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How to best take advantage of a bachelors degree...
- Thread starter zill1
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ballz said:
Hehe,
I'm reminded of a post for a few years ago:
http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/53768/post-502422#msg502422
I'm not an officer, nor do I hold a university degree, but my CPL's gut instinct tells me that Loachman pretty much nailed it:
A degree in XXX simply means you have endured four years or so of a mindset.
While some of the data and processes may initially be usable, most employers are interested in the fact that
1. you completed the task
2. you theoretically have shown that you can reason out a process and arrive at a decision
3. you are trainable.
Remember....this is not applicable to all people....
While some of the data and processes may initially be usable, most employers are interested in the fact that
1. you completed the task
2. you theoretically have shown that you can reason out a process and arrive at a decision
3. you are trainable.
Remember....this is not applicable to all people....
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GAP said:
Yup, four more years of smoking dope and bad-mouthing your Country than us high school dropouts........
Towards_the_gap
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ballz said:
I was only getting jumpy as to what qualifies you to comment on what makes a good officer. Oh, and as an Engineering Surveyor in the Royal Engineers, I did happen to learn a bit more than trig. So I do know about maths, and how asides from construction tasks, I have never had to use anything more advanced than simple multiplication whilst doing anything exciting as a combat arms soldier.
If the OP enjoys math and wants an exciting career, I can only think that the engineers or the gunners offer that mix of technical problem solving and 'outside the box' thinking.
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Why not look into EME officer? You will have to take engineering at a university and for the first little bit of your career you will be involved in clerical and administration of a Maint Plt,but it opens up a little later in your career to more interesting things.
my .02
my .02
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My :2c:
In the combat arms (not combat support arms or combat service support arms, to wit: Infantry and Armour) I have found that an abstract-thinking commander is preferable to one with a scientific background for command positions . Allow me to explain.
A person with say a degree in Social Sciences are Arts is generally more able to make inductions. A person with a degree in Sciences can make brilliant deductions. The difference? An induction does not require you to have all the facts, whereas to deduce one needs the facts. A combat arms commander will rarely have all the facts and will therefore need to take a "swag" based on all available facts and probabilities. This is what I have found among my peers.
In the combat arms (not combat support arms or combat service support arms, to wit: Infantry and Armour) I have found that an abstract-thinking commander is preferable to one with a scientific background for command positions . Allow me to explain.
A person with say a degree in Social Sciences are Arts is generally more able to make inductions. A person with a degree in Sciences can make brilliant deductions. The difference? An induction does not require you to have all the facts, whereas to deduce one needs the facts. A combat arms commander will rarely have all the facts and will therefore need to take a "swag" based on all available facts and probabilities. This is what I have found among my peers.
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Holy crap folks, it's a piece of written script that looks good on a wall given to someone who attended classes.
One either wilts under pressure or they don't,.......and that paper won't change a thing.
One either wilts under pressure or they don't,.......and that paper won't change a thing.
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Bruce Monkhouse said:
Whoa -- hang on!!But I was told I was special, and that my troops would worship me, because I went to a prestigious Canadian university!
Now you're saying it ain't so?! That hardly seems fair dude.TM
You mean, officers should also have......shudder......ability, stamina, common sense, leadership skills..... Can I pick those up through a correspondence course somewhere?
TM - A complete misunderstanding of "fairness" seems a hallmark of a certain age group ;D
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[slight tangent]
I am proud of my accomplishments in that I completed my four years of university, meeting all time lines, submitting work for grading, completing tests, etc. I feel that I did more than just "attend"; however, having said all this, I also realise that much more is required of officers. I think I heard, somewhere that they need ability, stamina, common sense and leadership skills.
I am proud of my accomplishments in that I completed my four years of university, meeting all time lines, submitting work for grading, completing tests, etc. I feel that I did more than just "attend"; however, having said all this, I also realise that much more is required of officers. I think I heard, somewhere that they need ability, stamina, common sense and leadership skills.
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Journeyman said:
But I was told I was special, and that my troops would worship me, because I went to a prestigious Canadian university
Went to Queen's U eh ? >
Journeyman said:
But I was told I was special, and that my troops would worship me, because I went to a prestigious Canadian university!
Now you're saying it ain't so?! That hardly seems fair dude.TM
You mean, officers should also have......shudder......ability, stamina, common sense, leadership skills..... Can I pick those up through a correspondence course somewhere?
TM - A complete misunderstanding of "fairness" seems a hallmark of a certain age group ;D
If this is directed at me it's petty and misplaced. I don't have any false senses of entitlement; I just asked the best way to take advantage of working my ass off for four years obtaining one of the more challenging degrees available and having wasted four full years of my life to have no benefit from it would be shitty. Sorry if it means dog shit to you.
Towards_the_gap
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Purely out of curiousity, and not being snide, but when choosing to do maths in uni, what use in the work world did you think it would have? I only ask because I personally do not know, asides from maybe teaching maths at a high school, number crunching for statistics canada or something similar.
End of the day dude, you have the ticket punched, which opens doors that would otherwise be closed if you were a phillistine such as I. You have a broader range of options to choose from, and you need only to pick that which suits you best.
TANGENT ALERT: in regards to those comments by journeyman and technoviking, the issue of whether officers really require degrees is a can of worms I can dive into all day, being of the mind that they do not need them, and that they rarely have any bearing on how a soldier performs in a leadership role.
End of the day dude, you have the ticket punched, which opens doors that would otherwise be closed if you were a phillistine such as I. You have a broader range of options to choose from, and you need only to pick that which suits you best.
TANGENT ALERT: in regards to those comments by journeyman and technoviking, the issue of whether officers really require degrees is a can of worms I can dive into all day, being of the mind that they do not need them, and that they rarely have any bearing on how a soldier performs in a leadership role.
Towards_the_gap said:
Strange I just wrote out why I chose math and it didn't post... but anyway:
I chose math planning to go into actuarial work. I interned a year at Manulife financial and planned on doing insurance actuary work. If that failed to interest me I was going to do quantitative analysis somewhere. You'll find nowadays there is a high demand in the business industry for math/physics/statistics/computer science majors as opposed to business majors because they've become a dime a dozen and we are able to adapt to almost all financial systems.
zill1 said:
As a degree is a requirement to become an officer now (although of little practical benefit for most occupations), your time and efforts are not exactly "wasted" if you want to become an officer.
I still stand by my earlier advice: pick an occupation that interests you, regardless of what your degree is.
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