Mech-Engineering degree and UTI??

[Tony D]

Yes, bummer.

 

Or you just can consider that I'm a unquantifiable genius and it may take years for people to understand the depths at which I use language.

 

 

Naw............

 

Soon, we will both undoubtedly spontaneously evolve into self-levitating brain sacs with tendrils in which I can ensnare beautiful girls... you can do what you want with your tendrils. I'm ensnaring girls!

 

I most assuredly DO NOT have an MBA. Nor a Masters of any kind.

 

My father was a public school administrator who had educational requsites comparable to a doctoral degree, but never pursued the title like so many of his friends did because he was not out for a title, and knew with it he would be excluded from some of the more interesting small districts in the state. As it was, due to his qualifications school districts were not offering positions, and when he asked they said "we can't pay you what you're worth"---it's kind of a compliment, but it really upset my dad because there were places he really thought he could help, and really would have taken those jobs for whatever they could pay just to DO that job.

 

I have taken a job for HALF what I previously was making at a 'lower title, higher pay' situation because I thought the job would 1) Enrich My Knowledge Base, 2) was an area where I didn't know what I thought I should, 3) was 'interesting'...

 

I can't say I've made top dollar anywhere I went, but that was not my concern. If I wanted to be rich, I'd start my own business. That's a fact, you won't get rich working for someone else. But what I have done is take positions where I was interested in what they were doing and thought they could give me something to work my brain. Like I said, I had fantasies about design work at one time. I ended up landing a job Drafting brackets for MJ1A Bomblifts (something I worked on while in the USAF) and after 6 months I was through with that...forever. Not day in day out. An occasional bracket. An occasional tool. Overhung load calculations... sure fine... But sitting in a cubie all day at a workstation (then again, this was before internet availability and desktop surfing...hmmmmmmmmmmm) I'd take the axe and do 'Jack Nicholson' on the cubie walls. By the end of October this year likely I will have spent 12 days in my office in Diamond Bar. WOO HOO! I hate going to the office.

 

But I digress.

 

Learning is not something that is quantified by the paper you present to them and validate your CV. Learning is something you do continuously and in every facet of your life. Curiousity is contagious. The best time in my life was when I was going to technical school in the USAF---I got PAID to go to school, and had a fully outfitted gym at my disposal. Right, I knew about automotive mechanics at the time, ended up going into support equipment with the logic "I already know about jeeps and cars, this looks interesting"... That got me on the flightline, where F15C's and D's were, and guys who were 'mechanics' because the USAF told them they were...not because they did anything more than score about a 25 on the ASVAB to qualify for the spot. When a guy with support equipment training walks out and troubleshoots your weapons release problem without ever having seen the schematic before.... that was the time I started figuring maybe I should spend time at U of Md classes after work.

 

Believe it or not, 'Asian Studies'... And even then, no matriculation formally. Close, but no cigar. Some upper level composition and history credits were lacking and I wasn't there long enough to wait for them to open up and complete the coursework. Minor in Business Admin since that's about all they offered overseas. Sucked.

 

Then, when on the road with Atlas Copco I found 2000 hours a year in hotel rooms in such senic places as Keokuk Iowa, and Worland Wyoming. So there was this outfit associated with Penn State called "ICS" a correspondence school that had done work with the Military. I started the associates program in ME Technology, and completed it. Except for that three weeks you needed to do at Penn State in the lab. Meh, I was too busy. I just paid for the next course (Industrial Eng) and did the same thing... After a couple o five years I had done four of their programs, all associates degrees, but never the three week program to complete and officially matriculate for any of them. I asked for time off once and my dentally challenged supervisor made gruff commentary about not wasting the company's time...and since I only was entitled to TWO weeks vacation at any given time what was the use? Hell, as long as my GPA was above a 3.5 they paid 100% of the course cost anyway---wether I matriculated officially or not. Knowedge for knowledge's sake I suppose. Didn't cost me anything but time in a hotel room that I would have spend reading history books anyway (this trip from Australia got me over $175 worth of books on Aussie History, making me overweight on baggage for British Air!) Hey, I got time to read. Starting to make sense now?

 

I am reminded of Blutarski in "Animal House" as he exclaims 'Eight Years of College Shot to Hell'...

 

Basically I've been learning continuously since I started to read. I have taken applied classes here and there, technical courses and seminars, and probably another 2000 hours of vendor-specific training...and likely some diploma mill someplace would complie all the stuff and give me some sort of "Life Experience Bachelors" that I could hang on my wall. I considered it when I realized that my compatriot at the company in our controls group confessed to me he had a double associates out of Penn State (ASEE, ASME) which was combined for a bachelors somehow. I started going to myself "hey, I got four of those, plus 20 years in the business..."

 

I guess if I totaled it all up maybe it's more than a simple bachelors. I haven't really run across anything I couldn't figure out yet. One of the things I've always ended up gravitating towards at work is the training aspect, I ended up being selected for training because I could pass on what I learned. Many times I was picked to be a trainer. Much of what I do now for Distributor Support can be defined broadly as training. It really was all I wanted to do...but remember my father was a school administrator, and former teacher and he said at a really young age: "You don't want to be a teacher..." Well I did...and curiously now he's sending me articles from Michigan where retirees in hands-on trades are now being accredited as teachers by the state (like they formerly wre allowed to do before the NEA Union was entrenched, you could apprentice to be a teacher in Mighigan at one time!) because the skills they have from 30+ years on the job just can not be taught by someone who is 24 and just out of university with a teaching credential. From the martial arts, you couldn't progress beyond shodan unless you spent time teaching younger students. It was a lesson learned well, because I saw in teaching others I learned more---or more importantly I questioned what I thought I knew more---and until you do that, you are merely regirgutating something you read in a book, or had thrown at you in some lecture. There are PLENTY of people out there who can recite stuff from rote, or reading...but what insight do they have beyond what they speak?

 

One of my favorite shows on TV at one time was 'The Pretender'---the last scene of the opening credits where the old lady in the bed looks up at Jared and says 'are you a doctor?' His answer is what I've said to customers ever since: "I am today!"

[naviathan]

Soon, we will both undoubtedly spontaneously evolve into self-levitating brain sacs with tendrils in which I can ensnare beautiful girls... you can do what you want with your tendrils. I'm ensnaring girls!

 

I most assuredly DO NOT have an MBA. Nor a Masters of any kind.

 

My father was a public school administrator who had educational requsites comparable to a doctoral degree, but never pursued the title like so many of his friends did because he was not out for a title, and knew with it he would be excluded from some of the more interesting small districts in the state. As it was, due to his qualifications school districts were not offering positions, and when he asked they said "we can't pay you what you're worth"---it's kind of a compliment, but it really upset my dad because there were places he really thought he could help, and really would have taken those jobs for whatever they could pay just to DO that job.

 

I have taken a job for HALF what I previously was making at a 'lower title, higher pay' situation because I thought the job would 1) Enrich My Knowledge Base, 2) was an area where I didn't know what I thought I should, 3) was 'interesting'...

 

I can't say I've made top dollar anywhere I went, but that was not my concern. If I wanted to be rich, I'd start my own business. That's a fact, you won't get rich working for someone else. But what I have done is take positions where I was interested in what they were doing and thought they could give me something to work my brain. Like I said, I had fantasies about design work at one time. I ended up landing a job Drafting brackets for MJ1A Bomblifts (something I worked on while in the USAF) and after 6 months I was through with that...forever. Not day in day out. An occasional bracket. An occasional tool. Overhung load calculations... sure fine... But sitting in a cubie all day at a workstation (then again, this was before internet availability and desktop surfing...hmmmmmmmmmmm) I'd take the axe and do 'Jack Nicholson' on the cubie walls. By the end of October this year likely I will have spent 12 days in my office in Diamond Bar. WOO HOO! I hate going to the office.

 

But I digress.

 

Learning is not something that is quantified by the paper you present to them and validate your CV. Learning is something you do continuously and in every facet of your life. Curiousity is contagious. The best time in my life was when I was going to technical school in the USAF---I got PAID to go to school, and had a fully outfitted gym at my disposal. Right, I knew about automotive mechanics at the time, ended up going into support equipment with the logic "I already know about jeeps and cars, this looks interesting"... That got me on the flightline, where F15C's and D's were, and guys who were 'mechanics' because the USAF told them they were...not because they did anything more than score about a 25 on the ASVAB to qualify for the spot. When a guy with support equipment training walks out and troubleshoots your weapons release problem without ever having seen the schematic before.... that was the time I started figuring maybe I should spend time at U of Md classes after work.

 

Believe it or not, 'Asian Studies'... And even then, no matriculation formally. Close, but no cigar. Some upper level composition and history credits were lacking and I wasn't there long enough to wait for them to open up and complete the coursework. Minor in Business Admin since that's about all they offered overseas. Sucked.

 

Then, when on the road with Atlas Copco I found 2000 hours a year in hotel rooms in such senic places as Keokuk Iowa, and Worland Wyoming. So there was this outfit associated with Penn State called "ICS" a correspondence school that had done work with the Military. I started the associates program in ME Technology, and completed it. Except for that three weeks you needed to do at Penn State in the lab. Meh, I was too busy. I just paid for the next course (Industrial Eng) and did the same thing... After a couple o five years I had done four of their programs, all associates degrees, but never the three week program to complete and officially matriculate for any of them. I asked for time off once and my dentally challenged supervisor made gruff commentary about not wasting the company's time...and since I only was entitled to TWO weeks vacation at any given time what was the use? Hell, as long as my GPA was above a 3.5 they paid 100% of the course cost anyway---wether I matriculated officially or not. Knowedge for knowledge's sake I suppose. Didn't cost me anything but time in a hotel room that I would have spend reading history books anyway (this trip from Australia got me over $175 worth of books on Aussie History, making me overweight on baggage for British Air!) Hey, I got time to read. Starting to make sense now?

 

I am reminded of Blutarski in "Animal House" as he exclaims 'Eight Years of College Shot to Hell'...

 

Basically I've been learning continuously since I started to read. I have taken applied classes here and there, technical courses and seminars, and probably another 2000 hours of vendor-specific training...and likely some diploma mill someplace would complie all the stuff and give me some sort of "Life Experience Bachelors" that I could hang on my wall. I considered it when I realized that my compatriot at the company in our controls group confessed to me he had a double associates out of Penn State (ASEE, ASME) which was combined for a bachelors somehow. I started going to myself "hey, I got four of those, plus 20 years in the business..."

 

I guess if I totaled it all up maybe it's more than a simple bachelors. I haven't really run across anything I couldn't figure out yet. One of the things I've always ended up gravitating towards at work is the training aspect, I ended up being selected for training because I could pass on what I learned. Many times I was picked to be a trainer. Much of what I do now for Distributor Support can be defined broadly as training. It really was all I wanted to do...but remember my father was a school administrator, and former teacher and he said at a really young age: "You don't want to be a teacher..." Well I did...and curiously now he's sending me articles from Michigan where retirees in hands-on trades are now being accredited as teachers by the state (like they formerly wre allowed to do before the NEA Union was entrenched, you could apprentice to be a teacher in Mighigan at one time!) because the skills they have from 30+ years on the job just can not be taught by someone who is 24 and just out of university with a teaching credential. From the martial arts, you couldn't progress beyond shodan unless you spent time teaching younger students. It was a lesson learned well, because I saw in teaching others I learned more---or more importantly I questioned what I thought I knew more---and until you do that, you are merely regirgutating something you read in a book, or had thrown at you in some lecture. There are PLENTY of people out there who can recite stuff from rote, or reading...but what insight do they have beyond what they speak?

 

One of my favorite shows on TV at one time was 'The Pretender'---the last scene of the opening credits where the old lady in the bed looks up at Jared and says 'are you a doctor?' His answer is what I've said to customers ever since: "I am today!"

Tony, that was a fantastic read. Thank you.

[Jon 74 260Z]

Nice read, Tony.

 

The one thing that a youngun should parse from that post is that you should always be seeking to expand your knowledge base. I had a prof who once said, "Imagine if you learned one new thing a day -- it wouldn't take you very long to be really smart..."

 

And probably the most efficient way to do that is to read. My favorite William F Buckley quote is "Always carry a book with you; you spend half your life waiting." (Like his politics or not, that advice is money.) TonyD gets off an intercontinental flight smarter than when he boarded while a beer heiress chugs wine, gets felt up and gets arrested upon landing. Who do you think is going to write more interesting posts on HybridZ?

 

Also consistent with Tony's post is one of Jon 74 260Z's Truths of Life: Where you went to school and for how long only matters for your first job; after that, it's what you do on the job that counts. (I may be impressed with a PhD from MIT if you're fresh out of school but if you already worked somewhere, that degree is irrelevant -- I'm only concerned with what you did to justify your salary.)

 

My $0.02 to the OP is a bit long-winded: I enjoy working on my Z because I generally have another car to get me to work. On those thankfully rare occasions when all of my stable is off-line, working on cars, even the most simple jobs, absolutely SUCKS! It's the difference between a want-to and a have-to...

 

Are you going to enjoy working on cars when it is your job? (There is a reason why it is called "going to work" and not "going to play.") There are some people in this world who enjoy doing at home what they do at work -- I'm not one of them. I do like my job but it is NOT what I want to do when I'm not at work. I want something different and wrenching on cars provides a good balance for me... It all depends on your particular psychology.

 

Similar to The Pretender: "I'm not a tuner... but I play one in my garage!"