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Re: I picked a Ph.D. program for next year [tigerchik] [ In reply to ]
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tigerchik wrote:
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The ride up Mary's Peak is killer, though,


Tell me about this... how far from Corvallis?


It's a slightly long-ish, but very doable ride from town (pretty popular club ride), or you can drive somewhere further out of town and then ride. I've never ridden it straight from Corvallis (done it either from the south near Monroe or from the opposite side instead), but I'd guess from OSU (which is near the edge of town going that way) it's maybe a 50-60mi round trip depending on whether you just stick to the Hwy or try to take less-busy roads around Philomath. Total elev gain is probably 3500' or so, of which maybe ~2300 is the 'main' climb from the hwy turn-off approx 9-10 miles from the top, where there's an improved viewpoint and a couple public cans. If you do the math, avg grade of Mary's Peak Rd is probably something like 5%, which doesn't sound too bad, but there's a pronounced 'dip' about 1/2-2/3 of the way up and it slacks off near the summit plateau so if you subtract those there's several miles of 6-7%.

It's certainly less than Mt Lemmon (although MP gets steeper), Mt Palomar, McKenzie Pass, Hurricane Ridge, etc, but it hosts a hillclimb race every year which has also rotates as the state hillclimb championship some years. For being so close to town, it's also a great place to just go hiking and such, even a little snowshoeing in winter without having to drive another hour+ each way to the Cascades.
Last edited by: OneGoodLeg: May 1, 12 15:29
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Re: I picked a Ph.D. program for next year [OneGoodLeg] [ In reply to ]
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Awesome. I can't wait to ride it.

maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD
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Re: I picked a Ph.D. program for next year [BarryP] [ In reply to ]
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BarryP wrote:

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Am I missing something? Do most private sector employers automatically give people raises if they earn an advanced degree or credential?


You are comparing aples and oranges.

Engineering is dictated by the free market. If you get a masters degree or P.E. you may or may not get a pay bump by your employer. In engineering pay is based on a combination of A) your value to your employer and B) your value to teh competition. If you get a P.E. and your employer gets no advantage from your P.E., then they may not pay you more provided that you weren't already worth more to them. However, your market value does go up and they might be more likely to lose you to a higher paying company, so they may decide to give you a pay bump. Even if they don't, your degree can still earn you more money.

Teaching, OTOH, is a union driven government job. There are many reasons behind this, but for simplicity sake lets just say that one of them is the fact that an older more experienced teacher isn't really worth that much more than a teacher ~5-7 years into their career. Teachers know that they can't make a profession out of a system that encourages employers to fire you simply for being old and replacing you with younger teachers. So they unionize and come up with a pay structure, one that guarantees incrimental pay increases as you gain more experience. It also guarantees more pay as a result of increased personal eduactional growth.

This doesn't cost *you* anymore money. It costs the teachers that don't persue advanced degrees money as it shifts the income from them to those that do. The cost to you is no different.

Does it make sense? I personally support some degree of merit pay, but beyond that, it seems to encourage teachers to expand their education and knowledge. I don;t necessarily see that as a bad thing, and if teacher *want* to have their money dispersed this way and bargain to do so, then I don;t really see why I should care.




Since I am a tax payer, it does cost me money. That's the whole point.
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Re: I picked a Ph.D. program for next year [tri_yoda] [ In reply to ]
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tri_yoda wrote:
BarryP wrote:

Quote:
Am I missing something? Do most private sector employers automatically give people raises if they earn an advanced degree or credential?


You are comparing aples and oranges.

Engineering is dictated by the free market. If you get a masters degree or P.E. you may or may not get a pay bump by your employer. In engineering pay is based on a combination of A) your value to your employer and B) your value to teh competition. If you get a P.E. and your employer gets no advantage from your P.E., then they may not pay you more provided that you weren't already worth more to them. However, your market value does go up and they might be more likely to lose you to a higher paying company, so they may decide to give you a pay bump. Even if they don't, your degree can still earn you more money.

Teaching, OTOH, is a union driven government job. There are many reasons behind this, but for simplicity sake lets just say that one of them is the fact that an older more experienced teacher isn't really worth that much more than a teacher ~5-7 years into their career. Teachers know that they can't make a profession out of a system that encourages employers to fire you simply for being old and replacing you with younger teachers. So they unionize and come up with a pay structure, one that guarantees incrimental pay increases as you gain more experience. It also guarantees more pay as a result of increased personal eduactional growth.

This doesn't cost *you* anymore money. It costs the teachers that don't persue advanced degrees money as it shifts the income from them to those that do. The cost to you is no different.

Does it make sense? I personally support some degree of merit pay, but beyond that, it seems to encourage teachers to expand their education and knowledge. I don;t necessarily see that as a bad thing, and if teacher *want* to have their money dispersed this way and bargain to do so, then I don;t really see why I should care.





Since I am a tax payer, it does cost me money. That's the whole point.

Then you deserve the shitty public education you will get for your children. Me, I'm ok with paying for more training.


****************

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
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Re: I picked a Ph.D. program for next year [Blue Rider] [ In reply to ]
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Blue Rider wrote:
Congrats. You will have a great time exploring Oregon--it's got everything from rain forests to coastline to the cascades (better skiing than Maine) to the high desert.

Take a long weekend at some point and go the the Alvord desert in the SE quadrant. It's worth the drive.

+1... Steens/Alvord is really an amazing place; hard to do it justice in any description, but safe to say it's about as unlike Maine as you can get in OR. Did a 5-day bike tour around there several years ago starting & ending in Frenchglen; wish I could carve out more time to go back but it's pretty close to a full day's drive each way and it's not really on the way to anything else so you gotta set aside at least a 3 or 4-day weekend minimum to justify the burn.
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Re: I picked a Ph.D. program for next year [tri_yoda] [ In reply to ]
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Since I am a tax payer, it does cost me money. That's the whole point.

Did you not just read what I just wrote? It does not cost you *more* money for someone to get a pay bump for getting a masters degree. All it does is shift the budget toward the more educated teachers and away from the less educated ones. A program like this attracts the more ambitious and harder working teachers (and more educated) to your school district and pushes the slackers toward other school districts.

Why on Earth would you not want that?

-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485
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Re: I picked a Ph.D. program for next year [BarryP] [ In reply to ]
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BarryP wrote:
Quote:
Since I am a tax payer, it does cost me money. That's the whole point.


Did you not just read what I just wrote? It does not cost you *more* money for someone to get a pay bump for getting a masters degree. All it does is shift the budget toward the more educated teachers and away from the less educated ones. A program like this attracts the more ambitious and harder working teachers (and more educated) to your school district and pushes the slackers toward other school districts.

Why on Earth would you not want that?

No. Pretty much all teachers get a masters degree, it is a *requirement* in most states, so it results in salary inflation. It is not like the school budget is fixed. If they want more money for teachers compensation, they just raise taxes to get more money. There is no reason K-12 teachers need masters degrees. However, since the degree is easy to obtain, teachers like to get them to justify more pay, because hey it is a masters degree. I am sorry but all masters degrees are not created equal, a masters degree in education from a branch campus of a state university does not equal a masters degree in physics from MIT. However, it doesn't matter where they get it (probably must at least be accredited) or what the subject is, a teacher will get an automatic raise.

Better educated does not equal better teacher. I know plenty of people with pHDs who could not teach you anything.

So, I don't think it attracts ambitious or harder working people. To get a masters degree in education all you have to do is pretty much show up for class. My sister has two masters degrees in education and I know what she had to do to get them, not much. It would be stupid not to get one, when you consider all the extra money you will earn over a lifetime. By making the raise automatic, you set a low bar and attract lazy people. Basically the raise is the equivalent of a finishers medal.

The entire union based teaching system systematically discourages anyone ambitious from going into teaching. Why would I go into teaching when I would make significantly less than a slug who has been working there for 20 years and is offered a better pension than I would ever be able to get as a new hire, even if I was a top performer?
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Re: I picked a Ph.D. program for next year [tri_yoda] [ In reply to ]
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No. Pretty much all teachers get a masters degree, it is a *requirement* in most states, so it results in salary inflation. It is not like the school budget is fixed. If they want more money for teachers compensation, they just raise taxes to get more money. There is no reason K-12 teachers need masters degrees. However, since the degree is easy to obtain, teachers like to get them to justify more pay, because hey it is a masters degree. I am sorry but all masters degrees are not created equal, a masters degree in education from a branch campus of a state university does not equal a masters degree in physics from MIT. However, it doesn't matter where they get it (probably must at least be accredited) or what the subject is, a teacher will get an automatic raise.


Schools al over the country are laying off teachers right now due to budgetary problems. They can't simply "just raise taxes." It doesn't work that way, at all!

And your masters for teachers vs maters for physics is completely and entirely nonsensical. They don't work the same jobs and aren't even competing for the same pool of money. How would getting a masters in physics from MIT make one better at teaching dyslexic children how to spell?

Every conversation you enter on education is centered around "they should get paid this much compared to this other person because of how difficult the job is." Sorry, you don't get paid because of the difficulty of the job, or the degree. I don't know why you keep bringing it up. Apples and oranges!

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So, I don't think it attracts ambitious or harder working people. To get a masters degree in education all you have to do is pretty much show up for class.

And you don't think that's more difficult than not going to class at all?

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The entire union based teaching system systematically discourages anyone ambitious from going into teaching. Why would I go into teaching when I would make significantly less than a slug who has been working there for 20 years and is offered a better pension than I would ever be able to get as a new hire, even if I was a top performer?


I would think you would go into teaching because of all those amazing perks you keep complaining about. You get tons of cash for working a part time job, and then get automatic pay raises just for taking a few online courses that give you automatic A's. Meanwhile, you never have to worry about money or work because schools don't have budgets. Seriously, why on Earth did you give all this up to be an unappreciated engineer who slaves his ass off for pennies?

-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485
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Re: I picked a Ph.D. program for next year [tri_yoda] [ In reply to ]
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that post sets a record for the highest number of thoughts pulled out of one's ass
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Re: I picked a Ph.D. program for next year [tri_yoda] [ In reply to ]
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 I have a PhD in engineering and a PE and I have great respect for teachers. Their work is arguably harder than mine and bet most of them work harder than I do. They get shit on, get paid little, and have a very important job that is highly under appreciated, particularly by people like you who measure someone's value by their salary. I'm sure your very important job is very difficult. Go watch Stand and Deliver (it's one of my favorite movies). What the hell is your problem anyway?

__________________________

Oh yeah!
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Re: I picked a Ph.D. program for next year [duffman] [ In reply to ]
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I used to be a teacher and gave it up to become an engineer.

I can't speak specifically about Tri-Yoda, but I've noticed that a lot of engineers seem to exhibit a similar problem. We were "the smart ones" in school and some how we got it into our heads that that means that we should just automatically make more money. We actually do....we make more than 95% of the population, but most people tend to focus more on who they are *not* making more than, and it gets frustrating when you see the popular kids from school who you are "smarter" than go into sales and marketing and make more money.

Teachers don't make more, but there is this intinct that engineers have that they look at their salary at 10 years (say $70K-$90K) and compare it to an elementary school teacher at 25 years (say $60K-$80K) and think specifically in terms of the difficulty of the *material* and say, "all you need to know is simple addition and subtraction, and you get paid almost as much as *I* do?!"

The bottom line is, if TriYoda thinks they have it easy, he can become a teacher (after all, the degrees are not hard to get). If he's concerned about his taxes, there are plenty of areas that have lower taxes and don't pay their teachers very well. He can always move into those school districts. We have a saying here in the tristate area. You can live in PA and pay higher taxes, or you can live in DE and pay for private school. MD is not even an option!

On a side note, and I am only using this as an analogy. Trahmen get paid very well (about $30-35K for 20 hours a week) even though the qualification for being a trashman is quite low. They get paid because the work environment is not very nice and no one wants to work in it. If I wanted to compare the difficulty of teaching compared to engineering, my engineering job is WAYYYY less stressful.

-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485
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Re: I picked a Ph.D. program for next year [tigerchik] [ In reply to ]
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Some day, you'll have to go out to Silver Falls too. It's about 60 miles from Corvallis (east of Salem), but very nice. Quite busy on a nice day though. Really great water falls, and a whole lot of them within a nice easy hike.

Although when I went there 2 years ago, someone from Portland fell in and died.
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Re: I picked a Ph.D. program for next year [BarryP] [ In reply to ]
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In Reply To:
You can live in PA and pay higher taxes, or you can live in DE and pay for private school. MD is not even an option!


Living expenses in Corvallis are way cheaper than MD :D I was pretty psyched about that.

maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD
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Re: I picked a Ph.D. program for next year [tigerchik] [ In reply to ]
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Corvallis? I seem to remember there was a meeting there that had epic consequences for civilization.

-----
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
Which is probably why I was registering 59.67mi as I rolled into T2.

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Re: I picked a Ph.D. program for next year [tri_yoda] [ In reply to ]
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tri_yoda wrote:
Am I missing something? Do most private sector employers automatically give people raises if they earn an advanced degree or credential?

I was taught that earning a BA/BS was about getting a new/different job, a Masters was about improving one's current job skills and a PhD was again about getting a new job. There must have been some truth to that because of the way the IRS used to treat each degree, at one point only a Masters degree was eligible as a business related expense for tax purposes. I don't know if that is still the case, but it was back in the 1990's when I was doing research into that subject.
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Re: I picked a Ph.D. program for next year [tigerchik] [ In reply to ]
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tigerchik wrote:
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The ride up Mary's Peak is killer, though,



Tell me about this... how far from Corvallis?

Just found this...

http://www.vccycling.com/mphctt/

Looks like they're starting a little ways down the Hwy so there's an extra "warm-up" climb before the turn-off to the main climb.
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Re: I picked a Ph.D. program for next year [OneGoodLeg] [ In reply to ]
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thanks!

maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD
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