The depiction of college here is so different from what I remember. Perhaps it was because I went in knowing what I wanted, electronic engineering and computers. The only social activity I was involved in was the amateur radio club. If there was strong competition, I didn’t notice it. I took classes, got a degree and went straight into engineering at General Motors (Delco Electronics here in Kokomo).
If you’re interested in making things or programming computers, you’ll be less afraid to pursue these activities single-mindedly and thereby become incredibly good at them.
I see myself in that statement.
But you wouldn’t treat the business degree as the central thing.
I learned to dislike the “get an MBA, then manage anything whether you understand the work or not” attitude that seems so common, back in the ‘90s when arrogant MBAs made business decisions with little or no input from the technical people actually designing and building the product.
The costs mentioned for schools is just amazing to me. Us boomers, even the youngest of us, such as myself, really did have it better back in the day. I remember paying for college as I went along by working as a TV technician and having enough money left over to build custom cars (I didn’t sleep much at times, I later learned that is a symptom of the bipolar disorder I was diagnosed with years later). One of the reasons young people today hate boomers is that we expect them to be able to make it through college with no loans like we did back in the day. I don’t blame them for this (except for generalizing all boomers into one nasty group), it really is much harder to make it in life now, we were indeed privileged. Or maybe what we had wasn’t privilege, maybe what they have now is a pale mockery of the life kids should be facing.
A particularly Girardian question...Does our narrator ever have spontaneous desires of his own? This is so interesting!!! The ideas here are so important for understanding how we can go wrong and not pay attention to our deepest and individual desires.
“This individual has merely acquired stamps of approval and has acquired safety net upon safety net. These safety nets don’t end up enabling big risk-taking—individuals just become habitual acquirers of safety nets. The comfort of a high-paying job at a prestigious firm surrounded by smart people is simply too much to give up.”
The depiction of college here is so different from what I remember. Perhaps it was because I went in knowing what I wanted, electronic engineering and computers. The only social activity I was involved in was the amateur radio club. If there was strong competition, I didn’t notice it. I took classes, got a degree and went straight into engineering at General Motors (Delco Electronics here in Kokomo).
I see myself in that statement.
I learned to dislike the “get an MBA, then manage anything whether you understand the work or not” attitude that seems so common, back in the ‘90s when arrogant MBAs made business decisions with little or no input from the technical people actually designing and building the product.
The costs mentioned for schools is just amazing to me. Us boomers, even the youngest of us, such as myself, really did have it better back in the day. I remember paying for college as I went along by working as a TV technician and having enough money left over to build custom cars (I didn’t sleep much at times, I later learned that is a symptom of the bipolar disorder I was diagnosed with years later). One of the reasons young people today hate boomers is that we expect them to be able to make it through college with no loans like we did back in the day. I don’t blame them for this (except for generalizing all boomers into one nasty group), it really is much harder to make it in life now, we were indeed privileged. Or maybe what we had wasn’t privilege, maybe what they have now is a pale mockery of the life kids should be facing.
A particularly Girardian question...Does our narrator ever have spontaneous desires of his own? This is so interesting!!! The ideas here are so important for understanding how we can go wrong and not pay attention to our deepest and individual desires.