POLL: What is the highest completed degree you hold?

[Ray1936]

Nice thing about being retired is you don't need a diploma for it.

[tahleel]

I have nearly 17 years experience in the automotive engineering field and I just obtained my Bachelor of Science Engineering Degree last year. I didn't see what all the fuss was about, school didn't teach me much of anything that I did not all ready learn on the job. I think it's bullshit that 90% of the HR people out there doing the hiring won't give a guy, like friends of mine that have 30 years of proven experience performing a technical task, a second look because they don't have some piece of paper. Why is it that companies like Chrysler and Ford raise the bar every few years and require entry level people to hold Master's and Doctorate's degrees, but still continue to perform poorly in the market place? With all that brainy talent on board you'd think they would have been able to forecast market trends better.

Although a few might be able to, not all experienced people have the know-how to do the the technical things for some jobs. Let's take for example engineering. You are engineer, I'm sure you and your classmates know how to find derivatives and etc, of the 90% of people you know, how many know how to? Sure, they could learn it while on-the-job, but why would an employer pay for that?

Second, a degree seems like a rite of passage. You spent three, four, five or even six years working on an undergrad degree. You busted your butt, and invested a lot of time and money in yourself. If you don't make that commitment with yourself, what image do you show to the employer? To some, its more than a piece of paper. To me, it symbolizes all the hard work and sacrifices I had made for my education.

There are a lot of people out there that have the experience to do their jobs without degrees. But with that said, it is the exception, not the rule. Hiring someone with a degree is more of a "safe bet," than someone without.

-Tahleel

[CountrySquire]

I do know how to find derivitaves, but have never needed that knowledge for work I have done. However I have found knowledge of Trigonometry and Statistics useful. The exercise of creating reports and presentations for class grades was also helpful experience for the working world.

[Corn.Bot]

There are a lot of people out there that have the experience to do their jobs without degrees. But with that said, it is the exception, not the rule. Hiring someone with a degree is more of a "safe bet," than someone without.

-Tahleel

I understand your stance and respect it, but in my world, it has not been the exception at all. When someone like my spouse loses his long-term job to outsourcing or offshoring, no potential employer is interested in his 25 years of rising from the depths of i/o clerking to senior-level systems programming.

So when my husband's job went away, toward the end of our daughter's junior year, we were not in a financial position for him to go back to school while she still had a year to go. Besides, he was fully confident that he'd find a decent new job before his severance ran out. Neither of us realized just how the employment market had evolved... devolved.

The upshot is, he's working, but not in the field to which he devoted nearly half his life, and certainly not at the compensation level, that a degree would have opened doors for. I wish employers had a reliable way to weigh and measure experience and longevity in a particular discipline against their requirements when an applicant is like my husband.

Instead, he's had to go back to square one, entry level, as if he was fresh out of nowhere instead of highly skilled. A shame, and a waste.

[CountrySquire]

Used to be getting a degree was key to upper middle class living, now it's the only thing you can do to assure you are above the poverty limit. Not right