for me, the problem with going to school and getting a degree is having seen so many ways you can improve your work and wanting to apply all of it, but then you get to the workplace and you're met with resistance. i understand we can't just change everything all at once, but i wish i could sneak in an idea every once in a while

Totally agree. But I must say that (heavily dependent on where you work or who you work with) you may get there.

The thing is (imo) that in a working environment, actual experience has much more impact than academic knowledge.

And I'm totally pro-getting a degree and getting formal education; but what I'm trying to say is, at work is not the same to say "this should work because I learned it at the university" than "this works because I've tested it in this or that scenario".

So, what I tend to do is, instead of just presenting an idea, I try to apply it on my on to show the results.

I think we went to very different unis

@Crost mine is very research driven. it's a... well, idk how to call it in English, but it's a public college, so their goal is to provide scientists, not just trained work force

@darksideofyay my unis goal was to get all the seats filled and attempt to pass anyone that signed up so they could keep them for next year's profit

@Crost yeah, public and private schools have very different goals. here, the students are the product and the state is the client

If you're anything like me, you'll find as the years go by some stuff at uni was totally wrong and backwards, and other stuff was fantastic, potentially ahead of its time and absolutely best practice (our uni was teaching about the importance of good unit tests for example well before it was standard practice.) Implementing any of this when you're not long out of uni is tough to convince people of - but as you climb up the career ladder and get more experience and influence, you'll absolutely have the power to make these sorts of changes, should you still want to.

@AlmondSauce the stuff that pisses me off the most is the knowledge management. no documentation of changes in the process, we just have to scramble and find out wtf changed that everything suddenly broke. our uni has an entire branch of classes in that topic, and it's infuriating how accurate my classes were about these issues. I'd be happy with anything, give me a kanban board or something, a wiki, the bare minimum, but nothing

@darksideofyay Yeah that stuff is basic and should just be in place everywhere - but as you've found out, unfortunately it's not. I'd make a note of all these things and ask them the next time you interview for a new role - see what processes they follow and if they shrug and it's obvious they don't really follow a process, then run away.