The first time I addressed a class at Washington University, a student asked me a question and, telling the truth, I said I didn’t know. The next class, half the students were gone and they never came back. “Why should they listen to some jerk who didn’t know everything?” That, of course was a stupid reaction to my honest answer. From then on I opened my first lecture to any new class saying essentially. “No one can know everything.” Imagine carrying all the wisdom of the Library of Congress around in your head. What one can learn in any university or learning situation is some facts. quite a few in fact. Where to locate other facts in libraries. other classes or by just asking around. How to think about those facts using logic and general understanding. And finally how to put all that thinking to use and create new facts of your own and maybe discover something all together new.
College graduates usually get a break as people assume they must know something to get that title. I think in many cases a college education is a considerable handicap. The graduate who thinks Aha! I now know it all and stops learning will remain pretty much stuck in where the world was the day he graduated. The graduate who knows he doesn’t know but a wee bit of the world’s knowledge, but also knows he has the key to explore the world for the rest of his life always is expanding that knowledge. The first man has an education. The second man has wisdom.
In the very fine art of muzzleloading you can be educated by the good people you run into at the rifle ranges or you can use what knowledge they have given you and continue to explore, always paying attention to details you learn from your rifle and investigating why things happen the way they do which can be pretty mysterious at times, but its fun learning and usually your enjoyment increases along with your knowledge.
I have a college education. My course of study was English Literature. I believe the only advantage that gave me was an increased vocabulary. Lots of extra words I never use in daily life or in my study of muzzleloading and accuracy
I have a friend whose course of study was anthropology. With that degree they send you off to live with the Indians. With his degree and my degree and a dime you can get a nickel and five pennies.
While we were learning our narrow studies, the non college student is learning all sorts of things that apply to his daily life. Where now is the real advantage of a college education unless it’s in training for a specific skill such as medicine or surgery? It was probably a waste of time. I am tired of the put down of the non college graduate and the advantages given the graduate. I repeat the real advantage is that you learn how to find facts and how to think about them.
When I was writing for a magazine, I was sent to interview a man who had been pulled out of school around the ninth grade to earn enough money to help feed his family. He was and still is the most brilliant man I ever met. He missed his formal education and began to educate himself by reading things of interest and when he came up against something new, he would study that until he understood it. So as the years passed his knowledge spread in all directions. He was way ahead of any of the formal education he had missed.
If you look into the things life presents you to understand them rather than letting them pass by as “being above your pay grade” you’ll be self educating yourself.
Louis Pasteur discovered how germs affected beer brewing and a variety of other life saving ideas. His discoveries were rejected for 10 years because he didn’t have a college degree. Think of how many lives were lost because of that stupidity.