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"Well, yeah, while I was playing video games and drinking with my buddies, that person spent her nights in the university library learning about biochemistry, aced the MCAT, pushed herself through med school, landed a nice specialty, fought through her internship and residency, and is now a respected heart surgeon who saves hundreds of lives each year doing something that would have looked like magic to people just a century ago, but she jaywalked right in front of me, so I figure she's dumber than I am, and I think she deserves to be smashed by a car." When you phrase it that way, you say the same thing but without the smugness.
I am super LOLing right now.
Great post.
Btw, op, intelligence and competence are two very different things.
Yes, you can learn stuff by yourself out of a book, but having school serves to standardize the knowledge base. That is, if you passed through xyz courses (or did very well in them), you can be expected to know xyz.
If you hodge podge read on your own, there's a chance you have the knowledge base, but there's a chance you don't.
Why take the risk? It's hardly a seller's market out there when it comes to employment these days.
I think you'll find the IQ drop in college students is secondary to the fact that the pool has been watered down by people who wouldn't have 'belonged' in higher education 20 years ago. You can look at that as bad or as watering down the degree. Which is a valid point. But the other valid point is that an educated populace certainly beats an uneducated one.
What people fail to realize is that intelligence as taught in grade school isn't the only intelligence. Actually it is but a small sliver in the greater pie chart. There are many, countless aspects of intelligence all too often only surfacing after grade school.
Really the list is endless. Grade school emphasizes only one particular intelligence; the one that can easily be measure by question/answer means (memorization for the most part). Only afterwards when individuals are able to harness all of their God given abilities and talents does the true hierarchical, civil structure arise.
I say this because I speak for myself. In HS I was average, a nobody by most standards. Afterwards I floated to the top because I was able to tap into so many other intelligences that had since then gone unrecognized and un-untilized.
Just reading dating profiles is an eye opening insight. Let me get this straight, your major is Creative Writing yet your profile could be written in crayon? Or you have a PhD and lack the social intelligence to realize writing "I like spending money money money" is probably not the best avenue to take when finding a man? WTF...is this what they call smart-stupid?
College does make you a lot smarter, but most of it doesn't really apply to a job. Why do employers care if you have a degree? Because they can.
I can say the 5 years I spent in college didn't make me much smarter at all. I barely remember any of the crap I learned in my history and liberal arts classes. All the math I took I'd need to revisit and refresh before I could do it again. All the science classes I took have all long passed by. Of course, I graduated 10 years ago. Did I need it 10 years ago? Not really. In all honesty though, I was an exception. I could program proficiently in C and C++ by the time I was a senior in H.S.
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NoleFanHSV
I can say the 5 years I spent in college didn't make me much smarter at all. I barely remember any of the crap I learned in my history and liberal arts classes. All the math I took I'd need to revisit and refresh before I could do it again. All the science classes I took have all long passed by. Of course, I graduated 10 years ago. Did I need it 10 years ago? Not really. In all honesty though, I was an exception. I could program proficiently in C and C++ by the time I was a senior in H.S.
Over 20 years after finishing undergrad, I'm still using the knowledge (much augmented, thankfully) I learned those 4 years nearly every day. The basic theory, in most cases, still holds true.
Funny, I've never met a college degreed person who looks down upon and feels superior to non-college educated persons. However, I have known, both directly and indirectly, as evidenced by this thread, a great deal of non-college educated people who look down up and comment on those who are. The vast majority of the snobbishness and arrogance comes from them, not the college degreed.
Nothing comical about it either way. The world is a big place, so obviously we don't all know and experience the same types of people. Understandably, many people are biased in favor of their own personal experiences, and often believe that their reality adequately reflects the world at large. I know or have known many degreed persons who seemingly act or beleive they are better than or superior to non-college-educated folks. And of course, here on C/D, there exists no shortage of people who profess to be smarter, more intelligent, more aware, and more capable than 'uneducated' persons. So, it goes both ways. Noise is made from both sides.
Of course many college-educated persons don't act or feel superior to anyone else, and of course many non-college-educated persons don't ridicule or begrudge college-educated persons. But between those ends exists a wide variety of people with different attitudes and opinions.
College degrees are great, and if a person wants to obtain one, then that 's great, too! But many college-educated persons look down on and often feel superior to non-college-educated persons. And that's probably part of the reason we have threads like this. Educational arrogance and the snobbiness/arrogance that many college-educated people have is what many comment on. Humans are, generally speaking, a very arrogant, self-centered species, so it 's not really surprising that humans brag and boast about all manner of achievement, college degrees included. Anything to elevate status or to highlight membership in some coveted class or fraternity.
A college degree doesn't make you smarter or "better" than someone who didn't but what it does mean is that the college student is better educated. And that means that in a particular subject area like a major or even graduate field that person knows more about that subject than someone who did not pursue that degree. The problem isn't that we look down on hose who have degrees it is that we have perpetuated the idea that all opinions on all subjects have equal value. That isn't true. If someone who spent more than a decade studying something that gives them a much more informed and than valuable opinion than someone who didn't. This is especially true the more complicated the subject matter.
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