We don't need no "education".

Many children will graduate from high school being told that the secret to success is an education.

It took me seven years and $70,000 to get two degrees from two different universities. 

According to Wikipedia, there are two definitions for education.

1. the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university.

2. an enlightening experience.

There is too much focus on the first and not enough on the second. If you pursue the second, you know how valuable your life experiences have been. If you pursue the first, you learn from books and institutionalized professors who may be three times removed from the real world.

Before I upset all of the literati, it is important to ask why post graduates go to post secondary institutions.

I believe they get more schooling so they can acquire skills that help them get employment in their chosen field. A reasonable amount of time spent at centres for higher learning must "educate" students in the working tools of their profession.

I remember why I went to school. I didn't want to end up working in a fish plant like my parents.

I remember watching my "uneducated" friends get jobs, buy cars and clothes while I chose to remain poor, work part time, so I could become educated.

I went to school for a certificate.

I went to school so I could better market myself against the "uneducated".

I learned more in 6 months in my first job than I had learned in my first four years at university.

It wasn't school that educated me. It was life.

School was my marketing tool to get that first office job.

In a world where everyone has a degree, the thing that separates a post secondary graduate from the pack is their life experiences.

Every job requires a new set of skills most applicants do not have at the hiring date. They learn the job. They figure out the cheats. They ask a lot of questions. 

The three things that propelled me through every new job were:

1. Work ethic

2. Ability to pick up the phone

3. Willingness to learn

Life is a series of events (or experiences).

What are yours?

PS. The other problem with post secondary education is that we ask an 18 year old kid to DECIDE what they want to study so they can CHOOSE a career path. 

I believe most are not qualified at that age. Yet we force them to waste time and money to learn what they don't want to do.

Maybe the famous philosopher, Pink Floyd, was right, "We don't need no education", at least for some of us with Wikipedia's first definition.

1. • an enlightening experience.