Education

I've been thinking recently about what a college education really says about a person. The further I get in my studies here at BYU I've been coming to the conclusion that a degree says more about what kind of person you are than what knowledge or skills you have. I find that most of my time at college is spent doing assignments and projects and readings that have little or no relevance to what I'll actually be doing for most of my life, and all the details that I'm so meticulously examined on disappear out of my head the minute finals are over. However, I'm determined to get my 4-year degree because of what that degree says about my character and my work ethic.

I would never hire an employee for an important, long-term position in a company I owned unless they had a college degree, but in all honesty I don't think I'd care very much what they got their degree in. If it was a skilled position I'd want to know what real-world experience they had with those skills. The only purpose for the degree would be to tell me that the person had time-management skills, and could stick to something and accomplish it. The degree would also tell me that the employee knew how to take an assignment and complete it satisfactorily, and that he or she could manage some level of stress and handle some level of responsibility.

Sometimes I get a little frustrated in my studies when I don't see any value in what i'm cramming into my brain to satisfy an assignment or a professor, but I figure that it's because of the unpleasantness of the task that my degree will mean something and actually have some value.

Damon