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Feb. 2, 2007 University no antidote for stupidity In the US and most of the western world a university education is almost mandatory.Does a university educated person become generally more capable than one who did not receive a degree?It seems to me, judging by the articles I have read on this site and on similar ones , that no they are less capable.A university education guarantees access to a steady stream of income, but as Lady Brekinbridge said in Wilde's play,'nothing destroys thought so much as unearned income'. When you see grown men arguing about how many authors they have read and the number of languages they speak I get embarrassed .We usually get out of this stage when we leave our teens and go out and get a job.Once when crossing the Atlantic years ago I heard a couple of Americans talking about their experiences in the the UK.One was telling the other that 'it is an absolutely amazing place ,they have little kids doing things like magaging stores or inspecting merchandise leaving a factory'.'What is he talking about? I thought;'little kids'. I listened longer .Apparently he was referring to teenagers.Later on ,when settled in North America, a person also just arriving from the UK spoke about his impression of North Americans with the comment that 'they don't seem to leave school until they are thirty, adding -'cant let them out before then; they don't mature until the age of thirty. Now I am not implying that the place of ones birth determines ones likelihood of maturing on time.What I am implying is that a steady exposure to rote learning retards the individuals ability to mature. As an aside I would like to mention that you may acquire knowledge without university .I myself have no university degree but seem to be able to hold my own when conversing with some one who has.In fact the guy who lives next door to me has a degree in languages .He worked as a chef for years until getting a job with a construction maintenance company as a foreman.Seems his degree in the romance languages fitted him out admirably as he had to deal with a lot of recent arrivals who spoke little or no English. I with no degree have managed.I have had a short piece aired on Japans NHK radio.My articles and pieces have been published in the print media for the last ,oh I don't know,ten or seven years. I practice a lot on the net and most of the stuff is still there. In my view in order to operate nowadays more than a university degree is required (although it doesn't hurt in this complicated world).The main criteria for success, as it has been since man first crawled out of his cave, is a certain native cunning, an ability to improvise when things go wrong ,and the ability to know instinctively which is the right path.No amount of rote learning can instill this ,only experience,a thing sadly lacking in most recent university graduates.In fact in most jobs if you think you will get in by relying on your degree you are in for a shock as you also have to have lived in the adult world.
For more of my views on how to get on in the world
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