you're too thick.

Because the reality is there just aren't that many professional jobs.

We also need a long hard look at the degree courses people are doing, how is it possible to get a degree for so many industries which do not require degrees to work in.

As Jakg pointed out, my job as a software developer is - according to him, non academic. Apparently I don't need any theory to do my job. So I had a look online and the very first degree that I found happened to involve I.T. It uses the word internet and everything.

[code=Northampton Prospectus]Media Production and Business ... Systems BA (Hons) (P3GM)[/code]
Is that a business course, a media course, or an I.T. course? It can't make up it's mind because it's so damned general - what of any value can be learned from a course that doesn't even know what it is meant to be teaching?

That was literally the first search result, and I could go on...

We need to get rid of all the green card courses and reduce prospectii to only those professions which require a degree: law, medicine & engineering.

Oh and to answer the earlier question by 5haz I think it was, on how do nVidia make their chips... Well firstly we dont have much of a silicon industry in the UK - but it so happens that one of my first jobs when I was about 19 was working in R&D. I didn't design chips, I was young and inexperienced, but I worked in the same division as guys that did... albeit they where based in other countries because as I said we dont have much of a silicon industry here. So theoretically, if we had a silicon industry, I could have learned from my peers and moved across. So yes, it's possible.

Personally I was never that interested in electronics and hardware, but in my previous job I worked next to a guy that was, he developed custom firmware and hardware solutions for sports telemetry equipment. I could have learned from him - if I had been interested, which I wasn't.

Oh, sorry did you think that the only way to get a job was to get through a job interview already knowing how to do the job?

I agree with Rock. I've entered programming competitions where companies 'sponsored' the event by providing prizes. It absolutely is sponsorship.

The country would be fine with a thousand students a year, why do some idiots think that just coz that includes a thick no hoper from Eton that they are entitled to the same thing?

And now my tax pound is funding over half of them. Making the whole thing pointless.

When average kids have degrees there is a problem.

As for my personal finances I do ok. My income isn't bad. In short, I have everything I want out of my career. I don't really see how it's any of your business but basically I'm on a professional salary, I'm a Lead Developer.

I don't care that you under achieved with your degree, or that me - a non degree student - out performs you. Frankly, its your problem and has not helped your argument so why you bought it up I'll never know, Shaz.

Quote from 5haz :

Surgery is just an example. I'm sorry but simply reading and repeating some lines you picked up from a newspaper article or internet forum post just wont cut it if you're looking for a expert job in many fields.

I dont read the news. I havn't watched the news since Greg Dyke got ousted from the BBC. I keep myself vaguely informed of current affairs, but I did not copy / paste anything I said.

I've long since held the seemingly outspoken opinion that education isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Now in fairness I will freely admit that's because I did not get on with academia myself - I had an absolutely torrid time at school and was finaly expelled for truancy. Despite this i'm very bright.

It is sometimes difficult for me to remember that most people are not that clever, half of you are below average and i've no personal experience of that. So I admit that it can be difficult for me to relate to the "average" case.

That said I look back on what shaped me and it wasnt my education. It was what I was doing after school: I was a nerd and was writing computer games and I did it for fun. I am extremely lucky that I found what I enjoy at a very young age and so by the time I left school I already had over 10 years of experience to draw on (University only gives you a few years).

And when I consider that and compare my own life to kids coming out of university with their few years of theoretical experience and by that time I was well on my way to getting 20 years of practical experience at my chosen field, and we where going for the same jobs.

I got to thinking that if someone wants to write software for a living why dont you just write software. I learned by myself long before the advent of Google and nobody was able to teach me, my school tried to introduce a computer class - they wanted me to teach it in lunch times. Nobody in education understood I.T. back then, so I learned by myself.

Learning by yourself is what university will teach you. The skills are less important, very little of what I learned over 6 years ago still applies in todays world. Even in slower moving industries what you learn in university rarely relates to the specifics of your actual job.

I know this, because i've seen the young adults spat out of university and try to do what I do. Bless them, they get such a shock.

I've only ever worked along side educated people since I started working in the software development industry, i'm the only one that I know personally doing the job without a degree. And i'm the best, by a long way. I'm atleast 8 times faster than the average, 4 times faster than the best i've worked with.

Now forgive me, I dont make a habbit of looking down on people without my intelligence because frankly i've only ever met 1 person who I would say was brighter than me (who was an academic) - but I think you'd be a fool to believe that someone wanting to do what I do and going to university could ever hold a candle against me unless they actually put the effort in in their own time and get some real experience under their belt. They'll never do it, they'll never be up to my standard from university alone.

And if anyone ever is, i'll gladly eat humble pie.

Quote from 5haz :

there are so many professions where the education is just as vital too, you can't become a surgeon through google.

The Surgeon Objection.

Bad timing for me, i'll be in Bristol I think. I'm expecting to be in Dutchland around the end of January but I dont think i'll have much time for meeting LFS'rs, i'll be puking up in the canal outside the Korsakoff in Amsterdam and dreaming of one day making it as far as Utrecht. If anyone wants to try and keep up with me they're welcome

Quote from Jakg :

So how do you propose that anyone learns how to do a job that requires a large amount of specialist, technical knowledge - you have to learn it somehow, unless "life experience" somehow makes you an expert.

My job requires a large amount of specialist, technical knowledge. I did not go to university. I'm a serial over-achiever who left school with no qualifications. After taking a few hard knocks I developed the determination to succeed.

I'm not saying my way is the only way, and at no point have I said education is a bad idea. It has it's place. I just think that education alone is not the solution.

University leavers are NOT ready to take on the big jobs. For that you absolutely need experience. That's why brain surgeon students don't leave university and the next day crack open someones skull and start poking around with a text book, and except where the government licencing laws explitly require it (ie: medical) - an education isn't actually necessary to get certain jobs, it's just one possible route.

Take a dose of reality, education is not as important as you believe - and neither is it a requirement

Quote from 5haz :

People think that if they push paper in an office long enough they become qualified to do anything. I'm sick of armchair know-alls that think age alone will bring them wisdom.

No age does not bring wisdom. Age brings experience and you need a brain to turn that experience into wisdom. That's why I said students would be far better off living a few years first, doing the job they want to do as a volunteer (for Jack's surgeon example, go be a volunteer EMT or something). Get a taste of what you're in for, then if you want to go the academic route to the top then by all meens.

Education is one option but it absolutely does NOT guarantee success, and a university education is not about learning the subject and skills you need, it's about learning how to get the knowledge and skills you need.

What a university education teaches you is the meens to learn, it gives you the skills to improve and enhance yourself. Knowledge is not static, it changes. The world is a fast moving place and the purpose of university is to teach you how to keep abrest of that. It isn't about the education of your skillset for what you're going to do.

Frankly i've found google a much more cost effective solution.

If you have no determination then go to university and learn how to be determined. Otherwise, hi - my name is Becky and I live in the real world too.

When I was young my reaction times on these kind of things was around .12. There used to be one in video arcades endorced by Alain Prost and I used to be able to be quicker than his official time - but that's how it is when you're young., now i'm older i'm definitely much slower!

These are my times...

Quote from Jakg :

Because 3 years of learning, studying and practicing a subject means absolutely nothing at all... look at all those Surgeons they employ with no "life experience".

Theres some absolute bollocks in this thread

The sodding surgeon argument, I hear it everywhere students are discussed and it really annoys me because.

1) Very few students are learning to become surgeons.
2) Surgery is one of the very few subjects where academia actually adds some intrinsic value to the job which you cant get by experience alone.
3) You CAN get rellevent experience before chopping a living person open for the first time - infact, it will be required of the student before they do so.
4) I would not want a student operating on me*.
5) Surgeon is one of the highest earning vocations in the country and a fully licenced practicing surgeon can easily afford to pay back the entirety of their student loan in their first couple of pay cheques. Of course, students dont become surgeons - they become doctors first (who are also high earners).

If any of those points are wrong, and i'm sure there would be more of them if I spent more than 3.7 seconds thinking about it, then by all meens use the surgeon argument.

*I had some stitches removed by a student once, I had to remind him where to cut and how to pull because he was so nervous he was making a hash of it - all his training went out the window when he was faced with a real live patient for the first time.

You cannot do surgery without real experience, therefore having a few years of life experience before going to university would definitely - without question - make them a better surgeon!

Someone on this forum, I forget who, is a volunteer EMT. If somebody did that for a few years before university, and was able to draw on their real experiences as they learned - imagine how much better they will be by the end of the course.

Also, unlike many students who are simply delaying making the decision about what to do with their life - experiencing a little life first would give young adults a much better idea before they complete their education.

I'm not saying their is no value to education, i'm just saying that:

• Education is secondary to life experience
  
• Most people choosing to go to university are avoiding the start of their life
  
• Education is over-valued
  
• The students who are protesting that their debts are disproportionate do so BECAUSE they have no frigging clue what life is like - because they're so used to being spoon fed that they don't realise what an amazing deal they are getting is - and because they've not lived through a recession before they actually think - and get this - a lot of these students actually think that they are getting a bad deal.
  

PMSL.

Students still have it extremely easy, by comparison to those of us who are paying for their education.

Plusses

• Went to Amsterdam's Cat Museum (life long dream accomplished!).
  
• Went on a roller coaster for the first, second and third time.
  
• Career wise 2010 was a huge success.
  
• I partied hard and developed more of a social life.
  
• Met more friends.
  
• Got my finances to a position where next year looks reasonable.
  
• I am happy with most aspects of my life and thirsting for fresh challenges again.
  

Downers

• Spent the year mostly single with too many first dates and not enough second dates.
  
• Not enough sex.
  
• Spent the year financially insecure.
  
• Had to buy a car.
  
• I like the girlfriend [in a friend context] of the ex I never completely got over, she's nice. Damned.
  

Options For Challenging Myself
I will probably do one of the following in 2011 to enrich my life experience.

• Considering making a go of it in another country for a bit, i'm well travelled but i've never tried living overseas. I'm thinking Amsterdam.
  
• Considering running another LFS championship
  
• Considering writing a commercial computer game
  
• Considering starting my own business.
  
  

Degrees should have a minimum age of 25 or even 30. Then they would have a value. It should be part of our culture to get a little life experience before finishing our education. Without life experience a degree is worth nothing to either the student or the employer.

Further students should quit moaning about this deal, they've no idea how hard life is, no idea at all. It gets worse people, it gets harder!

So you leave school with a five figure debt and if you never get a good job it'll get written off - boo hoo, we will end up with six figure debts anyway from our mortgages, so don't you dare moan about a small debt you'll only pay back if you succeed, that's just demonstrating that your not ready to leave the crib, and should be working in a factory packing boxes and not getting drunk and wasted on my tax money.

They buggered off early and inconvenienced your parents and wasted your own time after you had called to confirm they would be there.

Why do you need to lie to make that worse? 2 of your 3 options involved lying?

Do you suffer from a compulsive condition relating to saying anything but the truth? Actually, don't answer that...

Even in the west there are cultural things we don't get right in my view, we each of us have our own views and opinions and hold values that we'd like the world to share, but the world doesn't share them.

Instead the world is a viscious bully, and it's the best that we can do to be outraged by these things. Outraged, that is, as far as stating our disdain without actually getting off our asses and doing something about it.

...and besides, what right does a friend have to deny you of love?

Quote from Intrepid :

With UK debt around £4.1 trillion what do you suppose they do? There is not just no money to 'spend', it wasn't even there in the first place.

Agreed. With 40% of the workforce in the public sector, and around 25%-75% of them being got rid of (exact amount depending upon department) it's quite likely we could end up in another recession before we're even out of the last depression.

Things are not good, so a bunch of students saying that their hand outs aren't big enough is not something that gets any sympathy from me at all.

I pulled a girl that a friend of mine had a crush on before. Never really spoke properly again after that. Apparently two years of posturing is a reservation that drunk 20 year old Becky was supposed to remember. Drunk 20 year old Becky was bitch, but mostly, just figures if a couple are right for each other then they'll be together. Love works itself out and we're just here for the ride.

It's not as if I've never had someone come on to my girlfriends. A couple of them have strayed - I'd rather that happened before we got a place and a kitten together tbh, and if it was a friend then fair play - I'd rather the unfaithful bitch went and if that meens a friend is happier then it's win win as far as I'm concerned.

All this talk of dreams?

I had a dream I was giving Henry VIII a lift in my car and he was spazzing out because I was doing 60mph and he thought his body would explode over 20mph. I then dreamt about the restraunt sketch at the end of the Python film "Meaning of Life", which brought me back to Henry VIII's cronic IBS.

The moral of the story: Sometimes it's better not to psycho analyse your dreams...

Quote from SparkyDave :

I can assure you the "electricity" inside PCs go no faster or slower than anywhere else in the universe

I believe he was referring to Einstein's relativity theory where things moving at high speed experience time more slowly, thus making LFS a 23 year old brunette despite only being 7 years old*.

* I reserve the right to be completely incorrect. It's not as if the original post made a lot of sense.

I'm with S14 on this one: Bleh, girls.

2010 has been a really dry year, in fact i'll probably have to get one of those water spray bottles working on my down below just to keep things lubricated!

I've got to the point where I turn up at dates expecting them to fail and consequently am not really getting into the mood to get to know a new person, I just sort of pay half interest waiting for it to end figuring if it gets to a second date I might actually pay attention to whats going on and see what i've pulled.

Needless to say this is proving no more successful than actually listening to them.

Not really my personal taste as i'm more down with the punk your guys abandoned, but excellent stuff Kev

Quote from ColeusRattus :

Also, not entirely unrelated, "stones" sound like a silly way to measure weight :P

And how many kilometres have you actually killed?