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My Upcoming Surgery?
I have made an appointment for surgery at the end of summer. I haven’t chosen which operation to have yet, but I know it’s going to be costly. I don’t mean that I have to choose between two similar operations. I mean I don’t have a clue in the world what kind of surgery I am going to get. But I look at it like this: nearly everyone gets some kind of surgery at some point in their life, right? So I went ahead and made an appointment on the assumption that I will eventually figure out what is the right kind of surgery for me. I’m sure the hospital will have a guidance counselor or patient advisor who will make a good suggestion as to what kind of surgery would be a good fit for me. There’s a government loan program for this, and if it turns out that the surgery was totally unnecessary, maybe I can convince some politicians to let me off the hook on repaying the loan.
The above paragraph is satire, of course. I was listening to the latest episode of The Ricochet Podcast and at the end of it @peterrobinson talks about a conversation he had with a gentleman who went to Princeton. Not knowing what he should do at Princeton, he let people talk him into getting a major in Hispanic Studies. This degree was good for getting him a job driving a taxi. This — in my opinion — is not an anomalous situation. I have heard of many young people who have gone off to college with no idea of what they want to do with their life. They just know that everyone goes to college, except for those . . . well, you know . . . dumb people who just aren’t smart enough to get in. Usually, though, at least these young people are going to a more affordable school than Princeton.
I realize that some people may believe they know what they want to do with their life, then change their mind. Charles Krauthammer, as a famous example, was a psychiatrist and decided he didn’t really care for it and became a writer and political pundit. So I’m not criticizing young people for not knowing where they really want to be 20 years down the road. But doesn’t it seem foolish to sign up for tens of thousands of dollars in debt (or get your parents to shell out that money) when you don’t know what you are going to use your education for? I guess I’ve just seen too many people with a college degree, who then went on to sell carpeting, insurance, shoes, or cars for a living. Or get a degree in mass communications and wind up dealing blackjack, before deciding to go through college again and get a nursing degree. Has it always been like this? Or has the easy money — either from generous parents or easy-to-get loans — taken pressure off of students to only go to school if they know what their goal is?
Published in Education
Yes, I was going to include that it seems to be a common problem businesses have with hiring especially young black people.
And me.
It’s a nice thought, but speaking as a physicist who would rather rederive the wheel than buy a bus ticket, your friend is overstating his position.
Of course, Mr Weivoda is one step ahead of others should he go the route of sexual reassignment surgery.
Because all he needs to do with his first name is swap out the “y” for an “i” and become Randi.
Dandy Weivoda.
Randy Geivoda.
This just gets easier as you go!
As opposed to all those hifalutin’ tattoos which denote class.
Or claim that it’s an adjective now, rather than a name.
Randy Randy bo Bandy..
I am not opposed to a kid embarking on a good liberal arts college education without knowing what it will be used for, and have encouraged that approach in some cases. A college education shouldn’t necessarily be for job training. I do not like what the federal loan system has done to college education, though.
A general education covering basic liberals arts could be done in 2 years at a community college.
It should be done by high school.
High school to the cat in the hat! Do I hear eighth grade? Eighth grade anyone? Going once…
Fair point. But even if it’s not, in terms of more-advanced subjects, it doesn’t take 4 years of college for that. 4 years of college is at most 1.5 years of “bonehead” stuff – the stuff you have to take for any degree – and the rest being your major study area. So if you’re not majoring in anything specific, you only need take the 1.5 years of “bonehead” stuff.
Back in the day, many students matriculated at universities at age fourteen. They had their Bachelors by 17-18 and MA a year later. And they learned more and did it all in Latin.
Arguably there’s a lot more to learn now, every subject I can think of has developed a lot more in the past 100-200 years.
Well, maybe not Latin. But everything else. Perhaps especially history.
Grandpap finished eighth grade, but high school was 20+ miles of bad road away and would have meant boarding in town. So he read the books in the farmhouse for a year, then took a state test for a certificate that was the equivalent of a GED. If one did well enough, a teaching certificate was included with the GED. As a result there were students in the first class Grandpap taught who were older than he was. It was all good though because he was bigger than they were.
I picked up a copy of that test once. Grandpap was a razor at 14.
If you’re looking to tick some boxes to put on your resume, yes. But I’m talking about those who really want to learn, say, history to the max. My opinion for some people was, “Don’t worry about what you’re going to do with a history degree. Probably it won’t be history. But it will do well for you in whatever you do to make a living.”
Of course, wokism has made it difficult to get that kind of education.
And indoctrination . . .
Joseph Trizna
Back in the 1970s, I learned critical thinking in HS, and honed it in college. Same with your second item.
My niece and nephews had to go through a tough and expensive private school to get what I got in the 1970s for ( mostly) the cost of my parents’ property taxes. Their school uses a classical curriculum. They had to take both Latin and logic in order to graduate, as well as writing and orally presenting a self-chosen research paper. I wish I had to do all 3 of those in HS. Would have been good for me, and made college easier.
I couldn’t settle on which standard tattoo I wanted so I ended up with a “MOTHER” heart tramp stamp.
I got the Chinese character for “barbed wire” tattooed around my bicep.
Who hasn’t?
Me. My bicep tattoo says, “I think this guy has cats, a bad skin condition, or both” written in Braille.
Reminds me of an old joke. “He can read women like a book. And they don’t mind that so much. What they object to is that he uses the Braille system.”