This article sums up some of my thoughts on this topic. I remember standing in the grass of the field at Mustang Stadium at Cal Poly with other friends of mine. We were wearing black robes, and making fun of Derek, who had been on campus for the last 8 years. He was taking it in stride, because he had finally made it. He pointed that out. He said, At least Im here. Henry mentioned Yeah, but with your grades how did you learn anything? Another fellow whos name escapes me now said, How did any of us learn anything? I dont feel any smarter. We all started to agree. What were we doing there, exactly? What did we learn? At one point the talking stopped and there was a rather long, awkward silence. These are kids that would go on to get Masters Degrees and Doctorates in the hard sciences. Except Derek, and as it turns out, except me. I reflect on that moment alot, even moreso when the topic of education comes up. It turns out that most of us didnt feel any smarter. And while we liked to pick on Derek for having the motto D for Done the truth was we all had that perspective. I decided to not go into my career path after school. The starting pay sucked, and I would need a masters to even begin to change that. I mulled around for a bit, for a few years. Went to school elsewhere. Got some more classes under my belt. Wasted time, basically. What did I do during the 8 years I actually spent enrolled in full time higher education coursework? Ultimately I was trying to avoid something. I was trying to avoid working in computers. I had a knack for it, and everyone around me would point that out. But I didnt have the patience to learn programming and rightly saw that as a disadvantage when compared to other peers on that track. At times it would drive me to anger, attempting to write a bunch of abstract lines to draw an actual picture on a screen. I hated it. Eventually though my knack is exactly where I ended up working. Not by choice, or by training. But by the ability to figure things out on my own. I ended up learning how to do quite a bit of programming. Not to draw lines on a screen, but to accomplish goals I needed to accomplish in the workplace. I needed to manage data to prove a point. So I learned how to create relational databases over a 3 month period, and proved that point. And Ive done it again and again as I have needed to. Computers arent the end of a career path for me. Theyre part of a set of tools, which along with writing, speaking, critical thinking, and problem solving have been assets I use on a daily basis, in different business situations. Higher education though is a bit of a sore spot for me. I dont want to say its not valuable. It is absolutely valuable. For me though the value has been more abstract. Learning the skills I needed in order to accomplish objectives. Learning how to research, and apply that research, was important. The pieces of paper at the end of it turned out to be meaningless. Perhaps I should have obtained a business degree for myself, in retrospect. That seems to be where my talent turned out to be. But to be perfectly honest, I considered this when I attended my second university, and I disliked the people so much that the potential of them being my daily peer group turned me against the subject of study. Never in my life did I meet a larger conglomeration of arrogant dickheads than when I set foot for my daily class in the business building. These were your stereotypical fraternity membership touting, letterman jacket wearing, self-absorbed, narcissistic jackasses. I had found where all the jocks in High School ended up. No thank you. The experience has left me asking myself alot of questions about how we handle our education over the years. I feel this particular piece asks many of the same questions I do. Read it.
Posted on: Tue, 16 Dec 2014 23:26:10 +0000
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