I can’t explain your limited imagination, but I think it’s nonsense that you believe one doesn’t learn anything between age 20-40 that they didn’t already know at age 0-20. At age 20 I was living in a fraternity house with 35 other guys doing nothing but schoolwork, athletics and drinking. Hardly the epitome of a mature lifestyle. Yes, there are some core principles for life that I had already learned by that point, but I had never needed to apply them in the ways that I did from age 20-40. Even just at work, having been in the working world for 15 means I’ve seen and done more things than some kid 1 year out of college. He thinks he has everything figured out because it’s all new and exciting, but I’ve seen it tried before and have actual perspective on how it turns out.
It certainly does. No one just masters anything by picking it up. Pick any field and show me how someone can just show up and do a better job than a person who has been working at it for 10,000 hours?
The simple answer is that unseasoned people often have an unbridled passion and naively positive attitude. Employers, especially incompetant ones, like that because they can set them to a task and they will kill themselves trying to complete it. They think that they will be superstars and fast-tracked to huge salaries and positions of authority in a few years or months.
Older people often have had their enthusiasm tempered by experience (often negative). They have seen and experienced how poor management and naive inexperience leads to a clusterfuck nad how that it is far more likely those young people will burn out long before they ever achieve their goals.
Another possibility is that a younger person may have specific experience that the older people don’t have. I was younger than most of my coworkers in my last job and yet I was the most senior. That was do to my specific education and work experience. If I decide to be, say an attorney, now at age 36, most likely I will be junior compared to Associates or even Partners who are 30ish who have been practicing since they were 25.
I can not speak for other fields, but when a graduate engineer comes into a company, he will be taught his job. He will have a lot to learn and it takes a long time. If you think you could walk in and be valuable, you would be kidding yourself.
We were going to put employee photos in our directory. Our company is geographically diverse - most of the team members on my teams I’ve never met it person. My response to this was “good, now I’ll know if someone is just young and naive and there is hope they will outgrow it.”
In many fields like being a CPA accountant or civil enginer, you can’t even become certified in your profession unless you have a certain number of years of practical work experience.
Right, because the other PhDs who have been there 20 years don’t know anything.
It’s like what I used to tell new hires. Their education and work experience got them a job with the company. Now that they are here, they need to prove themselves all over again because all their coworkers have a similar background and education.
He’s the one who said people going to work where he works with a graduate degree would have no value. That must really suck. “Hey, welcome to our office, you suck and aren’t worth a shit. Stand there and be grateful we let you bask in our glory.”
He said “walk in and be valuable”. It’s pretty obvious that he’s saying that in his field, educational experience/graduate degrees merely represents some bit of potential value, and converting that to actual value (the kind that produces dollars instead of mere test results and research papers) takes a bit more time in the real world to learn.
Yeah, you continue to cement my impression of you as a young, angry wannabe academic. Maybe as old as a first-year master’s student. Couldn’t get a job when you got your bachelor’s degree, likely because its in something like rhetoric that means essentially you start at the bottom of something because it’s not a specialist workforce skill, and you’re bitter about that.
Anyone who’s been in the real world in a workforce will know that all the sterile academic practice in the world gets you only to the very start of the path–I don’t care WHAT your field is.
And yes, you still remind me of myself a decade ago. When I knew everything.
Look, you have a dual standard stupidity you’ll accept as convincing: what one says, and what you want one to have said. You’re surely free to be as naive as you’d like, but your inability to be logically consistent isn’t, um, persuasive. Here’s a protip: ignorance and logical incompatibility aren’t arguments.
Yes, by being recognized in my field I’m naturally angry. Woe is me. It’s curious how you claim all of this wisdom and then you come up with something based on no evidence. Here’s an equally like story of you: maybe you decided in your 20s that being a pedophile would be a great idea and then set about raping all the children you could find, unbeknownst to the police. We each have an equal about of information to support our claims.
It’s also curious that you even think I require a job. The assumptions which go into your “reasoning” are numerous and quite faulty. But that’s okay, let’s not let a little thing like reality burst your bubble.
So, your response is essentially that you have a view and don’t care what anyone can say contrary to it. Yup, that sounds about right up your alley. Keep those fingers in your ears, dear.
Well, it would seem you still think you do irrespective of all of the evidence to the contrary.
This is essentially been my argument, but we’ve got some people who are old, and hopefully, losing the fight to continually pollute the intellect of the world by simply remaining not dead who want to argue that age = wisdom. Or experience = wisdom. Or something along those lines.
Of course, I took a different position that it’s hasty generalization which demonstrably false in many, many conditions and by any definitions of the words. This has resulted in, essentially, some conceit that because I refuse to let someone say “because I’m older than you are, I’m necessary more experienced, wiser, smarter than you” because it’s a complete bullshit. In some cases it’s true. In others it isn’t. And if it isn’t true in some cases, then the line of reasoning as suggested falls down and is complete and utter bullshit.
Of course, essentially I’m told to get off their lawn. And these people who seemingly don’t value a proper education want me to take their word for it even when they can’t write out a single, grammatically correct sentence. Sorry, old bats, where I grew up, functional illiteracy wasn’t a point in anyone’s favor.
Except for children still financially supported by their parents, everyone needs a job of some kind. Because it’s obvious you won’t survive on your wits alone.
I guess it’s possible you married into money or created the ultimate whats-it at 12 and are living off the royalties, but somehow I doubt it. And your continued tap dancing around just what it is you do (when it would be extremely relevant to the thread and your point) makes me side with Zeriel. If it’s not some esoteric vanity degree, I’ll eat my hat.
A feature of aging that all my peers seem to agree on is the almost magical way one no longer gives a rat’s ass what random other people think, especially about superficial things. You disengage completely from requiring the approval of other people. It’s marvelous.
(I have always been way out in front on this, since I was a kid. But even with me, it’s expanded with age.)
ashman, you’ll get eaten alive if you ever go into the corporate world. Or else you’ll trip over your dick a bunch of times while us fogeys silently laugh at you.
You’ll probably stay in academia, where it looks like you’re quite suited.
Oooh … goody! I’m looking forward to this part. Everyone bitches & moans about the bad stuff of growing old - I’m female and maybe that skews things - so thanks for putting out a very specific and truly awesome nugget of info about one “feature” of aging I think I’ll find very appealing.
Be assured you have convinced us of your stupidity. He did not say they’d have no value, as you want him to have said. He said they wouldn’t be valuable (at the beginning). There’s a difference. I’d explain that difference to someone who I thought might have some interest in understanding it, but in this case I won’t waste my breath (and yes, I know it’s not literally breath - it’s metaphorical).
Heh, think of getting a degree as being sort of like getting a licence to drive. It is a necessity for being allowed to do the activity at all, but it is no guarantee of ability. On average, who would you trust to drive - someone who just got their license, or someone who has been driving accident-free for 20 years?
Let me see if I can predict ashman’s response. Ashy, don’t look until you respond…
Well, who’s to say they won’t get in an accident tomorrow? Also, you used the British spelling for license. If you can’t learn to communicate in the dialect of those you are speaking with, I have no need for your unfounded opinions.
You will learn it yourself. Nobody tells you how worthless you are. Why would they? Why are you so defensive.?They simply assign you beginning level tasks until you are up to speed. The education level does not always translate to becoming a better engineer. You need a degree to enter, so you are not so special. An advanced degree does not mean you will grasp the practical applications of engineering in a better way. You will be brought along slowly and tested often. You very likely will feel useless. An advanced degree may open some doors, but you still have to prove yourself. over and over.
