If Harvard were really the best education, if it makes that much of a difference, why not franchise it so more people can attend? Why not create 100 Harvard affiliates? [...] It’s something about the scarcity and the status. In education your value depends on other people failing. Whenever Darwinism is invoked it’s usually a justification for doing something mean. It’s a way to ignore that people are falling through the cracks, because you pretend that if they could just go to Harvard, they’d be fine. Maybe that’s not true.
Doug likes to say that "the consequence of winning, is losing". That's what drives the political agenda. People have to lose for the rest of us to be Duh, WINNING!
I think a few years at a university is a good experience. You're supposed to be exposed to a variety of things, but having been in an engineering program at a big school, I can tell you that's really not the case. Every undergrad program has it's electives, but those are usually picked to be as easy as possible.
It seems to me that degrees mean increasingly less, unless your family has some status and you're attending one of the big-name schools. Of course, it's also dependent on what field you want to work in. You can't become a medical doctor without med school, for example. But increasingly, diploma mills are diluting the value of a degree, and in the vast majority of professions, they aren't even needed anymore. If you can get your foot in a door someplace, experience and a list of accomplishments are far more important.
I think higher education is a great thing when done right.. but when it becomes all about getting a piece of paper, at great expense that people will be paying on for decades, then it's a detriment to a person's future.
I did a year at Arizona State, before moving north to Northern Arizona University. I was lost at ASU. It's a good school in terms of it's programs of study, but being so huge there really is nobody there to actually mentor - which should be a big part of an education. Well - I did sleep with a professor, but he was in the philosophy department so that didn't count as "mentoring" in the classical Greek sense. Or maybe it did..
In any case, the point is that increasingly a degree is about paying money, and thus really has no value. I am convinced that the US population is getting dumber.. not in terms of average IQ, but in real world smarts - forming coherent sentences and such. The things that are valuable and marketable has changed. I can throw out a resume that says I've been doing software engineering since the mid 90's, and since 2002 doing it for a federal agency and have a security clearance. I can list big expensive projects that I've worked on, without (of course) mentioning that they were eventually shut down and many millions in tax payer money flushed. That's the sort of stuff that matters.
It took me a while to figure out what the key to being successful is. You have to find somebody that is more successful than you are, somebody with some influence, and become interesting to them so that they want to teach you something, and getting you involved in something that matters. That's how John got started, and he's done it for several other people. Some others that worked for him didn't realize how much they could have improved themselves if they just didn't appear to be doing the minimum to get by.
In fact, John's looking for some new people for his company. The training is long to get certified (3 years), and the money not super awesome during that time. After getting certified, 100k+ is pretty much guaranteed.. and it's relatively easy work.
How many people would want to be employed, with benefits, for 3 years and earn enough to feed a family, and after those 3 years be able to earn at least 100k, even working for yourself? All without any college education required. You'd think a lot.. right? You'd be surprised.
If I lose my job, because the fed gives the contract to some other company for example, I could get another one at a higher rate of pay pretty easily. In fact, I could shop my resume around now to companies that compete with my employer and I'm sure I'd get around 20k raise or so.. easy. The reason I don't, is because the actual amount of time I'm working is.. umm.. low... and I do this "working" from home, so imagine you could have a 6 figure job, working from home, not actually having to work all that often, while simultaneously being appreciated for the awesome job that you're doing? Ya.. that doesn't suck.
But I could go to work for John, and of course pimp daddy wouldn't take a cut from his favorite ho', but then that would involve actually working for the better part of the day. It's not sucky work. In fact, if you compare what is involved to the compensation, the ratio would be very high. Digging ditches for 100k is pretty high reimbursement, but you know.. that digging part.. nah.
John recently landed the biggest client in the nation, and we (and by "we", I mean John) are going to be able to afford a pimp daddies diamond grill. I could just retire and spend my time going to the gym, and sipping martinis with the other bitches at the country club.
....
I haven't had a TMI, rambling, post for a while. That one was pretty good.
Oh.. and if you want to be a whore, make lots of money, and move to Dallas - I can hook you up. I need to talk Brandon into it... for those of you that know that big hick.
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