I sure hope it works this time. Anyone care to try and pass 8th grade in 1912?

 

I went to university and got a B.Comm that has served me well over the years but only after getting practical experience in business and "the school of hard knocks" which teaches one more than any book ever could. Went on to take a rigorous securities course and got my registered representative license, jumped into the commodities market and managed to lose over 12,000 dollars on my first trade in 3 minutes flat with the help of a scary little critter called "margin". Had to sell my beautiful Toyota Supra Turbo to pay that one off after a margin call with a few grand left over to "try again" but first I went home and burned all my books which was the smartest thing I ever did to that point in time.

I became obsessed with "market mentality" and wrote a program to compile market trends and technical analysis. I studied "booked trades" and volume patterns and who was making them and when. I ended up selling the rights to the program to a sports betting house for a hefty sum ... opened my own investment protection company and managed some large accounts for others with more money than brains and never looked back.

Had I not taken that major shitkicking at the start and the need for revenge against my stupidity ... who knows how things would have turned out. Oh ya and the fact that my wife at the time just looked at me, gave me a hug and said "I take it you learned your lesson from that" and told me she had faith in me and never spoken of it again ... and then went shopping.

There is no substitute for practical experience and every college student should seriously look at interning in their chosen field during their studies to both get experience and to see if they even like what they thought they did, chances are they might change their major.

 

I truly wonder, how much of that is actually taught today, in that exact context.

 

Exactly correct, experience is the best teacher.

 

Shooters degree is in police science, and he got it at a time when few if any cops needed more than a high school education. In fact, one of the first departments he applied to rejected him because he was too smart. Really.
Anyway, his senior thesis was "Does a bachelors degree in police science make better cops"
The short answer was, no. In fact, much of what they teach you in college you need to unlearn when you get on the streets. And, the only way you learn to be a good cop is to be trained by an experienced cop.

Mind you, I'm not saying that you mainly learn how to smack people without leaving a mark or how to properly drop a throw away gun down before someone shows up when you get on the street. That just isn't the case.

The classes that helped me on the street were law classes, forensic classes, and scuba. All the sociology and psychology classes were so far removed from reality they were worthless. The basic classes one needed to take to get just about any degree were worthwhile, but unremarkable. The logic and philosophy classes were interesting but irrelevant to being a cop.

 

And how does this compare with those without college degrees? Historically?

 

You get out of College exactly what you are willing to put into the effort. No one major will fully prepare a student for life. I took classes far out of my major just to broaden my perspective and I feel that I am well educated because of my effort.

 

This is cool! I got my ass kicked trying to answer it, but damn fun! Thanks