D
amen, someone was criticizing "phd's" earlier saying that universities try to pass them off as some kind of certification that a person is an expert -- well, there's truth to that notion. going through all the rigor and and discipline and the amount of focused time it takes to fully research, prepare and defend a dissertation, and additionally to collect all the background knowledge a person needs to do so intelligently, is an exercise in and demonstration of the "ability to learn" and to become an expert in a field. a school provides a formal, disciplined way to achieve this skill and lots of guidance and help along the way.
if i want to hire someone for a job, just on paper i immediately prefer a person who has been through secondary education to someone who hasn't, whether or not that education is in the right field, because it tells me that they are able to pick up new subject matter and skills and achieve a certain level of aptitude in them. "aptitude" is established by a degree -- all the things you said, Angela -- and more than that, the discipline to carry those things out
As you can tell from the person's academic education background that he/she did have the ability to adapt and learn in new ways, consider the same thing for people with skill trades.
I graduated after four years of college. My husband has had much more post-high school education that I can even imagine wanting to have.
-- half a year of training in the Navy (including 3 months of photography school.)
-- 18 months at an HVAC tech school. (Since he was working on heaters in the day too, his then-wife had to wiggle out of his grip in the middle of night, as he dreamed of ways to install a heater, and mistook her arm for a pipe. lol)
-- One semester at college full time.
-- So many seminars on things like asbestos removal, blue-flame heaters, workplace safety, etc.
-- 13 months learning computer networking.
We've changed each other's minds on education. When he was growing up, education wasn't important to his family, so he really never thought about going to college, until he broke his back and couldn't go back to fixing heaters. If we had kids, he wanted to make sure each child went to college. After learning how much more he learned without college, I was hoping they'd bee more interested in going into the trades.
I am sure of one thing though. Knowing how God works, if we had kids, they would have chosen a different path than either one of us wanted for them. And it would have been good. lol