Venus and mars question

[matriarch]

I did a year at secretarial college after leaving school at 16, got married at 22 and worked until we decided to have a family, 3 years into the marriage. I then stayed at home for 10 years, going back to menial, low paid, part time work initially, getting back to full time eventually.

I didn't have a degree, because my parents could not afford for me to go to university, what I did, was take my degree, through the Open University, while working full time, while commuting 4 hours a day, while running a house, while bringing up two children. That degree took me 7 years of part-time, home study. But at the age of 50, the day that I stood on the stage to receive my Honours Degree, with my family and friends cheering and whooping in celebration, was the proudest day of MYlife, because it was something I had done myself, for me, for no other reason than I wanted to do it, and to prove to myself that I could.

To quote a sentence often thrust at me during my studies.....

Education is for life, not work.

 

[Songcatcher]

Education is for life, not work.

Wisdom.

 

[NoJo]

I was brought up in a middle-class British family, where my education all the way up to universtity was "expected". I hated school, hated college, dropped out of university. I regret doing that, although I don't think it's ever hurt me financially.

My wife comes from a background, where, to put it bluntly, women are generally expected to get married and have children and nothing else, and women's education is considered a waste of time. Studying at university helped her break away from a rather stifling and narrow culture.

 

[Wildcard Ky]

For her own sense of achievement, perhaps? To be able to know: Yeah, I did that!

Edited to add: not all women who choose to stay at home and raise their family (as did I) are dumb and without a higher level of education.

Not all women, by a very long shot.

I hope I never appeared to infer that was the case. I don't think that at all, and apologize if it seemed I was suggesting that. There's absolutely nothing wrong with staying home to raise the family. Hell, I'd do it if I could. My question was about why go to college with no intention other than getting the degree?

Earlier in the thread, someone asked what her degree was in. It is in business and marketing.

 

[Guest]

I hope I never appeared to infer that was the case. I don't think that at all, and apologize if it seemed I was suggesting that. There's absolutely nothing wrong with staying home to raise the family. Hell, I'd do it if I could. My question was about why go to college with no intention other than getting the degree?

Earlier in the thread, someone asked what her degree was in. It is in business and marketing.

Nah, you didn't actually say that. No harm done.

But, you did infer that, by her not wanting to go out and get a job and instead stay at home and eventually raise a family, she was wasting her education. I don't see that as the case. As I said, perhaps she did it for her own sense of achievement, because she could. As someone else said, she will always have that to fall back on, should she choose to start up her career at some point in the future.

 

[NoJo]

Maybe she wanted to hedge her bets in case the marriage doesn't work out -- which shows she's pragmatic and has sound business sense, in a way.

 

[oggbashan]

My father started his Open University degree aged 80.

He got it but decided not to continue for his Masters and Doctorate because he was too busy. He had 'retired' at 65, been re-employed as a temporary until 70, then a consultant to 75, then a course director and consultant until 85. Until aged 90 he was lecturing and conducting tours of the City of London.

Despite his academic interests his short-term memory was fading from aged 90 onwards. He still kept walking an average of 10 miles a day until a couple of months before his death at age 96.

What irritated him most about his short term memory loss was not that he couldn't remember whether he had eaten his breakfast or where he lived, but that he couldn't retain information from his newspaper. He could discuss the Suez campaign of 1956 but not something that happened yesterday.

Why did he start his first degree at age 80? He wanted to do something his elder brother hadn't yet done.

His elder brother could care less about a degree at his age. He was far too busy running an amateur orchestra, a choral society and painting.

Both of them had left school at age 14. Both went to Buckingham Palace to receive decorations from The Queen. Both were scared stiff of their eldest sister who had been part of the Women's Suffrage movement and became a Company Secretary (not 'a secretary' - a member of the Board of Directors) at age 30 at a time when most women were barely tolerated in offices. She lived to age 90 and was still employed as a pensions advisor. On Sundays she ran a Sunday School for difficult teenagers in a rough part of London. She didn't have a degree but studied all her life.

All three of them had intellectual curiosity.

Og

 

[fifty5]

My father started his Open University degree aged 80.

Another plug for the OU...

I got a First from them (and got enough recognition as an OU tutor to be asked to write an assessment paper) ... and now I drive wagons (including a "HIAB" - means lorry mounted cranes - license).

There is NO simple answer to this question.

Except that it is always in any/every nation's interest to support its population through education to the highest level that each of its citizens can achieve - and across the widest possible spectrum, irrespective of gender, etc. etc.

My only reservation about the woman originally cited is that perhaps the resources to provide higher education might be a constraint - and so that someone else who might have made even more use of that was thereby excluded.

I hope I'm a better person (maybe even a better lorry driver) for that honours degree. I expect that she'll be a better wife and mother for her time at university. I pray that the person who was rejected in her favour (and the world) hasn't suffered disproportionately in consequence.

 

[moonwolf69]

Many different possibilities come to my mind; I think the only way to know for sure would be to ask her.

Maybe she does plan on working later in life. It is harder to get a degree when you are older. I know that it happens quite often, I myself was a non-traditional student, but I think it is a bit harder. Maybe she just wanted to make sure she had the degree before she was too old.

Remember that they met at college. She was already in college, getting her degree when she met him. Maybe her original intention was to go through college and get a great job, but while she was there, she met a great guy, and her plans have changed!

My wife would probably say that it isn't as much the supporting yourself that is important as a woman, but the idea that you COULD support yourself. Even if you are depending on your guy, because you stay at home with the little ones, the very fact that you COULD support yourself brings a certain sense of empowerment. Especially for woman who have grown up seeing their moms, aunts, grandparents, etc all dependent on a man completely.

-Moonwolf

 

[jtmalone70]

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[jtmalone70]

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[Guest]

Oh man, I just have to agree with everyone in here. If you're going to college to get a bigger paycheck, you're going for the wrong reason. Sure, it can certainly help improve your income significantly, but considering how much time and money you'll be investing in school (ie, yourself), you better be going to enrich yourself first and foremost.

It just stands to reason, if you take care of your mind, the rest will follow.

And *I* have FIVE kids and one on the way! My two oldest are in college. I didn't graduate from college until I was 26, either. And the only job I've ever had was working for my husband as his editing assistant (and no, he doesn't pay me some silly token "salary". I get a real paycheck with real retirement benefits).

Being a parent isn't easy. And being a stay-at-home mom says a lot about a person; how much they're willing to sacrifice in order to care for their children. A college education certainly isn't wasted by staying at home with the kids. You're not only their mother (or father), but their teacher, as well. You're molding those little minds, preparing them one day to go out into the world and have lives and careers of their own. If you don't do it right when they're young, they'll carry all those bad habits with them later on.

Big deal, if the job doesn't come with a company car or a hefty paycheck! You're not doing it for those things, anyway. You're doing it for the benefit of these precious little people that need your help getting started in life.

Being a parent IS a career!

Very, VERY well said!

It is indeed a career and probably the most rewarding one I know.

I so agree with what you said about a parent's role being so much more than merely parenting. We are their teachers, usually exclusively for the first few years, then in partnership with their schools. If we, ourselves, have a very good level of education behind us (and this doesn't have to be an actual official education with a piece of paper saying so), then the chances are that those kids will have quite some head-start in life.

Lou

 

[thebullet]

Tatelou said:
It is indeed a career and probably the most rewarding one I know.

Quite right, but what happens when it all comes to an end? Our son got married two months ago. (He graduated from college in May). He had all kinds of special needs growing up so was really a full time project.

Okay, now what does my wife do? She's thrown herself into the anti-war movement and into political campaigning. But the election's over, she's totally disillusioned by the Dems who after all are just Republicans Light.

So now what does she do? She's getting tired of jousting with windmills.

Darn, growing old is a bitch.

 

[fifty5]

Moonwolf:

How was going back to school later in life harder for you?

The study itself may well be easier - quite apart from the experience one can call upon, older students are almost always there for a real reason, not just doing what's expected, so they are (as you remark) better motivated. The problems are that by then people have a whole life already - job, family, other activities, whatever - so that study means giving up some of that life. For the school-leavers, they just give up school - which was going to happen anyway. Much easier! (Of course, there are exceptions, such as redundancy.)

 

[sweetnpetite]

People usually marry others with roughly the same education level. So if she went to college to get her MRS- well, that's far better than going to the bar to get it (appologies to all couples who met at bars).

Perhaps she wants to have stimulating intellegent conversation with her future husband?

As has already been said, there is a lot to be said for having an education and a brain- beyond the earning power it may give you. Being an intellegent and interesting person- and knowing other intellegent interesting persons doesn't seem much like a waste of time- if it is, I'd like to know what *isn't* a waste of time.

Much more scorn on her if she had said "I don't need no education- I'm just gonna get married. I'm cute- I don't need to think."

 

[thebullet]

Much more scorn on her if she had said "I don't need no education- I'm just gonna get married. I'm cute- I don't need to think."

Sweetie, I've been through the looking glass with that last statement. Wifey #1 went to college but still adhered to the "I'm cute- I don't need to think" philosophy. Every opinion she ever had came out of my mouth. Not that I wanted it that way. She was just too lazy to think.

Wifey #2 was too poor to go to college (except for night courses, where she maintained a 4.0 average). But she is a dynamo of intellectual hunger. She has some kind of fetish or phobia or something - she MUST read a minimum of 500 pages per week. She's always in the middle of 2 or 3 books - almost all of them non-fiction.

This woman forces me to think. That's why I've been with her for 27 years and counting. It's impossible to outgrow such a person.

 

[rgraham666]

Wifey #2 was too poor to go to college (except for night courses, where she maintained a 4.0 average). But she is a dynamo of intellectual hunger. She has some kind of fetish or phobia or something - she MUST read a minimum of 500 pages per week. She's always in the middle of 2 or 3 books - almost all of them non-fiction.

This woman forces me to think. That's why I've been with her for 27 years and counting. It's impossible to outgrow such a person.

Goddamn it! You lucky bastard!

 

[SlickTony]

Originally posted by thebullet
Quite right, but what happens when it all comes to an end? Our son got married two months ago. (He graduated from college in May). He had all kinds of special needs growing up so was really a full time project.

Okay, now what does my wife do? She's thrown herself into the anti-war movement and into political campaigning. But the election's over, she's totally disillusioned by the Dems who after all are just Republicans Light.

So now what does she do? She's getting tired of jousting with windmills.

Darn, growing old is a bitch.

Now's the time for her to go back to school. You get to a certain age, quite often classes are steeply discounted or gratis.

 

[thebullet]

Now's the time for her to go back to school. You get to a certain age, quite often classes are steeply discounted or gratis.

Thanks, Tony - a good idea.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Sweetie, I've been through the looking glass with that last statement. Wifey #1 went to college but still adhered to the "I'm cute- I don't need to think" philosophy. Every opinion she ever had came out of my mouth. Not that I wanted it that way. She was just too lazy to think.

Wifey #2 was too poor to go to college (except for night courses, where she maintained a 4.0 average). But she is a dynamo of intellectual hunger. She has some kind of fetish or phobia or something - she MUST read a minimum of 500 pages per week. She's always in the middle of 2 or 3 books - almost all of them non-fiction.

This woman forces me to think. That's why I've been with her for 27 years and counting. It's impossible to outgrow such a person.

Do you think night courses are somehow inferior to day courses? Starting when I was 40 years old, I attended local community colleges and a state university at night for four years until I had my degree. I had a full-time daytime job so I had to go at night. The coursework at night and on Saturdays was identical to that in the daytimes and I got the same education as somebody going in the daytime. I believe it was one of the best things I ever did for myself.

 

[thebullet]

Do you think night courses are somehow inferior to day courses? Starting when I was 40 years old, I attended local community colleges and a state university at night for four years until I had my degree.

Of course not. My wife attended the local community college. It has a beautiful campus. The price is very reasonable. The professors are excellent.

The only bad thing: there were three types of students. Type A) were young kids right out of high school. Most were normal students looking for a good value in education. But some (Type B) were slackers who couldn't get into a regular college and looked at CC as a means of prolonging the time they could party and not work. (Type C) The night students were generally older, working people who took education seriously.

I always was extremely impressed with the local CC.

 

[SensualCealy]

I think if you go to school as a mature student, you WANT to be there, you are taking something you are interested in and want to do. Alot of times kids that go to school are pressured into a line of education because they think they would like it.

One thing I like about our educational system is that going is as a mature student you get some credit, for LIFE!
C

 

[BlackShanglan]

The idea that college is some kind of glamorized vocational training is only about 30 years old.

Before that, education was the goal, not job-hunting.

--Zoot

Mind you, before that, most of the people pursuing college degrees didn't expect to need jobs, or at least not full time employment as we think of it. More's the pity, most of us will need to follow that path.

Shanglan

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Mind you, before that, most of the people pursuing college degrees didn't expect to need jobs, or at least not full time employment as we think of it. More's the pity, most of us will need to follow that path.

Shanglan

Wb Bs

 

[Boxlicker101]

The idea that college is some kind of glamorized vocational training is only about 30 years old.

Before that, education was the goal, not job-hunting.

--Zoot

I think it actually goes back to the fifties, when the USSR launched Sputnik, making the US go into a tizzy about the lack of people with technical training. Even before that, though, there were many persons interested in certain professions that required specialized education, and this was acquired at colleges and universities.