[rant]Contact Hour Billing

[Selby]

As for raising the bar, well, if the average level of education goes up, and companies start demanding higher degrees, then great! A better educated population, more quality jobs, higher standards for intellectual quality.

You assume people will learn and be better people because of it though. Where I went to school they passed people with pulses in most departments and in my "strict" department, if you just managed to stay in class long enough they would graduate you. They graduated some of the biggest wastes of space with a bachelor's of Electrical Engineering. Then I had to go compete with them in the job market.

If our University system would do what it is supposed to: teach and give grades based on your performance, not give 1 A, 1 B, and C the rest of the class regardless of grades. With 4th highest grade (or 53 out of 60 points for the whole semester) in the class of 35, I got a C. Yet the slacker in the back of the class (when he actually shows up) who got 15 out of 60 points for the whole semester gets the same grade and same degree, I can't compete with it. So I ended up going to graduate school (where they actually do kick people out) to distinguish myself from the morons. A Bachelor's degree is worthless to most companies these days, they want Masters degrees. But they don't care how smart you are, they just want the piece of paper. A piece of paper that says I put up with more BS than someone else. I hate the current higher education system and I hate recruiters who don't know a damn thing about the job they are recruiting for automatically assuming that a certain degree entitles someone to a job regardless of their ability to perform.

Sorry, kinda ranted there for a while. I just got done turning in my corrected and defended thesis to the graduate school, so hopefully I am leaving this behind me for a while.