cost of college

rick81721 said:
Being a doctor isn't nearly the career it used to be. Lots of hours, big liability costs, plus you have to fund your own retirement and insurance benefits and pay employees. Really smart kids can do much better in the private sector - better hours, tons of benefits, travel, executive compensation programs.

I believe you shouldn't try to shoe-horn kids into a career just because you think it's a good idea/pays well/sounds impressive/etc - they have to be all-in as their career choice.
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the most brilliant doctors should work in research, not peddling to a few hundred patients in their lifetime. My cousin told me her son was going to pre-med to be a doctor, I told her it was a mistake. He's a really smart kid with a good heart. Glad to hear he dropped pre-med at Stanford to work in bio engineering. He'll probably be a MD/PhD, but will have the opportunity to help millions.
 
fidodie said:
I've found that the degree from RPI and a little experience will result in interviews. Getting the job is then making the employer feel like it is a fit, and there is lots of upside potential...
Having a hobby in the field also helps - farting around with arduino processors is popular now.
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Oh, I wish it was like this. He's had his sights on Robotics/Bio-Engineering for a long time. RPI was not the best fit for this, but he really wanted to go there, so, he's hacking away at his masters at Stevens now, which seems to be a better fit in the end. Needless to say, not only did we check Stevens out, he did a summer engineering camp there as well. He does do a bunch of 3D printing and building processors, which in the end, keeps him fresh.

And, the job he has now he hates. It's barely EE.

qclabrat said:
was he in the engineering program? RPI is our short list but any engineering program is no joke
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He graduated EE with a minor in Economics. He started Mechanical but jumped over to EE second semester of his Freshman year.
 
this is definitely a tough one to advise on, my fiance and i both went to stevens (graduated in 2012) and have BEs in different disciplines (chemical for her, mechanical for me) and then we both went back to school for masters degrees (same fields, different schools, she went back to stevens and funded it herself, i went to drexel where work paid for 99% of it, i essentially got my masters degree for $800, instead of 50k). if you can pull off a bachelors degree and then get work to pay for it (usually has to be related to your job for them to justify the expense) its the way to go. Some place will even help with undergrad if you get in the door early enough and impress them with your drive/skills/knowledge.
 
The Squirrel said:
Oh, I wish it was like this. He's had his sights on Robotics/Bio-Engineering for a long time. RPI was not the best fit for this, but he really wanted to go there, so, he's hacking away at his masters at Stevens now, which seems to be a better fit in the end. Needless to say, not only did we check Stevens out, he did a summer engineering camp there as well. He does do a bunch of 3D printing and building processors, which in the end, keeps him fresh.

And, the job he has now he hates. It's barely EE.



He graduated EE with a minor in Economics. He started Mechanical but jumped over to EE second semester of his Freshman year.
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Damn - not what is expected from a degree from there. Hopefully it turns around quickly. I remember how much work it was. and some of it was just not fun.
 
fidodie said:
Damn - not what is expected from a degree from there. Hopefully it turns around quickly. I remember how much work it was. and some of it was just not fun.
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AND, I really felt that the school was just not so helpful in any type of post-graduation guidance. I took multiple trips back to Troy and did nothing but waste gas. Upside, good chinese food on rt 7 just up the hill in Sycaway.
 
Be careful with Parent Plus loans. Take it from me. If you make a certain amount of $ , it's hard for your kids to take their own loans other than Stafford loans unless you practically disown them. I was working a lot of o.t. and my was was still working so we qualified for the loans. Then I was out of work for 6 months one year and 7 another and my wife lost her job. Guess what ? They still want you to pay the loans . I've been deferring loans and getting forebearance approved for years but with the interest that's built up , I owe -- you don't wanna know how much. I'm gonna sell my house and just give it all to my girlfriend- Sallie Mae or Navient , whoever it is now.... I fucked up and I'm paying for it with my future. All over effin college tuitions.
 
fidodie said:
Damn - not what is expected from a degree from there. Hopefully it turns around quickly. I remember how much work it was. and some of it was just not fun.
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I've heard from a few parents that they and their kids didn't like the vibe at RPI. It's on the short list for most to visit, but I don't remember any who eventually ended up going.
 
qclabrat said:
I've heard from a few parents that they and their kids didn't like the vibe at RPI. It's on the short list for most to visit, but I don't remember any who eventually ended up going.
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Personally, given the chance to do it again, i'd go to a city school. Brown, NYU, upenn, drexel, Northeastern. (i would not have gotten into MIT) Troy sucked - 1 block in the wrong direction, and there was trouble. At least in a city, you know not to walk where there isn't anyone else....The weather also sucked - go to a warmer weather school! one less thing to worry about.

Something is going on at RPI where the administration is taking over the student union. I don't understand the details, but it is looking ugly. The students were very progressive when i was there. The gay/lesbian clubs insisted on equal monetary support and received it. there were some marches to support equal pay for women at a school that was 90% male. They were tracking EO issues at the school.

Still, the sheepskin carries a lot of weight - i'm a scientist (yeah, computer, i know - not a real scientist) - and even after 30+ years, i'd get the 'you went to rpi' thing....
All of the friends I graduated with are doing very well - my roommate graduated last in the class.
 
During our searches for engineering schools, one thing that I was impressed with was the Co-Op programs at Drexel, Stevens And Northeastern. My daughter chose Northeastern (because Boston 🙂), but I thought all were great schools. The programs have some small differences, but are similar. She is in a 5 year BS program that has has three 6-month Co-Ops. The Co-Ops are paid (~$23-$29/hr) and you obviously don't pay tuition while on Co-Op. You also come out of school with 1.5 years of job experience, plus a high percentage of students get job offers from one of their Co-Op employers.
 
qclabrat said:
the most brilliant doctors should work in research, not peddling to a few hundred patients in their lifetime. My cousin told me her son was going to pre-med to be a doctor, I told her it was a mistake. He's a really smart kid with a good heart. Glad to hear he dropped pre-med at Stanford to work in bio engineering. He'll probably be a MD/PhD, but will have the opportunity to help millions.
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This assumption is incorrect. My wife and I have worked in research for a very long time, and we ran across alot of brilliant PhD's, even some folks with MS's, but Dr's not so much. And I worked with alot of Dr's who chose to work in corporate vs. with patients. Shit, we knew more than alot of them, made me question exactly where they got their degrees from. Conversely, my wife works in oncology and has run across alot of brilliant Dr's in the field, treating and helping patients. It may sound cliche, but the best Dr's became Dr's to help people, not turn an easy buck, because there is nothing easy about treating another person. If your motivation is money and prestige, then either become a plastic surgeon or reevaluate your choices. BTW, orthopedic surgeons make crazy money, but its bloody work and requires crazy talent.

I got my MS degree at a medical school, took classes with alot of med students. Usually, if you couldn't handle the first anatomy class, that was the point at which most students went the MS or PhD route. I used to pass anatomy on my way to class and would occasionally see some outside leaning against the wall, heads in their hands.
 
M3Tim said:
During our searches for engineering schools, one thing that I was impressed with was the Co-Op programs at Drexel, Stevens And Northeastern. My daughter chose Northeastern (because Boston 🙂), but I thought all were great schools. The programs have some small differences, but are similar. She is in a 5 year BS program that has has three 6-month Co-Ops. The Co-Ops are paid (~$23-$29/hr) and you obviously don't pay tuition while on Co-Op. You also come out of school with 1.5 years of job experience, plus a high percentage of students get job offers from one of their Co-Op employers.
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is that one of those 3-2 programs?, I started one but dropped out to stay in pure sciences.
We're looking at some for my daughter, which partners with good schools like Dartmouth, Columbia and WashU, but the thought of another year is painful.

I always find it interesting that there are so many folks here with E degrees and have daughters interested in it as well. What happened to Business and Psychology being the most popular majors.
 
All the CSI stuff is popular too. That would be fun - well, sort of, depending. For the people that can handle the gore, but not the phd level stuff?????

forensic accounting. bean counter with a sidearm!
 
qclabrat said:
is that one of those 3-2 programs?, I started one but dropped out to stay in pure sciences.
We're looking at some for my daughter, which partners with good schools like Dartmouth, Columbia and WashU, but the thought of another year is painful.

I always find it interesting that there are so many folks here with E degrees and have daughters interested in it as well. What happened to Business and Psychology being the most popular majors.
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No, not a 3-2 (but they might have that also). This is a regular BS Engineering program with 3 six month Co-Ops mixed in. At Northeastern you can also do 1, 2 or no Co-Ops if you want to finish sooner. I would rather have her take the extra year and come out with a year and a half of real job experience, as opposed to a lot of the Internships that I have heard about. I think having the schedules set up to allow a full 6 months of work is good vs. trying to do a quick internship over the summer.

I'm not really sure what drove my daughter to Mechanical Engineering other than maybe seeing some of the interesting things I get to do. I didn't push her that way for sure.😉
 
fidodie said:
forensic accounting. bean counter with a sidearm!
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i did some of that in my audit years. a publicly traded bank had a controller who made off with a couple million through the fed. we were called in to try to find evidence and find where he shifted the money. he was good at it. we found about half.

unfortunately, no guns were involved. but if you work for the FBI as an accountant i think a sidearm would be an option (and they were recruiting when i was looking for gigs out of grad school).
 
clarkenstein said:
@pygmypony i'm a music major - RU grad and Mason Gross attendee. this is 20+ years ago, but here's some background for your kids going into the arts:

i started in music ed at mason gross. realized i didn't want to do that. i wasn't going to do performance either because the instrument i played to get in (euphonium) has very little full time gigs. i would either have to follow performances of mahler 5 and holst's the planets around, or go in the military and audition for the coveted spot in the military brass. not necessarily too many job openings.

so i went to composition, but as an undergrad, you couldn't do composition at the time, so i had to transfer to Rutgers College to get around the system. glad i did it.

i then studied at william paterson and manhattan school of music for jazz and composition, respectively.

i won a few composition awards, even best music for a film at the NYU film festival. nothing really paid the bills that way. what paid the bills was gigs playing my bass. i did get commissioned by a private school to write a piece for their spring choral concert. that paid. but the bass was what paid the bills. brass paid AWESOME during the holidays. i played brooklyn tree lightings for a couple years, and at malls or churches or wherever i could get a gig. worked every day i could between thanksgiving and new years.

it was fun but absolutely exhausting. and being poor flat-out sucks. the best money in the arts is teaching, and that's not saying much. if your kids go into the arts, tell them this one piece of advice: don't buy anything. at all. nothing. do not think you can keep up with friends with normal jobs. its a different way of life than everyone else. and if you do it right, and not get caught up in 'america' and buying crap, you can absolutely survive. but you will not have the trappings of a well financed life.
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I am around nothing but musicians every day and Its amazing how many big Jazz musicians supplement by teaching, playing Broadway pits, doing jingles, engineering, etc...The ones who have the university gigs seem to be in the best headspace because there's at least a little foundation they can work off of. But, in the end, none of them would trade it for anything else. They're just born hustlers.

BTW, great advice. That being said, they all have iPhones and huge data plans so they can instagram every second of their career to generate buzz. Tell them to minor in digital marketing so they can sell themselves.
 
qclabrat said:
It's really popular now, looks at the state champs each year, either asian or eastern European. All my friends kids fence. I never encouraged them in that direction. Kids should play outside. Besides it's kinda whimpy
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Funny my upper body was in the best shape of my life during fencing season because they made us do so many pushups and situps. My right arm was twice as big as my left. And I was able to break 2x4's with my thumb and index finger.
 
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