Human Trash

[Junket]

Well me personally, I graduated from Monroe Central Jr/Sr High School with an Indiana Academic Honors Diploma....I then went to Ball State University for 5 years where I graduated with two bachelor degrees. One in history, the other in classic cultures. My minors were ancient studies, medieval and renaissance studies, anthropology, and philosophy.

Yea I'm kinda braggin now...honestly I know it sounds like a lot but so many classes overlapped and counted twice I only had to take another 30 credit hours or 10 more classes for all of that.

And my other question is, why?

[dewilliams2]

And my other question is, why?

I value knowledge very highly....all knowledge. I pride myself in the fact that I know how to fix a tractor and I also know that the Battle of Covadonga took place in 711 A.D. off the top of my head.

You may ask why this date is so important...that battle truly began the Spanish Reconquista that ended in 1492 when Francis and Isabella of Castille and Leon who had united their kingdoms in marriage became strong enough to drive the Moors out of Granada. Francis and Isabella with their new found riches funded this young man by the name of Christopher Columbus (may have heard his name kicked around) who discovered the Americas along with gold and spice which began the Colombian exchange (including the slave trade). With Spain finding riches this spurred on other European powers to grab up territories which began the period of Imperialism which did not truly end until WWII and slightly after. Many of the global problems we face today are the result of Imperialism and much of what we consider the third world was a territory and governed my a European power up until a little under 100 years ago.

So you see I have an understanding of why the world is today the way it is because I have an understanding on where it came from....I'm not saying I'm the end all be all of knowledge on the world but I do believe the fact that I can witness the world through lenses that most people do not have gives me another vantage to view and solve a problem.

I also think that education is the way our nation becomes better. Ignorance is the worst of all cancers.

Finally the reason why I did it...because I can, because I'm good at school. Some people are good at basketball and do it with little effort. That is how I am with school. I was gifted with the ability to test well and write with ease....I never studied and I didn't hardly go to a class that had no attendance policy. I'm just good at school. I plan on going onto law school but I'm taking a little time off.

But what do you enjoy doing?...and then ask yourself...why?...similar principle.

[Mish]

There are some things that you can only learn at Uni Fras, personal experience from work has a lot of limitations.

[dewilliams2]

There are some things that you can only learn at Uni Fras, personal experience has a lot of limitations.

Well truly there are a lot of things I wouldn't have learned/experienced from going to college if I hadn't gone. And I'm not talking about anything I learned in class.

For example. A professor never told me this but I have now realized that it isn't as important to learn the facts in a class as much as its important to learn how to find those facts on your own once your out of class.

You need to know what questions need to be asked and where you need to look.

I also never would have had so many personal experiences with a varied group of people from all over the world of different cultures/colors/religions/sexual orientations....I feel I have a broader understanding of the world on a social level because of going to college.

[Junket]

I value knowledge very highly....all knowledge. I pride myself in the fact that I know how to fix a tractor and I also know that the Battle of Covadonga took place in 711 A.D. off the top of my head.

You may ask why this date is so important...that battle truly began the Spanish Reconquista that ended in 1492 when Francis and Isabella of Castille and Leon who had united their kingdoms in marriage became strong enough to drive the Moors out of Granada. Francis and Isabella with their new found riches funded this young man by the name of Christopher Columbus (may have heard his name kicked around) who discovered the Americas along with gold and spice which began the Colombian exchange (including the slave trade). With Spain finding riches this spurred on other European powers to grab up territories which began the period of Imperialism which did not truly end until WWII and slightly after. Many of the global problems we face today are the result of Imperialism and much of what we consider the third world was a territory and governed my a European power up until a little under 100 years ago.

So you see I have an understanding of why the world is today the way it is because I have an understanding on where it came from....I'm not saying I'm the end all be all of knowledge on the world but I do believe the fact that I can witness the world through lenses that most people do not have gives me another vantage to view and solve a problem.

I also think that education is the way our nation becomes better. Ignorance is the worst of all cancers.

Finally the reason why I did it...because I can, because I'm good at school. Some people are good at basketball and do it with little effort. That is how I am with school. I was gifted with the ability to test well and write with ease....I never studied and I didn't hardly go to a class that had no attendance policy. I'm just good at school. I plan on going onto law school but I'm taking a little time off.

But what do you enjoy doing?...and then ask yourself...why?...similar principle.

So wait, you're saying you went to school because you wanted to?

Why would you go to law school?

Does this suggest that you have goals in mind that would (gasp!) require school as the best means to help achieve?

I was making a point when I asked you that question, maybe you're beginning to catch on where I was going with it?

Not necessarily to you, but to others that may be reading.

There are some things that you can only learn at Uni Fras, personal experience from work has a lot of limitations.

Same can be said of school. In fact I hear, "school can only teach you so much", more frequently than anything else.

[dewilliams2]

So wait, you're saying you went to school because you wanted to?

Why would you go to law school?

Does this suggest that you have goals in mind that would (gasp!) require school as the best means to help achieve?

I was making a point when I asked you that question, maybe you're beginning to catch on where I was going with it?

Not necessarily to you, but to others that may be reading.



Same can be said of school. In fact I hear, "school can only teach you so much", more frequently than anything else.

Honestly I don't really have any goals in mind. It just seems like something to do I enjoy....I see no sense in setting myself to many goals. Life is a series of paths one is not necessarily any better than the one next to it. Which one you pick may lead to billions of dollars the other your death but in the end it really doesn't matter which one you pick....whichever one you do will be your life and what might have been is irrelevant.

It is true school can only teach you so much, you must pick up what you can in life. Thats why I put in I pride myself in being able to fix a tractor. Today I was drawing blood on a tiger, yesterday I was putting a roof on the barn across the road.

But as much as you can only learn so much in school...without going there are obviously things your not going to learn.

I mean Bill Gates dropped out of college...but I don't see a lot of guys like him walking around.

Not everybody is going to be a doctor...somebody has to pick up the trash...not to knock that job but its kinda low on the list of what kids say they wanta be when they grow up....my mom is a cashier and hates her job....but somebody has to do it and she is doing it because she dropped out of high school and while she has her GED, she wishes all the time she had gone to college. But she came from an abusive home and got into drugs and ran away at 16.

[Mish]

Same can be said of school. In fact I hear, "school can only teach you so much", more frequently than anything else.

You can say the same about work experience. It can only teach you so much well. The rest, how you can apply what you already know at a higher level, what has already been done by people like you before you, best practices, ways in which common practices can fail and how to make sure they don't, all of that is what uni's good for.

[DoesntMatter]

Ignorance is the worst of all cancers.

Don't you support Obama?

[dewilliams2]

Don't you support Obama?

Yes.....apparently I can't just type yes...it isn't long enough so I'll give you a full sentence to say....yes.

[DoesntMatter]

Har har har

[IndiReloaded]

There are some things that you can only learn at Uni Fras, personal experience from work has a lot of limitations.

This is simply not true, Mish. What I do agree with is that collge/uni exposes you to more varied ideas than you are likely to get elsewhere in such concentration.

Same can be said of school. In fact I hear, "school can only teach you so much", more frequently than anything else.

Agreed. At some point you have to actually apply your knowledge or what is it all for? Even a theoretical physicist wants his functions tested by experiment at some point.

[Junket]

You can say the same about work experience. It can only teach you so much well. The rest, how you can apply what you already know at a higher level, what has already been done by people like you before you, best practices, ways in which common practices can fail and how to make sure they don't, all of that is what uni's good for.

Uh, I'm not even trying to be argumentative at this point, but honestly, I learn all of those things every day just by picking the brains of the older guys who are pulling their knowledge from decades of experience.

I wouldn't be so critical of "higher learning" were it not for the fact that schools are unabashed money makers, it's an industry in itself, and in my opinion, much of which is way overpriced. We've grown up knowing how expensive school is so many people have simply accepted it, but honestly I think in most cases, the education they provide isn't worth it. Kids are thrust into colleges while they're still trying to figure out who they are and what they want to do, many end up going back after the fact once they've figured those things out. It's a horrible trap.

For example: [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconquista]Reconquista - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/url]

Should I wish to delve into the subject further, I can look up books written about the time period as well.

All for the cost of a low monthly internet bill.

I understand when someone has goals they'd like to achieve that school may be a stepping stone towards that goal. DM for example wanting to be a doctor so that he can be rich and bang some chicks, I say good for him, he knows what he wants (at the moment), and he's going for it.

There was also a time when everyone was expected to have multiple credit cards and a steady amount of debt, just because. Well, why? I mean, that's a bit costly isn't it? Just because your parents did it, and your friends do it, and the credit card companies want you to, doesn't mean you should.

I believe public schools need to provide a more well rounded education than they are now. Too many kids come out of school without a clue as to how the world works or how they want to be a part of it, but jump into college, and a decade or more into debt, simply because everyone else did it, and everyone else expected them to do it too.

It's deeper than the schools, it's cultural, and people need to start to reconsider what is really important to help us raise the standard for everyone. Not just the liberal suburbanites planning to go into white collar service industry.

[Mish]

This is simply not true, Mish. What I do agree with is that collge/uni exposes you to more varied ideas than you are likely to get elsewhere in such concentration.

I disagree with the notion that it's not true

[Mish]

Uh, I'm not even trying to be argumentative at this point, but honestly, I learn all of those things every day just by picking the brains of the older guys who are pulling their knowledge from decades of experience.

I wouldn't be so critical of "higher learning" were it not for the fact that schools are unabashed money makers, it's an industry in itself, and in my opinion, much of which is way overpriced. We've grown up knowing how expensive school is so many people have simply accepted it, but honestly I think in most cases, the education they provide isn't worth it. Kids are thrust into colleges while they're still trying to figure out who they are and what they want to do, many end up going back after the fact once they've figured those things out. It's a horrible trap.

I see where you are coming from.

Yeh, I agree that unis can be viewed as money making machines. Sometimes I've seen two completely different units with completely different requirements and resources costing exactly the same. The one that's simpler and less resource intensive should at least be cheaper than the other right? I agree that there's a funny cost metric that puts a value on the courses.

But sometimes looking at the value of the material and the result it provides I appreciate the costs. For example the stuff we're doing in MBA sifting through decades worth of organisational management data and organisational psychology theories, analyzing and synthesizing this data and then applying it to thousands of work related issues, you simply don't get an opportunity to do that anywhere else. Ofcourse it's also good to learn from people who have decades worth of job experience. But at the same time you won't be exposed to the opportunity to see things from a much higher level. You don't get to see how organisations with their thousands of experts who also have decades worth of experience still fail due to various process misalignments. You don't even get to see them as process misalignments unless you know how to read the symptoms. You don't even know these misalignments exist until it's too late.

[Lipp]

Do people in the U.S usually take a 'sabbath year' after high school or is that considered lazy?
I did six months of work while trying to figure out what career path I wanted to explore, and then did six months of environmental politics/economics and an extra design subject as a filler,a subject which turned out to be pure awesomeness and got me into archi from then on.

24 grand a year is a bitch, and international students are the unis main source of income here (referred to as the 'yellow dollar') , but a student loan just about covers it for me and working part-time covers living costs so that I'm financially independent, and if I had studied back in europe (cheaper) or sweden (free) I'd probably be depressed and still doing the envi politics/eco crap, so I'm okay with it for now, but wont do a master's here with such fees.

I reckon the work versus study qualifications is career-specific, at least for archi you'd be very unlikely to get any job without an education and good portfolio unless you had some good connections and a ton of self-study to prove yourself. The education inflation is being a pain, practically need a masters' to get a proper job nowadays, so a year or two of work will tell whether it's my kind of thing or not before I consider using up another 2 years, need a masters' to get an archi license.