How did you educate yourself if you couldn't go to college?

Edgar, I humbly apologize for anything I said that was unfair to you.

I will always say I'm sorry if I'm wrong. I wish everyone would.

BBB

BBB, I learned long ago that the only one I can expect things from is myself.

everyone else is gonna do what they are gonna do...

for whatever reason they do it.

mebbe you should take the dogs for a spin and get some fresh air...?

I think Ima go for a walk myself.

winter is on it's way...

Thanks for your advice. I've been trying to do that for quite a long time.

BBB

good for you, I think that's very gracious.

Wow!

I'm so glad that the people I respect here did not immediately have "agina" (discovered the mistake too late, talk about putting my college edumacation to use, huh?), and obviously saw what Iwas trying to say.

parados, I see what you are saying, about wanting to know that someone can "stick something out". However, what about the fact they stuck out 4 years of high school, or 2 years of community college/training for a profession, etc?

In the market I live in, a person who gets their RN license, which does not require a college education, starts off, day one, making anywhere from $25 - $30 an hour, if they go to work at a hospital. Within a very few years, they can be making $30-$35.

That, as they say, ain't hay.

IMHO this country needs a lot more nurses, and people in general with skills that are needed to keep this country, and world, humming along. I think we could do with less people who have degrees in marketing, or film.

Gaining skills for gainful employment if different than learning for the sake of learning.

Getting something out of "the college experience" is fine, although I'm not quite sure what that is supposed to be.
I am sure it's something that can be gained via less expense means.

Ok, this link is obviously humorous, but there certainly is truth in it.

http://www.holytaco.com/2008/06/03/the-10-most-worthless-college-majors

As far as people who will say "Well yes, college is not for everyone" (with the ever so slight condescending tone as in "someone has to serve me my latte" or "but that doesn't include my child") I believe they are part of the problem in making a college degree a requirement for jobs that really don't need one.

I've been fortunate in having a lot of formal education, and most of it was very good - experiences that extended my mind, thinking and understanding in many ways that I doubt I would have done on my own. In many of these I was forced by the process to wade through a lot of stuff without yet being able to see where it would lead. I think that is the hardest part of education to duplicate on one's own, and where the guidance of a good teracher or system can be indispensible.

All that said, I wasted a good deal of the time I spent getting educated, and knew lots of folks around me who were fairly good at passing tests but basically uninterested in the real ideas behind it all; and who generally emerged from the process more literate, but basically lacking in real understanding or ... education.

However, there is another, more important, part of education, and that is the habit of learning from and thinking objectively about the experience one has in his/her own life, and making an effort to learn associated things to understand it all (as well as can be done). Formal education can help some people to develop that habit, but it doesn't always succeed. More importantly one can develop that habit quite well on his own. In the long run I believe this aspect of education trumps the formal part, and that may well be the foundation of BBB's point - with which I agree..

I also believe the essential feature of education is the repeated discovery that there is more to things than we originally thought and that one's ideas are often wrong. The foundation to the ability to learn is the acceptance of the possibility that one is wrong or ignorant of some key point.

I don't totally agree with you, employment issues aside, higher education can and should provide a knowledge base that lead to a better quality of life (better for that person) learning about history, for example, be it world history or american history or whatever can certainly be advantageous to understanding social/political issues of modern life. a degree in english lit can expose someone to some really great writings/thoughts from plato to kurt vonnegut. education is a tool, what you do with it is up to you. degrees won't make you smarter but they may enable you to make yourself smarter. a good friend of mine has a masters of fine arts and a masters of philosophy and works by choice as a meter reader. the meter reader pays his bills and allows him the opportunity to pursue his art. I would really like to see more plumbers/electricians/mechanics with the education they desire to improve the quality of their lives. it ain't all about jobs.

dys, I think we are more on the same page than not.

I'm not saying we should only be concerned with the $$'s. That would make us less than human.

However, I think the vast majority of people who are going, or will be sent to college, are doing so in order to maximize the job they will get.

If you're a plumber, electrician, etc. I'm not saying you can't pursue higher education for the joy of learning.
But....if you're doing it for the enjoyment, the piece of paper is not the goal.
How many people are very well read, but didn't sit in classrooms?

I've always been a very curious person. Most of what I've learned in life that I feel is worthwhile, had its beginning in that curiosity.
The curiosity didn't cost a dollar.

Believe me, I'm not bashing learning.

btw, although I've labeled here as an educational elitist snob, BBB, nor anyone else on a2k, has not the slightest idea what my educational history is. I've only posted that I graduated the 8th grade (which I did).

I agree that Dys is not an elitist snob. However I am, and I suspect the BBB will concur.

Ha, georgeO is such an elitist that he actually sat down to dinner with myself and the lady Diane, he did it in public where everyone could see (although he did tell the wait-person that he was catholic and this was his "good works" for the year)

Actually I was just trying to smoke Dys out. He really is an elitist, and, despite that, a rather nice guy - though he works hard to disguise it. I am just a superannuated Irish Catholic boy, still trying to overcome memories of Confession on Friday afternoon (THAT was the cruelty of Catholic school - one had to resolve firmly never to do it again on Friday afternoons - just hours away from paydirt and Eileen Nolan's perfect tits.)

yeah well, Aristotle still sucks.

I do know why I left the confession room at San Miguel de Socorro's hastily a couple of days ago. (But it was on a Saturday afternoon.)

I couldn't have said it better.
What education did for me was provide me with examples - pointed me in directions which I wouldn't necessarily have known about or gone in on my own.
I was lucky to have wonderful teachers for the most part - all the way through. None of them were about the end point or even spoke about the gravy train the degree would provide at the end of the degree - all of them were about the process and the joy of discovery.

When I think about the courses that prepared me for my job - I can't remember very much of anything particularly specific or incredibly indelibly necessary to my performance on a day to day basis - but when I think about the practical experience I gained through watching and being in the classroom with a good teacher, I remember everything.

I think life is about doing what makes one happy. If you don't like school - get out as soon as you can and find some other way to make your way. If you do like school- that's all it says about you as opposed to anyone else - you like school just like the way some people like organized exercise and other people like to do it on their own.
(I like school - but I like to exercise on my own).
Either of those choices doesn't make anyone any better or worse as a person.
Other things are way more important.

Ah, college was fun in my 30s. You get to suffer a little with like-minded people. I went to college with kids 10 years younger, some 10 years older. It was a blast. Interesting, also to see who makes the better grade, i.e., in speech class the kid who gave the talk about how to brush your teeth got an A+. He was good.

Parents are never quite sure what to do about kids who don't want to go. We got our youngest kid enrolled in a jr. college in northern Michigan because he was a champion skier in high school but made bad grades. After smoking too much pot he dropped out even though he was a noted artist there. Tried once more with worse results. Worked some crappy jobs around home, then won $2,000 in a skiing contest. He and his gf drove to Colorado, lived there for the next 12 years, competing for Olympics (Mogul skiing), skied World Cup for several years, was National Champion for 3 years.

Expensive, huh? Skiing. But he always worked (house painting, laying wood floors, waiter. He promoted himself so well he ended up with scads of sponsors, never even had to buy his own clothes. He also raced motorcycles, bicycles, sailboats, all paid for by sponsors. Actually, he puts his "art" in anything he does.

After leaving the ski hills (missed Olympics by a hair) he taught himself computers skills, worked that for a while still racing anything on wheels. Got a job as a clerk in a bicycle shop. Now, he owns it and that place makes a mint, has put all other bike shops in area out of business. I can't say I know how he did all that, buying that huge store (former owner works for him). He also still wins first place racing those expensive bikes and takes all the townees for a wild ride every week. I think he has educated himself rather well. His wife is a jewel.

My oldest son didn't make such hot grades either. One year he's in advanced class, the next he's making C's. What he did do well is on the SAT scores, and won a full scholarship to Michigan Tech (but he didn't get a degree). This guy likes to be his own boss, and he is. He ran a tech company for a while, now he's designing measuring, dispensing devices (auto, medical, others) by computer mostly at home. He's always been in sports but, like me, loner sports like deep sea diving, archery, but he did crew a big Greek racing ship for few years.

So, college, smollege. People do what they end up doing. There are more than 3 ways to to get your education. Better to have an adventure while at it.

You certainly have done well in your life. Taking that round-about trip is so much more interesting. Sometimes, it's as if there's somebody guiding us. All we have to do, really, is keep on moving. The secret anyway is to just meet those challenges, take those knocks. It's not the goal, it's the journey that counts.

A slightly older friend (a woman who refuses to let on about her age . . .hmmm! I know several women like that) came from a family that opposed higher education for girls.

After high school, she went to work as a secretary at Johns Hopkins and took one course a semester through JH Extension. She completed two full years work and was somewhere into her junior year when her future husband invited her to come with him while he built his career. They lived in several places in the US and finally moved to Paris where she insisted they marry and have a family before she was too old.

After their divorce, she worked as a page in the public library, then took a second page's job at the library of a neighboring town before moving to a college library. She left because of the long commute and a crazy boss.

When she was again searching for work, her friends suggested she represent herself as a college graduate. Since she had completed more than two years of formal study, traveled extensively and learned to speak French in France and since she was an avid reader, the woman had the equivalent of a college education.

No, it aint. My hyper educated sister and bro-in-law run an environmentally conscientious landscaping company... and home-school children. First child out of high school is starting his full ride at Yale this year after spending his gap year learning Arabic in Egypt (courtesy of the State Department.) About jobs, it aint.