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Posted: **Fri Mar 15, 2019 6:27 am**

https://www.thedailybeast.com/georgetow ... ating-sats

Here is what I do not understand. Even is she cheated her way into Georgetown Uni, surely she must have been unmasked during college with low grades?

Posted: **Fri Mar 15, 2019 1:16 pm**

That is genuinely weird.

Saying that our public school system is essentially a formalised version of this.

Sigh.

Posted: **Fri Mar 15, 2019 8:05 pm**

Raveen wrote:QUOTE (Raveen @ Mar 15 2019, 06:16 AM) That is genuinely weird.

Saying that our public school system is essentially a formalised version of this.

I don't know about the UK's system, but yeah, the US system is a formalized version of this.

American schools are carefully constructed in such a manner as to suppress a sense of individuality, breed obedience towards an authoritarian leader, reward supplication and regurgitation over thought, and promote mediocrity. The grading scales are carefully calculated to allow the exact right amount of fudging to not get caught. Standardized scores are carefully formulated to select for only a certain type of person, and it's definitely not the type of person who's got a good chance of succeeding.

Fun fact, the GRE? The big examination for getting into grad school? Turns out that it offers basically no predictive power as to success in grad school. A study I can't find at the moment discovered that students who scored poorly on the GRE were more likely to succeed in grad school if they were accepted, though that was, iirc, statistically insignificant and only served to show that the GRE is not a good predictor.

How does one get into grad school? By meeting the right people. That's it. GPA, test scores, they're all just a smokescreen so that "higher education" institutions can pick the people they want. Who do you think the rich white guys in charge of Harvard want at Harvard?

There is little to no education being done in US public grade schools, and the education being done at the public universities is by-and-large self-driven. Degrees are awarded not as certificates of merit, ability, or knowledge, but as certificates of "yes you checked the right boxes in the right order." Step on any US college campus and very, very few people actually give a @#(! about the things they study. They're not there to learn things, they're there to get the little piece of paper that lets them advance in socioeconomic status, only instead of allowing them to ACTUALLY advance, it just lets them THINK they're advancing while secretly robbing them of everything they earn through the predatory student loan system.

From top to bottom the system does not work, and the manner in which it fails to work is pretty spectacular.

Posted: **Sat Mar 16, 2019 2:32 am**

phoenix1 wrote:QUOTE (phoenix1 @ Mar 15 2019, 04:05 PM) I don't know about the UK's system, but yeah, the US system is a formalized version of this.

American schools are carefully constructed in such a manner as to suppress a sense of individuality, breed obedience towards an authoritarian leader, reward supplication and regurgitation over thought, and promote mediocrity. The grading scales are carefully calculated to allow the exact right amount of fudging to not get caught. Standardized scores are carefully formulated to select for only a certain type of person, and it's definitely not the type of person who's got a good chance of succeeding.

Fun fact, the GRE? The big examination for getting into grad school? Turns out that it offers basically no predictive power as to success in grad school. A study I can't find at the moment discovered that students who scored poorly on the GRE were more likely to succeed in grad school if they were accepted, though that was, iirc, statistically insignificant and only served to show that the GRE is not a good predictor.

How does one get into grad school? By meeting the right people. That's it. GPA, test scores, they're all just a smokescreen so that "higher education" institutions can pick the people they want. Who do you think the rich white guys in charge of Harvard want at Harvard?

There is little to no education being done in US public grade schools, and the education being done at the public universities is by-and-large self-driven. Degrees are awarded not as certificates of merit, ability, or knowledge, but as certificates of "yes you checked the right boxes in the right order." Step on any US college campus and very, very few people actually give a @#(! about the things they study. They're not there to learn things, they're there to get the little piece of paper that lets them advance in socioeconomic status, only instead of allowing them to ACTUALLY advance, it just lets them THINK they're advancing while secretly robbing them of everything they earn through the predatory student loan system.

From top to bottom the system does not work, and the manner in which it fails to work is pretty spectacular.

excuse me?
https://www.economist.com/united-states ... -not-where

Posted: **Sat Mar 16, 2019 5:52 am**

You actually incredibly made my point. I could not have put it any better.

Those computer scientists and engineers immediately work for multi-billion dollar companies that pay them... maybe $50k/yr. Then lay them off in three months because their CEO went on another bender and accidentally signed over half the assets to Disney.

And unlike sensible nations, which will have a hefty workforce of governments engineers because their governments build things, we're busy giving all of that money to rich people to "build" things. Mostly bombs.

Posted: **Mon Mar 18, 2019 2:22 am**

where would those computer scientists and engineers work if they weren't offered a $50k/yr salary at a multi-billion dollar company? do we need to compare engineer salaries of USA versus other developed countries? i feel like i had already done my due diligence of bringing up stats... i don't feel like doing it again.

Posted: **Mon Mar 18, 2019 2:31 am**

Good point. Because it's the *only* way for them to earn a living, it can't possibly be that there's an imbalance of power that one might term "exploitation."

Posted: **Mon Mar 18, 2019 1:28 pm**

That's why I'm a huge fan of learning a trade.
Get paid the entire time you are learning your craft with the possibility of make great money for your entire life.

Posted: **Tue Mar 19, 2019 12:08 am**

manual Trade workers in my area do like 60k-120k (120k usually being higher paid trades either at journeyman union scale or prevailing wage)

as for coders

QUOTE The Seattle area has the second-highest salaries for software engineers in the country, according to employer review site Glassdoor.

This region’s engineers make an average of $103,196 per year, and three of the 25 highest-paying companies are based in the Puget Sound region, according to a report released Thursday by the Sausalito, Calif.-based employment salary and review site.

That’s after the top-ranked San Francisco Bay Area, which has an average salary of $111,885 for software engineers and has 17 of the 25 highest-paying companies.

Seattle area companies are Amazon.com at No. 14 with an average software engineer salary of $110,907 per year; Microsoft at No. 18 with an average salary of $106,611; and Expedia, ranked No. 21 with an average salary of $105,126.

Other tech companies with Seattle-area developer offices also made the list, including No. 4-ranked Google, which has sizable offices in Seattle and Kirkland and pays an average salary of $127,143 to its software engineers. Twitter, ranked No. 5, pays $124,863, and Facebook, ranked No. 9, pays $121,507.

Ebay, which also recently opened an office in the Seattle area and acquired a popular local startup, Decide.com, was ranked No. 13, just above Amazon, paying its engineers $114,720.

Any way you slice it, it pays to be a software engineer. Even nontech companies are getting into the salary game: Walmart was No. 8 on Glassdoor's list, paying its engineers $122,110.[/quote]

https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blo ... aries.html

Posted: **Tue Mar 19, 2019 1:01 am**

My father cleared 93k last year as a journeyman union wireman and has been working nonstop for the last 10 years or so (probably the last 5 of which on constant 60-70 hour a week overtime)

but now he has jacked up vertebrae and spinal spurs and can only lean to one side and isn't currently working because his body is broken. and he's only 56. still a ways out from retirement. manual labor can take its toll. (not that union electrical work is generally too rough as far as manual labor goes)

that being said I have 3 uncles an aunt and a grandpa that all retired out of the same union. I'm the only one that hasn't made a lifetime in manual labor a career goal. and I already make more money in fewer hours than most of them ever have anyway (previous year earnings for my father notwithstanding)

part of me is thinking about getting back into coding, though.

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How could she stay on the uni?