Amazingly, my degrees have been useful in my job, since I teach high school history.
Although I may be the first person in history to go to a Community College *after* getting an MA. I tried graphic design for a while before going back into "academia"
Me too! BA in East Asian History, currently working on my MA in Ancient & Medieval European History.
I taught 7th grade English and History for 5 years before going back to school. I'm thinkin I'll probably end up teaching high school if I go back, though.
I have the ever-awkwardly named B.M. for Bachelor of Music. I wished I would have gotten the MM but all I could think of was gettin' the hell out of college when I was finished.
Flyingcursor wrote:
Emmline - Animal Science? My youngest daughter was considering that field.
Mostly it's for aggies. I was a suburban kid, feeling disaffected from life in general, with a left-field notion that I might like farm work. Others use it as a stepping-stone to vet school. For me now, it's of little use except to say that I did at one time have my arm inside the belly of a cow.(Turned down for a job at the Baltimore zoo--I wanted it, but they hired the dirtier tougher looking girls--probably didn't think I'd really be into it--they were wrong. I probably should have offered to arm wrestle with the inquisition committee.) Mainly, industrial animal ag, as practiced today, offends me. I really should have been a French or journalism major. Ah...hindsight.
Flyingcursor wrote:
Emmline - Animal Science? My youngest daughter was considering that field.
.... I really should have been a French or journalism major. Ah...hindsight.
Em, you and I are approximately the same age. One friend told me that I would have been happier as a Philosophy major (instead of Computer Science). The ironic twist is that I recently became reacquainted with an old high school friend. This friend and I share the same birthday, though a year apart.
This friend got his Masters in Interdisciplinary Consciousness (in layman's terms: comparative religion, heavy on the mysticism). So my metaphorical "twin" took this alternate path. In many ways his life seems to have turned out "better" than mine. However, I would not trade, no way, no how. My path has been unique and continues to be, despite what some would sight as obvious flaws.
+ Bill
I'm working towards a B.S. in Geology right now, actually. It's interesting stuff, and I may work in the field for a decade or so, but I don't think I'll spend the rest of my natural life poking at rocks. But I figure it's as good a place to start as any.
<i>The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit their views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering.</i>
BillChin wrote: However, I would not trade, no way, no how. My path has been unique and continues to be, despite what some would sight as obvious flaws.
+ Bill
Well, you're right Bill. And you're a philosopher despite the degree. We can hardly know what purposes we might have served in a life which, from this pov, looks a bit random. There was undoubtedly some reason for it all.
Intresting that a number of folks are geologists. My daughter is a geologist with a concentration in geophysics. She works mostly with engineers and doing inspections. She'll soon have her civil engineering license. and some other geology something that requires examination after actual work experience for a number of years. (can you tell that I really don't relate much to her work?)
Other daughter is a licensed vet tech. (similar to Em and to myself, although my only schooling on the subject was the "hard knocks" one growing up on a farm. I too have been shoulder deep in the back end of a cow more than once. Actually though, I worked long enough to be making the same wage, due to experience, as a licensed tech)
Although I don't have any letters after my name, I've never quit seeking knowledge and do at times regret I never finishing college. But, again, I can't complain with my lot in life either.........
"Let low-country intruder approach a cove
And eyes as gray as icicle fangs measure stranger
For size, honesty, and intent." John Foster West
Sometimes it just fries my ass that so many jobs require degrees or, worse, that people with degrees in the same job make more than those without. A degree generally indicates that someone has some intelligence and/or has some motivation. OTOH, "some" does include "not much." Not having a degree often means that a person had some bad breaks or that s/he made ONE bad decision as a teenager. Some of the biggest idiots I've ever known have had PhD's, and some of the brightest people I've known have not had degrees.
Charlie Whorfin Woods
"Our work puts heavy metal where it belongs -- as a music genre and not a pollutant in drinking water." -- Prof Ali Miserez.
yeah, that's why i wrote the whole title out in my post -- not wanting to start with the scatology speculation...
