What's your education level?

I didn't follow them. I lost. Morally, they are wrong.

This reminds of a scene from my life, I will try to replay it for you...
I'm super green, been sent to Singapore to work under the supervision of some random guy to commission some equipment.
I had been there a few days, enough time to work out the office politics. Turns out this random guy (my mentor, we'll call him Gordon) is the best controls technician in the country. He also knows this, and boasts about it when he's had a few drinks. And he drinks every night.
There's another controls tech, a little indian guy named Srini, who epitomizes the 4 rules. He lives to please the manager, micheal. Srini brings in coffee every morning for himself and Micheal, takes care of little bitchwork that micheal always gives him, spys on the other guys and reports back to micheal, etc. you get the picture.
So Gordon comes in still half drunk from the night before, same as he has all week, with tequila on his breath, red eyes, overalls open showing his pasty hairy fat chest, and huge rings of beer sweat in his pits.
Before the morning meeting, Srini comes over to Gordon and says (not in a friendly "I'm trying to help you out" way, but in a condescending "good riddance" way) something to the effect of "I heard Micheal say that if you come in here one more time drunk, he's going to fire you."
Gordon replied something like "You know what Srini, I know you're full of ****, but even if you weren't, he is. I'm the best controls technician in Singapore, and only a dumbass would fire me. Even if he fired me, I could have 5 different jobs before lunch time and 3 of them would pay more than I make here, which is a little more than twice what you make."
Gordon came in to work like that every day for the next few weeks I was there. Micheal never said a single thing about it.
I heard that after I left, Gordon got in a fight with Micheal during the meeting and Micheal tried to enforce his power. He "let Gordon go" and Gordon just walked across the hall and got a job with the same company under a different manager for a different project, for more money. Micheal quit shortly after that.

I'm not advocating being a drunkard prima donna dickhead, just illustrating the fact that if you focus your efforts on being a total badass instead of sucking up, the benefits are different but just as good. When you save your boss' rear 5 times/wk he (unless he's a sociopath) feels a little indebted to you for that. When you do good, it makes him look good, and he likes to look good. Also, even if he is a sociopath, he understands your value, because he knows that if he loses you, he loses the equivalent to a whole team of run-of-the mill people. Make yourself irreplaceable. Those who follow the 4 rules are a dime a dozen. The boss might like the way you kiss ass, but he can find a whole room of people who do it just the same way. He can't find even a single one of you though. When you're a total badass you get more leeway and can make better deals for yourself.

Nice. It's about time for this:

The board of directors for a large company, believing it was time for a shake-up, hires a new CEO.

This new boss is determined to rid the company of all slackers, so on a tour of the facilities during his first day, the CEO notices a guy leaning casually against the wall.

The room is full of workers and he wants to let them all know he means business, and wasting time on the clock is not acceptable.

The CEO walks up to the guy and asks, "And how much money do you make a week?"

A little surprised, the young fellow looks at him and replies, "I make $300.00 a week. Why?"

The CEO reaches into his wallet, hands the guy $1,200 in cash, and screams, "Here's four weeks pay, now GET OUT and don't come back!"

Feeling pretty good about his first firing, the CEO looks around the room and asks, "Does anyone want to tell me what that goof-off did here aside from standing around?"

With a sheepish grin, one of the other workers mutters, "That guy delivered our pizza."

Well I am a Graduate in commerce, but let me tell you it hardly has any thing to do with my current field of IT in which I am probably working, its about what You learn from your experiences and what knowledge you get from you seniors when you join as a fresher in any field. Education does a little effect on ones job performance as far as Theoretical aspects are concerned, but when we talk about gaining experience means it does with practical knowledge I know some of you might tell theory is equally important but according to me its not theory that influence more on your experience rather it is practical gain that will surely and definitely make you grow strong in any field.

rjs9163 said:

Well I am a Graduate in commerce, but let me tell you it hardly has any thing to do with my current field of IT in which I am probably working, its about what You learn from your experiences and what knowledge you get from you seniors when you join as a fresher in any field. Education does a little effect on ones job performance as far as Theoretical aspects are concerned, but when we talk about gaining experience means it does with practical knowledge I know some of you might tell theory is equally important but according to me its not theory that influence more on your experience rather it is practical gain that will surely and definitely make you grow strong in any field.

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That's very well said. +1 to you

DerStrom8 said:

That's very well said. +1 to you

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Thanks for the appreciation DerStrom and I really mean that I am honored that you liked that.

that is true rjs, but people who have the theory and the degree tend to be less hardheaded and more open-minded.

They dont have the egos that non-educated people do, and also getting the education forces a certain discipline on you and makes you approach things in the real world in an academic, organized, more-methodical way as well, which is important.

and finally, it's nice to be able to tie whatever you learn from experience, back to the theory. It's always nice to close the loop, as opposed to just learning stuff but not really having a frame of reference from which to draw from.

Education wins

The first step is understanding how much you do not know. Once you get to that point of humble you can start filling in a few of the gaps.

3v0 said:

The first step is understanding how much you do not know. Once you get to that point of humble you can start filling in a few of the gaps.

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Hi 3v0

You are so correct in every aspect

Never thought about it that way. Kudos man.

May make less of a Bulldozer of me. And more of a listener. And thinker. Who knows.

Best regards,
tvtech

You should read a Richard Feynman book called "The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen Scientist" He makes some very good points along the same lines, the main one being one of the most important aspects of the scientific method and learning in general is that the most important answer to a question you could possibly come up with is "I don't know"

Reloadron said:

My take is simple as to education in general . A good education and a successful person is a combination of book smarts combined with shall we say street smarts. Many of us simply sought a degree because it was a pre requisite for more money (beanies and weenies) at the time. The real education comes with years of experience and what is called wisdom.

Just My Take
Ron

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You hit the nail on the head. Education is very important as well. In order to understand what your experience has taught you...

Stupid people never learn

Best regards,
tvtech

From time to time you hear about the engineer that is as worthless as it gets. In agreement with what was said in the previous post the man was worthless prior to his education and no amount of schooling will change that.

My education background was Mr. Wizard on TV.

Mikebits said:

My education background was Mr. Wizard on TV.

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LOL oh well cheers.

tvtech

Mikebits said:

My education background was Mr. Wizard on TV.

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That reminds me of a girl who came into our shop once... About 19 years old... Asian looking, she asked in a broad american accent " Good morning! Can I see the manager".
I was surprised to see an Asian with a broad american accent... I asked " Where in America do you come from."... She then replied.. " I don't!! I'm from Pakistan."... Confused, I asked why her accent was american..... Apparently she had just been plonked in front of the TV watching Sesame Street her whole life....

'whisper'... I think that's how they get into countries....

edjewkayshun? wuts dat? whadevr itdis, fraid I didn't get much. Actually I finished 9th grade, sort of. in a relatively unstructured home school. My mother was school teacher before I was born, so that kind of came easy for her. (7th grade in 1980-81 was the only year I actually attended an official school) And then when I turned 18 my mother sent me off to the local community college to take the GED. No special study for that. Got second highest grade of the class. TV contains no education of any value. We never had one and to this day I don't like to watch it. My education came from the library. We'd go to a city library once a month and check out a stack of books, anything I wanted, and that was mostly technical books on inventors and inventions. Did that for several years. I loved it and just keep learning ever since. So I have no degrees, don't need any, after all they're only good for proving what one has learned in order to get hired. But I'm not interested in being hired, more likely to look for someone to work for me eventually. I realize I have skills that would earn big bucks in the industrial system, (looking at a problem, or job that needs doing, and figuring out how to make a machine that will do it) but I would not like that kind of work just for some industry. I will do it on my own. So I live very cheap and keep doing stuff, making stuff, fixing things, and following up interesting ideas.
One thing I didn't get into early was computers, so I use one on the internet and that's about it.

And one thing I've learned, a good inventor never stops asking questions. Why does it work that way? Can it be done different/better? And "think outside the box" which a lot of conventionally educated persons seem to have a hard time doing. What doesn't make sense actually works sometimes.

Why is it that the people that are always preaching that degrees are useless, are the people without degrees?

TV contains no education of any value.

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That's probably true for US TV, judging by what I've seen of it, but we're fortunate here in that the BBC puts out some excellent educational programmes.

depends on what your purpose is, to really go somewhere in life or just work for wages to make money for someone else. a degree is of value in that it will give an employer some idea of what you can do, but as self employed and more likely to be the boss/business owner/employer, I've never even bothered to go back and get my GED diploma. Just never needed it.

For years almost every time I saw a TV, someone was getting killed on it (fake of course) not the kind of education I'm interested in. Oh I've seen a few good programs, but very few.

There are many television programs out there that have a strong educational value. However, I have seen them go downhill since I was a kid. Shows like Sesame Street. I remember when Sesame street was still a good, child-friendly, educational, fun show. Now they fill it with all this sleazy cr*p and garbage. I mean seriously, Katy Perry in a skimpy outfit on a KID'S program???? You've GOT to be kidding me!!

It sickens me what they're doing nowadays.