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[polly_mer]

First of all, let me step in and say that I've participated in other threads which the OP started, and I think she is not here just to be irritating.

Oh, I don't think she came here to be irritating, but her experience is necessarily limited and she is drawing unwarranted conclusions about the education enterprise.

bcantaire, I am 99% sure I know what school you go to, and while I didn't want to say this on the other threads I will say it now: it is not a very serious school, even though it advertises itself as such, and through this advertising (and absorption some years back of a serious though mediocre school)  has confused by many people in the town where you live into thinking it is serious.  However, it is mainly a business.  The only serious school in your area is the land grant university, and before you dismiss all higher education as empty you should take a class there.  While it is possible to have a horrible experience at such an institution as well, it is also possible to find fascinating classes with dedicated faculty and engaged students. - DvF

This scenario may be true as well, which doesn't help her draw any better conclusions.

[thundering_m]

Second Daniel and echo all chimes for Polly, who expressed Normative's point so well without the personal attacks.

[bcantaire]

Education does not begin or end inside the walls of a classroom.  One purpose of higher education, IMO, is to build the skills necessary to foster one's ability to continue the process of learning as one proceeds through life.  In other words, a good part of the experience is to teach one how to teach him / herself.   You seem to believe that your K-12 experience was wasted effort, based upon "busy work".  On the contrary, if your early education taught you to teach yourself, as you say you are doing, I would argue that it served you very well, indeed.

As you already seem to have learned (according to you) what I believe to be one of the most important skills one can gain from higher education, I would suggest you put those skills to work and apply yourself to a second area of importance: the exposure to different disciplines which, ideally, helps one to develop an ongoing and diverse curiosity and an intrinsic love of learning for the sake of knowledge.  Get out of your comfort area and take some classes outside of your discipline, simply for the sake of learning something new.  If you come across something in your research that is interesting yet tangenital to the paper you are writing for credit, continue researching that area for your own knowledge after you've completed the paper.  Not everything must be graded to be of value.

Drop the attitude and recognize that your education is your responsibility, not your professors.  If you need their help and guidance they are there to provide it; if not, it doesn't mean that what you are doing isn't educational--unless you don't want it to be.  Education, at any level, is what the student makes of it. 

If you can teach yourself then you are well on your way to a good education--at least in terms of amassing knowledge.  Wisdom is another thing, altogether.  It is also something that must be acquired for oneself.  I'd say that you've shown that you still have quite a bit of territory to cover there.

I figured out how to teach myself, actually. My parents started reading to me at a very early age and it went from there. I used books to teach myself and I taught myself other skills by using trial and error (singing is one of those and I got pretty far in my endeavors in that industry.)
As far as exposing myself to different disciplines, I think I have majored in 10 different areas so far in college. I couldn't find whatever it was I was looking for. My home library speaks to this. If anything, my interests are just too spread out. I can't seem to narrow my interests down to just one discipline.

Every year we were granted a very tiny amount of free time and vacation. For all those years, I'd come home from school and only have a few hours to myself to do yet more busy work (homework) and then go to sleep in order to get up the next day and do it all over again. What the heck kind of childhood is that? I wasn't even learning that many practical skills for living life.

I have a very genuine question--What do you think adulthood is like?  Even if your K-12 experience wasn't everything you think it should have been, you have experienced at least one practical thing that applies to adulthood.  Whether you run your own business or work for someone else (or even just decide to raise a family), you will be spending most of your waking hours going to work, working, going home, thinking about or doing more work, going to sleep, and getting up the next day to do it all over again.  And you have many, many more than 13 years of that experience ahead of you.

 

Adulthood is going to be what I make of it. We are told our whole lives what to expect. We will slave away until we are something like 65 years old, so we better get prepared. We are told that school prepares us for the "real world." I disagree. School prepares us to be good little drones for an employer. We are also trained by schools, our parents, and society in general to believe that succeeding in life means getting a really nice job (and that that job will become my identity in some ways) and achieving the American Dream (which mainly means being able to buy a lot of expensive stuff and replace it when you want to.)
It also prepares us to see the world in a certain way and I believe we tend to create our own experiences according to what we expect them to be. Thus, if you expect life to turn out a certain way, you will either create that reality for yourself or just allow it to happen.

I suppose formal schooling sometimes teaches people to step up and become the employers, but I'd say your average American turns into a business owner despite their formal schooling. Most don't. This idea that we all have to slave away and have that good old ridiculous Protestant work ethic in order to succeed in life is just one way of perceiving things. It isn't an absolute truth. I am an adult right now, with a house, some pets, and a husband. I may not be very wise yet since I am only 25, but I do pay attention to what my elders are doing in order to try to learn from whatever mistakes they say (or don't say) that they've made.

I work for a woman who refuses to hire someone qualified to manage her rental business and yet complains non-stop about how many hours she has to work. She has hired many people at very low wages to run her business and then gets upset when it doesn't work out for her. She talks about the need to spend money to make money, but then won't pay the person managing her entire business anything decent. I am her bookkeeper and let me tell you, she can afford to hire someone good to manage her business. In fact, for a long time now she could have had more time to live her life and travel. She chose not to. In fact, if she absolutely couldn't stand losing extra income to a manager, she could have hired someone for a decent salary and then expanded her business in her new free time. With the right balance, she could have created new income without incurring too much additional cost when it came to her employees. It is her own mentality that has kept her from having the freedom she says she wants. So, my point about business is that you do have to work hard, but you do not have to slave away for your entire life if you do it right. I think a lot of people don't choose their businesses wisely and that they create JOBS for themselves instead of creating a situation in which they can realize income without working the 9-5 gig.

I've seen it with my parents, too. My dad is an accountant and finally is the top guy in his company. He can't get out of the worker bee mentality, either. I am trying to teach him how to manage his time better so he can actually get all of his work done and leave work early if he wants to. I'm also introducing him to some of the newer technology that he can use to help him to get out of the office and maybe travel more. He has the means, but no time because he is so mired in this "must work from 9-5" mentality. You know, my dad's biggest regret in life is working so many hours when my sister and I were little so that he could "get ahead" at his firm and buy nice things. He didn't stay at that firm and he lost everything in the divorce. I really think that the priorities we often learn to have in our culture are really crazy.

The truth is, lots of people are going to have to work 9-5 to support the system, but not everyone. The goal is to step outside the mentality that we are brought up with and realize that the goal is to create a situation in which you are earning an income and farming out the work to others. That is my goal at least.

First of all, let me step in and say that I've participated in other threads which the OP started, and I think she is not here just to be irritating.

bcantaire, I am 99% sure I know what school you go to, and while I didn't want to say this on the other threads I will say it now: it is not a very serious school, even though it advertises itself as such, and through this advertising (and absorption some years back of a serious though mediocre school)  has confused by many people in the town where you live into thinking it is serious.  However, it is mainly a business.  The only serious school in your area is the land grant university, and before you dismiss all higher education as empty you should take a class there.  While it is possible to have a horrible experience at such an institution as well, it is also possible to find fascinating classes with dedicated faculty and engaged students. - DvF

It does sound like you know the school I go to. They really only seem to care about making money, imo.
I am going to drop out right now and when my husband gets out of the Navy I will try out the state university in WA. Maybe it will be a lot better.  I realized last night that I am pretty angry at the education system, but dropping college after 3 years of work and money doesn't do me any good.

I thought long and hard about it and realized why I feel so let down by the system. When I was little, my mom promised that if I got A's they'd let me into this elite honors program in middle school. So I got my A's and dreamed of that program. Then, the year I hit middle school, they decided to let everyone with a B average and over into the "honors" program. So much for that joke. I had high hopes for high school. That fell through and I barely got out of there with a C average. I pursued a music career and when I decided to go to college, I got excited again. Then I felt let down again. Maybe college really is what you make of it, but it could also be true that it depends on the school you go to and the quality of your peers and the curriculum. I do have some friends that tell me grad school is finally the experience that they were also looking for, but I am tired of spending money on this.
I will at least finish my BA, though, because "formal education" doesn't care if I think it is bogus. I'm the only one who could possibly suffer by NOT getting the degree. I'll take a break now and try again later at a different school. Maybe I can do some CLEPs in the meantime to save money.

[der_gadfly]

Wow...

OP seems to have had a bad time in the compulsory stages, and hus high hopes for college seem to have been dashed. Someone apparently bought the bill of goods: PT Barnum was right.

OP: get degree, get job. Quite simple. You can wax poetic about how the system has let you down, or does not meet your expectations, but this will not change it.

[bcantaire]

Wow...

OP seems to have had a bad time in the compulsory stages, and hus high hopes for college seem to have been dashed. Someone apparently bought the bill of goods: PT Barnum was right.

OP: get degree, get job. Quite simple. You can wax poetic about how the system has let you down, or does not meet your expectations, but this will not change it.

Yeah, I agree. I'll get my degree as a back-up plan, but the answer is to remove myself from the system. Well, at least to remove myself to a certain degree. I outlined a way to do this in my last post.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

I am trying to teach him how to manage his time better so he can actually get all of his work done and leave work early if he wants to.

Can you teach me too? - DvF

[polly_mer]

I am trying to teach him how to manage his time better so he can actually get all of his work done and leave work early if he wants to.

Can you teach me too? - DvF

Ah, Daniel, it's easy.

Step 1:  Take a job that only has a set number of daily tasks.

Step 2:  Decide that you will do the minimal amount necessary to not get fired.

Step 3: Do exactly what's on the list at breakneck speed and ask around to see what corners can safely be cut (like sweeping the kitchen during midshift) because no one checks and, regardless of how well or poorly you do it, the task needs to be done again by someone else in short order.

In all seriousness, Bcantaire, the above quotation indicates that despite all of your rhetoric, you're still thinking like a cog in the system instead of an independent agent in charge of her own destiny.  For people who have professional jobs or are independent contractors, the point is to do what needs doing to the degree that it needs doing while keeping in mind other responsibilities.  At no point is the work ever all done and, while I will not criticize good time management skills, it's usually not a lack of those skills that prevents the work from being done so that one can go home early.

[thundering_m]

Step 1:  Take a job that only has a set number of daily tasks.

Step 2:  Decide that you will do the minimal amount necessary to not get fired.

Step 3: Do exactly what's on the list at breakneck speed and ask around to see what corners can safely be cut (like sweeping the kitchen during midshift) because no one checks and, regardless of how well or poorly you do it, the task needs to be done again by someone else in short order.

In all seriousness, Bcantaire, the above quotation indicates that despite all of your rhetoric, you're still thinking like a cog in the system instead of an independent agent in charge of her own destiny.  For people who have professional jobs or are independent contractors, the point is to do what needs doing to the degree that it needs doing while keeping in mind other responsibilities.  At no point is the work ever all done and, while I will not criticize good time management skills, it's usually not a lack of those skills that prevents the work from being done so that one can go home early.

Second Polly and add an aside about Herzberg's motivation-hygiene theory.

[bcantaire]

I am trying to teach him how to manage his time better so he can actually get all of his work done and leave work early if he wants to.

Can you teach me too? - DvF

Ah, Daniel, it's easy.

Step 1:  Take a job that only has a set number of daily tasks.

Step 2:  Decide that you will do the minimal amount necessary to not get fired.

Step 3: Do exactly what's on the list at breakneck speed and ask around to see what corners can safely be cut (like sweeping the kitchen during midshift) because no one checks and, regardless of how well or poorly you do it, the task needs to be done again by someone else in short order.

In all seriousness, Bcantaire, the above quotation indicates that despite all of your rhetoric, you're still thinking like a cog in the system instead of an independent agent in charge of her own destiny.  For people who have professional jobs or are independent contractors, the point is to do what needs doing to the degree that it needs doing while keeping in mind other responsibilities.  At no point is the work ever all done and, while I will not criticize good time management skills, it's usually not a lack of those skills that prevents the work from being done so that one can go home early.

I am talking about how to "leave work early" because my dad IS a cog in the system. He doesn't have a lot of flexibility right now with his time, so the first place to start is to figure out how he can become more efficient and have more time for himself during his day.

You are quite incorrect about needing to cut corners to go home early.
If you work in retail or the food service industry, or in some other type of place where someone needs to be always present for the customers, then you can not exactly get all the work done and go home early. I swear I added that in somewhere else in this thread.
There are a lot of ways my dad can manage his time better.

1.) Email - Only answer emails once or twice per day. Autorespond to all emails letting people know you will only be checking once or twice per day and that you are doing so to better serve them and to get their tax returns or whatever done on time.

2.) Phone calls - Check your voice mail once or twice a day and have a similar voice message about how often you will be checking voice mail and returning phone calls. Encourage callers to email you if they are not having an emergency. Let them know that you are operating this way in order to work harder on whatever it is you are doing for them.

3.) Interruptions by underlings - Make it clear that the door is NOT always open to them. Set a clear time when issues can be dealt with and encourage them to email you about smaller problems even if you are in the same building. Even better, empower them to make their own decisions about minor things. This can be a hard one for some people. You can value your own time and be assertive about protecting it without being a jerk or uncaring.

4.) Meetings - If you are in a position to call them off, do so. They are generally a waste of time and most people agree on this. If you are not in charge, try to find a way out of them. Otherwise, I guess you are stuck with them.

5.) Outsource - Outsource things that someone else can do. I outsource work to assistants in other countries. I use odesk and elance. You can outsource all kinds of things for a very small amount of money. If you can deal with the ethical implications of paying someone a very low wage to do things for you, it can be very useful. (I only made peace with myself when I emailed them all and asked them what they could buy with the amount of money I was paying for one project. They can buy a lot.)
My dad could get one of them to say, research his upcoming vacation so he doesn't waste 3 hours doing it. While they do that, he can get his work done. His time is worth enough to justify paying someone else to do other things. I pay my workers to do some of the basic research and writing for my sites because some of it can get very tedious and I would rather focus on getting the pages together and getting them online. I can only do this once I have some basic content to work with. I love writing, though, so I like to take whatever shell articles my writer writes and then expand on them.

6.) Work from home as much as possible. This only works if you have the self-discipline to work from home and if your boss will allow it. There are ways to get your boss to agree to this or give you a chance at it. You obviously can't do this with all jobs. My dad would save 1.5 hours of commute time a day if he worked from home. Almost everything is digital now in his office and could be sent to him via email. He can already access the computers at work from his house and if he couldn't there are online services he could sign up for in order to do so.

If he were to implement most of these ideas and get his employees used to the new system (and maybe even give them a little more leeway with their time), he would free up a lot of time for himself to do other things. In fact, if he implemented most of these he could be pretty mobile. He really could go stay on some island for a month and work from anywhere for a few hours a day. Now, not everyone can do that, but they can at least free up some time.

Also, you mentioned that Step 1 would be to get a job with a set number of tasks per day. Well, my dad's work in never ending, year round. He would have to make up his OWN list of tasks to do each day. He would have to limit himself, if his goal was to have more time. If he finishes 5 tax returns a day right now, then that could be his goal. Of course, he could be incredibly efficient and make a lot more money by getting more work done each day, but that would defeat the purpose. The point is to have more time to do other things.

These things can be modified to fit your profession. Obviously, as mentioned, it is not possible for all types of jobs.

[sciencephd]

Can someone explain what this thread is about ?

[thundering_m]

Can someone explain what this thread is about ?

Appears to be about bcantaire

[daniel_von_flanagan]

1.) Email - Only answer emails once or twice per day.

So yesterday I sat down *once* early in the AM  to answer my emails.  There were almost 100 excluding spam (but including the ones that came in while I was dealing with the others).  Several were from my Provost, who can write faster than I can read and whose email needed a response.  I was done mid-afternoon.  How does that help?

3.) Interruptions by underlings - Make it clear that the door is NOT always open to them.

Weren't you complaining in another thread about your professors not being readily available to you?

6.) Work from home as much as possible.

How does this help you "get all the work done and go home early"?  It seems to me to only help with the second part of that. - DvF

[embitteredhistorian]

Arrogance and selfishness wrapped up in one ball. I have nothing to add, but just wanted to post so it's easier to follow.

Well, there is one thing: bcantaire, it is quite possible that you are far, far ahead of the rest of us who depend on schools and institutions to learn stuff. If so, be a maverick and do your own thing and lead US to the promised land. It worked for Bill Gates and Sarah Palin.

[kedves]

Can someone explain what this thread is about ?

The OP, age 25 and approximately a junior in college, is disgusted with formal education, both K-12 and college, and would like people to talk about ways to overhaul it to make it more to her liking.  That part of the thread could be seen as an extension of the question in another thread, "I need to make the students dedicated?"  K-12 was nothing but toil.  (She apparently went to much more rigorous schools than I did.)  If the program does not meet her expectations or is tainted by availability to sub-par students, she can't do well in it:

When I was little, my mom promised that if I got A's they'd let me into this elite honors program in middle school. So I got my A's and dreamed of that program. Then, the year I hit middle school, they decided to let everyone with a B average and over into the "honors" program. So much for that joke. I had high hopes for high school. That fell through and I barely got out of there with a C average. I pursued a music career and when I decided to go to college, I got excited again. Then I felt let down again.

The fault lies with the programs and is true of education generally; therefore, education must be changed. 

From there, the OP has moved on to letting everyone know what is wrong with the way people work.  Mostly, they work too much.  One solution is to work from home, but there is not a consensus in the thread that the place in which one works decreases the amount of work one must do.  Another solution is to replace the artisan model of work with an assembly-line model (or an Andy Warhol-Factory model in the arts; readers can imagine appropriate analogies for academic work):

I pay my workers to do some of the basic research and writing for my sites because some of it can get very tedious and I would rather focus on getting the pages together and getting them online. I can only do this once I have some basic content to work with. I love writing, though, so I like to take whatever shell articles my writer writes and then expand on them.

The OP hints at influences of Freud, Marx, Weber, and Taylor.  But the unspoiled qualities of the posts makes me conclude that these and many other thinkers await her attention.

[embitteredhistorian]

The OP hints at influences of Freud, Marx, Weber, and Taylor.  But the unspoiled qualities of the posts makes me conclude that these and many other thinkers await her attention.

This probably indicates how deeply these thinkers have influenced the Western tradition and the OP, regardless of whether she knows it or not. The self-awareness of who as influenced us and how is the true end of any liberal arts education. "Know theyself" blah blah blah etc. ad nauseum and so on.