Another Anniversary
Today is August 26, 2016.
My first day at the University of Idaho was August 26, 2006.
Today marks 10 years since I started my post-secondary education. If you’d asked me in 2006 what I thought I’d be doing in 10 years, I certainly wouldn’t have answered, “just finishing up school!” Hell, when I first started college, my goal was to get out as fast as possible. Grad school? Sounded like a waste of time. Why would I want to spend more time in school?
That was the plan: get out as fast as possible. And while I usually hate it when things don’t go according to plan, I am actually quite happy with how my educational path has carved its way through the past 10 years. I mean, I’ve gotten five degrees in a decade. That’s not too shabby.
- 2008: B.S., psychology
- 2009: B.S., philosophy
- 2011: M.A., psychology
- 2014: B.S., mathematics
- 2016: M.S., statistics
I also like how each one of these degrees has had some part in making me realize what I really, really enjoy and want to do with my life (teaching stats). No part of the past decade of education was wasted (except for maybe that business calculus class. Screw that class, man). That’s a good feeling.
ALSO, I have zero debt. Zero. This is because of my parents. My dad paid for everything for my first round of undergrad (3 years), then let me stay at his place rent-free during my second round of undergrad (2 years). My mom has paid for all my moving-around-the-continent costs and let me live rent-free with her in Arizona while I worked to save up money to eventually go back to school. That’s pretty amazing. Thanks, mom and dad.
So yeah. I figured a post acknowledging 10 years of college/grad school was needed, because 10 years is a long damn time to be doing anything.
Yay!
Edumacation
Hello again from 2015!
Let’s start the year off with some interesting numbers, eh? Specifically, some numbers regarding different fields of education in the United States.
The above.gif (source) shows the field type of Bachelor’s degrees by state, ranked by top percent of degree by field. I can’t read as fast as the .gif goes, so here are the screenshots for each type of degree. Click on the piccys to make them grow.
Business:
Education:
Psychology and Social Sciences:
Science and Engineering-Related:
Engineering:
Biological, Agriculture, and Environmental Science:
Liberal Arts and History:
Literature and Language:
Computers, Mathematics, and Statistics:
Visual and Performing Arts:
Communications:
Physical and Related Sciences:
Idaho’s good at Communications and Ag…and not much else, haha.
Sun Tans: They Don’t Happen Overnight
Here is some fun data. Or disturbing data. Depending on how you see things.
Points of interest:
- Pima Community College, where I currently work, has the third-highestgraduation numbers of all the community colleges in the US. Which doesn’t surprise me; it has like eight campuses across Tucson.
- Idaho’s higher education stats…they really blow.
Those two bars below Idaho are Alaska and Washington, D.C.
The national average percentage of students graduating in four years or less is 31.3%?
The national average percentage of students graduating in six years or less is 56.0%??
Good lord.
Of course, this is to be considered.
Eigenblogger 