The value of education

We do generally view academically educated individuals(with at least a Bachelor degree) as intelligent people, don't we?

I don't always do that because I've seen and heard of a lot of academics and university students who behave silly, say silly things. Education automatically gives a person some sort of status and has an important role in somebody's first impression, perhaps that of an employer or a potential friend or partner.

But has academic education really deserved that much credit?

I know someone who hasn't studied at university and has no intention of it either. He's not interested in studying, although I speak with him about archaeology, history, languages and other 'intellectual' subjects... And he is very attentive, has many opinions and he and I have a great deal in common. He's a wonderful person... well in fact he's my boyfriend. And the reason why he hasn't opted to do a university degree is because he sees possibilities for employment without that sort of qualification.

He's a practical man who loves to work with his hands. But he is intelligent.

I have a feeling that that kind of people are as appreciated as those with intellectual interests and abilities. They aren't as intelligent as other people. And I feel this urge to remove that impression somehow, because it's so untrue.

What do people think? I've asked many different questions in this post, but I feel that they all go under the same topic: Does education have a value? A higher value than other qualities, abilities and strengths? Should the academic elite be treated better or have a higher regard than those who work in shops, as carpenters, hair-dressers, milkmen, mailmen... on a construction-site?


PS: Hey! The handy-man is every woman's dream. Even that of the woman who loves books, prepares her Ph.D thesis and has a dream of writing a book on the ancient scripts by "King Hiccopanacus Alastias of Assyria, dated between 115- 119 A.D, supposedly written while he was on a trip to Malacus Araspas and once when he suffered from diarrhoea and had to go to the toilet every 10th minute during which some of his most fascinating works were written" ?

The last paragraph was meant to be humouros, yes.

Well, if I may say this without college students swarming my soon-to-be-decayed corpse, I agree with you. I've met some college professors that just have no grasp of logic at all. It's as if you learn the mathematics, proper English, and various other subjects at the price of realism. Whereas, I've never met a non-academic that has a bad hold of reality. It's sad because these are the people we trust to teach us the right stuff. I'm going into the military as soon as I get my two year degree(at a community college), so I can fund a doctorate. This way I can straighten those anti-realism psychiatric majors out! Jk.

The degree to which education matters would seem to be based on the field. Do you care of your plumber has a doctorate? Your accountant? Your physician?

In my own field, software engineering, the impact of education is a drastic one. Companies don't want to take the time in training employees anymore, and the market is competitive enough that they can get away with it. As a consequence all training falls back on the universities for the theory, and colleges for the practical experience. Very little of this can be gained sitting around the house playing around with programming languages adn occasionally browsing through a textbook: Employers are looking for honed education in specific sub-fields and, often more important, a standard benchmark of your past experience working with others to overcome daunting tasks.

This is why you'll even see employers picking and choosing based not even on your level of education, but on your specific alma mater, knowing that only a specific breed is going to suit their needs.


To put it in other words, it's all well and good to be able to work with your hands. But most people with an aptitude can already do that. It's as you elevate within your field you'll find that being good with your hands isn't good enough if your mind itself can't keep pace. More than that, if your mind can't stay ahead by some arbitrary number of steps.

I've seen this happen countless times in my own field: People who'll dive into a field with limited academic background and find some meager success, but then find themselves stagnating as the few gaps in their education forge wide trenches between them and their co-workers.

I agree sometimes the smartest people don't actually apear smart, My brother is in his 2nd year of university, he definately doesn't act very mature. I do think academic education is important if that is what you choose to persue.

It is genrally the attitude that anyone who has not had a universitiy education is less intelligent then those with it. However I would like to point out that this is not nessecaryily the case. My Dad trained as a nurse at the local hospital back in the seventies and he always suprised at the lack of knowledge that the university trained ones had when they entered the work place, but that was also coupled with these people being told they would be better than any one currently in the work place. Also I believe even if you do not continue formal eduaction you should still endeavour to learn (for example my reaction to the middle east crisis and terrorism was to read the complete idiots guide to islam) So Educated people can be dumb, naive even out and out stupid.

I agree completely. I even have friends who are very intelligent when it comes to things like advanced math theories or computer language, but they can still act extremely immature or stupid. They sometimes fail to grasp everyday situations and problems.

General Ed is only important for say, younger, elementary kids, everyone should know how to read write, preform basic mathematics and such, but after that one should be put in some type of program that allows the student to better learn about his/herself and be able to decide what career he/she wants when she is older, I beleive that middle school and highschool are the worst learning experiences EVER, they should be put away with. MS and HS are basically advanced versions of elementary school, it's rather unfortunant.

Degrees and such are to get past the gatekeepers of certain jobs.

For instance, would you really need a degree to learn an accountant's job? No. Do you have to have a degree to get the job though? Yes. It's a gatekeeping function to keep certain people out. The same goes with lots of other jobs that require a college degree.

I don't place much stock at all in education. I say that the best education comes from life and not some university with sky-rocketing tuition.

I've had professors who couldn't teach at all (had this dumb computer science prof that replied: "I don't know... perhaps you did something wrong" when we went to him because OBVIOUSLY we did something wrong and we needed help! What a moron). I've had professors who couldn't mark a damn paper nicely. I've had retarded professors writing comments on my research papers stating: "Please use Canadian English". Wtf? "Behavior" is the same with "behaviour". The words have the same meaning and I'm using Microsoft Word. They deducted a mark because I used "American English" (absolutely bul*****, really. Everyone who heard what my profs did also agreed that was the dumbest thing they've ever heard in their lives).

I've also had professors who talked about their sex lives (a criminal psychologist/professor went from child-rearing to his sexual life... the hell?). I've had professors who read off their notes throughout the entire two hour lectures stating exactly the same thing as the textbooks without any elaboration (what's the point of going to lectures if they are going to copy down the text word by word? We can read the books ourselves).

So, what's the value of education? Aside from the fact that you can waste four to five years in college or university learning absolutely nothing without a definite direction, and aside from the fact that half of the professors in the school are retarded, and aside from the fact that most university and some of the colleges are born to rip you off, the value of education is ****. Sometimes, I feel that after graduating from high school, you actually learn more by going out and experiencing the world and learning new skills than by going into post-secondary and experience the dullness in some of the courses.

I agree completely about the difference between education and intelligence. The main purpose of college is to "hopefully" train students in certain fields and to allow (as Star Boy pointed out) "a gateway" to certain careers. However, you can learn just as much (if not more) about work experiencing it and studying it on your own then through college. It is sad that many people do not respect the honest, hard worker, or someone who is intelligent, but instead honor the "academic."

I think the conclusion will be.. that a high intelligence does not always accompany a high education. *smiiiiiiiile*

Lone Wolf, I feel with you. I know exactly what that's like...

Allthough I think sometimes that a person may have a theoretical intelligence that is higher than his/her social intelligence. And the ability to tackle everyday problems and see the world from a different angle than from the page in their physics book so to speak. Not that they should be reproached for it and punished. Some people are like this. But perhaps they shouldn't be lecturers because they need to be people-oriented and good communicators.

Originally Posted by Star Boy

Degrees and such are to get past the gatekeepers of certain jobs.

...which makes the world a bit unfair. Of course, commerce, law and administration all appreciate someone with a theoretical background and computer skills, numeracy and a proof of an ability to argue, think logically and so forth. It'd be unfair too if anyone, disregarding their background, could get a job as a manager or a secretary or whatever. But maybe they don't need 3-4 years od education... Maybe it's enough with 1 or 2.

A gateway to a career is obviously not enough. And as many trades and industries deal with communication and people, it'd be best if universities focused on developing skills needed for these things. Some universities are good at that, some not.

Where my mom works, as a nurse in a hospital, there is a doctor who always explains a diagnosis to a patient using Latin medical terminology. And the patients don't understand anything. He does a mediocre job, technically speaking, but he tries to show the patients as well as the nurses around that he is so much better than everybody else... with his sophisticated, unintelligible language. That's idiotic.

I think first we need to make things a bit clearer. Mrs. G, everything you're talking about is still education - I think you're just trying to differentiate between a formal education and an informal or self-taught education. Learning skills is a form of education. Learning to cook, learning to "pick up chicks," etc. are all forms of education. So I know what you meant by your post, and I'll go by that.

I personally think a formal education is important in our culture. For many things, it's the best way you can learn - I'm in science, and there's no way I could learn any of these things on my own. Now in general, people with PhD's are very smart in the fields they studied, and if I ran a lab, I would want to hire someone with a PhD. But I do think it's terrible that people feel like there's a whole class difference when someone gets their PhD...that they all the sudden are superior to anyone without one. James Randi, one of my heros, who is considered one of the smarter geniuses around the world, didn't ever go to college. And he's travelling around the world giving lectures at the top universities, and runs his own educational fund.

On the other hand, another guy who has my respect is Stephen Hawking, who has 12 degrees.

The point I'm trying to get at here is that while you don't have to have a college education to get a job, it really helps. And on a personal level, perhaps it's unfair. But think about it on a bigger level - there's a limit to how much criteria we have to pick from. It's like when we apply to college - often, our grades and our SAT scores don't accurately reflect our intelligence. But unfortunately, that the only way (I guess we have college essays too) that we can get an idea of people's intelligences and willingness to work hard. In applying for jobs, they can't just pick you based on skills they think you might have.

Now keep in mind, this only applies to certain fields, and it sounds like your lover isn't in one of these fields. In many of the arts and hands-on stuff, going to college really doen't make you that much smarter. I know that when someone tries to buy a painting, he isn't thinking, "I wonder what college this guy went to." He'll be thinking, "Whoa, there's a lot of skill that went into that painting." Same thing goes with many of the more hands on stuff.

Now regardless of job opportunities, I still wish more people would go to college, just because you have some really interesting courses. Well, actually that's only true for some people. I have 4 science courses and one music course. I really wish I could take some of the literature and art courses I took in high school. But if you're in university just cause it's interesting, you can take whatever you want...

Anyway, I agree with you for the most part. I think that an informal education can often be just as good as a formal one, but informal ones just aren't recognized. But as unfortunate as this is, I think it's a bit of a necessity. I actually worked backstage in theater for 4 years, and although it was with school, it was not really formalized. These were some things that you just couldn't learn in your traditional college lecture hall...I needed to have one initial lesson by the guy in charge, then I just needed to practice. So wiht that, I got pretty good at carpentry and welding. But I wouldn't trust a surgeon to succeed by just giving him a few words and letting him "practice."

Also, keep in mind that I was only talking about our culture. In Africa, I met many smart people who didn't know how to read. Overall intelligence is dependent on so many things, and we have no way of measuring it.

Stephen Hawking is intelligent yes. And he has 12 degrees, but those are 12 honourary degrees. An honourary degree is different from an academic degree.

When I began this thread, I meant academic education. University level. Maybe I didn't make that clear enough.

Originally Posted by Mad Hatter

But think about it on a bigger level - there's a limit to how much criteria we have to pick from. It's like when we apply to college - often, our grades and our SAT scores don't accurately reflect our intelligence. But unfortunately, that the only way (I guess we have college essays too) that we can get an idea of people's intelligences and willingness to work hard. In applying for jobs, they can't just pick you based on skills they think you might have.

That's very true!

I'm only concerned for those who are stigmatized by their lack of academic education or different choice of education(self-education or vocational). It seems that academica education has been given an unfairly high regard. I experience myself that those who 'dropped out' of school are being labelled as unintelligent. Or those who simply finished off at 15 or 16 and went for a different way of living. Even the term 'drop out' is laden with negativity.

It sort of makes my stomach churn with bad conscience, even though I haven't 'dropped out'. But I suppose that's the kind of emotion that social norms and taboos put in one. That unwarranted, inexplicable feeling of guilt, shame or embarrassment. What did I do anyway, I'm thinking.

Originally Posted by Mad Hatter

But I wouldn't trust a surgeon to succeed by just giving him a few words and letting him "practice."

Nope! It's best to be on the safe side. Nobody has a surgeon-gene out of their own.

I put aa quote into my signature a while ago by the writer Mark Twain: "Don't let your schooling interfere with your education". It's quite convenient to bring up again at this moment.

Originally Posted by Mrs Ganondorf

Stephen Hawking is intelligent yes. And he has 12 degrees, but those are 12 honourary degrees. An honourary degree is different from an academic degree.

When I began this thread, I meant academic education. University level. Maybe I didn't make that clear enough.

Oops, I never even realized that. Yeah, I guess they are just honourary. But he still did have a great education.

That's very true!

I'm only concerned for those who are stigmatized by their lack of academic education or different choice of education(self-education or vocational). It seems that academica education has been given an unfairly high regard. I experience myself that those who 'dropped out' of school are being labelled as unintelligent. Or those who simply finished off at 15 or 16 and went for a different way of living. Even the term 'drop out' is laden with negativity.

It sort of makes my stomach churn with bad conscience, even though I haven't 'dropped out'. But I suppose that's the kind of emotion that social norms and taboos put in one. That unwarranted, inexplicable feeling of guilt, shame or embarrassment. What did I do anyway, I'm thinking.

My biggest problem with schools right now is that it seems like most of the time they don't even teach you...they just try to set you up to learn more later...I went to a prep school for high school, and we had classes just on college applications. I think they were called "College Rhetoric." The juniors have a 2 week period devoted to even more classes on college applications, and we meet with advisors just about every week for colleges. All of our sports are just there to be put on our applications. It was basically a factory spewing out top notch machines to go to yale, princeton, MIT, etc.

And now that I'm finally in college, I'm in a program that's supposed to set me up for a masters or PhD

Of course, dropping out of school won't help any of this. If you want to get rid of your guilt, just don't think any less of those who don't have degrees.

If you think about it, some of the most successful people were high school dropouts. I'm rereading "Fast Food Nation" by Eric Schlosser (good book...I guess that's why I'm reading it again), and he mentions some interesting things. Both Walt Disney and Ray Croc (guy who basically started McDonald's), among some of the other fast food entrepreneurs, all dropped out of high school.

Originally Posted by Mrs Ganondorf

I have a feeling that that kind of people are as appreciated as those with intellectual interests and abilities. They aren't as intelligent as other people. And I feel this urge to remove that impression somehow, because it's so untrue.

Is that "aren't" supposed to be an "are" or why do I not get this part at all?

Originally Posted by Hostis of Angelus

Whereas, I've never met a non-academic that has a bad hold of reality.

~all people I know from my age group who actively currently take drugs don't have too much of an academical background and a majority are very efficient at not having any connection to reality or at not making sense.

Originally Posted by vacumgod

General Ed is only important for say, younger, elementary kids, everyone should know how to read write, preform basic mathematics and such, but after that one should be put in some type of program that allows the student to better learn about his/herself and be able to decide what career he/she wants when she is older, I beleive that middle school and highschool are the worst learning experiences EVER, they should be put away with. MS and HS are basically advanced versions of elementary school, it's rather unfortunant.

What's wrong about the general concept of "learning how to learn"?

Originally Posted by Lone Wolf

I've had retarded professors writing comments on my research papers stating: "Please use Canadian English". Wtf? "Behavior" is the same with "behaviour". The words have the same meaning and I'm using Microsoft Word. They deducted a mark because I used "American English" (absolutely bul*****, really. Everyone who heard what my profs did also agreed that was the dumbest thing they've ever heard in their lives).

Over here, you tend to have the choice between one kind of English to use - but then you have to do that throughout your whole work. Oh, and you have to specify which you intend on using either at the start or the end. I completely agree with that, it's ridiculous to mix different languages. And if your country's language is something more alike to English than what you want to use.. well, tough luck.

Originally Posted by Lone Wolf

Sometimes, I feel that after graduating from high school, you actually learn more by going out and experiencing the world and learning new skills than by going into post-secondary and experience the dullness in some of the courses.

Of course, if you have to choose between a good situation outside of formal education with bad university courses, the former looks better...

Originally Posted by Mrs Ganondorf

...which makes the world a bit unfair. Of course, commerce, law and administration all appreciate someone with a theoretical background and computer skills, numeracy and a proof of an ability to argue, think logically and so forth. It'd be unfair too if anyone, disregarding their background, could get a job as a manager or a secretary or whatever. But maybe they don't need 3-4 years od education... Maybe it's enough with 1 or 2.

Sure, you can usually teach people everything in half the time it takes in practice. But they would get less precious free time then. You also have to keep in mind that you need a specific amount of maturity that you just don't have 2-3 years before to learn a few things.

Originally Posted by Mrs Ganondorf

Where my mom works, as a nurse in a hospital, there is a doctor who always explains a diagnosis to a patient using Latin medical terminology. And the patients don't understand anything. He does a mediocre job, technically speaking, but he tries to show the patients as well as the nurses around that he is so much better than everybody else... with his sophisticated, unintelligible language. That's idiotic.

..but if you, as a patient, then require further treatment from other people than your doctor, the existence of those precise latin terms actually helps them know what you have. Unlike, say, the word "flu", which can basically mean anything.

Originally Posted by Mrs Ganondorf

I'm only concerned for those who are stigmatized by their lack of academic education or different choice of education(self-education or vocational). It seems that academica education has been given an unfairly high regard. I experience myself that those who 'dropped out' of school are being labelled as unintelligent. Or those who simply finished off at 15 or 16 and went for a different way of living. Even the term 'drop out' is laden with negativity.

Mh, in the school system I know, you have to be exceptionally stupid, in the sense of lazy, to manage to drop out. If I was an employer, of all candidates, why would I choose the one who was too lazy to manage however-many years of high school or something comparable? Aren't chances that he'll show laziness in the job I offer, too?

Originally Posted by Mrs Ganondorf

I put aa quote into my signature a while ago by the writer Mark Twain: "Don't let your schooling interfere with your education". It's quite convenient to bring up again at this moment.

On the topic of stupidity, an essay on the German language by Mark Twain is the most stupid thing I read this year.

Originally Posted by Mad Hatter

If you think about it, some of the most successful people were high school dropouts. I'm rereading "Fast Food Nation" by Eric Schlosser (good book...I guess that's why I'm reading it again), and he mentions some interesting things. Both Walt Disney and Ray Croc (guy who basically started McDonald's), among some of the other fast food entrepreneurs, all dropped out of high school.

Nobody said you couldn't become anything in life without degrees. But if you look at that in relation, there are countless millions of people who did *not* start McDonald's.

Education is very important. The more years of education you have the more money you can make and you can get better job opportunities.