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Did you drop out of highschool?

I barely graduated high school. I had a 4.0 my senior year, but a 1.3 average for all 4 years. :\

I ended up going to a tech school and waxed and waned with my grades. Some semesters i was on Dean's list, others academic probation, most of the time i was somewhere in between. I just depended on what was going on in my life..how much partying i was doing, how many hours (or jobs) i was working.

I try not to be too judgemental to those who don't graduate high school b/c i know plenty of people who didn't, went to college, got a job, or are intelligent as hell and hard working and still managed to do something with themselves. But they are the exceptions to the rule i find.

Almost everyone i grew up with who dropped out has a nice little jail and legal record, had a baby before they turned 18, can't hold a job, and still lives at home with their parents.

I don't think it's necessarily the high school education that really "proves" the person, but more of the effort that individual is willing to give to improve themselves that shows through. If someone drops out, gets a college degree or finds some niche in life, then they that's one and the same to me.

Getting a degree doesn't imply intelligence, not by any means, but it can be a loose parameter for pre-judgement of character. There's alot of high school drop outs though that are in a better situation than me, but it's mostly my attitude.

I'll never be happy doing something i have to do. i have a passion for technology..until it's my job or school work. Same goes for journalism, poetry, political science. It doesn't matter what i show a strong interest in, once it's something i'm semi-forced to do my attitude kicks in and i begin to hate it. So i applaud anyone who has a passion in life and they run with it and are happy...b/c honestly.. i may have gone through the motions of getting degrees, i might be intelligent, i might have a nice paying job with plenty of oppurtunities, but generally these things have never brought me one ounce of pleasure other than having money to not struggle. If i could quit work now and party so hard that i die at or just before 30yrs old, i'd probably be more content with myself. I'm a hardworker, but i loathe doing shit for other people other than myself and those i care about...and i could honesty be a useless piece of flesh on this planet and be happy about it, if i could afford it.
 
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lacey k - I'm sorry that I offended you.

youre talking about makin yourself better and schooling like it only comes from a college or school. shit maybe thats how it is for you. but dont be acting like thats the only way
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Actually, although I graduated from high school with an advanced diploma, I never attended University or College. I regret that. I work in a highly technical feel and I'm keenly aware of the gaps in my self-education.

i dont know why yall are doubting that i am capable of teaching myself mroe than school could when it comes to certain subjects.
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Because school has the benefit of the transfer of knowledge I alluded to above. Because it's a structured approach to provide you with thousands of years of advancement in a short period of time. Because it would take you a decade or two to gain equivalent knowledge in unstructured research.

but if you wanna just fuckin admit that it IS possible for you to make yourself if you got it inside you to do that, then is when youre gonna stop lookin like a typical-ass do what youre told mufucka who believes what they tell you.
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I believe nearly nothing I'm told straight off. I'm the ultimate skeptic.

Sure, you can make it. Sort of. If you have enough patience.

all the intelligence in the world locked up inside a closed mind aint worth shit.
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If there's one thing I can't be accused of, it's having a closed mind.

I have been through the self-taught cycle. Hell, I spent the last 16years doing it for my job.

I could have learned what took me the last 12 years to learn in 4 years, had I went to school for it.

schooling is great if its worth something, i dont knwo where the hell you went to school but i sure wasnt learning shit in mine. when you attend a juvenile detention center drop-off masquerading as a highschool aint much learnin goin on. even if you wanted to aint like the teachers could teach you anything
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You had a bad experience. Sorry to hear it.

I never said i know all there is to know but i hear that smirk in your voice thinking im some dumb ass lil hoodrat who likes tagging and sketching but dont know shit about art
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No smirk intended. You're likely 100 times the artist I am in every way but musically.
 
Chances are if you are sure and secure about your level of intelligence, you probably don't have very much

LOL good point!

But there is a difference between being secure in your level of intelligence meaning, you know where you stand and know you aint stupid
or thinking you are intelligent and bein smug and over satisfied in what you know thinking so you must know everything, or you know all there is to know, or whatever

the complacent intelligent people are the ones who are dumbfucks cuz they think they so damn smart

but nothin wrong with recognizing youre smart

i know what you were meaning with that tho.

you made some good points there in that last paragraph

i think its all abou twho you are as a individual and what makes sense and works for you

i think i got a skewed view on it in some ways because i cannot tell you how many peeps, from family, bosses, people at work or even my homies have said, "i have never met anybody like you, youre one in a fuckin million K."

and iunnow fo thats good or bad so i dont take it for anything except what it means :\

its hard in real life @ times.....i aint tryina blend in or just fit in with everybody else, dont get me wrong but like....

ill put it to you like this.

yalls minds are all on the highway, everybody on different highways, different routes in different parts of the country...some of yall take the back roads, some of yall do a lil of both, some stay on the main roads at all times, etc

but shit i aint even ON the road you feel?

thats why its hard to explain or make sense of how it is in my mind to other people cuz in alot of ways it just aint like were even talkin the same language, no pun

anyways tho after being a walking living breating exception your mind is so open to believing that you can do whatever you wante because you constantly throw the middle finger at the rules or whats expected of you that you dont even see certain things that other people would be suprised or doubting of as nothin at all

u feel?
 
I just want to peep in here because no one has explicitly stated what IMO is the role of lower and higher education in America.

The role of lower education in America is to teach students the fundamentals tools to allow them to further their education in college AND/OR be able to function within our American system (to make a living, etc.).

The role of higher education (college) is, using your base tool sets you learned in high school to explore and broaden your knowledge of the world and the ideas, concepts and things within it AND/OR teach one specific advanced tools in preparation for advanced job placement.

What are the tools one learns in high school?
*Comprehensive and Critical Reading and Writing.
*Basic Math and Application.
*Broad Scientific Overview and Introduction.
*Broad Art Overview and Introduction
*Introduction to Language and Culture.

College is NOT just advanced high school. Much of college is broadening your mind, not just sharpening your skills or tools.

For example Lacey K, anyone who can read can read James Baldwin or Maya Angelou. Not everyone who can read can discuss their backgrounds, how their literature is similar and it contrasts. What common themes are present in specific selected works. Or more so how they might compare to Picasso, or maybe more generally, how visual art differs from literature. Are they both fine arts? Why? What can you accomplish in one and not the other.

Or more examples would be business and technology. Someone who knows how to write programming code can get a job as a programmer. BUT...would they know necessarily how their software program is best utilized in a business, therefor making the business more profitable? Or how the implementation of that software will effect stockholders share value? Or the steps a company must take to effectively implement said software?

Or take an independent welder. This welder might be the most skilled welder in the market, but if the welder does not know how to manage their business in terms of accounting, business positioning, insurance policies, bank policies, etc. etc. the very skilled welder will fail.

I believe it all starts with basic education. This of course is just my opinion.
 
anyone who can read can read James Baldwin or Maya Angelou. Not everyone who can read can discuss their backgrounds, how their literature is similar and it contrasts

yes but what i am saying is, you aint gotta go to school to be able to do that.

it seems like alot of cats aint able to do shit for themselves, so they need school to teach them how to do it

and then if other people who CAN do it for themselves say they didnt need school, the first group of kids just says well if you dont go to school then how are you gonna be able to _______, and assumes that the non schooled ones dont know shit

when in reality its just that some people needed school to teach them how to think some way or do certain things, and other people could do that before school
but the ones who did need it assume that other people needed it too, and think people cant do it without school not realizing that it was only that way for them specifically
 
the problem i see is that there is so much you learn from school and without it, other than your own personal interest or being forced on you by a job, what is there to motivate you to broaden your horizons and learn something in depth that may prove useful in the future, directly or indirectly, in your personal life or professional? Not much.

I know now being out of school, i've maybe read 2 books. 2! And they were airport pulp. As the want to learn more, working 40-60 hrs a week kinda kills all motivation in you. :\
 
the problem i see is that there is so much you learn from school and without it, other than your own personal interest or being forced on you by a job, what is there to motivate you to broaden your horizons and learn something in depth that may prove useful in the future?

Thats kinda a stupid question because if you got the personal interest and motivation then it aint a problem

why should there be something OTHER THAN your personal motivation? dont know where youre going with this
 
i'll give you a great example. I went to a tech school. Every student there was concerned about technology, computers, electronics.

They didn't give a shit about sociology, history, economics. These things help make informed citizens which drastically shapes our political landscape.

They didn't give a shit about literature, poetry, or arts. This is also very helpful in breaking the "logical" mold in which you think. This can be indirectly helpful in technology by promoting creativity, originality, and innovation. It also helps in communcaiton skills, something most computer nerds lack.

They didn't give a shit about whether or not they could even write a resume correctly, they didn't care about professional writing, they didn't care about alot of things.

Now i'd like to think that people didn't spend 80 grand on this school so they could be PC repair people in the back of a CompUSA but without all these other extras that they "couldn't stand", they might as well have stayed home and taught themselves the tech shit.

There are important things in this world people should learn, that they don't necessarily want to. And i don't see many jobs taking time of their day to teach you how to communicate, you're expected to know how.

I've taken plenty of classes that i absolutely loathed. I hated the class, i hated the professor, but in hindsight, i needed them and glad i took them. I'm glad they were part of a high school and/or college curriculum where i didn't have a say so on it.
 
I graduated high school, took a year and a half of electronics engineering and then ditched it... sord of like digitalduality said: I didn't want to become a VCR repairman.

I dropped out, got a lowly job working nightshift backing up some lame ass companies computers and performing nightly 'computer duties'.

This led to picking up more text books and equipment that I would have ever spent at school and 9 years later I'm a Systems Architect for one of the major telco's in Canada.

This 'home learning' included a lot of books and talks with people about subjects other than technology... philosophy, management, psychology, systems (not tech related), etc.

My only regret is that school would have given me better structure and reinforced proper studying habits and I might have been able to achieve more by now.

Also, you might get more out of instructor based courses due to having to learn ALL the material and not just what you like/need to know and the final certificate/degree/diploma/trophy that you paid $$$ to get.
 
I dropped out multiple times, then went back as a super senior to finish up the missed stuff. It was a pain in the ass. Wish I'd had the sense then that I do now, wouldn't have come into class absolutly HIGH OFF MY ASS every single goddamn day... Jesus, I don't even want to think about what the teachers thought...
 
DocHoliday , Im assuming your still at the same company you started at 9 years ago. If thats true then you have worked your way up right ? So without the actual diploma or whatever do you think you would have much luck applying for similar positions ? Im just curious. I know people that are skilled enough to do a certain job , due to their years of experience but have trouble finding work since they never went to college to get the qualifications.
 
Lacey K,

As to your post below, you are right in the fact that you do not need school to be able to do that. However my question to you would be where else will you get a group of people all reading the same thing, with serious discussions regarding the literature you are reading with the group being discussions being led by a professor in literature?

I can promise from personal experience that what you can learn by yourself individually pales in comparison to what you can learn in a "classroom" setting. That is to say in a setting where you have a qualified person leading discussion and provoking ideas from a group of interested people. So in reality, your "classroom" setting could actually be a literature group in a community center, or whatnot.

Would it surprise you to know that the majority of the contemporary fine artists of our time and past have been trained in a college setting?

lacey k said:
anyone who can read can read James Baldwin or Maya Angelou. Not everyone who can read can discuss their backgrounds, how their literature is similar and it contrasts

yes but what i am saying is, you aint gotta go to school to be able to do that.

it seems like alot of cats aint able to do shit for themselves, so they need school to teach them how to do it

and then if other people who CAN do it for themselves say they didnt need school, the first group of kids just says well if you dont go to school then how are you gonna be able to _______, and assumes that the non schooled ones dont know shit

when in reality its just that some people needed school to teach them how to think some way or do certain things, and other people could do that before school
but the ones who did need it assume that other people needed it too, and think people cant do it without school not realizing that it was only that way for them specifically
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lacey k said:
lets talk about nikki giovanni lets talk about langston huges and maya angelou. lets talk about romare bearden and wassily kandinsky and paul klee and picasso and gaugin lets get down with some matisse aight? lets read us some sylvia plath and lorraine hansberry and zora neale hurston and james baldwin next time you wanna talk about i dont know much about art.
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Nikki Giovanni - Fisk University
Langston Hughes - Columbia University (uncompleted)
Maya Angelou - Firmly attached to multiple universities since the 60's
Romare Bearden - New York University for mathematics, then Art Students League in New York
Wassily Kandinsky - Law and Economics at Moscow University
Paul Klee - Art student at Munich Academy
Picasso - Barcelona School of Fine Arts
Gaugin - Colarossi Academy
Matisse - Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris
Sylvia Plath - Smith College, Newnham College
Lorraine Hansberry - University of Wisconsin
Zora Neale Hurston - Howard University

I took the time to look these up because clearly these people have an impact on you.

Being able to discuss them is nice. But if you aspire to their heights, surely you must see that a strong theme among the greats is education.
 
and maybe just as noteworthy- almost all important artists, whether they be writers, painters, etc, teach as well.
 
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drew345 said:
i think the ghost rider comment was reffereing to the movie Top Gun but im not sure
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Jesus Christ, am I really that old? I picked right up on the Ghost Rider thing as soon as I read it.

My x dropped out, but she was doing alright last I heard. People rarely check those things on job apps.
 
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