How many graduates with an arts degree have such patents? If that's the metric for success, much more than 50% of every university can be safely cut.
900,000 students coming in…
- Thread starter mimico_polak
- Start date
Mad Mike
Well-known member
Lots. The first company I worked for was founded and led by a fellow who left school at grade 10, drove a coffee truck for 10 years, then recruited the smartest folks he could find to startup a tech company. Including me.
He led the company from 0 to $20m in 5 years, developed pc networking and pc fax products that revolutionized communications, employed 100+ people.
The company I work for now was started by a travelling salesman (no degree), holds several patents, and is the biggest in Canada today. Not a single member of our exec team has a degree.
Small sample, but Gates, Zuckerberg, Ellison, Jobs, Branson, Dell, Allen, Dorsey, Turner, Edison, Disney, Murdoch, Winfrey, Rockefeller, Rhianna and Swift come to mind as people that have driven technology or civic advancements.
Trudeau has a degree.
Your small sample is actually a list of rare achievements. On my floor practically every neighbouring office has someone in with patents assigned to them. There are multiple floors. That’s one building..there are multiple buildings with different focuses. This is one university, there are multiple universities.
Higher education fosters an environment where this can happen. It can happen in industry too, some pharmaceutical companies allow 1 day a week for staff to pursue independant research on anything, but that’s rare. Research is usually directed towards the industrial/company goal. That stifles blue sky thinking at times because if it’s antithetical to the eventual goal it’s wasting time and time is money.
Would you like a list of research accomplishments that would not be here today if money or an industrial goal was the only focus?
We can start with one. Insulin- Canadian. Not driven by money/industry-the inventor wanted to give it away for the good of mankind. Teflon-an accident pursued by curious scientists from a gas cylinder that seemed to have a leak so they cut it open. Without it we wouldn’t have nuclear power/weapons. Personalized medicine-mostly possible due to biochemists messing about with batshit crazy ideas that actually worked in the end. Molecular computers- started when scientists messed about trying to see if individual molecules could behave in weird and wonderful ways with an external stimulus.
Some of these are blue sky ideas….no seeming profit to be obtained from them at the time of conception. Driven by curiosity in an environment that encourages it.
It’s one metric for possible technology transfer (not all patents succeed), which is one measure of success in that it contributes to society. Other people contribute in many other ways.
I don’t want to live in a world that has no libraries/historians/art/artists/museums etc. I don’t understand some degrees, I don’t like some subjects but it doesn’t necessarily mean there’s zero value to them.
Last edited:
Mad Mike
Well-known member
Outside of the small orchestral and classical genres, how many musical, theatrical, pop culture entertainment gods are degreed in the arts?
Mostly ones that are starving.
Well…all of Queen. All of the Tragically Hip. I’m sure if you look them up they’ll be in need of food donations. Except for Freddie of course.
Actually Queen mostly degrees in the sciences…so a bit of a reversal actually.
I know a few people who studied at university in music who are opera singers. It’s not really my thing but many enjoy them.
Mike..do you know Pol Pot, Stalin or Mao? They didn’t like education much either.
Edit:well I never, looks like universities and colleges do produce music acts too Top 20 Bands Formed in College
I think that Pink Floyd one look like up and comers and might make the big time.
Last edited:
Not all arts degrees have zero value but to Mike's point, if as a society we have excess supply of people with degrees that society doesn't value then we should adjust funding to try to get back to equilibrium. Maybe graduating 50% less arts students provides sufficient supply with less waste. As a start, if arts degrees are as hard to get in to as engineering and science, that provides some drive towards excellence (or cheating). If requirement for entry is a pulse and grade 12, it should not be a university program.
We are back to who decides value? I’m not in favour of this because for many of these graduates their potential success in society can’t be defined the way you want it to be. Ok, so many might go in to be a drain on society, but there are engineers like that too.
My sister got a degree and PhD in archeology, she works in military research for a large manufacturer now. Should she not have gotten that degree? It directly helped with the position she’s in now.
My other sister did media studies, you know, the one people often laugh at as a degree. She’s a producer for a large London media company now living in a million $ house laughing back.
Last edited:
I have a history degree person selling plywood , an art degree person that is a specialist in classic baroque music selling plywood , and a couple business degrees selling plywood . Guy beside me is actually a CA , he sells lumber and plywood . Me ? I got asked to leave high school . My point ? When I have to sort applications, I’ll make three piles , one with people we know ( they get priority ) one with degrees and experience, third pile is for the trash . You don’t need a degree to be successful, but you need it to stand in front of the next guy. My favourite hire ? Guy/Gal with lots of student debt, maybe newly married or trying to, car loan and hopefully a big mortgage. That guy is hungry and needs to work .
Sent from my iPhone using GTAMotorcycle.com
Sent from my iPhone using GTAMotorcycle.com
Somebody had to decide value as there isn't enough money to fully fund every whim. Who decides is a very important question without an easy answer.
For a first cut, I would start with each citizen gets five years of public funding max for undergrad or one degree whichver comes first. If they want to do more years, that's on them. That makes the candidates focus some on value. If they really want to do a second or third useless degree, they can pay full freight. This frees up money and spaces for those that may learn something useful.
It's very simple, the market decides the value of each degree.
For me, I'm a PEng (because TD Meloche discount and PEO told me I can only stay as an EIT for so long) in Aero that has never in my life done a complex calculations and I work in tunnels.
Saw a cool show on Discovery years ago, found a company doing that cool thing, and here we are coming up on 20 years in an industry I didn't know existed. I literally applied for 2 jobs at that company because I thought it was cool, had a job a few weeks later. Over qualified for one job, under qualified for the other...so they created a job that they could see me in...
I've interviewed many University grads for robotics technicians and haven't hired any yet. They over think problems that college / trades background people can just look at or use their hands-on skills to solve.
For my favorite interview question I go to the stock room and grab a random sensor or relay and bring it to the interview:
"Have you ever worked with one of these sensors before? If an electrician asked for some direction on how to wire it in, How would you figure it out?"
University grad will usually start talking about testing and the sensor's electronic characteristics.
College grad is more likely to get correct answer "google the part number"
For my favorite interview question I go to the stock room and grab a random sensor or relay and bring it to the interview:
"Have you ever worked with one of these sensors before? If an electrician asked for some direction on how to wire it in, How would you figure it out?"
University grad will usually start talking about testing and the sensor's electronic characteristics.
College grad is more likely to get correct answer "google the part number"
Unionized wire pullers with 1 decent industrial electrician, also they're not allowed to use cell phones while working, not allowed on company wifi/poor service, etc.
I'm not sure why Engineering degree grads are afraid to say that they need to google something. It's entertaining to watch... sometimes. Sometimes it's painful. One once said that they would check the company library. Some say that they would ask me.
What honours degree (any) taken over four years is 40 hours per week?
An honours degree regardless of subject is 120 credit hours over four years. That works out to 15 credit hours per semester (five typical three credit courses), or just about 15 hours of in-class instruction per week full time. Subjects that have labs may skew that a bit up, there will be some hours of homework each week, and of course study time, but the last two are variable per student (some get it right away, some don't). Regardless of course putting in 30 hours total per week for a typical student (basically 15 credit hours plus 15 more hours out of class--2:1 is a common estimate BTW), some will be much less if they get it, some more if they struggle. Of course some weeks may be higher, some less....
Other schools use a different credit counting system but it really works out to be the same as above, just different values.
I have actually taken 40 credit hours at once (one semester), it was a pretty epic amount of effort. I doubt many could fathom it.
If someone completes a four year degree in three, does 2:1, assuming they spend as much time out of class as in class that is 20 hours of instruction per week and 20 hours of out of class--you get 40 but that is not what we are talking about.
Attended jury selection duty Mon and Tues. One of the requirements was speaking English.
Stopped to pick up a sub after and had to ask the guy 4 times to repeat his questions. This is sad, but it's no different than listening to Guy Martin. Lol
Stopped to pick up a sub after and had to ask the guy 4 times to repeat his questions. This is sad, but it's no different than listening to Guy Martin. Lol
Yes but again, you have no idea what a “whim” might amount to in the future. My sister with the archeology degrees is an example. She did that degree because it interested her. If you’d asked her then if she thought she might be working for a military contractor in the future what do you think she might have said?
Last edited:
I guess you can add to this too…
Ask the contractor if they thought they would be hiring an archeology PhD?
That's why I would force students to pick one at most to get public funding. Far, far too many do two or three because they are children and don't want to get on with life. They are going to be useless with zero degrees or three of them so public should have no obligation to support them beyond some base level.
Engineering is in the ballpark between classes, mandatory labs and tutorials (where they teach so missing them is a bad idea). Many of the general arts degrees are 10-15 hours a week of class and you can get away with about that out of class so they should be two year programs not four. Just a waste of everybody's time and grooming students to be useless and learn that <<30 hours a week is sufficient to succeed in life.
