(09-28-2012 09:09 AM)banker Wrote: No Caltex, I'm not missing the point at all. Yes, people can seek knowledge on their own but what college professors give you is a framework to process, question, and ultimately understand the information you are studying. Some people can make it without that framework, they can review information from various sources, balance what they read, and come to sound conclusions. However, that is atypical. Most self taught people have myopic views brought about by a lack of depth in their base. Anyone who has every argued say economics with someone who is self taught knows what I'm talking about. Learning to process various views and schools of thought is not easily self learned.
Well I'm not missing the point if your original one was "Pursuing knowledge is never a scam" when I clearly laid out (at least according to how you phrased it) it's not.
But to the point you made, you're kind of making it for me: that it is possible to study and make conclusions for yourself in some disciplines. Also, I agree about the idea of studying directly under an expert who can frame it and help you process it in some cases but
that does not necessarily mean someone should have to sacrifice the amount of time, energy and money just to get a degree which includes classes that cover much of what you learned in high school as well as classes that you may not be interested in (i.e. the core classes) as well as even a few classes within a major/area of interest that do not apply to what you want or you have no interest in.
For some disciplines, in theory, it should only be a
de facto requirement to have taken some instruction from an expert which doesn't necessarily mean getting a full four-plus year degree. Unfortunately today, it's become basically
de jure to get 4-9 years of higher education, which may be about who has the most time to take all of these classes. Some have family and financial considerations that may make this not viable or take too long.
How serious do employers take it if you go to a school that offers degrees just for the discipline you are studying (basically, all you're doing is taking a certain major and not the extremely expensive core classes.)?