# Degreed dopers: Could I do your job? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 15, 2009, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/degreed-dopers-could-i-do-your-job/499838 "2009-06-15T15:23:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2009, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/degreed-dopers-could-i-do-your-job/499838/41 "2009-06-15T20:45:15Z")
I’m an IT business analyst at a medium-large health care provider here in the us. The vast majority of what I do isn’t really degree-specific, in that I primarily communicate, coordinate, wheedle, cajole and otherwise sweet-talk people into working on the projects I’m in charge of. It does however, IMO, require quite a bit of background knowledge about how IT and computing work, and in how the various systems operate, as well as how businesses operate, and how all of it ties together. This is partially to be able to communicate with the stakeholders and the technical folks, partially to make sure you’re not getting the run-around by the technical guys, and partially so you can look past what the business folks _say_ they want, and figure out what they’re actually looking for, since they’re not always the same, or even close for that matter. So yeah, you could do my job without a degree, in terms of tasks, but in terms of doing it effectively, it would be pretty tough without a lot more experience in many more departments than most people who are mid-level in IT departments have. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2009, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/degreed-dopers-could-i-do-your-job/499838/42 "2009-06-15T21:11:27Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > So IOW, “yes”. \*\*Agent Foxtrot \*\*could do your job after reading a Dilbert book.😃 Exactly! (it is pretty funny that a lot of folks likely _do_ feel that way, and given what they have experienced dealing with their supervisors, I can see why…) ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2009, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/degreed-dopers-could-i-do-your-job/499838/43 "2009-06-15T22:05:11Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > Physician here. I don’t think you could do my job. You need a medical license, and to do that, you need a medical degree and post-graduate training. > > Even if those requirements were waived, I don’t think you’d be able to cut it. 😉 Oh, I could **cut it** all right, it’s the putting it back together I’m a bit nervous about. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGrenze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dbc845/32.png) [@KarlGrenze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGrenze)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2009, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/degreed-dopers-could-i-do-your-job/499838/44 "2009-06-15T23:53:18Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > Physician here. I don’t think you could do my job. You need a medical license, and to do that, you need a medical degree and post-graduate training. > > Even if those requirements were waived, I don’t think you’d be able to cut it. 😉 Same as him, only I deal with the animals. Most of the time, dead animals, even. 😉 Veterinarian/pathology resident/graduate student **AHunter3** , in my job I mostly cut, not put together. But those things I cut, I damn well better know what they are, why did I cut them, what is wrong with them, and what caused them to be screwed up. And know how they look in a pretty pink and purple slide. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2009, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/degreed-dopers-could-i-do-your-job/499838/45 "2009-06-15T23:57:17Z")
You can theoretically do my job without any degree at all; I doubt that my last year of college will teach me much. Being good enough at it to keep the job is another question. Can you analyze data from hundreds of precincts or counties from the last three elections and judge what approach is needed where? Can you predict the relevant demographics and the necessary percentage of each? Can you do this for weeks on end without getting bored or tired? ---
**Author:** ![Highpockets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e19adc/32.png) [@Highpockets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Highpockets)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/degreed-dopers-could-i-do-your-job/499838/46 "2009-06-16T00:33:14Z")
I’m a corporate lawyer. Putting aside the question of being licensed, you could certainly do my job so long as you don’t need a lot of sleep and you are not completely braindead. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/degreed-dopers-could-i-do-your-job/499838/47 "2009-06-16T00:49:15Z")
I’m a civilian contractor to the federal gov’t. You’d need some specialized training to do what I do. Specifically, you’d need 2-3 weeks to do my specific job and it’d help if you went to [Intelligence School](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Huachuca,_Arizona#Military_Intelligence)first. The rest of what I know comes from my war experience, so that’s a big help. I don’t use a damn thing I learned from my Bachelor’s degree though. I only got that to top off the resume. I do 95% cut-and-paste and 5% judging what I read as of value or not. It’s that judgment that you’d need to hone through schooling and experience that prevents most from doing my job. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/degreed-dopers-could-i-do-your-job/499838/48 "2009-06-16T01:19:26Z")
No. I’m a secondary school teacher. You’d need a lot of knowledge and experience of teaching difficult classes - trust me, teaching adults or training others at work won’t help you at all - and you’d need to know how to do the paperwork (which is a third to a half of the job), what the curriculum is, what the exam regulations are, how to grade the work, how to teach all sorts of kids with different special needs (in regular classroom, I mean, not in a special needs school), the legal requirements, etc, etc. You could probably provide cover for a little while - say, a week - if you were given all the materials and it was in an subject area you knew very well - but any longer than that would be pretty much impossible. Legally, you wouldn’t be allowed to do it, but that’s not what you were asking. ---
**Author:** ![Hyperelastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Hyperelastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hyperelastic)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/degreed-dopers-could-i-do-your-job/499838/49 "2009-06-16T01:38:30Z")
You couldn’t do my job the way _I_ do it, but if you were mechanically inclined and smart enough to know when to keep quiet, you might have a decent chance of learning how to fake your way through it before getting fired. I am an aerospace structures engineer. Don’t look up, something might be falling on you. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![SandyHook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dec6dc/32.png) [@SandyHook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SandyHook)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/degreed-dopers-could-i-do-your-job/499838/50 "2009-06-16T01:44:09Z")
Damn skippy you could. I’m retired. My day so far. 1. Up at 8:30 - shit, showered, and shaved. 2. Rode the bike down to the Nugget (a local casino) for breakfast (oatmeal and coffee.) Read some of Dean Koontz book (which looks like it’s going to suck.) 3. Cleaned up the wood shop a little bit. Actually just enough so that I make some more mess. 4. Sat the garbage and recycling out. 5. Roughed out a couple of bowls on the lathe. 6. Cleaned some more (there’s a buttload of wood in a blank that istn’t a bowl) 7. Checked my email while downing a PB sandwich and a beer for lunch. 8. Brought in the garbage cans. 9. Roughed out a couple more bowls. Fuck cleaning, it’ll keep until tomorrow. 10. Another beer. 11. A beer with dinner. 12. Back on the net. 13. I’ll probably read a couple of hours before calling it a night. Now tomorrow is gonna be a killer. Gotta go out the trailer and fix the switch that runs the water pump. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/degreed-dopers-could-i-do-your-job/499838/51 "2009-06-16T02:35:59Z")
> [@SandyHook](#): > > Damn skippy you could. > > I’m retired. You bastard. ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/degreed-dopers-could-i-do-your-job/499838/52 "2009-06-16T02:37:56Z")
Yes. You’d have to pass the series 7 and 63, but they don’t require any educational background. I"m not sure you’d get hired at my brokerage firm without a degree, but HR knows that people with a 4 year degree have a very high pass rate on the licensing exams. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/degreed-dopers-could-i-do-your-job/499838/53 "2009-06-16T02:57:03Z")
My job involves (inter alia) applying other people’s judgements on old facts to formulate my own judgment on new facts. You don’t know any of the old facts or other people’s judgements on those facts, and you don’t have any experience (through education or on-the-job experience) using the particular kind of judgement I use, so no one would be willing to pay for the use of your judgement on their new facts. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/degreed-dopers-could-i-do-your-job/499838/54 "2009-06-16T03:08:51Z")
IP law You could probably do it after at least 6 or 7 years training. The university study is not essential and you could pick up what you need to know from the formal study in about a year. The actual nuts and bolts would take a lot longer to learn - hence 6 or 7 years training. But no one would trust you unless you had the appropriate qualifications and academic background, so you wouldn’t get any clients. So the answer is, yes, after some training you could probably do it, but no, in the sense that, the reality is that you won’t survive in business. ---
**Author:** ![NinetyWt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/cc9497/32.png) [@NinetyWt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinetyWt)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/degreed-dopers-could-i-do-your-job/499838/55 "2009-06-16T03:25:49Z")
You could do some aspects of my job - it’s not too hard to learn how to manipulate the data sets and run the simpler models. I suspect you’d have trouble interpreting the results, or figuring out what went wrong if one crashes, or working with the more complicated ones. As others have mentioned, the ‘engineering judgement’ part of it you couldn’t do at your level of education. The branch of civil engineering which I’m in is very specialized, and there is a large body of _local_ knowledge required to perform it at this level. Heck, most of the other civil engineers in town couldn’t do my job either. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![panaccione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/94ad74/32.png) [@panaccione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panaccione)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/degreed-dopers-could-i-do-your-job/499838/56 "2009-06-16T03:37:58Z")
Well can you wash dishes and deliver pizzas. I bet you can. I even know some high school dropouts who can manage this one. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/degreed-dopers-could-i-do-your-job/499838/57 "2009-06-16T05:33:17Z")
I don’t think that even college educated and licensed educators know if they can do the job until they are having a go at it. They may have the knowledge required and even a gift for teaching, but until they have actually dealt with the day to day grind of constant classroom interruptions, belligerent parents, bomb threats, bus duty, lowered standards, bullying administrators, trespassers, student deaths, meal tickets, lesson plans, substitute lesson plans, petty jealousies, tardiness, absentee reports, disciplinary reports, student progress reports, club sponsorship, TB testing, and on and on – no individual can know if she or he can do the job – regardless of talent or level of education. On the other hand, you might be a whiz at it. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/degreed-dopers-could-i-do-your-job/499838/58 "2009-06-16T06:04:06Z")
**Could you do my job? (using the Enderw24 re-formulation)** Client calls. “We just got served with something called a statement of claim in the Queen’s Bench. What do we do?” or, clerk from the courthouse calls. “the chambers judge dismissed your rule 188 application.” Well, what do you do, if you’re me, in either situation? ---
**Author:** ![Enginerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bcef8e/32.png) [@Enginerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enginerd)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/degreed-dopers-could-i-do-your-job/499838/59 "2009-06-16T06:09:50Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > or, clerk from the courthouse calls. “the chambers judge dismissed your rule 188 application.” Obviously, the next step is rule 189! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/degreed-dopers-could-i-do-your-job/499838/60 "2009-06-16T06:15:25Z")
Putting aside the obvious requirements (e.g. membership of an appropriate actuarial professional body) - you could do my job if you had otherwise managed to learn/teach yourself the necessary economic/statistical/mathematical/modelling skills. The degree itself is not vital, and is only a recent innovation in the training of actuaries. In Australia until the early 1980s, most would-be actuaries went straight from school into employment, and got their professional training “on the job” while they studied via correspondence. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/degreed-dopers-could-i-do-your-job/499838.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/degreed-dopers-could-i-do-your-job/499838.md?page=4)