get your education sans degree

Having applied to graduate school, and sent in a cassette tape as a preliminary audition, I received a phone call from my future teacher to tell me that I had been recommended for acceptance. He also told me, “just because you are accepted into the masters program doesn’t mean you are good enough to graduate.” I remember thinking that was the strangest comment I’d ever heard. Why would I want to spend 3 years, and thousands of dollars if I were already good enough to graduate? Once my first semester was underway, it became clear from whence that statement had come. Grad school was full of people who had come with no intention on learning anything, or rather, thought they already knew everything and they were just going through the motions to get the diploma to prove it. Most, however, never made it to graduation.
When I was about to graduate from college, my most trusted mentor was talking with me about what I planned to do. I mentioned maybe working on a masters. When I told him what I eventually planned, he said, why go to grad school then? You can do that quite adequately without the time and expense. Maybe later you can do that. I heard that same advice given to a student just a few days ago. It was good advice. Not everyone needs a grad degree. Furthermore, not everyone needs a college degree.
I hope I can make a few comments here that will show the other side of the coin of yesterday’s blog. My feelings aren’t that formal higher ed is the cat’s meow. Some of us need that to fulfill what we’ve been called to do. Other’s of us don’t need that to fulfill what we’ve been called to do.
My rant is in completely changing what something is, but continuing to call it the same thing. I’ve blogged this many times from various perspectives, in various contexts and guises. This is as bad as changing the name of something and believing that we’ve actually created something new.
There’s also the point that formal education and diplomas don’t make one intelligent and lack of formal education and diplomas don’t indicate a lack of intelligence. Just before I graduated the last time, I was visiting with my old music theory teacher who was also just finishing his terminal degree. I made a comment about my feeble intelligence potential and he encouragingly remarked that my ability to have done this must have meant something. I responded by saying, “if there is one thing that I’ve learned in grad school, its that intelligence and advance degrees have very little to do with one another.” “Well, that is true,” he agreed.
I know folks with no diplomas at all who know more about most things than I will ever learn. Even about the very things that I studied for years. But I don’t know anyone who knows more than me that didn’t learn it from someone else. And anyone with the least bit of intelligence will recognize these people’s knowledge, experience, ability, efficiency and know-how, with out a piece of paper to tell them about it.

Anyone seeking only a degree but not education will not learn from any experience, even a classroom or apprenticeship format.
And I’ll let an excerpt from mitchizmo’s comment from yesterday sum it all up:

Anyone truly seeking education can learn from any experience including these online degree programs. These people learn daily, from all experiences. Anyone who tries to put his/her head knowledge to use, will have to have a community to refine that knowledge. You may play all of the notes in the chord, but how do you know others like the sound unless they tell you so?