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I wonder why we consider “highly educated” to mean “college educated.” I know plenty of college educated people unfit to manage a lemonade stand and plenty of “
by briandear 8y ago
I wonder why we consider “highly educated” to mean “college educated.” I know plenty of college educated people unfit to manage a lemonade stand and plenty of “lesser educated” people that own successful companies. Using a degree as a proxy for intelligence is a mistake.
- crushcrashcrush 8y agoAgreed 1000% Oh, you have an MBA? Guess I’ll have to show you how this works.
- michelpp 8y agoIt could be a learning experience for you both. For example, they could teach you about percentages.
- crushcrashcrush 8y agoThe autism is strong with you.
- sctb 8y agoSince you keep breaking the guidelines after we've asked you to stop we've banned the account. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- sonnyblarney 8y agoLevel of education is a decent proxy for intelligence, in anything resembling an academic context. More education is usually better. It's why companies prefer hiring people with more education. That said, I think many roles should not require a college degree for application. That one single thing might make a big difference - because as you hint there are tons of otherwise great people who don't specifically have the education.
- briandear 8y agoIs the IQ of a person with a masters degree in sociology higher than the IQ of a non-degreee naval nuclear power technician? Yet the non-degrees nuke tech would be considered “less educated” by the measures being used in this discussion. A journeyman electrician often doesn’t have a degree, but they do more intellectually challenging work/calculations than some Master of Social Work person working at a local non-profit. I deal with “highly educated” people in the mental health field on a daily basis and some can barely write grammatically correct sentences: the support tickets I get from people with PhDs and MA mental health professionals are frequently atrocious. But my “uneducated” dad worked as a precision machinist for NASA projects as well as teaching graduate students metallurgy. He’s considered not highly educated, but only because he didn’t get a degree. His education has zero to do with intelligence. That story isn’t an outlier either. My point is that higher education attainment often has nothing to do with intelligence beyond a base level, but more of class, financial resources and desire. A naval fighter pilot with a bachelors degree, in my experience is far more “educated” than someone with a masters in education, sociology, poetry or whatever. Highly educated as a proxy for “desirable worker” is a folly. Ambition, drive and work ethic are more valuable to a society than simply someone who checked the boxes and got a university degree. Using a university degree as a proxy for “desirable” worker is just snobbery and intellectually lazy.
- Pokepokalypse 8y agoConsidered by whom? OPM - who sets the contractor pay-rate for these positions? The classification system is very detailed and carefully calibrated and it considers professional experience, certifications, and postsecondary and graduate degrees, and the PhD or MA is not always necessarily higher than an experienced technical engineer.
- sonnyblarney 8y agoAnecdotes don't defeat the general fact: education is a good proxy for intelligence, conscientiousness, IQ. This is not contentious. That doesn't mean there are not quite intelligent people who don't have a college degree, or that some kinds of specialized people are true artisans.
- esoterica 8y agoWhy are you conflating "highly educated" and intelligent? The article never mentions intelligence anywhere.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]