To tell you the truth I learned very little in school when contrasted with the 12-years I spent there. Many guys I know can hardly even read or do basic math like division and fractions after all those years.

What the hay were they doing all that time and why did they get diplomas with those poor skills?

Formal education is highly overrated. What really counts is what YOU put into it. Don't just aim for a rag of a diploma. Reach for REAL knowledge and understanding of the world. When you study reach for deeper meaning and not just to pass a test. In the long run you will grow into a full human being and not an expert test taker.

+10 to that. Never mistake memorization for learning. Memorization allows you to solve problems others have already solved. Understanding allows you to solve problems nobody else can.

Really, in most cases it's easier to understand a few concepts than to memorize the hundreds of facts these concepts lead to. Does that make sense?

And like Ironraven said, we'll keep your stump sitting by the fire for you. I promise not to use it as a chicken chopping block or anything like that.

-Blast

Do what I did ... spend waaay too much time in college (9 years total), get several advanced degrees in an area few tread, get a great job with a big international corporation, spend lots of days and nights in your office,and while there spend way too much time on this forum AFTER my work is done, ... and get paid to do so.

Oh, and when not in the office, get out there and camp!

Life is good.

Right there with you guys... I am in my last semester for my RN. Appearantly all life stops other then school when you go for a nursing degree. So, I will kiss my wife and son good night and tell them that I will miss them and I will see them in 4 months. Mind you I am not leaving the state or even town. I will still be living in this house, but in order to make a better life for all of us, we are all sacrificing something. But like this forum, they will be there when I am done. Then I can put forth the effort to make their sacrifice worth it. Good luck to all of you that are going forth in your education. I will probably not be around here much either so I would appreciate you saving a stump for me as well and I will bring the celebration wine to toast our accomplishments.

The only promising aspect of this semester is we are done doing care plans!!!! Congrats Night hiker and it is encouraging to know that there are others with a similar interest in preparedness as well as in the nursing field. I know that Nurse Mike is a member in here as well as us two. Sometimes I feel like a third arm is growing out of the top of my head when I talk to other nurses about proactive responces and preparation for the unknown. Good luck to you Night hiker and talk to you in December some time...

I totally agree with everyone who says to get as much school as possible. I've become extremely limited in what I can do with my career so I'm now looking to go back to school.

I've said this on another thread but the majority of people I work with are functional illiterates. They can read juuuust enough to get by and are extremely threatened by someone (like me) who read for *gasp* FUN!

samhain;

RN - 14 years.

Or, at least until you have kids and are trying to help them with their algebra homework....

Actually, I never had much use for school after the Navy, except to find another avenue for work prospects. I was always so bored with K-12 that I seldom did homework, but I managed to absorb enough to get high grades on all my tests, so I ended up with a fairly good grade in most classes. That tended to frustrate my teachers quite a bit, but I was never a trouble in class, so I got by. The last couple years in high school finally got a little interesting with higher level math and science (advanced chem, physics, and trig), and I could finally see some application in what they were teaching. It was actually a challenge, and I began to learn how to learn then, if that makes any sense. In the Navy, I finally found a place where I could push my limits, and discovered that it was possible to achieve the highest possible grade in class if I really wanted to. In college, it was more a matter of economics that drove me; having the highest grade secured me a scholarship and an internship, both of which I needed at the time. I never completed college, but for the year and a half I was there, I learned "the system", which parlays academics into job skills, and thereby secured my future career paths.

From a practical view, I would estimate that you can learn about 10% of what you need to know to do something while in school, the rest you learn OJT, which is where the vast majority of my working knowledge has been derived. That 10% is enough to get you familiar with the subject matter so that you can converse with those in your field enough to learn what you really need to know. Beyond that, school was more a social program than anything. At least that's my experience.

Now my girls are in it, and are learning how to learn, and more importantly how their world will function around them as they move from academia to career. My oldest one initially wanted to be a marine mammal vet, which was unlikely given she was not a straight A student growing up. Even had she made it, her visions of swimming in the tank with Shamu were not practical, and when told that more likely her Phd would entitle her to shoveling fish guts and whale poop for $30k a year if she was lucky, she soon lost interest. It is important for kids to have realistic goals, and understand that glamour usually only comes with fame.

It seems that 80% of school up through the first two years of college is "learning how to learn".

As I was finishing my BS in Mechanical Engineering I took some graduate classes as electives. The evening graduate level classes were full of young guys dressed in "business casual" with company ID's clipped to their pockets. I figured I might as well finish the job instead of coming back a couple of years later, so I banged out a no-thesis MSME in one busy year.

Looking back I should have either skipped it or got the MS in Electical Engineering, as I am a self-taught EE anyway but have no credentials to show for it.

Anyway, learn how to learn. Be able to take the manual home one night and come back in the morning able to do something new. Get lots of hands-on experience - I learned as much about engineering working on cars with my dad and building things as I did in a classroom. Read, read, read (non-fiction). Books, and now also the internet, are the keys to the kingdom of knowledge. Remember that smart people are not always good students and vice-versa. If you're smart, be a good student anyway because it is easy and it is a gateway to a lot of other things.