Why school will never be like real life

[lohman446]

I decided to finish my degree.  If I ever need to look for another job it will be nice to have.  That being said, since I am self employed I think I am really doing it just because.  Now understand I used to be REALLY good at school, but that was years ago,  

   

   So one of the classes I am taking is PSY101 - introduction to psychology.  Really interesting but amazing how in depth to different endorphines and brain structures it is.  Also rather surprising how much history of psychology they want you to know - going back to Plato and Aristotle.  I was told the first two weeks would require about 20 hours of study - because I am taking other courses and frankly just because I did not devote that much time before taking the first exam.  

   

   I got 85% and was disappointed.  Then I realized something.  The extra credit gives you 5% extra credit over all, not just on one exam.  So that puts me at 90%.

   

   90% is an A-, 85% is a B.  These are GOOD grades.  I mean, literally impressive, graduate with honors etc.  

   

   Really?  Most smployers would fire someone for 85-90% rates and yet school tells us this is good.  Why do people have a hard time making the transition?  Because school is, in no way shape or form, like real life.

[Dinadan]

Lohman, congrats on deciding to finish yur degree. You are so right about  

   work versus school.

[tom]

There are exceptions.  Does anyone think that government school teachers are required to be competent in their jobs?  That's why they have unions.  I knew a man who was teaching a course in grammar designed for government school teachers getting a Master's.  He told me that many still didn't know what a a noun is at the end of the course.

   

   If Plato were alive today, he would be part of the liberal elite.  Caesar would be a dictator.  Cassius and Brutus, leaders of the Sentatorial party, were trying to save the republic.

   

   Homer was the fountainhead of Western literature.

[Dinadan]

Tom - true seekers after knowledge will usually be at odds with the establishment.

   Conservatives abide by the accepted wisdon of our forefathers, and therefore distrust  

   those who seek to verify that knowledge. Plato's mentor Socrates was condemned to  

   death and drank the hemlock for the cime of "corrupting the youth," but

   his "real" crime was that the youth's elders had no easy answer to the questions

   that Socrates asked.

   

   As for Caesar,he may have been a dictator at the end of his life, but I note that  

   the calendar he created remained in use for nineteen centuries, while his books  

   were considered exemplary examples of the language for a long as the language  

   remained in use. Oh yes, I believe that his military campaigns were also  

   considered so brilliant that no one is really sure if he was the greatest

   military genius who ever lived or not. Somehow I do not think that any of the  

   dictators around now will still be remembered two thousand years from now. Did I  

   mention his judicial reforms or his invention of the codex, the physical form

   of what we call a book?

   

   Sorry (no, not really) for the thread drift, Lohman.

[tom]

Caesar also wrote the purest Latin; he was the author of a grammar, now lost.  But that doesn't change his moral character.

   

   As for Plato's description of the ideal world as Socrates envisioned it, it would be a terrible Hell for anyone with the slightest independence of spirit.

[Dinadan]

I agree that I would not like to live in Plato's imagined ideal city state.  

   But he was working from what he knew at his time in history. Also, if I remember  

   correctly, Plato considered a state with million citizens too large to be governed  

   properly. His sense of scale was tiny compared to ours.

   

   I am not so sure that you are right about Caesar's morals.

[bud]

Why are most professors liberal?

   Why are most professors atheists?

   Why are most professors against legal immigration?

   Many of them seem anti American!   IMHO

   Why are so many of them foreign ?

[tom]

I say that a man who works to be bring down a republic, replacing it with himself, is an immoral man.

   

   Compare him to Cicero.  I have many diffeerences of opinion with Cicero; but I know that he always put honor and duty ahead of self-interest.

[Dinadan]

Bud - good points.

   

   Tom - what if everyone else is also working to bring down the republic?

   If I recall correctly Cicero himself ordered illegal execution(s).

[tom]

Dinadan,

   

   As I said, I have many differences of opinion with Cicero.  We can't compare the Roman Republic with this country without an understanding of the difference in  the systems.  For example, individuals, not the state, initiated criminal prosecutions in Rome.

[chopprs]

.......wait until you take Psyc II. They show a movie where they saw the guys skull cap off and pull his brain out (just a tad) while he is awake and talking to the doctors. BLECH!

   They get deep into Skizophrenia, which creeped me out big time.  

   I had to do a sensory depravation experiment too. That was just way over the edge.

[doc_stadig]

I didn't start college til I was 40, I don't understand why most colleges make your first semester include psychology, they must want to make sure that they get their psyche thoroughly messed up. Of course my instructor was named Sigmund Freud, but I really didn't want to marry my mother. Just kidding, but my abnormal psychology professor showed more symptoms of psychological diseases than he was trying to drive into through our heads. That old guy was certifiable. My hero was a graduate from Kansas State when we attended their graduation ceremony at 89 years young. She was amazing, she started at 83!

   Good luck with your studies, and stay focused on your studies and not so much on the co-eds. Although they tend to be much easier to focus on than Maslov's hierarchy of needs.

   

   

   Doc

[wildtim]

I have a Psych degree.  Now I drive a garbage truck for a living, and I have to deal with less chit now than I did then.

[Dinadan]

Wildtim - If I had do choose which occupation is the most important, I would  

   choose Garbage Truck Driver over Psychologist without hesitation. I have a  

   degree in English Lit, and work for a Land Surveying company. The funny  

   thing is - if I had got my PhD and a job as a professor, probably nothing I

   ever did would have mattered other than in the context of me keeping my job.  

   Whereas, as a skilled tradesman, if I make a mistake and no one catches it,  

   it can easily cost millions. Funny how the world works.

[41magmag41]

I too have a degree in Law Enforcement with a year of graduate studies in Psy, Soc and Criminlogy and drive a heavy dump truck for a paving company.  Too much politics now in law enforcement and I was labeled someone with a bad attitude.

   

   My wife of 30 years has been going to school for the last 17 years.  She is now in her last year of law school and walked out on me in March.  Prospective lawyer can't be married to a truck driver socially not acceptable.

   

   Good luck with the schooling but dont get such a big head you forgot where you came from and those who followed you in your quest.

[lewiss]

Lohman, hang in there. I took 2 years of college after high school, then said I'd never set foot on a campus again. About 30 years later, my wife started to work toward her Bachelors with UOP. She and others talked me into going too. I finished my BS-B/M, and went straight into my Masters. finished that, took a short break, and am now more than half way through my Doctorate in Leadership and Management. Is any of it relative to the real world? Some (UOP professors aren't professional academics - they are industry leaders, CEOs, etc. so have some idea of reality). The degrees have made a difference in my marketability, of which I am glad in this depression. The Doctorate will set me up to teach college in my "retirement."