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Originally Posted by !@#$%!
but professor-- you're studying philosophy. if im guessing right, you might have an academic career in mind. hence your education is a prerequisite, not an option.
im not discounting the value of an education. on the contrary, i think it's a great thing. but often times it tends to be overvalued and entered into without proper consideration-- almost as a reflex. and that (not necessarily the demands of it) is why so many people flunk out or end up with useless degrees.
i encourage people who want an education to get one. but i advise people who are not sure if they want one to pursue other things until the time comes when they truly need one.
i have taught college students and i can testify: adult students are better and work harder than spoiled partygoers trying to appease their parents. because one group wants it badly, and the other is more concerned with getting high.
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You're right insofar as I have an academic career intended, provided I don't get published as a writer or successful as a musician in the interim.
A small thing to note, however - the older students
have to work harder, and can't afford to do all the partying simply by dint of being out of the loop. I know plenty of mature students who work twice as hard as someone straight out of college, but don't do as well, simply because it's not a completely intuitive thing to study - it comes from constant practice, something which the younger ones have or are closer to, usually without being aware of it.
You are right, however, about education not being a necessity, it certainly isn't, and you can do just as well without one. However, lots of people at 18 have no idea what they want to with their lives besides vague fantasies of being in a band or whatever - University is a good chance for them to spend a few years finding out what they do want to do with their lives.
Regarding Isreal - I'm not so sure that that's a fair comparison. While I can't speak for American's, I do know that British Jews, in comparison to British Christians/ Atheists (the majority), tend to have a culture of learning, whereby it is expected of them to get an educations, something which is not so evident in Christian/ Atheist Brits. I can only expect that this same culture of learning is evident in Isreal as well.