The Thursday Ramble: Developing as a Person

There is a debate going on about the value of higher education. In the United States college education has become expensive.  (A note for my international readers, in the United States college is anything beyond high school or secondary school. The institution maybe known as a University or a College.) 

Many argue that what we need are tradesmen, such as skilled painters, and a college degree is not going to teach you how to paint a house, or a car. A trade school or an apprenticeship will. Given a choice between a painter with a degree in art and one without, I would hire the painter with. Even a few art classes will teach color theory, color blending, how light works in a space. If I say I want something like a VanDyke Brown the art major will know what I am thinking, the trade school painter will go look in a color chart and likely tell me "we don't have anything like that." I want a painter who has taken some science courses, so they understand the chemicals in the paint they are using,  are the fumes harmful? If they spill or drip, do they understand the chemistry of removing the spot or stain. 

There as a huge push over the past 20 years to increase the number of graduates in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM.) Reports are that increasing numbers of STEM graduates are finding themselves working outside of their field of study.  There are two factors at play, there are too many of them, and many of them may be able to do run the numbers, but lack the ability to understand how STEM connects to day to day life. One pundit said, "a degree in computer science, is the fast track to a job at Chipotle" (a fast food burrito chain.) And you know what, I would sooner my burrito bowl be made by someone with a college degree than someone without. 

My journey to higher education started at a two-year junior or community college. It was on my drive to and from the office, classes were available in the evenings, and it was incredibly inexpensive (this was the early 1980s.) I after a year or so, I transferred the credits to a private liberal arts college.  

Looking back the liberal arts education changed me in profound ways. It opened my eyes to a much wider world. I had a sampling of many subjects, but all of them connected what I was studying to life. For all but one semester, I worked full time and took classes half time, mostly in the evenings. It took me almost ten years to finish a four year degree (there was a couple of years off in there for a failed marriage.) 

Along the way, I learned to do research. I learned to read for knowledge. I learned the basics of writing in various styles for various purposes.  I learned to understand other people and other cultures. I learned the lessons of history. I learned to speak. How to think and sound like an educated person. I learned how to understand models and apply them. I learned how to find the connections between seemingly unrelated ideas and experiences. I learned that there are things that are fundamentally right and wrong, tolerable and intolerable. I am proud to say, I became WOKE, I woke up to the concept of fairness in the world. A liberal arts education changed me as a human being. 

I was able to go on and earn a doctorate in law. Another experience that change me as a person. There are two major things in legal education. One is the development and application of rules. I learned to read past legal precedent, determine the basis for the finding, and apply that to a new set of facts. And I learned the importance of the precision use of words and punctuation. In the preceding sentence, there should not be a comma before the "and" because both the words and the punctuation must be considered. One of my professors had spent several years litigating comma placement in a contract with  millions of dollars at stake (her side lost, and several high rise apartment buildings were torn down rather than repaired.)

Higher education helps us develop to our fullest ability. It should be more widely available. It should be more affordable.  My BA was paid for when I finished, my three years of law school school, cost about what one year costs twenty five years later at the same school.  If the United States is to continue as a leader in the world, we need to address affordability of higher education. An educated workforce, makes a country stronger. 

I learned how to learn, and that learning is a lifelong experience. There is an old proverb about growing as a person that goes, as long as you are green you are growing, when you are ripe, you start to rot.  I am still green, still learning, still reading, and seeing, and hearing, and tasting, and smelling. I expect to have a stack of books in the process of being read, when they find me decomposing.