Big three Alternatives?

[MomOfMany]

Great point. I keep thinking about this. Just what IS the point of school? I am an idealist, for sure. I think school can give you something that nothing else can. However, I am at a loss to define it, exactly. If the point was the acquisition of knowledge, then BAH, HUMBUG! Knowledge is easily acquired from the library and from the internet these days. No, there is a lot more to it than that, and a part of it is the work that you put into it.

hmm. I would think it a combination of the two. Knowledge unused is pretty much well useless isn't it? This is why we can appreciate someone who is knowledgable about something, but we appreciate more the person who is knowledgable AND has experince using that knowledge.

For example, I respect the medical knowledge a med student might have acquired. But I'll go with the dr who has had 20 year experience for my surgery if I have any say in the matter.

To me this has nothing to do with school though because the vast majority of the time school does not offer genuine real world experiences. It is a prefabricated simulation at best most of the time and it's flat out embarassing how rare it is for someone who has had real world experience in a field to actually teach it in a school setting.

the exams were so easy and ill-conceived that I could just as easily have passed all of them without any study at all.

...

The problem I have is that these exams are generally so easy that it does not require 20 years, nor even 20 minutes, of experience to walk away with a chunk of credit.

That is one way of looking at it.

Another way of looking at it is if these exams are intended to represent the minimum of what a college student should have attained in these courses - maybe going to college wouldn't have done much better due to low standards in education these days.

Or maybe it just seemed insane easy because you have already attained that 20 years of knowledge and familiarity?

Just some thoughts to ponder...