Posts: 20479
From: Columbus, GA USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted November 22, 2000 12:45 PM         

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I have been on both sides of the fence. I dropped out of high school at age 16. I entered the working world and took several managerial positions. Being a high school dropout never really mattered. Eventually, I got my GED and went to college. Now I have a Master's Degree. I'm not boasting--just making a point. With a full 20 percent of the adult population in America now having at least a Bachelor's Degree in something, is education becoming less important? Several of my colleagues with Master's Degrees are having a difficult time getting jobs! Interesting...

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"The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become." Charles Dubois

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Posts: 2296
From: Brooklyn, (and Norwich) NY, USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted November 23, 2000 01:29 AM         

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My brother recently received his Bachelors in English from Syracuse University at Utica. He's having a really hard time finding a job. It seems these days that a degree just isn't enough, you have to be really focused in one particular area, and have some sort of clue as to what direction you want to take so far as employment.

I have never gone to college. The closest I have gotten to college is the fiction writing course I'm taking by correspondence right now for college credits. My friends hate me. I mean it. They all abuse me because I haven't gone, and they all have. But, they're not doing much better than me. Some of them are doing worse, which makes me feel really bad.

Well, I look at it this way, when I find something I'm really interested in going for, I'll go. I pick up information easier when I choose to read it...as soon as a teacher tells me I have to read something in order to "be smart" I lose interest.

I graduated six months early from high school (home instruction) because I hated my home environment and wanted to get out into the work force. I've been working off and on since then. There's no doubt in my mind that maybe I could pull in a better salary right now if I had some sort of degree behind me, but in the long run the time I would have devoted to my studies would have significantly detracted from the time I devoted to my writing and art. I probably wouldn't have all the personal accomplishments that I have right now if I went to school. I simply wouldn't have had the time. Not to mention, my daughter had almost five years of my undivided attention, which I gave gladly. I wanted to spend her early years with her.

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Posts: 20479
From: Columbus, GA USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted November 24, 2000 02:52 AM         

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I have learned more applicable knowledge in a single year in the real world than in all my years in college. I think it's terrible when people in a company can't get promoted due to not having a degree, especially when they have spent many years there and can do the job. And people with no common sense at all get jobs they can't handle just because they have a stupid piece of paper.

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"The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become." Charles Dubois

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Posts: 4747
From: Louisiana
Registered: Nov 2000

posted November 24, 2000 11:59 AM         

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AMEN..BROTHERS AND SISTERS...

The best education comes from life's experiences...

Since many degrees are "bought and paid for", there is too much dependance on their importance!

Most creative genusis are self made and self educated...

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@~>~~
YIVY

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Posts: 319
From: Missouri
Registered: May 2001

posted May 15, 2001 07:21 AM         

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Nathaniel Hawthorne was noted for saying, "Let the cities and street be my Harvard and my Yale." Hmmm. One of those quotations where u nod your head vigorously if u agree, or roll your eyes and think, "cop out," if u disagree. Regardless, food for thought ...

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Posts: 20479
From: Columbus, GA USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted May 15, 2001 09:26 AM         

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Not sure if I agree or disagree, but I LOVE that quote, nonetheless! Thanks for sharing it.

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"The ancestor to every action is a thought." EMERSON

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Posts: 771
From: England
Registered: Apr 2001

posted May 15, 2001 09:36 AM         

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I've always loved learning and been the perfect pupil so it has always been easy for me to get degrees but...when it comes to access the knowledge or the position you are interested in, "politics" and good looks are more helpful it seems.
Have you seen that documentary about that American student in Psychology who was refused access to Ph.D level because they just didn't like her personality, and some twenty years after she wrote a thesis/book about the influence of peers in personal and academical success, and the same institution who refused her was sort of obliged to salute her work. Her health then improved dramatically (she has Multiple Sclerosis I think).
My cousin is preparing a PhD and she had problems because of sexual harassment from her dean... Tough world.
I now want to do some training in herbalism or similar, I guess I have to find a way...

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Posts: 20479
From: Columbus, GA USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted May 15, 2001 09:45 AM         

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Sadly, good looks will get you further than education or experience.

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"The ancestor to every action is a thought." EMERSON

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Posts: 407
From: Australia
Registered: Apr 2001

posted May 19, 2001 03:06 AM         

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Purp I couldn't agree more!!
I am working on a masters @ the university of life
it is much more valuable than my half finished bachelors (of arts)from Latrobe
having never completed my degree, never held me back....just an expensive piece of paper...
although I do miss the lectures and learning (I ran out of money)...I would love to go back and complete philosophy (I was offered an honours place) and also to take up anthropology and possibly linguistics...if only it didn't cost so much...I don't really want the piece of paper...I just want to learn!
Aus

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Posts: 771
From: England
Registered: Apr 2001

posted May 19, 2001 04:55 AM         

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I don't like the fact that you have to be already high up in the system to have access to the really interesting things. In the first years you are drown in the crowd and there's a lot of uninteresting data. And when you get to the degree level, you have to do some work experience that is not really creative most of the time...
Basically you learn the best when you are teaching, because you are on your own quest and you have to clarify your process.

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Posts: 407
From: Australia
Registered: Apr 2001

posted May 20, 2001 02:24 AM         

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I heartily agree Marigold!

Nothing is more clarifying, than teaching another. It's when you truely learn, not just recite

Aus

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Posts: 20479
From: Columbus, GA USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted June 09, 2001 01:23 AM         

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True teaching is a calling. Many feel that they are called, but few are chosen.

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"The ancestor to every action is a thought." EMERSON

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Posts: 20479
From: Columbus, GA USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted June 10, 2001 01:24 AM         

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Of course, we are all Teachers AND students in the school of Life!

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"The ancestor to every action is a thought." EMERSON

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Posts: 129
From: Connecticut
Registered: Jul 2001

posted July 26, 2001 07:09 PM         

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I think both "street smarts" and "book learning" are very important.

I think the trend in the work world towards specialization is a huge mistake. Someone who has been able to integrate native intellect and collegiate-level education is a far more valuable employee than someone who has only had college experience and jobs in only their field of expertise and no clue on how to work with others in the real world. They just aren't flexible enough, from what I've seen.

Education should be more readily available and less expensive in the higher levels and less "dogmatic" in the primary levels. Again, flexibility is important and not stressed enough. Neither is creativity.

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Posts: 20479
From: Columbus, GA USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted July 26, 2001 07:14 PM         

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What Laura E said! Welcome to Lindaland, by the way.

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Remember, love can conquer the influence of the planets....
It can even eliminate karma." Linda Goodman

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Posts: 23
From: Columbus,GA,UnitiedStates
Registered: Jun 2001

posted August 04, 2001 01:43 AM         

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I've wondered about the time that I spent in school I learned but never fast enough for me so I just started to mess around in the time that was given to me. How can you learn if the only thing you worry about is how important people think that you are I know that I should have not dropped out but again how can you learn at such a slow pace I was more intersted in how to fix my non- cable TV to get stations then how to learn how good a teacher is. A new teacher is a push over and an old one is willing to make a deal at any time the one's in the middle are only concered about there job if one does seem right and pays attention to you they'll get bored with thier work (if they don't see any progress) if there creative then you'll be intersted in how many student's will cling to that teacher taking any attention away from the pupil's that need it how can you make a world of smart people if only half the knowledge is given meaning that can the knowledge that we know is not the whole truth to the world and we are still learning of are past and are fate with the lives that we're living now like how are pollution and miss use of are toys
is destoring are future if we could only teach the things that we need to learn and not the crap that we are still learning and how to make the are future set (cause knowledge is the only way to pave your path to your goal). When I got my GED I was so sad I gave up is the only thought I had now that I can take a new path I think that I've failed to understand what my future holds is this because of my shortened learning experince or because my unforgetable miss use of my knowledge. Can you be intersted in everything and nothing and still suceed?

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I think you should know that I have no idea what's going on.
:spin:

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Posts: 583
From: oregon
Registered: Jun 2001

posted August 04, 2001 03:07 AM         

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HI EVERYBODY,
Well, I don't think a degree will ever replace talent. If you've got it, you do and if you don't, you don't. But, I love learing. If I could have my way, I would probably be in school for the rest of my life (I'm such a total girl-nerd!) Must be that Venus and Mars in Sag. When I finish my education (if I don't go completely into my music first), I'll be a teacher. I love to teach. I always have.
Take care,

chandra

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Posts: 319
From: Missouri
Registered: May 2001

posted August 04, 2001 07:44 AM         

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Kudos, Chandra ...

Have to say, tho ... a hard working zero-talent person will outpace a lazy talented person in the end. I've seen that happen very very much.

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Posts: 20479
From: Columbus, GA USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted April 09, 2002 08:55 AM         

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"It is never too late to become what you might have been." George Eliot

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Posts: 59
From:
Registered: Dec 2003

posted December 08, 2003 10:40 PM         

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I belive a formal education only informs you on what they think is important and true. All people are not smart in the way society deems smart. I know many people who are very wise and have very little to no formal education, I also know people who are very book smart but could not hold their own in the world. We all have diffent paths and neither one is right or wrong. I know that a true formal degree is not what I need. I need so much more and I will never find the individual attention I need for my education. I go at a much diffent speed than anyone else ( just like everyone else) slower in some areas and much quicker than others. Some of the things I want to learn are not in a book they are held in others experiance and life. So it must be all up to you? Which path will lead you where you want to go? Listen to yourself you know what you need.

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Posts: 20479
From: Columbus, GA USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted December 09, 2003 12:12 PM         

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I agree.

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"Never mentally imagine for another that which you would not want to experience for yourself, since the mental image you send out inevitably comes back to you." Rebecca Clark

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Posts: 265
From: baltimore, MD USA
Registered: Sep 2003

posted December 09, 2003 02:48 PM         

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Formal education. Wow, Randall, you've hit a topic I feel VERY strongly about!!!
I think formal education in its current form is a necessary evil but ultimately useless. This isn't to say that formal education as an ideal is bad- just the way they have implemented it. Especially here in the US. They treat it like a commercial business!!! Well, the post high-school part anyway. That is NOT what education is supposed to be!!!!! Grrrr!!!!!

*Goes and kicks the three stupid $20'000 tables that Admin. felt compelled to buy IN SPITE OF THE BUDGET CUT AND ALL THE PROFESSORS THEY HAD TO LAY OFF*

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Posts: 92
From: Oz
Registered: Oct 2003

posted December 09, 2003 09:32 PM         

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I dropped out of school at 13 and hit the streets. I took school for granted before then, it was just a social gathering for me. Now that I am learning again I really appreciate it. The best thing is I decide what I want to learn and do not have to sit and be taught things that I have no interest in. I would not have found my spiritual side if I remained in school, I gained alot more living out in the real world.

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A woman is like a teabag, you do not know how strong she is until you put her in hot water (unknown)

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Posts: 20479
From: Columbus, GA USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted December 10, 2003 01:33 PM         

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I would not have traded my time as a high school dropout for anything. The real world provided an education I could not have gotten otherwise. Had I stayed in school went straight to college, I would bea totally different person. And this site would probably not exist.

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"Never mentally imagine for another that which you would not want to experience for yourself, since the mental image you send out inevitably comes back to you." Rebecca Clark

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Posts: 263
From: New England
Registered: Jun 2002

posted December 11, 2003 10:35 AM         

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Yay for Randall dropping out of school!!!

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