Higher Education... worth it? Favorite memories?

Video Game Discussions and general topics.

Moderators: AArdvark, Ice Cream Jonsey

User avatar
loafergirl
Posts: 688
Joined: Thu May 02, 2002 1:26 pm
Location: Rochester

Higher Education... worth it? Favorite memories?

Post by loafergirl »

My college experience has been very unique. Given that I am an adult student, I find myself sometimes pushing limits or testing boundaries with honest outpouringss that end in sentences like: "Legal does not mean ethical, and "culture" that promotes human suffering by endorsing constant consumption so intricately and intimately linked with exploitation while also encouraging feigned ignorance, and/or real lapses in memory caused by unnecessary over-complexity is a damned ugly culture when you look just below its finely-crafted exterior. F that."

Prior to this, in my young teen years, I visited many a friend and boyfriend (or was dragged to them by my older brother to visit his friends) at various college campuses, so never felt like I missed out on anything as it pertained to the whole dorm life thing... since I basically had similar freedoms to what lifestyle that entails from around 15.
Now that I am a middle aged woman and about to finally get Associates, I must ask myself... is it worth it to go on? I enjoy learning, for that alone it's worth considering. I'm hoping to qualify for scholarships. If I do, do I pursue a career that will financially benefit me (and my family) most, or that I presume I will enjoy more? Do I try to find a middle ground?

What paths did you all take? What did you encounter after?
1, 2, 5!
3 sir...
3!

Casual Observer
Posts: 3266
Joined: Wed Oct 01, 2003 10:23 pm
Location: Everett, WA, 2 blocks from where the Green River Killer picked them up

Re: Higher Education... worth it? Favorite memories?

Post by Casual Observer »

What are you taking? What are the options of what you think you want to do?

College (at least a BS) is essential for some careers and completely worthless for others. I couldn't have had a career in software sales without a degree, resume goes right to file 13. My wife is starting to go to college at 48 because she thinks it would help her get published. I know some IT folks like some programmers and especially cybersecurity that can get away with certifications. IMO, a liberal arts or philosophy or arts degree is worthless. Shit, some people throw away upwards of $20 large a year on R.I.T.'s food service management degree that should be replaced by just get a damn job cooking or serving, idiots.

In terms of what personal value I got out of college in regards to intellectual thoughts come down to exactly 3 things:
1) Philosophy class at RIT had a discussion about transformers and made me question whether the person who beams down is really the same person who de-materialized or an exact copy while the real person is destroyed, deep shit.

2) Economics class at Brockport. First got into an argument with the Prof about commodity products. His weird claim was that Gasoline is NOT a commodity product which means customers make buying decisions based on value rather than price. It's an absurd argument to make when a block away from campus were 2 gas stations with widely different prices. If someone chooses one over the other it's either convenience (don't want to turn left instead of right) or Brand. What a fucking idiot he was.

3) Economics class at Brockport. The concept of Sunk Money is that you should never make decisions based on past investments, only future returns. I'd say this is the #1 thing I learned in college as it's served me well with everything from cars to pets.

For my career, I'd say growing up loving computers and working my way through college as a waiter prepared me more than anything I "learned" in college.

User avatar
Flack
Posts: 8822
Joined: Tue Nov 18, 2008 3:02 pm
Location: Oklahoma
Contact:

Re: Higher Education... worth it? Favorite memories?

Post by Flack »

I graduated high school in 1991. I knew that after high school I was "supposed" to go to college, but didn't fully understand why, nor did I feel particularly motivated to do so. I made the decision to go to school, and spent the next two years attending a local community college. I had a great time and met some great people, but educationally speaking those two years can be described as "spinning my wheels." I never spoke to an advisor, made a lot of poor class choices, and after two years I was nowhere near completing my associates degree.

The following year, I transferred to a state college. I moved in with my future wife, I started working full-time, threw a lot of great parties, and continued paying for school even though I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life or what degree I was even pursuing. I was simply going through the motions and paying for the privilege of doing so. After paying for three years of school out of pocket I still had no degree. I dropped out during my second semester there and went to work full time.

In 1995 I landed a job in tech support making $10/hour. I worked my way up from there to a senior technician position, and eventually became a small time supervisor. In the late 90s we were attempting to hire new technicians, and one of the requirements was a college degree. It scared the hell out of me when I realized that on paper I was not qualified for the job title I held, and so out of fear and embarrassment I decided to go back to school and finish my associates degree. In 2001, 10 years after I started college, I earned an associates degree in English/Journalism. I enjoy telling people I am the proud owner of the world's most expensive associates degree.

In the early 2000s, my wife set a goal to achieve her bachelors degree by the time she was 30 (in 2003). She discovered that one of the local colleges had a program for adults that involved attending school one night a week for 15 months, taking students with an associates degree to their bachelors degree. She started the program in 2003 and graduated in 2004, at which point I enrolled in the program, graduating in 2005 with my own bachelors degree. The program involved a lot of reading and studying at home, but it wasn't too bad. My own personal goal was to graduate with a 4.0 grade point average, which I did.

In 2015, mild feelings of a midlife crisis set in. I had been a civilian federal employee for 20 years at that point. It was a good job -- it is a good job -- but what I really wanted to was get back into writing. I'd had a little success after self-publishing a couple of books, and wanted to learn more about the art and structure of writing. I searched online and was surprised to learn that a few colleges across the country offer degrees in fiction writing. The degree I was interested in was a Master of Professional Writing, which specializes in genre fiction writing. I had no idea what getting a masters degree involved, but in the spring of 2016, I was about to find out.

Beginning in the spring of 2016, I enrolled full-time as a student at the University of Oklahoma in their Master of Professional Writing degree program. It had been 10 years since I had attended college, and the program was intended for undergraduates who already had four years of specific knowledge under their belts, so I spent a lot of my time playing catch up. I was given 10 days notice that I would need to take and pass the GRE (Graduate Record Examination), so I downloaded a book called "How to Cram for the GRE in 90 Days," read it non-stop for a week, and somehow passed the exam. After that, I walked into a program where professors would say things in class like "use those skills you've learned over the past four years," at which point I must've had a giant question mark over my head. I spent what little free time I had reading anything related I could get my hands on.

I was told up front that the average graduate student spends two hours at home studying/reading/working for every one credit hour spent in class, and for someone like me without that undergraduate degree, I could count on spending three hours. In other words, if I took 12 hours a semester, I could plan on spending 36 hours a week at home working on stuff. That estimate proved to be accurate.

I don't want to belabor the point, but for 2 1/2 years, this is what my life was like. I was able to modify my work schedule so that I could still work 40 hours a week, but was able to move those hours around a bit. Essentially, my 40 hours a week had to fall between 6am and 6pm, but the actual times were flexible. The college I attended was, with traffic and accounting for parking, about an hour away. Because certain classes are only offered during "core hours," there were several semesters where I had to leave my house at 5am so I could arrive on campus, park, and be set up for work by 6am. In one of the study lounges I could work until it was time for class. During a couple of semesters I had classes at split times, like 8am and 2pm, which meant I would leave for school at 5am, arrive by 6am, alternate between work and school, leave school around 3pm, and come home to work until 6pm. One class I needed was only offered on Wednesday nights from 6pm-9pm, so on those days I went into the office, worked until 5pm, drove to school from there and got home around 10pm. Many days, I left the house in the morning when it was dark and returned at night when it was dark again. Combine that crazy schedule with 30-40 hours of homework a week plus staying married and raising two kids and... yeah, it was exhausting.

Despite all of the adversity, I found it to be an incredibly rewarding experience. For the first time, I really wanted to be in college, and I was learning about things I loved. Going back to school as an adult is an entirely different experience. While my classmates (most of whom were 20 years younger than me) were talking about attending football games, making spring break plans and wondering what life outside the dorms might be like, I was juggling work, school, and raising kids. There was an obvious age gap (I once told my wife, "I'm Star Wars and they're Harry Potter"), but in many ways it played to my advantage. I already had self discipline, and more than anything, I saw the value of the program. I wanted to be there. I also didn't feel the need to socialize while I was there. I was polite and cordial and was even "Facebook friends" with some of my classmates, but I wasn't really there for that. The only people I remain in somewhat regular touch with are my professors. One of the kids I regularly collaborated with was born in 1995, four years after I graduated high school. Other than writing, we didn't have a lot to talk about.

When asked what my goals were when starting the program, my answer was simple -- to learn as much as possible about writing genre fiction, and graduate with a 4.0 GPA. My advisor told me straight up I should not focus on that 4.0 goal. "It just doesn't happen in master programs," he told me. After busting my ass for two and a half years, I not only graduated with a 4.0, but was inducted into Kappa Tau Alpha, the national honors society for journalism and mass communication.

I'll wrap this up with the good news and the bad news. The bad news is, I'm still working at the same place, doing the same job. I self-published one book after graduating, worked on half a dozen others, and kind of lost interest. The good news was, I had a wonderful time in school, and learned that I really enjoy education. I also enjoy competition -- writing a better story than the next guy, or getting a higher grade. For me, self-education has its own rewards, but it does not compete with the classroom environment. There are many times I feel not that my degree was a waste, but that I have wasted the knowledge I learned after obtaining it. When people find out you have a degree in writing genre fiction, they immediately ask what books you've written or what you're currently writing, and when that list is short or empty, it makes it tough to justify the degree.

There are really only two reasons to go to college... to say you have a degree (which can help you get a job), or to learn something. (And for the lucky ones, both I suppose.) I got my associates because I was embarrassed to not have a degree. I got my bachelors degree because I wanted the piece of paper. And I got my masters degree because I wanted to learn something.

One part of working for the government is the eventual acceptance of complacency. You can only have your new ideas rejected or watch good suggestions die on the vine so may times before you quit putting in the extra effort. I give the government eight hours of work every day, but rarely eight hours and one minute. I can't help but wonder if I had found that degree program earlier if it would have made a difference. Instead of being stuck in my ways, I wonder if I would have pursued writing as a career instead of a hobby. At my age, it doesn't appear as if I'll find out. There's not really a doctoral degree in creative writing that makes sense for me or works for my lifestyle, so at least for now I will continue to ready and study the art of fiction on my own time, and maybe consider more formal education after I retire. Before I do that, I'll really need to consider why I would do that -- if it would be for the piece of paper, the title, or the education.
"I failed a savings throw and now I am back."

User avatar
pinback
Posts: 17672
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2002 3:00 pm
Contact:

Re: Higher Education... worth it? Favorite memories?

Post by pinback »

I didn't get higher education, didn't do anything or meet anyone. And now look at me!

Don't look at me.
I don't have to say anything. I'm a doctor, too.

User avatar
AArdvark
Posts: 16177
Joined: Tue May 14, 2002 6:12 pm
Location: Rochester, NY

Re: Higher Education... worth it? Favorite memories?

Post by AArdvark »

I was slated to go to Alfred State and learn to be an architect. Frank Lloyd AArdvark, that's me. Well... after three days I could see college wasn't for me. I didn't want to have a roommate in the dorm, I didn't want to play any of the stupid get-to-know-everyone games the RA made us play and I really didn't like the professors criticizing my clothes. There was also a jazz band tryout that was abysmal. I put up with it for a week and a half and then said I'm out of here.

Eventually I got into Rochester Tooling and Machining Institute where all you have to do is learn skillz and nobody cares how you're dressed. Plus I could go after work and earn a living during the day.

THE
BREAD WINNER
AARDVARK

User avatar
Ice Cream Jonsey
Posts: 28877
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2002 2:44 pm
Location: Colorado
Contact:

Re: Higher Education... worth it? Favorite memories?

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

It's transporters, not transformers yiiiiiiiiiiiii
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!

User avatar
Ice Cream Jonsey
Posts: 28877
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2002 2:44 pm
Location: Colorado
Contact:

Re: Higher Education... worth it? Favorite memories?

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Some of the classic car community makes gasoline purchases based on if a place has ethanol. But I'm with you, the great, great majority of people don't buy gas because of "brand." If they did, that has company that ruined the ocean, BP I think, would be out of business.
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!

User avatar
Tdarcos
Posts: 9333
Joined: Fri May 16, 2008 9:25 am
Location: Arlington, Virginia
Contact:

Re: Higher Education... worth it? Favorite memories?

Post by Tdarcos »

A degree is not necessarily a requirement to get a good Job. Like this: what would you think of a job where you could make $100,000 a year, the occupation is recession-proof, there aren't enough people to handle all the work, and you could probably graduate with the skills you need having no student debt? A pipe dream, you might say? Well you're only half right, as it might involve pipes. It's welding. You can learn it with a tech school education, and welders routinely start out at 40K a year, and if you get a few years experience in specialized welding, and are willing to work long hours, can reach as high as $200,000 a year.

Mike Rowe, who was the host of the TV show Dirty Jobs, points out that while some people probably should go on to college because they want to go into a STEM field, we still need blue-collar professionals. There is no shame in doing a blue collar job where you make as much as a stockbroker but with 10% of the stress.

But what has happened is that the perceived need for higher education - plus the easy availability of loans, allowing schools to jack up the price - has caused inflation of educational requirements. Requiring someone who does sales to have a bachelor's or master’s degree does not mean you get people good at making sales, you get someone good in taking classes and not burning down the school long enough to get a degree.

Because if you're a manager, and you impose stiff educational requirements that are not really required to perform in the position, you can duck responsibility if the candidate doesn't work out. "He looked good on paper." But hire someone who bombs, and they don't have the paperwork, your head might be on the chopping block too. Laundry lists of requirements is the sign of lazy managers or "check the box" personnel departments. Or it's used as an excuse to hire foreign applicants by claiming there are no US candidates who can fill the position, which is going to be the case if, for example, you advertised for a position with at least 5 years experience working on Windows. Windows 11, that is.

One of the things that has basically ruined higher education was making student loans non-dischargeable in bankruptcy. If banks had their own money on the line if a borrower was unable to pay, they'd be a lot more picky in what educational classes people borrowed money for. Schools can just raise prices, which means people take out more debt, lather, rinse, repeat. People would not be getting loans to get 4-year degrees in educational fields where a person has no potential to support themselves, and the inexorable ratcheting upward of educational degree costs would not be happening.
Alan Francis wrote a book containing everything men understand about women. It consisted of 100 blank pages.

User avatar
Ice Cream Jonsey
Posts: 28877
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2002 2:44 pm
Location: Colorado
Contact:

Re: Higher Education... worth it? Favorite memories?

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Mike Rowe, who was the host of the TV show Dirty Jobs, points out that while some people probably should go on to college because they want to go into a STEM field, we still need blue-collar professionals. There is no shame in doing a blue collar job where you make as much as a stockbroker but with 10% of the stress.
Mike Rowe is on the Koch Brothers' payroll. Fuck them and fuck him. It's not some giant revelation that we need WELDERS OMG, but also you can go to college and still be a welder. They don't throw you out.

I went to Syracuse for two years, got kicked out and went to community college for many years. I ended up with an Associate's Degree in Liberal Arts and thanks to the sheer criminality of how student loan interest is allowed to work in this country, I owed $20,000 at the end of it. (And I had a scholarship for part of my time at Syracuse.) It took me 10 years to pay my student loans off, but I did in 2011.

That said, loafergirl, it was an AMAZING "investment." My financial advisor is my college roommate. My friend that encouraged me to come out to Colorado (because he had moved out here) was one door down from where I lived. Last weekend I was at the Milker's brother's haunted house with another friend of mine from college, who moved from San Jose to Parker, CO a couple years ago.

Like Flack said, you get out of it what you put into it. I met all those people when I was living in a dorm. At MCC, I did not make a single lasting relationship of any kind, and I sort of regret that.

What sort of career change are you thinking of getting into?
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!

Casual Observer
Posts: 3266
Joined: Wed Oct 01, 2003 10:23 pm
Location: Everett, WA, 2 blocks from where the Green River Killer picked them up

Re: Higher Education... worth it? Favorite memories?

Post by Casual Observer »

Wow, never learned so much about you people in one thread before (except Pinback who is to jaded to give a fuck and Tdarcos who doesn't understand the question).

User avatar
RealNC
Posts: 2244
Joined: Wed Mar 07, 2012 4:32 am

Re: Higher Education... worth it? Favorite memories?

Post by RealNC »

From what I can tell, going to college these days means you have to refer to someone's kids as "children persons" and the master branch of your git repositories has to be renamed to "main" or else you'll get cancelled.

User avatar
Jizaboz
Posts: 4811
Joined: Tue Jan 31, 2012 2:00 pm
Location: USA
Contact:

Re: Higher Education... worth it? Favorite memories?

Post by Jizaboz »

Much like how Flack's story started.. I spent roughly 2 years in a local community college shortly after I got a GED. And that's it. Never finished. No idea what credits I have.

I mostly didn't enjoy it, but there was aspects of it I did enjoy and I'm glad I did it rather than not. Also, I did get to party at a couple of universities (UNCG and Appalachian State) because I knew people that were students living there. Saw enough of that lifestyle to know I would have spent all my time partying rather than getting much work done lol.
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

User avatar
pinback
Posts: 17672
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2002 3:00 pm
Contact:

Re: Higher Education... worth it? Favorite memories?

Post by pinback »

RealNC wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 11:54 am and the master branch of your git repositories has to be renamed to "main" or else you'll get cancelled.
I would have thought this was a joke until I got to my new job. And boy, you shoulda seen the looks I got when I suggested adding a slave to our Jenkins box.
I don't have to say anything. I'm a doctor, too.

User avatar
Tdarcos
Posts: 9333
Joined: Fri May 16, 2008 9:25 am
Location: Arlington, Virginia
Contact:

Re: Higher Education... worth it? Favorite memories?

Post by Tdarcos »

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 6:12 am
Mike Rowe, who was the host of the TV show Dirty Jobs, points out that while some people probably should go on to college because they want to go into a STEM field, we still need blue-collar professionals. There is no shame in doing a blue collar job where you make as much as a stockbroker but with 10% of the stress.
Mike Rowe is on the Koch Brothers' payroll.
Where the fuck did this come from? This has absolutely no relevance to what I said. What does I said have to do with supporting fossil fuel usage and getting rid of environmental laws, which is what I presume they are vilified for?
Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 6:12 am It's not some giant revelation that we need WELDERS OMG, but also you can go to college and still be a welder. They don't throw you out.
The difference being, going to a trade school gets you educated in a marketable skill that you can start out making a decent wage, and within a short time, be making six figures a year with no student debt.
Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 6:12 am It took me 10 years to pay my student loans off, but I did in 2011.
Yeah, it took you ten years to pay off that debt, a mere $20K. I'm thinking of the people who have $100,000 or $200,000 of student debt. Now, presuming you had a $20K loan at 3.7%, that's $199.59 a month. Now if it took you ten years, I'm presuming you probably made about $30,000 a year since you had to take 10 years to pay it. That's about $300,000 in income over that 10 years.

Now, the welder, who took trade school and probably made about $40,000 a year for the first couple of years, then an average of $130,000 a year after that, made $1.12 million over that same period. And owes no student debt. If he puts 10% of his after-tax income in a Roth IRA, about $1,500 a month, he's already invested about $100,000 which means, that after 10 years he probably has over $300,000 from stock investments, and any gains or income from it are tax-free. This means he could work 20 years, and retire at 40 with about $2 million or more in his pension, which he pays no tax on distributions. If he also opens a 401(k) you could add at least another million, but those distributions are taxable (because a 401(k) is funded with before-tax dollars), but he'll probably pay less by being in a lower tax bracket.

Further, if he wants the "college experience" there's no reason he can't go part-time or take courses during his free time, as most students in college have to do. Which means with the kind of money made as a skilled tradesman, he could pay for classes out-of-pocket, and again, have no student debt.
Alan Francis wrote a book containing everything men understand about women. It consisted of 100 blank pages.

Casual Observer
Posts: 3266
Joined: Wed Oct 01, 2003 10:23 pm
Location: Everett, WA, 2 blocks from where the Green River Killer picked them up

Re: Higher Education... worth it? Favorite memories?

Post by Casual Observer »

The "college experience" can be replicated by going to any bars near a college. Thats literally it.

User avatar
loafergirl
Posts: 688
Joined: Thu May 02, 2002 1:26 pm
Location: Rochester

Re: Higher Education... worth it? Favorite memories?

Post by loafergirl »

Casual Observer wrote: Wed Nov 03, 2021 10:05 am What are you taking? What are the options of what you think you want to do?
Current Major: Psychology

I'm attending a Community College on and off for a good decade and a half after getting my GED. My home life up until a handful of years ago had been... inconsistent. Unstable childhood home life and death of my dad, moms unwillingness to provide financial documents to help me attend college when I was supporting myself working part time at a convenience store as a late teen were factors that contributed to the dropping out and failure to pursue higher education for a long time, then I had kids, so depending on that, and other things, there were a lot of... hiccups.

When I started I was a Business Major (I had already worked in retail management, customer service at a major communications company, a Federal Credit Union, and for a health insurance company). Then I changed my major Liberal Arts for a while, then to Education, and navigated the systems to get enough credits and take the required tests and training to get my NYS Teaching Assistant Certification (which I could make a permanent level III TA certificate, but I don't know that I believe the effort to be worth it at this point). After this semester I'm about 4 courses away from my Associates in Science, my grades are all As and Bs, except one retaken communication course (which was initially a failing grade because I didn't know about the process to withdraw or was crazy stressed and anxiety overwhelmed at the time and said "f*ck it", can't remember which, but I have still managed to get my GPA to a 3.705 to date, to be accepted into Phi Theta Kappa honors society, and am hoping to have a 3.75 minimum by graduation).

At this point my coursework is all online, which is necessary given my other obligations, will that change? Who knows.

What do I want to do? Live my life in relative peace and comfort with strong familial ties with my husband and kids, any significant others and offspring they may eventually have, and being a part of a community in which I/my family can have our own space while also being a part of the collective group practicing a lifestyle that is conscious of the balance of ethical responsibilities and reasonable human expectations (like an eco-village), but I also want to attain this while acting ethically and responsibly, in the larger sense, and the b*tch of it is, to be a part of something like an eco village, one has to have the money to do so unless you have social ties to like minded people ready, able and willing to create one with you, or have some kind of stellar luck or divine intervention that would allow it to form around you. It'd be nice to have some good friends to human with too.


Seems Flack would rather be writing. I was a Creative Writing Major in HS before dropping out, always loved it, love reading now, but don't have any confidence that I could make a career of it.


Which leads to the question... are you all doing what you want? What do you want to do? Do any of you periodically return to existential crisis because of the ridiculously over-complex systems we currently must navigate and contradictions we must face?
1, 2, 5!
3 sir...
3!

User avatar
AArdvark
Posts: 16177
Joined: Tue May 14, 2002 6:12 pm
Location: Rochester, NY

Re: Higher Education... worth it? Favorite memories?

Post by AArdvark »

The writing and cartoons are a nice hobby for me but I doubt I could make it pay, as the Mark Twain quote goes. I like making train parts and forklift parts and the company likes me liking to make parts.

User avatar
Flack
Posts: 8822
Joined: Tue Nov 18, 2008 3:02 pm
Location: Oklahoma
Contact:

Re: Higher Education... worth it? Favorite memories?

Post by Flack »

loafergirl wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 1:51 pm Seems Flack would rather be writing. I was a Creative Writing Major in HS before dropping out, always loved it, love reading now, but don't have any confidence that I could make a career of it. [...] Which leads to the question... are you all doing what you want? What do you want to do?
After one year of community college, I was 100% convinced I was going to become a professional writer. Writing fiction wasn't on my radar, but I thought for sure I'd become a reporter -- maybe write a little non-fiction, churning out a few school textbooks on the side if I got bored. This was in the early 90s, so online publishing wasn't really a thing yet.

My second year of school, I interned at two different newspapers. The first was the town's free newspaper that got delivered to everybody's mailbox once a week whether they wanted it or not. The closest I came to getting paid was receiving 1,000 business cards (I still have at least half of them). It was a fun gig and I got college credit for driving around town and asking random people hard hitting questions about the weather and what they thought about local issues.

I spent the second semester interning for the town's real newspaper, who picked me up as a stringer. A stringer is someone who covers events on spec and only gets paid if the paper uses them. The going rate in the mid-90s was 50 cents per column inch. The first story I had published was about the county fair. I spent my entire Saturday hanging out at the fair, interviewing people and coming up with different articles. I think the one they published was about the 4H contests. The final story was 10" long in the paper, so I got paid $5 for one whole day of hanging out at the fair and another whole day writing articles. When I wasn't stringing I sat around the office turning AP articles off the teletype machine into filler for the paper. Most people don't know this but newspapers only exist to sell advertising. Copy is just what they use to fill in the space around the ads.

Around the time I was making astronomically less than minimum wage, a couple of my friends were making $10/hour at a local computer store. The two of them assembled, upgraded and repaired PCs for customers. I loved computers, and a light bulb went off in my brain. Yes, I loved writing, but I loved computers too. One of those careers was paying me $5-$10 a week and the other was offering $10/hour. That was really the moment I walked away from writing and gravitated toward computers as more than just a hobby.

A few years later, right around Y2K, I heard that websites were beginning to pay for content. I wrote a few DVD reviews for IGN (which are still online, and pretty bad) and got paid $50 per review. Online journalism wasn't very organized back then. I would write articles for IGN and two months later they would mail me a check. It wasn't quite the immediate payment system we know and expect today. That gig with IGN showed me that there was still a way to get paid for writing -- maybe not by being a boots-on-the-ground reporter per se, but something similar, from the comfort of my own home.

In 2005 when I began working on what would become my book Commodork, I reached out to a few agents to see if anyone would be interested in publishing a memoir about computer BBSes. Unsurprisingly, no one was. The best offer I got for an advance was for a small computer/gaming publishing company who offered me a $1,000 advance (which would be paid back at $1/copy) and then $1/copy profit for me after 1,000 sales. I decided to self-publish the book instead. It was the right place at the right time, and over a few years I ended up selling 1,000 copies and making $10/copy profit.

In 2008 I tried to duplicate my success, but quickly discovered that part of my first book's success could be attributed to being in the right place at the right time. In 2006, self-publishing was still in its infancy. In 2008, the flood gates were beginning to open. I'll bet I've only sold 200-250 copies of Invading Spaces, a book about arcade games that should have had a much larger appeal than my first book about BBSes.

Over the years I've learned that I'm a good enough writer that most places will accept my work... for free. I wrote articles and reviews for a ton of websites and online ezines for free. When I tried getting paid for my work, I found fewer people were interested. Still, I've been published in (and been paid by) probably a dozen magazines over the years, but the reality is people will fight you for the opportunity to write for free. Why should IGN pay people to review DVDs when there are a thousand kids in college willing to write for free just for the honor of being published? Trust me, I have tuned down hundreds of offers from people asking me to write a magazine or book article for free -- of course they'll be selling the product and making money off of my content, but they never word it like that. "You'll be getting paid in exposure" is the biggest racket of all time.

Getting a book published today is nothing like what it used to be. Today, the first thing book publishers want to know is what your social media presence looks like. Writers are expected to come to the table with a large social media following (or mailing list). Many smaller authors do mini book tours on their own dime. Copyeditors have largely been squeezed out of the equation; copyediting falls back on authors and (to a lesser extent) agents. Advances are either super low or super high, and if your book doesn't make a profit, you'll get dropped. For a lot of genre fiction, authors are expected to come to the table with one book fleshed out and two more to round out a trilogy, in case the book sells.

Here's the reality. 70% of traditionally published books don't make a profit. And the average self-published book sells around 250 copies. That's way up from a few years ago, when the average was just 20 copies. People still occasionally pay for my books, but the reality is if you took the profits from all three of my books, plus all the books, magazines, and websites I got paid to contribute to and added them all up, the total would be roughly one month's salary. Eh, maybe slightly over one, but definitely below two.

Of course there's always the hope you'll tap into something. Virginia Wade's book "Cum for Bigfoot" caught on and soon she was cranking out novels about barely legal girls being raped and seduced by Bigfoot. Before Amazon locked down the bounds of self-published erotic fiction, Wolf was making $20k-$30k a month on writing Bigfoot porn. I worked on a memoir about old computers and sold 1,000 copies. Virginia Wade wrote a dozen books about boning Bigfoot and became a millionaire. Go figure.

Stringers still exist today. Most major news outlets go through stringer services that take 30% off the top. Stringer packages (stories and photos) sell for $100-$300. If you sold a $100 package every day of the week, every week of the year, that's an annual salary of $26k. That would be considered a success. A friend of mine wrote an article for the Huffington Post and got paid $0. He got some web traffic and business from the article, so maybe it was worth it. If writing is your full time gig, that's not a great payment plan.

Would I be a be a writer if it paid my current salary? You betcha. Unfortunately I can't afford to do it, and so I'll have to continue to feed that hunger by writing things on the side... like movie reviews on forums.

Sorry for the lengthy response. Feel free to split it off into its own "wistful writers" thread if necessary.
"I failed a savings throw and now I am back."

User avatar
Ice Cream Jonsey
Posts: 28877
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2002 2:44 pm
Location: Colorado
Contact:

Re: Higher Education... worth it? Favorite memories?

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Casual Observer wrote: Sat Nov 06, 2021 10:14 am The "college experience" can be replicated by going to any bars near a college. Thats literally it.
Ya missing out on that tasty DORM FUCKEN!
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!

User avatar
Ice Cream Jonsey
Posts: 28877
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2002 2:44 pm
Location: Colorado
Contact:

Re: Higher Education... worth it? Favorite memories?

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Tdarcos wrote: Sat Nov 06, 2021 10:02 amWhere the fuck did this come from? This has absolutely no relevance to what I said. What does I said have to do with supporting fossil fuel usage and getting rid of environmental laws, which is what I presume they are vilified for?
Rowe takes money from two of the biggest shitbags on Earth who clearly have an agenda ("let's get some populist type to start savaging college because college creates them there liberals"). Rowe pretending to be an aw shucks man of the people when he's rubbing elbows with some of the richest people on the planet makes everything he says about what people should do a total joke.

Never debate me on the politics of Mike Rowe. You will look the fool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah, it took you ten years to pay off that debt, a mere $20K. I'm thinking of the people who have $100,000 or $200,000 of student debt.
So do welders make a ton of money or not? Not all of us have the resources of the Koch Brothers to bail us out like you and Mike Rowe do.
Now, presuming you had a $20K loan at 3.7%, that's $199.59 a month. Now if it took you ten years, I'm presuming you probably made about $30,000 a year since you had to take 10 years to pay it. That's about $300,000 in income over that 10 years.
It wasn't a 20K loan, it was a 10K loan that turned into 20,000 of debt after ten years. I understand you not remembering it, seeing how it was only in the post you quoted. Also 30,000 a year at age 37 seems high, I think I was only making 12 or 13 thousand dollars a year at that point. I did get half bennies at the chicken processing plant and they let you stick your dick in the machine that sucks the eggs out, so it wasn't as bad a deal as it might at first seem.
Further, if he wants the "college experience" there's no reason he can't go part-time or take courses during his free time, as most students in college have to do. Which means with the kind of money made as a skilled tradesman, he could pay for classes out-of-pocket, and again, have no student debt.
I will break character for a moment to state for the rest of you that Tdarcos basically states "a welder can still go to college" which is what I said to begin with, in case any of you were wondering if our exchange was worth your time or not.
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!

Post Reply