"You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for a buck fifty in late charges at the public library."- Will Hunting (Good Will Hunting)Today is my first day of classes for the semester. This is also the first time I will have a class that lasts an entire semester in my graduate program. Since I am used to taking seven- and eight-week classes, I am not sure how a four-month class is going to work.
I do not know exactly what to expect from the class I start today, but I do not anticipate that it will be one of my more challenging classes. The class is entitled Systems Analysis, and I took a very similar class in my undergrad program. I think it will just be annoying in that the class will feel like it never ends.
The other class I am taking the beginning of this semester is Investment Theory. It doesn't convene until the twenty-eighth because the twenty-first is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. This is a mixed blessing, because the class is supposed to be very involved, and I will have one less week to complete all of the assigned material.
Since I have been going at this for two years and I have at least two more years to go, I have had plenty of opportunity to consider the true value of a degree. While I do believe that the work and learning involved in getting an undergraduate and a graduate degree is valuable, I am starting to seriously question the importance that American culture gives a college education.
Since I have gotten my undergraduate degree, most of the people with whom I have worked have also been college educated. None of the jobs I have had really required a degree, and neither of the two coworkers that I have had in the last few years that I consider the best suited for their jobs have a college degree.
Slowly and surely nearly every career choice available is requiring people to be over-educated. I think this is largely a bad thing because the resources a person has to devote to education could probably be more efficiently utilized to better learn the job at hand. From a practical perspective, apprenticeships are probably more valuable than degrees ninety-eight percent of the time.
From what I can tell, in most jobs the majority of the skills that are required are not taught in the classroom. Abraham Lincoln did not need a degree to practice law. Qualifying to take the CPA test in most states now requires much more focused education than was previously required, though I would not question the auditing ability of someone who passed the test years ago. It was not that long ago that almost everyone who had a technical job did not have a technical degree.
Most people know someone who has a degree and does not appear to have the requisite intelligence. So, does a degree prove much more than that a person knows how to take a test and write a paper? People with degrees are probably more intelligent on average, but how much of that is simply smarter-than-average people self-selecting college?
Regardless, I still have to go to class tonight and every Thursday for the next four months.
4 comments:
I don't know how you manage to juggle fatherhood with work and going to school. I agree with you for the most part about the graduate degrees. However most of the supervisors I have had that don't have graduate degrees are pretty clueless. I seldom learn anything from them. I my field, having the graduate degree does open more opportunites however but not a lot more money.
Obviously a doctor definitely needs a degree. I think it depends on the line of work.
Jobs that require a certain personality trait...those jobs could probably be done without a degree as long as you have that certain characteristic.
In my field, it is quite essential to have a good background in the sciences, but degree programs make you learn so much more than is necessary. They want you more "rounded", but it just makes things take that much longer. The 4 year undergrad program is practically gone.
I agree that with alot of jobs, apprenticeship is better than a degree, not in my field though. In that respect, I agree with golden.
I'm with the girls here. In the olden days (according to "Little House On The Prairie") Doctors had college degrees, most lawyers did, and teachers had extra schooling. Beyond that it was apprenticeships. It think that makes total sense.
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