Disgruntled College Student

Hola,

I've been in the web site stuff for about 6 months now and have been learning more than I ever thought possible. I also know now that there are many years ahead of me if I want to learn everything so far that's caught my interests. Unfortunately I am currently enrolled in a rather respected Computer Science school that likes to own me night and day (40 hours in the lab last week) and I dont' really have the time I wished I had to dedicate to my online ventures.

-Schmeg, wants to drop out of school, but doesn't have the testicular fortitude to so do

 

I too have been tricked into going to college.
And once your in you can't leave because then you gotta pay those loans off. Well ok, you can leave, but it sucks to think about those student loans.

I've been going to DeVry for a while and almost everything that I've learned about websites, computers, networking, internet, etc., has been self taught due to an actual interest in something. School has taught me things here and there, but nothing as useful as what I've been able to learn by myself.

Kinda sad when I think about it.
But I've only got like 10 classes left , but they are all general ed classes, which are waaaay boring. I took all my technical classes (Novel, CNA, Linux, TCP/IP etc.) as soon as I could because I actually wanted to learn those. Now I've passed through those classes and found out I could have learned all that and more if I'd taught myself via the Internet, plus I would've saved a bunch in books and tuition (sp?).

But at least some day I'll have a piece of paper that says I went to school. weeeeeeeee!!!

 

Amen to that - school is ok for general topics but can never compete with what you can learn by doing.

I know - I'm in school and it's just about the most useless thing I do. I keep going though...have to pay off the loans 6 months after I'm done. I just want the piece of paper that says I'm smart

 

I guess we can all agree that college learning is entirely different then self learning.

It's that double edge sword where you need to know what you are doing with experience to back it up to have peple pay you for your skills. But you don't get that expereince in college, you just get a piece of paper that says you know how to learn, so that when people see that they are impressed.

I guess one option is to work for yourself. The Internet helps a lot for starting businesses, and SEO/SEM is just the best "free advertising" to learn.

Good luck to you all.

 

I got an associates degree in bussiness. I took up web classses and photoshop too for some electives. It didn't help out with seo, but I took me to another level inrunning my own bussiness.
Now I'm going for my batchlors at a better school in a media arts program. 700/class and it was worth every penny and minute I spent. There's a huge difference between knowing how to use the $500 programs we play with and making them work very well for us. School enabled me to work from home, and quit my real job.

I think school isn't much, but the Google bussiness model isn't going to last forever. Search engines try to combat our SEO techniques every update.

 

I don't think they try and "combat" seo, they're just trying to deliver the most relevant results for the searcher is after.

SEO is just one element of on-line marketing, which isn't going away anytime soon.

 

You can only stay at the top so long!

 

Being "at the top" is only part of the equation.

As a said in my last post, SEO should be a part of your in-line marketing strategy.

In your last post you mention the "Google business model" and that it won't last forever. Can you elaborate on this a little?

 

Sure, using Google is a great bussiness model. Do what tactics that need to be done to get on top to acheive traffic.
has anyone done a search on google for miserable failure? Look who's on top. Miserable failure is no where to be found on this page, so it's pretty obvious that it is all imbound links.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=miserable+failure

 

If you swap links with the right people, buy enough inbound links then It is easy to get the traffic.
Google is the only one that is really completely free to do well in.

 

Ok, I see what you're saying. "Google's business model" and "Google as part of your business model" are two different things, just wanted to make sure I knew where you were coming from.

I think everyone optimizes for Google because it's one of the most popular SE's, and pages that rank well, in Google tend to rank well in Yahoo and MSN. While this isn't law, it's certainly a good guideline for optimizing. Optimize for the most "difficult" SE, and the others should fall into place.

Using Google should be a part of your marketing strategy, but not all of it. Relying on only one means of generating business/leads is dangerous. Something about all your eggs in one basket….

SEO will be around for the long haul. As long as people use SE's to find things, SEO's will be around tweaking pages to "make the cut".

 

SEO and SEM are both great, but the degree is a great backup for the long haul. I case we all need to get "real jobs". LOL
I make a living on what I do on the net, but if that crashes I'm not going to go back to delivering pizza and selling cars. Not that delivering pizza is bad, I just don't want to need to go back to it.
School may not be the place to go to learn SEO or web design, but it could give you a little culture and make you a little more well rounded indivisual.

 

I am going to an on-line school No culture required.

 

Stuff they attempt to teach you at uni here is outdated by the time you hand in the essay or report. Makes you feel like a monkey, taught an awful lot of complicated tricks you will never use once released into the real, non-academic, world / life.

Most degrees imo are just a piece of paper which tells you you have passed the endurance test. Well hey hey congrats you succeeded in sitting on your backside for 3 years learning what they want you to know. And no I haven't chosen the wrong degree. It was interesting but could have studied it myself in under 50% of the time using the rest of the precious time for more important and emotionally and financially rewarding stuff.

 

ginostylz, Right on!

No potential employer is going to think that what you learned in school is going to help their company. Anybody that has gone through school themselves, knows better.

BUT, the fact that you have a degree means the pot has withstood the kiln, per se. It tells a potential employer that you had what it takes to stick with it. To apply yourself, to follow rediculous rules, to comply with rediculous demands. You were instructed to learn something and you did so to at least satisfactory standards. It shows character.

I have been a hiring manager. I know that there are many jobs that are available only to those with some sort of advanced degree. It did not matter how qualified a candidate was, if he did not have a degree, he did not qualify for the job.

I am speaking as a college graduate that ended up going back to college as an adult. I graduated with a BA exactly 20 years after I graduated high school.

Do I use my degree today? Not directly.
Do I use anything today that I learned in college? Most likely NO.
Would I do it over again? In a New York Minute!