News Bill Gates finally gets college degree

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/03/26/Bill_Gates_finally_gets_college_degree/

 

Now he can finally get on that career to earn some money!

 

good to see him finally making something of himself.

 

Congrats billy

This is one of those nice "and they all lived happily ever after" stories.

Sam

 

I'm really not in favour of 'honourary degrees'. It's so unfair. So what if they make it to the top, a degree in any subject should be earnt through paying you're student fee's, working late night, being tested thouroughly on the subject.

People who spend 3-6 years in uni make getting that degree one of the most important goals in life. These other lot make it big by chance and then end up with a degree from every university they go to gie lectures to. I mean.. come on..

not fair

 

That is true, and why does Mr Gates need one anyway so he can leave MS and go flip burgers with 5 stars lol.

Something to put on his wall or maybe he's getting picked on in the office for not having a proper education lol.

 

The only reason they give them out is to say that (insert celebrity) graduated from their school, and you should pay them insane amounts of money to do the same.

 

Yeah but it's a honorary degree alright. So everyone knows he didn't do it regularly. (As if anyone would care with Mr. Gates.)

 

Why not ... He deserves that honorary degree.

 

Edinburgh university gave him an honorary degree when he was over here at the end of January:
http://www.ed.ac.uk/news/070130billgates.html

 

So now hes got 2

He deserves it, sure you could argue you should have to study hard to earn it, but at the end of the day its knowledge thats key, not just revising the answers to pass exams - hes done better than anyone else in his class, surely hes got a better computing knowledge than most of his computing degree fellows

 

can you actually do anything with an honorary degree?

 

No, you can't actually do anything with an honorary degree. Some people are starting to take this a little out of proportion. The people who toil away at Harvard for 5 years earning their degrees will still have a proper diploma. Bill Gates hasn't gained any actual college degree, just an honorary title.

It's very common for universities to hand out honorary degrees to commencement speakers.

-monkey

 

Honorary degrees are just silly. Those who get them have earned enough prestige in their field that the degree is unneeded. Those people have usually also rejected the traditional way of earning that degree (and thus rejected the school system involved). The only thing I can see them being is an attention getter for the school. They are in effect nothing but a publicity stunt.

 

It's just part of the university tradition. Instead of giving a certificate or a plaque, the university bestows an "honorary degree." Typically is it a degree in "Letters" or some other vague title. It's not meant to be anything other than a certificate of thanks for giving the commencement, but calling it a "degree" gives it that academic feel associated with a place of higher learning. The only reason this is getting any press is because of the coincidence that Bill Gates just happened to have dropped out of Harvard before founding Microsoft.

If Bill has ever given any other commencement addresses, then I can almost guarantee that he has a bunch of these degrees sitting in his closet.

-monkey

 

Why not just give him a certificate of thanks then? I think degrees should be reserved for people who actually graduated from the school (and thus are a "product" of that school).

I laughed with those two.

 

Perhaps Billy-boy will put his degree to good use and make Windows all the better and eventually save the world from the tyranny of Linuxintosh.

 

Excuse my use of overused internet acronyms but:

OMGIODZ BILL GATEZ IS NOW A HACCORZ! FO REALS!

Sorry but this is just silly. Its just too make people laugh. It will be the happy story on the news after all the sad ones.

 

I wonder what perchentage of self-made multi-millionaires did so without a degree. I think it's most of them. A degree may earn you more money on average, but it seems to be an impediment to getting to the top.

 

Interesting point Cthippo. Perhaps skipping the degree gives them an earlier start but I suspect most of those people who "make it" without a degree are mavericks, they like to take chances, are impatient to get going, and dislike following others. Traditional schools aren't really geared to deal with their personalities.