The Cynical Girl: Go To College |  |
| Posted: 05 Jun 2012 03:45 AM PDT
“Laurie, why wouldn’t you do this?” One day, my boss was harping on about my room for growth and I said, “I don’t want to get a master’s degree. I don’t care about advancement. I hate HR. I’m working for landscaping.” It was true. At the time, we lived in the woods and were in the throes of a major renovation. Trees. Gardens. Major stones and rocks being added and removed. Foundational improvements. Irrigation. My boss looked at me and said, “I know you think a master’s degree is dumb but your MBA would buy you more trees.” Dang. She was right. Education of any kind — GED, undergraduate, graduate — is a good investment. Some say that depressed wages and the rising cost of an education means that the ROI doesn’t make sense for some kids. Bullshit. It makes sense for every kid. And adult. Education matters. I have a degree in English. There is no ROI in studying Jack Kerouac or Percy Bysshe Shelley except now I know when someone uses the words prescient or trope correctly (or not). I can guard against being impressed too easily. I can see through the fakers. And there is very little ROI in reading Elie Wiesel or Kurt Vonnegut except I hung out with a better class of people who actually saw a future for themselves beyond the northwest side of Chicago. And by a better class, I don’t just mean money. Education exposes you to people with dreams. This is good when you’re not raised to have big dreams of your own. Now listen, they are naysayers. Doubters. Skeptics. They have objections. Should you be a savvy consumer? Should you do your research to determine whether or not an art history degree leaves you with enough skills to pay your rent? Should you show up for your classes and actually learn something? Yes. You should also wipe your ass after you poop. Do I need to tell you this? Whether it is a graduate degree or your LPN, education is the key to growing and evolving. And it also happens to be the key to earning more money — if you do it properly. I am sorry I missed my chance to earn a free graduate degree. That was dumb. Related articles              |
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12 comments:
This is a great article. I retired from my first career and wish that I had completed my degree right after high school. Fortunately, I am in a position to go back to school and complete my degree before starting my second career. I hope that my four sons pick the right career and finish college the first time around. However, it never too late.
Wow this article hits home. I was 18 years old working on the river front and a customs inspector offered to give me $5,000 to go to college. At that time it would have paid all four years. I didn't accept it but it did encourage me to go and it took me ten years at night to get a two year degree in business. I got another one in accounting 8 years later. Now here I am almost 40 years later pursuing a four year degree in marketing. Education has helped me over the years but if I would have taken the money and got my four year degree early on there is no telling how much further I would have been in my chosen career.
This is a great article and non-traditional students can relate to it more than traditional students. We have lived through it. Barely making it through school with less than a 3.0 defeats the purpose if you want to work for a Fortune 500 company. These guys are the big boys and only want the best. Some of them only consider students from certain colleges and universities. It saddens me to see traditional students playing with the phones in class during a lecture. They have no idea how this behavior will affect them after graduation.
I wish back in the day I would have gone to school, instead I had to wait until my children where grow. You never know what life will throw at you; you need to get an education while you can especially when you have the opportunity to have it paid by someone else. It hurts to write these checks for tuition every semester, I know.
This is a very real and raw blog. I njoyed the read. As a nontraditional student I too regret not having taken advantage of the scholarship I had earned so many years ago. Now however, I realize what I have to do and how hard it is now and is still going to be. I opted to go for a double major and do it while the opportunity is there for me to do so. Pretty soon I will have to get back to work and this time I will do it with a degree.
This article was very interesting. I really enjoyed reading it. I think more people should be encouraged to go to college and better themselves. I started school shortly after graduating high school, but a year into it I had to take maternity leave. I took a whole year off, and my scholarship only allowed one semester. So needless to say, I lost my scholarship. I really didn't want to go back to school, but my main motivation was my daughter. I wanted to get a degree, so that I can eventually start a successful career. I am so proud of myself!
Wow! What a great article. There is nothing more important than education because it is the key to success. Not only financial security but also being able to make better decisions in life. By now i should have been done with my master degree, but i have made some bad decisions in the past that hold me back. I have learned from my mistakes and now i am on the right track. My parents are the ones who are encouraging me, are paying for my fees, and are taking care of my daughter thousands miles away so that i can get that single important thing "education".
I can't help but be in awe of the straightforward brutality of her assertion that you should get your degree. Not from one who always saw a higher education, but from one who viewed it from a skeptics perspective, and realize not the values that society normally places on it but the potential that it gives you as a person. For her it was not about the monetary incentives, sure those are great two, but the value of an education transcends that. It's the growth and the value of life as well as the understand of your fellow man and the world around you. I think this is what students contemplating if university is the right choice for them, instead of the guidance Councillor hand outs!
Education really is important nowadays. If you do not have a degree you really aren't going to make it very far in life. Some people are very successful without having a degree, but that normally doesn't work for everyone. If I got my graduate degree handed to me on a silver plate like that I would take it in a heartbeat. That is one of the only downfalls of having to get a degree is just paying for it.
Im a fan of the bluntness, It was his decision not to continue forth with his education. However, his boss saw potential in him, and thought if he continued his degree it would most likely benefit him. Now days a master degree is optional, and with the economy most do not want to pay those with master degrees.
My parents have tried to bound into my head ever since I was 8 or 9 that an education is the most important thing ever. Education can get you a better job, which will give you more money, which will then give you an easier life (generally speaking). Until recently I didn't pay them any mind. I discovered that I actually "grew up" much later than I should have and realized very late in life that all the years I spend barely passing classes, was time wasted. With 6 more classes to conquer it took over a decade to complete this degree. I know wholeheartedly that more education will do me good, but I just don't know if I have the stamina to continue it!
Education is everything. If I was offered a free graduate program I would take it in a heart beat. I'm going to contradict my self by saying this and I know that education is an investment but the only way I would go back for a masters is if it were free. With some degrees I just don't find it necessary.
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