10 Smart Things I've Learned from People Who Never Went to College

Forbes ^ | 8/02/2012 | David DiSalvo

[ExxonPatrolUs]

1.  You can learn something useful from anyone.

2. If quality slips, it really doesn’t matter how good your ideas were.

3. Don’t ever let a bully intimidate you – not even once.

4. Reciprocity is the name of the relationship game and always will be.

5. Learning is good; Doing is better.

6. Kindness isn’t optional.

7. You can survive anything

8. Get a dog.

9. Money is important, but experience is invaluable.

10. Just be ready.

[muir_redwoods]

Never become impressed with how smart you are. We ALL die fools.

[JMJJR]

"I’ll add a third: Experience is not making the same mistake twice."

I prefer

Experience is recognizing a mistake the instant you repeat it !

[Joe 6-pack]

"And many of then go on to get a Pathetic Helpless and Dumb degree."

I've always been fond of the phrase, "Piled Higher & Deeper."

[Migraine]

Never tolerate lying. Make all liars feel rejected.
Treat old people with the utmost kindness and courtesy.
Make your decision based on best evidence, then push ahead and act like you’re confident you were right.

[ctdonath2]

You can survive anything but death. And maybe even that.

Yup.

Been there, done that.

(A CPR instructor once insisted, despite my intense questioning, that once your heart stops - you're dead. Period. Might come back, but stopped heart = dead. A couple decades later, I had open-heart surgery. "Your husband is doing fine, they're stopping his heart now." Wife didn't like that. No idea how long that bit lasted, but it wasn't short, maybe 1-2 hours. And I was, by aforementioned definition, dead. And now, thank God, I'm not.)

[thesearethetimes...]

BTTT

[pepsionice]

I would suggest that seventy percent of all students in a four-year university....really don’t need to be there. Forty percent ought to be at a community college, ten-percent ought to be in a one-year occupational certification program. The rest (20 percent) can just go and work as shift managers of Wal-Mart, car-rental establishments, or IHOP.

I’d even go as far to say that half of all school teachers could get by with just a community college degree. I could see a reason for science or math teachers having a four-year degree....but grammar or history teachers? Oh please, that’s silly. A two-year degree is more than enough....same for music or art teachers, and I won’t even say what gym teachers ought to have....but it’s nowhere near an associates degree.

[OKSooner]

Well just for the sake of conversation I may or may not have been to college but if I may add my $.02 worth... Please refer to my tagline.

Probably inclusive to the aforementioned rule about doing business with bullies, but a salient example never hurts, right?

[Sea Parrot]

I have a formal 8th grade education and a GED, never felt held back for anything I wished to accomplish. Have been issued US mechanical patents and retired from the private sector at age 52.

As stated on family Home page.

“Being an autodidact, I happily escaped the bureaucratization of intellect”

http://hstrial-rchambers.homestead.com/Index.html

[mrs. a]

“I’ve always been fond of the phrase, “Piled Higher & Deeper.”

My dad always said, “I never met a PhD that didn’t need it.”

[jboot]

My breeder reactor is on the fritz. If I bring some uranium hexaflouride instead have you got good containment?

[woodbutcher1963]

I’ve got a ton of lead.

It’s in the one once form though. :)

[jboot]

lol.

[woodbutcher1963]

once = ounce

mea culpa

[HamiltonJay]

Well that’s a matter of debate, yes, from the practical, I can get a job out of studying this, there are degrees that are virtually worthless. However, it doesn’t mean they are not things that are worth study for someone who has a passion about it.

I have a relative who has a doctorate in literature, a very very specific subset of literature.. a subset that maybe 100 people in the globe if that study. Now, is it my passion? Not at all, but it is hers, and she does get paid to research information in that subset, so while not my cup of tea, or really a high demand field, it was her passion, so she pursued it.

I do not feel that education should be limited to things that most folks find practical, if that’s what someone wants to study so be it. Whether it is a wise FISCAL move for them, well that’s their perogative.

Reality is, most folks are not intellectuals, they don’t go to college for the pursuit of learning, they do it to get a degree because its what you do, and many jobs require a degree for consideration, regardless of what the major is. Second reality is most folks don’t ever wind up working in a field remotely related to their degree EVER, and even more are not working in a field related to their degree within 5-10 years of graduation. Next time you meet a salesperson, ask them what their degree was in if they went to college.

There basically are 2 very distinct folks in college (well more, but 2 primary groups) Those that truly are passionate about an area of study, and those that are just killing time. The first group is far far smaller than the second.

Frankly in my opinion, far too many people go to college, I meet people daily with degrees that honestly I think their intellect if turned to electricity couldn’t toast bread, but somehow they got into a university and graduated, when clearly they should never have been. I think honestly public schools have dumbed down the average person so far, that probably 50% of college graduates if not more know far less than a Public School High School gradate from 1950 knew.