Most so called degrees are expensive and worthless.
One of our younger relatives with a double engineering degree, decades ago labeled most of the other degrees as Instant Unemployment Degrees or IUD’s.
My wife was a 3 year RN. She was graduated at the top of her class and never had to take boards in the states where she worked. She would show her grades and certificate and immediately was hired. She was boarded in every state we lived in and including California.
She took off about 12 years to be a full time MOM. She thought about getting a BS degree in Nursing here in California. None of her pre med courses at a major college associated with her Top 3 Year Nursing program counted.
So she had to enroll in a year of bs courses like art and other social bs. It would have taken 5-6 years to get a BS degree in Nursing in spite of 10 years of good nursing experience including being one of the pioneer nurses at a premier ICU in the DC area.
I tried to tell her that this BS program was just that. It was an expensive BS program giving jobs to those who couldn’t be nurses to be instructors.
She got to know a good group of 3 year Nurses, who worked as nurses in the local hospital or for Doctors smart enough to
hire them instead of non nurses. They formed a group to discuss what was new in nursing and what was old and should be kept.
She applied to be an office nurse with a new FP in our town, and he hired her.
He realized that she had read more EKGs in 3+ years in the ICU setting than he would have in a life time. She was super with a stethoscope, so he let her set up and do prelim EKG analysis, BP’s naturally and listen to with her stethoscope re any heart abnormalities. He bought her high end stethoscopes and let her select the EKG machines she used.
She worked for him and his group for 35 years until they both retired. She took real nursing courses in lectures and attended lectures at the local hospital and later did CE online.
She and the other 3 year Real Nurses as they called each other, got together often for real nursing discussions.
Another great post, Grampa. Your wife’s biography is a real life illustration of being able to do things instead of showing a college degree.
Your wife seems to have done a well directed and guided work=study program that had/has real value in the real world.
I believe the real world is catching up to the work place.
My sister is a retired 3 year RN. She was good in her day and is certainly enjoying her retirement and telling the friends and relatives what it’s like in modern medicine.
It ain’t pretty, but it is expensive. :-)
And the doctors are turning into college debt loaded grunts. And that ain’t pretty at all. Just ask my sister.
Dave, you are blessed with a hardworking and intelligent life partner. Great to read your story. I am also blessed with a wonderful wife who has stayed with me in all my failings and dumb moves in life.
I have not seen any recent FR stories about Nassim Taleb. But if you have not heard it yet, the best YouTube/podcast I have heard with Taleb is this one with Daniel Kahneman.
Check it out. Great insight and also a lot of fun and jokes interspersed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMBclvY_EMA
Cheers