Originally Posted by
EWO
Well said. Like everything bulldog, and most everything in life there are differing opinions, so one would have to define 'educated'.
I work in the pharmaceutical industry myself, after time in the military and with a college degree I work with people from some of the most prestigious engineering schools from around the world. All are educated. Lots are educators to the educated. Most are extremely intelligent, IQ's and back grounds out of this world. And with that, some I wonder how they find their way to and from work everyday.
I once worked for a molecular engineer/molecular research scientist who pretty much summed it up as an education, at any level, is only as good as it is used. Just about anybody can go to a school memorize what someone else accomplished, repeat in orally or in text, and then receive a degree. it is the application of said knowledge that determines the value of that education.
He was from upstate New York. He was an Ivy league guy. He was a Rhodes Scholar. He went on a fishing outing down here with us and I had to show him everything. He could break the fish down to its molecular levels but he could not cast a rod, clean or fry fish. Still educated though.
It is all application. Who would one choose to condition his hound a noted canine sports scientist or Don Mayfield?
My pops dropped out of high school, went to work and then onto the Army in the late 60's. He came home with an education that no school can provide. Much the same as the young men and women returning from the middle east today. There is no school to prepare them nor no school that can return them to what they once were. But they have an education. My pops farmed, was in construction, a mechanic, a plumber, an electrician, a welder, all the things that make a farm and house go...he was as educated and versed as anyone.
Some say his schooling ended in the tenth grade, some would say it began when the other form ended. All opinion. All about application.
With that said, I am not knocking collegiate academia because it will open doors like nothing else. Once that door is opened it is what one chooses to do that matters. EWO