I’ll have a beer with you tonight in spirit, brother Gumby! I really like Wilmington, for what it’s worth, and the beach is very close. No comment on the actual education aspect.
Those are always tough words to hear, I can't really imagine writing them (although I got a taste as my dad "disappeared" recently). I hope you enjoyed most if not almost all of the ride. When it's my turn I hope I have something coming anywhere near the attitude you are expressing and sharing with us. Godspeed.
Another drunk uncle wishing you well and applauding your courage. Someday, all of us "internet nuts" will be in the great cosmic beyond irritating the hell out of Kevin Payne.
Doing the college thing now for my eldest - she's waiting to hear back but interviewed with Stanford yesterday and Brandeis a few weeks ago - she's going into Neuroscience/Neurosurgery and for that her top choices are UW (Seattle), UCSD, UC Berkeley, Barnard, Yale, Brown, and U Chicago. So depending on the area of study pick the school that has the best program and more importantly the right fit. Reach out if you want to talk about the college process or anything else.
forgot to add: GMU without a doubt, it means he can easily attend DCU games (and it's my alma mater).
It's tough to look Tech in the mouth, now that he's been accepted. It's probably another 20K in debt over GMU when all is said and done. I think GMU is his first choice at the moment. We haven't done a campus tour of those two yet...
A someone in the recruiting world, I can tell you that for most jobs where a degree is required/preferred, most companies and hiring managers are more concerned about whether the candidate has a relevant degree and much less concerned about which (accredited) school conferred it. So I think your preference to avoid paying significantly more is spot on. Depending upon the job, a candidate with a VT degree is generally not going to get a pay offer $4-$8k higher than a similarly qualified candidate with a GMU degree. Of course, there is value in the networking/alumni connections made during college - but pay setting at medium and larger companies is rarely based on the university. At small firms, hiring managers have more leeway to be biased in paysetting towards a candidate's school, especially if they went to the same school. On the other hand, for someone considering a rarified field like Morrissey's progeny, going to less value-oriented schools like Stanford, Yale, etc. will definitely make a difference in getting internships and residencies, and future positions.
I had friends go there and they liked it. I grew up near GMU and wanted to go a bit further away. I went to JMU because it felt right on my tour and the program I wanted to go into was better (I changed majors anyway).
True story. My son got into Christopher Newport University and was undecided on a major. That spring I was in a cab in Las Vegas with a colleague and my son called. The call ended and I told my colleague that my son just told me he had settled on a major -- philosophy. The cab driver turned around and said, "that was my major in college too." Nevertheless, my son is now a practicing attorney in DC and making more money than I ever did. If there is a moral to this, it's don't sweat the beginning, let you kids find their ways. Some are more focused early on, some take awhile to get there.
As the FC St. Pauli song goes... "Walk on, walk on, with home in your heart, because you will never walk alone!" (This may have been stolen from some Glaswegian football club that stole it from some Liverpudlian football club)
Apparently, philosophy majors make more money than business or chem majors https://bigthink.com/thinking/philosophy-majors-smarter-make-more-money/
I read a similar article. Philosophy majors get recruited to a lot of high end consulting and the like, or go to law school. A smart person with very well developed analysis skills is sought after in a number of industries.
Or they're a tabula rasa. I had no idea what I wanted to do, and took two harmony courses my first year. Got recruited as the TA for those courses my sophomore year, and found out I could go on two study groups if I stuck with it. That's basically how I, a hick from Appalachia, ended up with a BA in Music with a minor in Asian Studies. Went on to study Musicology for two years at UNC and dropped out to become a programmer. Probably should have studied philosophy, it was apparently an awesome major at Colgate. But I wouldn't trade my college experience for anything.
Yeah, I can see a company looking at philosophy majors as very smart people who don't look at, say, supply chain management or financial analysis through a bunch of preconceived notions. Being someone who can critically look at a process or business from a fresh angle seems like a very marketable skill.