Qualified by Life - long and maybe boring!

[Paula from Sydney]

This one has been brewing in my head for some time. I should start by saying that I have had very little formal education. My parents were of the “old school” and believed that sons required education, whereas daughters would simply get married and devote the rest of their lives to caring from their husbands and children. I therefore grew up thinking that this was what I wanted too! I can remember looking at my first house with my first husband prior to its purchase, seven months pregnant with my first child at the time (at age 22!) and having this mental image of myself working away in the kitchen with children playing around my feet when my weary husband came home from his breadwinning duties to the comfort and support of the idyllic home environment that I had created (Stepford Wives or what!?)

As a result of this, notwithstanding that I consistently topped my year at school and was in fact accelerated through so that most of the time I was with students who were a year or more older than me and also notwithstanding that my headmistress called my parents to the school and told them that I absolutely must go to university, I left school at 16. My formal education stopped right there! (My brother went to Cambridge university, one of the two best universities in the UK). I certainly contributed to this decision as I had a burning desire for independence and just wanted to get a job, any job, so that I could move out from home.

My father did insist that I could not be launched into the adult world completely without skills, so I went to business college for one year and left able to type, take shorthand and do basic bookkeeping. By the time I was 17 I had left home, was living in a tiny little flat above a shop and working in my first secretarial position.

To try and keep this posting shorter than “War and Peace” I will say that I have done many things in my life including running my own business with a turnover in excess of $2 million p.a. for over ten years. I now work as a small business consultant (helping small business set up and maintain efficient accounting and administrative systems) and try to work only 15 or so hours a week. By virtue of referrals I always seem to have more work than I want at this stage in my life!

I have been married twice, had three children and, at age 25 moved my family (husband and two children aged 3 & 2) from England to Australia to live. I have always been a prolific reader and have, I believe, absorbed a lot of knowledge from both this and my life’s experience in general. By the time I was 26 I knew that the Stepford Wives role was not for me and set about rejoining the workforce. This contributed to the break-up of my first marriage when my very conservative husband (women in the kitchen and bedroom) found that he had something a little different on his hands than he had anticipated! Whilst never advanced enough to be an active feminist (sorry Brenda!) I have always strongly believed in the equality (dare I say superiority) of women and have insisted that I be treated accordingly.

On this forum I have become aware that most of the time I am talking with women who are far better educated than I and women who have continued their education process by working in an academic environment. Yet I also find that the views that I have somewhat painstakingly arrived at by thinking, reading and living are in accord with those of far better educated women. This pleases me a lot although I do still feel a little intimated about expressing views for which I do not really have any intellectual back-up - just a gut feeling.

I should add at this point that I do value education and both my daughters are graduates (ironically enough, my son isn’t!) and, if I had my time over, would probably make different decisions, but overall feel that I have probably arrived at the same place anyway.

Your thoughts ladies - can we “qualified by experience” people hold our heads high? I would love to hear about some of your experiences.

Love from Paula from Sydney.

[Jane in MN]

Just because a person has letters after her name doesn't mean that she is better or more successful or ANYTHING than a person with limited education. I know people who are academically brilliant, but would die in a house fire because they wouldn't have the common sense to get the hell out. This is way more common than anyone thinks, by the way.

My mother was one of the most well-read, intelligent, insightful people I've ever known (and not because she was my mum, either), and she never graduated high school. Eventually she did go back and got her university degree--in fact, my brother, my mom, and I all graduated college in 1982!--because she was fascinated by certain aspects of her eventual major. But nobody ever doubted her intellect or ability to construct a convincing argument. She was one smart cookie.

So it's not how much education you have, but how you use it. How passionately you look for answers and seek truth. Whether or not you want to keep advancing your knowledge and using it to better yourself and everyone around you, regardless of whether you're in an academic setting or not. And if those are the criteria we use to judge how smart a person is, I dare say that you, my dear, are one smart cookie too.

xoxox Jane

[Christine, Hong Kong]

Dear Paula,

I believe that intelligence will out! And abandoning the Stepford Wives' fantasy at 26, like you did, shows just that.

Up til age 16, my life was like you describe yours. But I did not leave school (I tried! I wanted to be a seamstress and get married and have children.... But my parents vetoed it, so I got through the rest of high school sullen and grumpy, never reading anything and still getting good grades - second in my class at graduation).

I got married a month after graduating from high school to a house painter. We both wanted to live in a Japanese monastery, but again my father intervened and argued that it might be practical to learn Japanese first. So I enrolled in University - and when I went to Japan two years later, I entered a university there and not a nunnery!

So, here I am - a professor of Japanese Studies. Not through prudent planning and wise choices from the start, but because of stubborn parents and a lot of lucky coincidences (plus - later - a lot of hard work).

I have done a lot of learning over the past 25 years but I have learned from experience that the only things that stick in my brain are those that I am enthusiatic about and interested in. The rest stays until exam time and then it is gone. I have probably forgotten more than I have "acquired".

You have learned through interest and spending the same amount of time and starting out with a great capacity for learning. What better education is there??

Degrees do not provide intelligence, and lots of times they do not even provide much knowledge. Too much education may even stifle your imagination - something I try to keep in mind when I teach.

Knowing so many people with all sorts of degrees and honours, I have stopped expecting simple intelligence from them. I would rather discuss something here and with you and people like you than with the majority of my colleages - especially of the male gender.

Lots of love to you,
Christine

[Jeannie]

Dear Paula,
Whether or not we have letters after our names, I think -with luck - we all have a chance to be "qualified by life".
My story:
My parents were both graduates and it was just assumed that I would attend university when the time came. I don't think it was propaganda; it just did not occur to them that I would make another choice. I chose to study philosophy and stayed after 4 years for further postgraduate study and more letters. I loved every minute of it. I, too, had my first child at 22 (must have been something about that age!) but my family helped with hiring nannies so that I could finish my studies. (That child, by the way, born in the midst of my studies in philosohy now holds a PhD in philosophy!) Simply put, I think philosophy is the obbligato of life and I credit Martin Heidegger (in spite of his politics!) with changing the course of mine forever.

My husband, on the other hand, has no letters after his name but his story reminds me of yours. He might not know much about philosophy, but he has never met a bottom line he could not understand or turn to his advantage. He has provided employment for countless people over the years and served for the same years as scout master in our community. He is, in many ways, the smartest person I know. I don't know about the Stepford Wives, but I chose to apply my education to my sons, my husband, my community, to doing some writing on the side, and to life in general. I profoundly disagreed with my mother-in-law who once said, "Why are you bothering with all this education when all you are doing is bringing up children?" GRRR! Where on earth could I better apply it?
So, that's my story. To answer your question after my personal rendition of "War and Peace": I know many people both with and without letters who have missed out on the qualification life has to offer and many who are wonderfully "life qualified". If I could only choose one qualification, I'd choose the one you have.
Love, Jeannie

[Taminator]

Hello Paula,

My Daddy always told me, tongue in cheek, not to let my learnin' interfere with my education. In essence don't concentrate so hard and put so much importance on having the formal learning that you scorn the importance of experiencing life and what it teaches you. My father has a master's from Stanford.

You have always struck me as having a good head on your shoulders and and independant soul who could take care of business. You get the job done. That belief has been cemented by this post.

Having spent the majority of my working life dealing with some highly scientific educated engineering types I can tell you they have the book smarts but sometimes lack the ability to communicate and know their own innate abilities. Once while standing in front of the snack machines our companies engineer of the year asked me if I had a paper sack. I looked at him as if it must be a joke and he explained that he needed to get four cokes and a snack cake to his office. I showed him how to accomplish this without the sack and he was happy as a clam and showed his new found common sense remedy to all his buddies.

There is no reason to downplay the importance of education but I have noticed of late that so many of our young in the United States are getting college degrees that the having of one is becoming of little importance and the focus is now on where it came from, the grade point, what groups they belong to. This focus is now seeming to slide to having a masters at least, and soon a Phd. will be imperative. It has struck me that the structure of education will having to shift to another method of qualifying for a career. I wonder if testing a person in a corp. or work place and then giving them what is lacking might work better.

One other item that is apparent to me is that getting the information out of the brain and applying it has become less efficient. The optimum is not the information, to me, but that ability to apply it and learning how to learn. With the internet there is a flood of information at our fingertips and textbooks become almost obsolete the day they are printed. Bummer that as they sure do cost a lot!!

I am babbling, what I meant to say to you is that you are shoulder to shoulder here with any degree.

XO, Tami

[jean214]

Dear Paula,
Many times in my life I have observed smart, coping people, successful in business and in their personal lives, leaders, readers and writers, who never got a formal education. Usually I did not find this out until a few weeks or months after I met them. Sometimes I found it out on first meeting, because they blurted it out as if to warn me.
What I have concluded, and I have observed this in many, many people, is that those who associate with people who hold degrees, but never graduated from high school or college themselves, always think this fact is stamped on their foreheads like a scarlet "S" for "Stupid," when nothing could be further from the truth. It has struck me so often that uneducated people (without formal degrees, I mean) carry this burden around all the time, as if they are hiding some shameful secret which, if uncovered, would reveal to the world how inadequate they are. I mean I have observed this in people with way more brains, more money and better coping skills than I have on multiple occasions.
I decided some time ago, and your post just makes it all the truer, that there is far too much emphasis on formal degrees and not nearly enough on reading for pleasure and to expand knowledge. Obviously you have done a lot of both.
If I had had to guess, I would have guessed you had a master's degree in something-or-other, or at the very least, a bachelor's degree. In truth, you do have both; you just got them from your own institution of higher learning.
Much love and respect,
jean214

[Brenda (K-W)]

Dear Paula: We have a joke around our house that says a turkey with a PhD is still a turkey. Now I refuse to let that apply to me but really my formal education came after a lifetime of, well, life experience. In my day, in the middle ages as my kids used to say, if you weren't married or engaged right after High School, or at least while you were passing the time at U of T getting your Mrs. degree, there must be something wrong. I finished HS at 17 and applied to and was accepted by Columbia U in NY city. My parents soon put a stop to that. So, not finding much of interest at U of T in those days, I got married at 19, first child by 20, second at 22. Stepford wives indeed. That was the first time, and after I separated, taking my little kids along, I had to make a living, and so it went. I just learned as I went along.

Frank & I got married some years later, and in order to become completely independent, I went to work in retail where I moved up the management level etc etc. My last job was as a buyer for a department store chain.

None of this satisfied me. I knew I needed to return to school to fill in what seemed to be a big hole in my life. I completed three degrees in ten years and at three Universities, having the time of my life, finished when I was 55 and much to everyone's surprise, got the first job I applied for. And I think my maturity must have helped the decision, although giving credit to my own department, it was unusual and courageous to hire someone of my age.

All this to say, it was my life experience that made me a good scholar, I'm sure of it, not the other way around. It was the knowledge amassed over a lifetime that added to the depth of my studies. I wish life weren't so rushed and expensive that I could give that advice to every one of my students. Take some time off, wander the world, and then come back to study. I meet graduate students every day who are only there because they don't know what else to do with their lives. The occasional one is cut out to be a book worm and that's fine. You can spot those during their undergrad years--the seekers, I call them, but the majority just stick around because it's safe. The best ones who pass my door I encourage to go to other Universities to be exposed to different teachers making me not so popular with my own department. But I think it's marvellous to be able to expose oneself to as many life experiences as possible.

This didn't need to be an autobiography. But I wanted to explain how I came to my scholarship, not from understanding parents, rather ones who couldn't see the point with a girl, but from sheer doggedness, tenacity, and the opportunities provided by life in general. As Christine says, I would rather have a dialogue with you and the rest of my pals here than with many of my colleagues.

Love, Brenda

[LindaC]

Dear Paula,

My life experience is much the same as yours in many ways. I did graduate from high school and finish one year of college before I married at 18 and had my first child at barely 20. I had resolved that I wanted a life just like my mother who raised 4 children and never worked outside the home. My father was an electronics engineer in the aerospace industry and provided a good middle-class life for his family. We were not spoiled rotten, but always had a nice home, good food and new clothes to wear.

I worked for many years as a secretary, now called "administrative assistant". I have lived with a man with a master's degree in industrial engineering for 26 years, and have observed, as others have, he is very intelligent but not particularly gifted socially, nor is he well-read. In fact, we joke that if the book has no pictures, he won't even open the cover!

I agree totally that life experience is the greatest educator. I am also a voracious reader, not only books, but magazines, articles and newspapers.

I'll leave you with a story that has become one of our family favorites. My SO hired me 26 years ago for a temporary position in his company. One of my jobs was to help him type (this really shows my age - we had no computers then!) major proposals. One sentence he had written went like this: "The electronic assemblers on our (assembly) line are very "ept" at their job". I went into his office and gingerly said, "Did you mean to say 'adept'?" He said, "No - I mean they are very good at what they do - you know, the opposite of 'inept'". Har! He is still looking for a dictionary with "ept" in it!

You are one of the most intelligent, perceptive and articulate women I have ever "met" Paula!

Love to you,

Linda

[LindaC]

Dear Paula,

I wrote you a long response to your post - but it disappeared! That's the way this day has been going! Sigh!

Let me start again. I too married very young, right out of high school, at 18 and was a mother at barely 20. I did manage to finish a few courses in college, but dropped out to get a job and make a home, a la Stepford, for my family. I wanted a life just like my mother, a stay-at-home mom of 4. My dad was the sole breadwinner, and he was college-educated with a degree in electronics engineering which provided him with the credentials to get a good job in the aerospace industry.

I, like yourself, have always been a voracious reader and through reading, expanded my view of the world, not to mention my vocabulary. I belive life is the greatest educator, and I have deep respect for myself, you, and others like us who don't have letters behind our names. You are an intelligent, perceptive, articulate woman whose view of the world I greatly admire.

I'll leave you with one of our favorite family stories. My SO has a master's degree in industrial engineering and is the person who hired me many years ago for my first job at a large electronics company. One of my duties was to help him type (before the age of computers!) major proposals. One of the sentences he had written went like this: "The electronic assemblers on our (assembly) line are very 'ept' at their job." I cautiously went into his office and asked if he meant to say "adept" at their job. He politely said, "No - I mean they are very good at their job, you know - the oppostie of 'inept'". Har! He is still looking for a dictionary with the word "ept" in it! All that education and he still can't spell!

Love to you Paula,

Linda

[jean214]

Dear Tami,
Your post reminds me of a 5-year period in my life when I worked with engineers, mostly electrical or nuclear engineers. Very bright, obviously, in ways that I am not. However, I beat every one of them (all using quadratic equations) in guessing the number of jelly beans in a cannister at work for Holloween. I used a technique they taught us in journalism school to estimate crowd size (find the number in a small area and figure how many times that area recurs, multiply by that) and I won the jelly beans.
I don't even remember if I ate the jelly beans -- I really don't like them very much -- but I surely do remember being able to brag to those engineers.
love to you,
jean214

[Debra the Bassplayer]

Dear Paula,
You have led an interesting life and I am so well pleased that you found your own mind and way instead of giving into the status quo. I spent my youth in folly and adventure..enough said. I worked at a high-paying job with a phone company in a position rarely held by women for 17 years. I retired young and went to college at age 40 to receive my degree in journalism. Whatever did I have in mind going into journalism when I can't hear? Writing had early become, and remains, an important part of my life possibly more so because of my deafness. Because I could not ideally work as a beat journalist, I used my learned writing skills to land other professional jobs. I edited some scientific journals for a state agency for sometime, which was wonderful work. Amazingly, or not, I continue to be awed by the many well-educated degreed people in the world who cannot write. (My boss being one of the many..her writing is atrocious.) Oftimes the management levels do not appreciate constructive criticism so mostly I let the bygones be bygones as long as my name doesn't appear on it.

I have found it to be true that people who read are much more educated and informed than those who don't. My favorite subjects were Literature, English and Theatre, all of which heavily used my writing skills and thought processes. Truly though, I would have to say that many book-learned lessons have slipped in and out without sticking. What really stuck with me was that I, as a 40-year-old woman, had it in my power and reach to change my life mid-stream. I suspect there will be another change mid-stream within the next decade. Must be the Saggitarian ascendent or perhaps merely my lust for reaching out and inhaling life to the fullest.

Like you, I often prefer to visit and talk with the women on this board more than the daily people I encounter. This continues to be a stimulating place rocked now and again by good old trollers and flamers who keep the muck stirred up.

There have been three women friends on the forum who have read the simple youth biography I have written and I know from a personal standpoint that more than any degree I could have earned, I earned my smarts by living my life. Yep, I have been qualified by life. I'm glad to be a part of your life and love conversing with you.
Love always,
Debra

[Carolyn in OK]

Hi Paula, The smartest man I have ever known was my Dad. He only got to go to the 8th grade. He was the oldest of 10 children, and his father expected him to help support the rest of the family. He became a successful business man because he was well read and had a great deal of common sense. He made sure that all 5 of his children got a college degree- some of us have more than one. I have known men much more educated than he was, but I have not known one who had more innate intelligence than he did. Life and maturity, along with intelligence and common sense ,will get a person much further than degrees. Once when my Dad was assigned to work with some young college graduates he came home and said, "You know, an educated fool is still a fool!" Love to you and my advice that you need never take a backseat to anyone. Carolyn

[Taminator]

Dear Jean,
That is so very funny because they is exactly the way I estimate thing!! lolololol
XO, Tami

[Brenda (K-W)]

Well, Paula, you might have known I'd be a little equivocal, enough to say, why do we insist on a distinction? No matter how gently or innocently one erects a binary, i.e. knowledge through a degree vs knowledge through life experience, one comes up to be the dominant one--that is the nature of binaries. Can we not just agree that people can learn through both modes of learning? I'm concerned that much derision is reserved for those with degrees, especially engineers, who according to many, lack common sense, can't find their way home etc. but brilliant in building bridges and roads. And others might well look at the topics I research and write about useless to any but scholars in my own field, and they're probably right. I get a lot of questioning looks from those who don't share my enthusiasm for my field of expertise in literature although others might think teaching the English language these days is a noble pursuit. Just because we speak and share the same language doesn't mean we all know its complexities. But that's the historical nature of scholarship, to expand and push forward the frontiers of knowledge.

Learning through life experience is not meant to be opposed to that; nor does it indicate a lack of intelligence. Heck, it's often more a lack of opportunity and let me be perfectly clear here, there are also differences between degrees and the institutions that grant them.

So, let me fight a little for the validity of formal education and professional training without which, having all the common sense and street smarts in the world wouldn't enable someone to design a structure like a bridge, or discover a vaccine for cancer, or tell you more about apostrophes than you ever wanted to know--juuuust kidding, folks.

Love, Brenda

[Brenda (K-W)]

So, Jeannie, exactly how do you separate Martin Heidegger and his writings from his politics? Do you not think that Heidegger's philosophy is entwined with his politics. It's like Ezra Pound and T.S Eliot--very difficult to argue that their poetry is not infused by their politics. They didn't suddenly become different people when they picked up a pen. Similarly, knowing what kind of politics inspired Wagner, it's surely difficult to admire the sublimity of his music.

Love, Brenda

[LindaC]

Very true Brenda. I have the deepest respect for engineers having a father and a SO holding degrees in engineering fields. My father helped design guidance systems for missiles and satellites and my SO designs complicated assembly instructions for space-age computer systems. I can barely manage to change a light bulb!

And you're right - all my knowledge gained by virtue of 60 years of living have not taught me the complexities of math, science, engineering - or the mystery of apostrophes!

The world needs all those B.S's, M.S.'s and PhD's!

Love,

Linda

[Jeannie]

Dear Brenda,
Heidegger took up his rectorship at the University of Freiburg at the beginning of the National Socailist regime. He resigned his office shortly after the Nazis took office. His critics (mostly in America, not Europe) say he - along with so many around the world - at no time spoke out against this infamous regime. Some even argue that by the very nature of his 'Da-sein' philosophy, his philosophical system speaks to there being a 'Da-sein' of an entire state. (Nonsense) My tutor (a Heidegger expert) always maintained that he could never begin to pass judgement on the "very unclear circumstances surrounding Heidegger's relations with the National Socialist movement".

No, I do not for one moment believe that Heidegger's politics (in the narrowest sense) had anything whatsoever to do with his philosophy. His was an enormously influential philosophy, defining 'being' for the first time by man's temporal position in the world. Much more than mere existentialism, it was a system which finally rid us of the illogical necessity of stipulating a divine cause. Yes, he was assuredly a German gentile of that time, and of course we are all creatures of our place in history, but no more than any other great thinker of his age. I don't really see how we can attach any more of that ugly time to him than that. Even if we could (something I deny) it would not touch the profound system he left us with.
Love, Jeannie

[Jane in MN]

But maybe a little less of the B.S., right? heh

xoxox

[Paula from Sydney]

Thank you Jane. I do however believe that spending your entire working life in the commercial world limits your opportunities for itellectual interaction. I am grateful for this forum in that regard.

Love to you
Paula

[Paula from Sydney]

Thank you Christine. Yes, we certainly start off our adult life believing that we are going to be in control of everything. Little do we know that life is going to throw twists and turns at us over which we have no control and which will have unexpected results. It sounds like you had pretty great parents.

Love from Paula

[Paula from Sydney]

Ah yes Jeannie, the differences between you and your husband are interesting. My husband and I are smart in completely different ways. I am a much quicker thinker than he is and have much better problem solving skills, but he, and you may recall that he is a lawyer, definitely educated me into thinking with more depth and questioning things more. I will always be grateful for the way in which he opened my mind.

Love from Paula

[Paula from Sydney]

Dear Jean

I was truly touched by this posting. Thank you very much.

Love from Paula

[Paula from Sydney]

Thanks Tami. I always enjoy your lively posts.

Love from Paula

[Paula from Sydney]

Thank you Linda. Like you I read just about everything I can get my hands on and now we have the internet as well as yet another source of information.

I enjoyed your office story. I started my working life using a manual typewriter with heaps of carbon copies, photocopiers not being available in those days. Things sure have changed!

Love from Paula

[Paula from Sydney]

I love coversing with you too Debra, and I have the greatest admiration for people who make a big change fairly well on in life - it takes a lot of courage to step right out of one's comfort zone. Good for you!

Love from Paula

[Paula from Sydney]

Ah Brenda, equivocate away! Of course it does not have to be either/or. I do believe that smart/uneducated is better than dumb/educated, but smart/educated must be the best of all!

Education empowers!

Three degrees in ten years huh - pretty impressive.

I did start a pyschotheraphy degree and completed about 1-1/2 years. It was a four year course, and I did it four hours a night three nights a week. At the same time I was working full time and running a household. Then I was diagnosed with bc and tried to fit radiotherapy into the schedule as well and something had to give. I am afraid it was the study. I enjoyed it tremendously, but did work out that I am probably not psychotherapist material. I think I am pretty compassionate and empathetic, but I am not patient! My clients would have to improve pretty damn quick.

Anyway, thanks for the little insight into your life.

By the way, what about those stone masons in the middle ages who built those fabulous cathedrals without the benefit of an engineering degree, a computer or even a sliderule? I know, I know, they studied for years under a Master Mason.

Love to you as always
Paula from Sydney

[Paula from Sydney]

I like your Dad Carolyn.

Love from Paula

[jean214]

Dear Paula,
Nobody has yet figured out how those unschooled Egyptians built those pyramids, either.
love to you,
jean214

[Paula from Sydney]

And dear Debra, you are not deaf here!

Love from Paula

[LindaC]

[Brenda (K-W)]

Jean, dear sweetheart: The designers and architects were NOT unschooled. They had amazing engineering skills and mathematical abilities we still don't know how to match. Slave labour built them (ask me, we were the slaves) but their engineering feats were/are still amazing.

Love, Brenda

[Brenda (K-W)]

Dear Paula: It is a very common mistake to assume that what we accomplish in our own time is a progressive step up from medieval or even more ancient times (see my response to Jean below). People of ancient times had all the skills in engineering and architecture that we have and then some. They also had indentured or even slave labour to build their designs. But, all one has to do is look at Leonardo da Vinci's engineering drawings, and before him, medieval architects who somehow knew how to calculate flying buttresses and other marvels of cathedrals. The other difference is that some of these buildings took hundreds of years to complete, and we would never stand for that. The simple fact is that there were crafts and skills we have in our more technological age lost. Further, the great Universities in Europe were built in medieval times, and one of the leading ones was University of Bologna, famous all over Europe for its degrees, and still is. I seem to recall learning that students didn't have printed books; this was before the invention of moveable type, but had to keep their lectures in their minds, and share some of the Greek, Latin and Arabic manuscripts--if they could get hold of them.

There's a wonderful book you'd enjoy by William Golding, one of my favourite authors, called "The Spire" and it's a novel that has at its base the building of a medieval cathedral.

Love to you, Brenda

[Georgia]

A civilization that managed to build pyramids and cities without the tools, traveling over great distances ( know, I've walked some of those paths in our travels in Mexico)...nevermind their astronomy knowledge. I think there's more to it than book learnin' in this case! AH, the mystery of it all (and I know alot about this, because my history channel addicted husband has been studying the Myan culture for 20 years now and still watches (the history channel) for any new information, because most of the recorded history of the Mayan cultures was destroyed by the Spanish. Did I tell you when my grandson was here, they watched a whole week of the Mystery of the Pyramids together? Sal is 2 years old.
Love, Georgia

[Brenda (K-W)]

Absolutely, Georgia, they did have mathematics anthropologists believe. Incidentally, I would point you to James Diamond's books (Bob would love them and I posted about his most recent one, "Collapse," earlier here). In his "Guns, Germs, and Steel" there are fascinating explanations for how a handful of Spaniards--truly a few hundred against hundreds of thousands--managed to destroy not just the Mayan civilization but also the Inca in S. America. The latter book which I've just finished begins with a question posed by a New Guinean native, Diamond, a historian, became close to in his research: "how is it that white Europeans managed to take over the world?"

It's worth locating these books at your library; so much fascinating material drawn from historical, anthropological, archeological and geographical resources, refreshingly inter-disciplinary.

Love, Brenda

[Paula from Sydney]

Thanks Brenda - I will get the book. I too like William Golding.

I have already read quite a lot about how the construction of these cathedrals evolved with the development of flying buttresses and also the use of arches, which completely changed construction pricipals and were used by the Arab world before Europe cottoned on to them. I also understand that there was some trial and error involved, with some of these edifices collapsing as new techniques were perfected.

A fascinating subject - I will definitely get the book.

Love from Paula

[Tracy]

Paula,
I am 32 years old. I did graduate from high school, but never (until recently) went to college.

I got my first job at 16, moved out on my own at 19, and got married at 22.

I started working for a larget Health Information Technology company at 22, as a technical support representative. I have worked for this same company for ten years now, and have averaged one promotion every 1.5 to 3 years. I have more technical skills and knowledge than many of my "degree carrying" co-workers.

I went back to school in 2001 to get a bachelors degree in information technology. A piece of paper to go with my ten years of experience in the trenches.

I think that there is a lot to be said for "life experience". Universities are even recognizing this. I have been able to get college credits for "experience" in certain areas by writing papers and providing testimonials, references and certificates of experience/training.

Hold your head high...there are a lot of us out there...

Tracy

[Tracy]

I haven't completed my degree program yet (took a year off to have my son, Zachary). If I continue at my current rate (1 class every 6 weeks) I will graduate in late 2006.

I work full time in corporate America (50+ hours a week), chase a 2 year old toddler, and take care of a 35 year old husband . I also own my own home, two new cars, and take regular nice vacations...

There are many who have degrees who don't have what I have, and I'm damned proud of it.

[Trisha in New Zealand]

Dear Paula
I am pretty much a life experience gal. I do have a diploma in journalism, earned on-the-job through an industry grading system over three years after I dropped out of university.
I kept doing uni papers which appealed part-time for a few years.
Married at 21 - couldn't do the wifey thing very well. I did cook, sew, raise the children, but I wasn't great at staying home. Worked part-time and studied part-time.
I became an accidental batchelor!!!! A professor looked at all my various papers and figured I had one paper to pass to gain my degree and the major was literature. I had no idea!!!!
Can you tell I am a Gemini.
Anyway, I worked as a journalist for many years and accidentally became involved in print production which was very technology focused.
How the heck does it happen that one day you are writing and editing a small newspaper and the next you are dreaming about RGB versus CYMK and talking to techos about databases and managing a huge budget for the country's biggest directory publisher. I still have no idea. I did it well.
I think I learned more in life than I did at university - although I can't stay away and still do odd papers. Yikes, I might become an accidental masters' graduate. Who knows - who really cares.
My daughter has degrees in law and public policy and at 30 can't drive a car. My son is an Ad-Man - who would have thought that from the house of "advertising sucks" messaging. It is all a mystery to me.
My ex is an airline pilot and we wasted many hours debating whether doctors (6 years in training)or pilots (18 months in training)were better qualified!!!!! In what?
You got me going and I have loved reading everyone else's responses.
Love to you,
Trisha
PS - I sometimes get overwhelmed by the academic debates. But I always enjoy them and learn from them. I often feel that my knowledge is too shallow to particate - but I trust you all to take care of it. I am so glad you and Jeannie take care of the planet - I am up two hours earlier than you - so I could cover the breakfast session.

[Cherryl]

Dear Paula,
I'm doing catch uph ere, and really want to respond to your post.
First off, the most brilliant person in my life, and the person who influenced me the most,was my maternal grandfather,Emmett. His formal education ended in 8th grade. He was the most well read people I have ever known. He pushed reading onto his children and gradnchildren. When my father died, my mum moved back in with her parents, and Emmett insited that the read the daily newspaper and watch the evening news (Walter Cronkite was the final word on what had happened during the day and he could be trusted). I was the only person in 9th grade to have a subscription to both Newsweek and Time because Emmett thought I should have a balanced view.
I did the high school then college thing and 20 years later got a Master's in Social Work. I'm not considering a Master's in Divinity and ordination to the priesthood (Quick - somebody stop me!!!)
This is a lot to say that degrees are not the end all and be all, which others have said that more eloquently. One university here in Chicago has begun to realize the importance of life experience. DePaul University has a "School of New Learning" where life experiences are credited towards a Bachelor's degree. You would probably quaify for a Master's.
I do so love reading your post. They are so well thought out and logically stated.
I'm proud to know you and to be able to chat with you.
love,
Cherryl