Remorsing thought of being looked down upon due to education

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sidetrack
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15 Apr 2016, 5:51 pm

I remember once a teacher said "your education will decide..who you marry [etc]".

This was before the recession in ~'08 and before I started seeing how a significant amount of ppl around my age were doing work which did not relate/'match' what was studied in post-secondary education,even those who went to university and found themselves doing kinds of work which wasn't too different from what could be available to someone in high school.

Emphasizing the important of education is one thing which I admit gave me a repungence at the thought of ppl withdrawing from a high school in a developed nation like Canada,although I >_< definitely now understand how even in a developed nation there are still legitimate justifications as to why something like that could happen.

See I use to think (and dang,back then my attitude uncomprimising and unflexible not realizing the presence of their always being choice) that ppl who went to university and had say a chemistry degree would look down upon someone w/say a general business certificate from a community college. Now that I am older and know more about the reality of relationships and how ppl click and mingle I know that,that isn't really a thing.

I suppose that such a thing could happen :| but what would fuel that might be so much of a single individual's acceptance of another individual being 'settled' on the basis of what kind of information or knowledge the latter 'values' but maybe more likely something of a 'group fueled' prejudice present due to an internal culture a person is a part of,even like say a family (of academics).

In the end though it's not the education which as important as the knowledge,more often than not in the form of *skill* rather than solely information and as much as it 'grinds my gears' to say speaking as someone on the spectrum who values knowledge, having underwent a program concentrated on a certain kind of information or knowledge can have effectually little bearing on a person's personality and whether it would be changed.

School has been aggravatingly convoluted for me, I'm worried about a certain mark which I won't be able to see until Monday,am thanful for this site and would not mind at all if someone replied back to me on this.



Spiderpig
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15 Apr 2016, 9:45 pm

sidetrack wrote:
See I use to think (and dang,back then my attitude uncomprimising and unflexible not realizing the presence of their always being choice) that ppl who went to university and had say a chemistry degree would look down upon someone w/say a general business certificate from a community college. Now that I am older and know more about the reality of relationships and how ppl click and mingle I know that,that isn't really a thing.


That mistake is easily dispelled by remembering everything about society, morals and status is ultimately based on physical violence. Violence trumps education any day. So looking down on less educated people is a good recipe for getting the crap beaten out of you.


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The red lake has been forgotten. A dust devil stuns you long enough to shroud forever those last shards of wisdom. The breeze rocking this forlorn wasteland whispers in your ears, “Não resta mais que uma sombra”.


QuantumChemist
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16 Apr 2016, 10:19 am

I will not say that it never happens with other chemists, but I try not to look down upon what education others have or lack. Not everyone wants to become a chemist, which overall is a good thing. If we all picked the same thing to do, very little could get done as we would all be competing for the same jobs. We all have something that we are good at. In the past, I tried to challenge my undecided major students to find out what that is and act upon it what ever they happen to chose to do (legally of course). Unfortunately, I have ran across a few that do not want to do anything except party at their parents expense while in school. Ones like that drive me nuts. They do not understand that they are short changing themselves, as the degree that they earn will likely not have the same skills attached to it as someone who took it seriously and worked hard learning everything they could.

Chemists can be a fickle bunch though when it comes to others in their own field though. I have experienced being looked down upon by other chemists because I chose to study a different section of chemistry than they did and went into teaching. In chemistry, there are six main areas: Analytical, Inorganic, Organic, Physical, Radiochemical (ie. nuclear) and Biochemical. Each main area can be interconnected to other areas in multiple ways. For example, organometallic is a combination of inorganic chemistry with organic chemistry. Bioanalytical is a combination of biochemistry with analytical chemistry. There are many more analytical/organic/biochemists than inorganic/physical/radiochemists for various reasons. Out in the job market, the pay is not always the same though between the different areas, especially when you throw in industry vs. higher education jobs. Chemists that excel in specialized pharmaceuticals can get paid quite well compared to those that teach at a college/university level. Making more money does not always equate to one being better than someone else. That sometimes leads to a superiority complex where there really should not be one, as we do different jobs that serve different purposes in life.