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Subject:Re: Success with finding jobs From:JIMCHEVAL -at- AOL -dot- COM Date:Sat, 12 Jul 1997 13:37:48 -0400
In a message dated 97-07-12 05:08:28 EDT, tmazz -at- KODIAK -dot- ADAMS -dot- COM (T. Mazza)
writes:
<< Every great empire/nation has fallen when it became so arrogant and so
wrapped-up in petty pursuits that it lost sight of the great benefits of
knowledge (and truth).
Is it important to have a degree? - Depends. It doesn't hurt. Lack of
knowledge
and appreciation of knowledge hurts or worse... >>
I don't think anyone's suggested that knowledge is not important. What
several of us (even with degrees) have pointed out is that *having a degree
is not the same as having knowledge*. Yes, there are particular disciplines
where a specific academic training is necessary. But many, many professions
are essentially taught by apprenticeship - you learn by doing and hopefully
by having some wise and wonderful mentors en route.
I deeply respect some of the people who taught me structured analysis at the
Institut Francais de Gestion. But the person who taught me the most about
programming, dealing with users and corporate politics was my first
supervisor on my first job. That mentoring and some ungodly hours of labor
are what made me a DP professional. But I have no degree that attests to
that.
I met a Salvadoran immigrant here who started working (illegally) in a
warehouse. While doing so, he began to keep records on dBase. Then he
learned to program. Ten years later, he's a Visual Basic programmer and a
citizen. And still has no degree.
Societies may fall when bread and circus (or Mike Tyson and Madonna) become
more important than knowledge and (more importantly) wisdom, but they can
also fall when mandarinates and titles become more important than hands-on
experience.
Remember, the intricately erroneous Ptolemaic system was the 'degreed' view
of the universe at one point and the man who tried to use his own personal
experience to show that the Earth goes around the sun was almost burned at
the stake for his pains - subject to bending to the academic paradigm of the
period.
A degree is useful when it indicates a starting point - a first step on the
road, wth your knapsack fully loaded. It is a false front when it indicates
the end of learning - knowledge with an official stamp, hermetically sealed.
Yes, knowledge is important. But having a degree is only one way of
indicating one has knowledge and in too many cases only indicates having one
kind of knowledge.
Civilization is at risk when people forget how to learn. All the other
things - degree or non-degree, focus on sports and rock concerts or
subscriptions to an opera you don't really enjoy or understand - are merely
symptoms.
Jim Chevallier
Los Angeles
Contract/free-lance; currently available
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Visit Chez Jim: Jim Chevallier's Home Page - http://www.gis.net/`jimcheval
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