Knowledge

[Pony Soldier]

After 52 years in my business, I can say that education (college or trades) only provides the foundation that you build on. It is the exposure and experience in that field that develops your skills and knowledge. That is enhanced by the mistakes you survived and learned from.

Even hunting meets this. Often my decision of the moment is based on what I have seen in my life. I have jumped elk and had them take me on a ride. The second trip around, I took a shortcut that allowed me an edge to make meat. Often beginners ask for the shortcut. There aren't any until you have bled a little.

 

[Taudisio]

Takes my mind to the Dunning-Kruger effect. I often times have to remind myself of it and place myself on the scale in respect to whatever topic. I also find that I ask questions to others to see where I think they are on the scale and if my conversation with them will be productive. Arguing with someone on mount stupid rarely helps anyone.

 

[AKDoc]

^^^Well said...both of you^^^.

When I finished my doctoral work many years ago, my advisor congratulated me and as he shook my hand said, "Never forget...the greater your island of knowledge...the larger your shoreline in the sea of uncertainty."

Those words stuck in my head and helped me keep perspective moving into future decades of continuous learning, increased experience, and greater knowledge...yet continually reminding myself that there is always much more that I do not know.

 

[teamwhitebelly]

The more you know the more people expect of you. I will stay "dumb"!

 

[Pony Soldier]

As a consultant, sharing knowledge is income. I always remember to keep track of my limits.

 

[NRA4LIFE]

I used a small fraction of what I was taught in college in my job. The one thing I took away the most from college is it taught me how to learn.

 

[Boarmaster]

I see the success short cut thing every year at our whitetail hunting lease. Sometimes the new guys get frustrated when they don't have the same success their first few years as long term guys. You might get lucky but you have to put the time in scouting and figuring out the property and the deer that live there.
Its not just showing up opening week and parking your butt in a shooting house on a green field.

 

[Beendare]

After 52 years in my business, I can say that education (college or trades) only provides the foundation that you build on. It is the exposure and experience in that field that develops your skills and knowledge. That is enhanced by the mistakes you survived and learned from.

Even hunting meets this. Often my decision of the moment is based on what I have seen in my life. I have jumped elk and had them take me on a ride. The second trip around, I took a shortcut that allowed me an edge to make meat. Often beginners ask for the shortcut. There aren't any until you have bled a little.

I agree with this to a point. You are assuming that folks learns from their mistakes- not all folks do.

I never got a formal College education. I see kids coming out of college and it's true, the education they got is pretty much worthless. There are some schools that put an emphasis on real world skills- like Cal Poly and grads there have no problem finding jobs.

My daughter told me about one of her classes at U of Chicago grad school; "How to tell a story", Hard to explain in a short comment but It totally changed my opinion on these MBA programs.

 

[Tweezyman]

Knowledge/Experience is the one thing you seem to get right after you need it.

 

[Bubblehide]

A degree and or graduate degree simply opens the door to allow one to enter a field of employment, limiting the pool of those that are considered qualified. GPA has and still is a driving factor in the employeers decision making process in relation to who they hire. So, in some respects, a degree, and how one performed still matters, obviously depending of the field/profession.

But, as had been pointed out, a degree and or GPA just tells us a persons book knowledge abilities. It's a very small piece of the whole person. In college/university I had a department heads daughter befriend me. She was a nice and wickedly smart girl. But she was rebelling against her father and the education system, so her grades suffered. She had a saying her father absolutely despised, "D's get degrees. Despite her being on academic probation, she earned her degree, proving her point to her father, and later becoming very successful in her field.

I also taught during my graduate program. For me, grading papers was the most difficult portion of teaching at the college level that I experienced. However, a fulltime professor quickly help me figure it out. The issue was that with exception of very few papers, they all failed to address the assignment. Many, never hit the assigned topic, other than a simple mention of it.

My point here is that GPA/performance/a degree can be misleading.

With that said, some of the smartest people I have met, have never obtained a degree. They simply found their own success. As for me, I was wanting to move up the ladder, start a family...The company I was working for had adopted a highly qualified policy. It finally hit me that without a degree, my skills, knowledge and abilities were moot, with a highly qualified policy and me lacking a degree.

Some fields eliminate some exceptional people, because of a lack of a degree, others, simply don't require a degree. It's not our formalized education that makes us who we are or are not. It's what we chose to do with what we have, persistence, stick-with-itness, and so many other qualities.

 

[EdP]

NRA4Life said:

I used a small fraction of what I was taught in college in my job. The one thing I took away the most from college is it taught me how to learn.

I graduated with a BS degree in mechanical engineering. College didn't teach me how to learn, I had to figure it out for myself. Much of the technical information I learned was useful in my career and some not. What I did learn in college that was essential to my professional success was how to think analytically.

 

[UPThunderbolt]

I agree with this to a point. You are assuming that folks learns from their mistakes- not all folks do.

I never got a formal College education. I see kids coming out of college and it's true, the education they got is pretty much worthless. There are some schools that put an emphasis on real world skills- like Cal Poly and grads there have no problem finding jobs.

My daughter told me about one of her classes at U of Chicago grad school; "How to tell a story", Hard to explain in a short comment but It totally changed my opinion on these MBA programs.

I suspect that a large portion of the issue is that by-and-large most 18 year-olds don’t really have a clue regarding what they want for a career. Many will change their majors three times. As such, they are not able to taylor their curriculum to match their career aspirations.

I was a non traditional student. I spent six years working on missile guidance radar in the Navy and then three years working as an electronics field rep for an international firm before bunching it all and going to college. I left a job that paid really well, but I had a goal. Those two factors gave me a sense of purpose that the younger students simply did not have. Every class I took, to the extent possible, played a role in achieving that goal.

My graduate degree program, which required original research, taught me how to think critically regarding the questions at hand. As other have stated, the learning that occurred during the course of the career greatly exceeded what I learned in college, but I do believe, if one knows where they want to be, a properly designed program will go a long way to helping them get there.

As for your daughter’s class on How to tell a story, I suspect that class had more value than the title implies. I spent the last 10 years of my career in a position in which I interfaced with every level from local loggers on up to State legislators and Governors’ cabinet members. The ability to communicate at multiple levels was my most important asset.