Campus Life: Poly Degree a Good Investment

Posted: 07/30/09 12:18 AM

I hate poly, screwed up my life.

But hey..I didn't graduate from poly, but completed 100 credits, but the name got me top dollars and confidence to ace the job interviews! If I could put up with so much weird math courses, I can handle anything!

Btw, my starting as a consultant earned me higher than the median midcareer salary they list, and I know many others in my graduating class of 2004 that are making 100K+

Posted: 07/30/09 05:51 AM

"I hate poly, screwed up my life... but the name got me top dollars and confidence to ace the job interviews! If I could put up with so much weird math courses, I can handle anything!

Btw, my starting as a consultant earned me higher than the median midcareer salary they list, and I know many others in my graduating class of 2004 that are making 100K+"


How do you lead in with "screwed up my life" and go into the bolded quotes? Seems pretty darn good if you ask me.

Posted: 08/01/09 12:18 PM

"I hate poly, screwed up my life.

But hey..I didn't graduate from poly, but completed 100 credits, but the name got me top dollars and confidence to ace the job interviews! If I could put up with so much weird math courses, I can handle anything!

Btw, my starting as a consultant earned me higher than the median midcareer salary they list, and I know many others in my graduating class of 2004 that are making 100K+"


Quit your bitching. You're making enough money because of the Poly name, so apparently it didn't screw up your life. And you didn't even graduate! I have 2 degrees from Poly, I'm only making about half as much as you, and guess what? I never thought Poly screwed up my life. So get off your high horse.

Posted: 08/01/09 04:22 PM

I guess I'm alone in thinking that having a good career isn't the same thing as having a good life.

I make good money, but I definitely did not have a good time at Poly, so I can see where nyfaisal is coming from. Seriously, those 4 years were pretty miserable, and I'm one of the rare few who found the classes EASY. I'm pretty sure I could have gotten a good education and comfortable career at another school without having to wade through a constant parade of bullshit.

We all know about the Poly shaft and the headaches some of us had to go through. Give the dude a break. Sure, he's being a bit hyperbolic, but I think we can all agree the Poly experience wasn't all sunshine and roses.

Posted: 08/01/09 09:45 PM

Hey Kelly... with all due respect, although Poly wasn't all sunshine and roses, I haven't met a single person from any other school (including Penn State which was recently rates top party school) that felt that their school was all sunshine and roses. I'll admit that Poly may have potentially created more "miserable" feelings for many people than other schools would have, but that's when you have to take into account whether people chose to join clubs, attend social events, etc. And those people that did, including most of my friends, were pretty satisfied with their experience.

But back to the point of my original reply to nyfaisal... I sincerely agree with your use of logic and analysis to imagine what he/she could have meant. The reason I chose to post anyway was because he/she didn't speak about the time he was actually at Poly being miserable, but expanded it to state that it ruined his life. Additionally, he never stated a particular reason for how it ruined his life (beyond the time he spent there) but went directly into the positive outcomes. And you're absolutely right, having a good career isn't the same thing as having a good life, but that simply brings me back to the fact that he didn't state any negatives but only provided really good benefits that he received.

I just found it odd that someone could make such a strong statement, that their life was ruined by Poly, but then go into what seem like significant positives. As floydiandroid said, nyfaisal seems like he/she is simply bitching and I will add that he/she is exaggerating where exaggeration is not warranted. I don't think that I nor floydiandroid are trying to say that he's a liar or that Poly wasn't bad for this person, but simply that based on that one comment, he had no reason to bitch as he did. And a lot of people like to bitch and forget about any of the positives they likely experienced.

Posted: 08/02/09 10:44 AM

I don't want to start a big debate, because I see the point you're trying to get at, but I just wanted to remark on "you have to take into account whether people chose to join clubs, attend social events, etc."

Dude, the clubs and social events at Poly were a joke. I have friends at NYU, Columbia, Rutgers, UMass Amherst, Carnegie Mellon, and MIT, and their social scenes are LIGHT years above what Poly had to offer. The guys at ACM were sketchy towards me, I wasn't interested in anime, and the whole PAC thing only really took off towards my senior year. There was a karaoke night at the dorms once, which I loved, then that never happened again. PGPG died 3 months after I joined my freshman year. Other schools had tons of stuff I would have loved to do-- atheism clubs, mental health clubs, art clubs, trips to local zoos/aquariums, etc.

I'd say 65% of my negative Poly experience was due to there not being a whole lot of social stuff going on that matched my interests. I'm really curious as to whether I would have been a lot happier if I had gone to a school with a better selection of clubs. The other 35% were administrative headaches-- which, while not unique to Poly, certainly exceed most horror stories I've read/heard-- and problems with a stalker which the administration would not do anything about, which required me to get the police involved before the dude would leave me alone.

So yeah, sorry to get off on a long spiel about how much Poly blew, but yeah. Poly kinda blew. If I had a do-over I would have gone to Carnegie Melon or Georgia Tech, to be honest.

Posted: 08/11/09 10:47 AM

This survey result could potentially be very misleading. People who go to Poly mainly go to get an engineering degree, or something similar to that. Of course they would get starting salaries on the higher end of the scale, there aren't a lot of liberal arts graduates to drag the numbers down. This survey should be normalized for a degree, or better yet type of job received upon graduation. Poly is not a good investment if its engineering graduates can only get the shittiest jobs in the industry.

Posted: 10/21/09 12:52 AM

I guess you could say I was very active socially @ poly.

Don't let the smiles and laughs deceive you. I was not a happy camper.

The administrative and financial nonsense were literally overkill. I used to talk with financial adviser regarding all that sort of nonsense, how frequent it would be, etc. and I'll never forget what she said, "People kill themselves over all that." But in all my time in Poly not one semester did I catch a fast break, even if it wasn't a critical problem e.g. just confirming something, it would take the entire semester, usually longer, to achieve.

That's just not something anyone has the time nor energy for. And now literally I no longer have energy for stuff so I have no idea how I am going to go back and finish the grad part.

Posted: 10/26/09 10:56 PM

Poly is very good school. A Poly diploma will land you a first job, but how far you can advance is really up to up. Where you got your diploma becomes less important few years after graduation.

Posted: 01/20/10 11:50 AM

I have to agree that Poly isn't for everyone. I too dropped out after having completed three semesters years back - simply couldn't take it anymore (now at NYU studying math/econ).

When I was attending the rate of graduation (within 5 years) for Poly was something like 65%.

A Poly diploma would certainly land you a job (engineering/cs majors are always in demand) and potentially easy six-figures. If you are using six-figure income to gauge your success though, you would be sorely disappointed in the long-run. I made much more than my peers for first 3-4 years (without a degree), then realized that my six-figure income couldn't really compensate for what I missed.