What is the point of school?

[Kaz]

Inspired by another thread, I am working on some soul-searching. I am an idealist, but have become disillusioned with the reality of formal education.

What say you? What do you hope to gain from college that you couldn't gain otherwise, beyond just a degree? Would you be doing the same thing even if the degree served no purpose in your life?

Awesome post. I've thought about this a bit over the years. Even though I'm someone who lives for knowledge and learning, I'd say I'm looking to gain better employment from a degree. Better means a lot of things: pay, flexibility, interest in what I'm doing, etc.

I wouldn't have gone about school the way I did if the degree wasn't intended to improve my employment. I've done the first three years of my bachelor's at various brick-&-mortar schools. I've invested a lot of time and money and aggravation. If the degree "...served no purpose..." I wouldn't have done what I did at all. However...

If I'd known about stuff like the Big 3 years back I think I would have definitely gotten a degree. I just "dig" that kind of stuff. I'm an infovore. Knowledge just... tastes good! :reddevil: But I want recognition too. And I want more pay off. And I want to feel like a part of something like that. Being respected as intelligent and knowledgable while I went about my menial jobs sucked more and more as I got older. Then the wasted opportunity vibe kicked in. Then all the stories of high school friends with bad ass jobs filtered my way. Honestly, I don't necessarily believe in destiny, but I think forces would have inevitably gotten me to college one way or the other.

To be honest again, if I could do it without any financial issues whatsoever, I'd be a professional student, sitting in an ivory tower contemplating my navel. But this is reality and I flat need the piece of paper to move on to the next thing in my life.