Credentials!

I have had the good fortune over the years to work with a lot of different people.  I've traveled near and far and met many characters.

I've worked with high achievers, low achievers, and everything in between.  I've worked with pedigreed high achievers and pedigreed low achievers.  The pedigreed low achievers with the giant paychecks are usually the start of a re-occuring conversation.  What is the real world value of an education?

There have been several of those overpaid, highly decorated and documented but low achievers.  Often times, they are book smart people lacking real world experience.  Sometimes it is the lack of physical experience, dexterity, and useful knowledge that drives them to academics.  Being lacking in one skill set provides the fuel to achieve in another.  Amongst these academic high achievers is another subset.

Some people are naturally motivated to be people pleasers.  One subset of academic high achievers fits this mold.  They figure out the best way to satisfy their immediate report: the Boss!

In college, the boss is the instructor.  The first priority is satisfying the desires of the instructor.  So you end up with a high grade achiever that struggles with application of knowledge.  Those people come out of school with a mis-guided sense of confidence.  They are very good at following a map, but lack in problem solving and creative thinking.

My college experience that best illustrated this for me was the microprocessors final project.  The goal was to build our own microprocessor from component level.  I was paired with a perfect student with a 4.0 gpa.  I was an average student with and average gpa. 

From the very start,  my partner had trouble keeping up.  During the whole process, he would take my lab notebook home with him at night.  He would take his time at home to transcribe the information neat and orderly into his own notebook.  During the lab, he would painstakingly re-assemble every prototype circuit by laying the trace wires nice and flat and bend every corner to perfect right angles.

We always had the best dressed circuits in progress.  And although my notebook was a little messy, I thought that was to be expected by a work in progress.  The instructor told us in the beginning that he wanted to see our work in progress contained inside the journal.

Nevertheless, my partner's notebook was perfect.  No lines drawn through corrections.  No scrambled ideas or failed circuit drawings.  It was neat and clean. 

The typical day's work started with the goal of a sub-circuit.  I was always asking his opinion and trying to involve him with the build, but it seemed that he was always one step behind.  It became how our team operated: I would lead the way, solve the problems, and he would polish our presentation.  We were the first team to have an operating final circuit and it was stylish!

When the grades came out, my lab partner scored a perfect A.  My efforts earned me a B.  If you were to sit down with us individually, I would have been able to answer every question about the finer workings and design of every sub-circuit.  My lab partner would have had great difficulty doing the same, but he got a higher grade.

And so it is in life:  Pedigreed people get a break with expectations.  They often develop better people skills to compensate for their lack of technical ability.  This allows them to partner with the doers in the world and add their pleasing polish to the project.

Education is highly valued.  However, all education is not going to be worthwhile.  And it should not be the only tool that you rely upon.  Education is the best substitute for experience, but that's all.

In life's adventures, you can get a lot of free advice.  But advice from even well meaning people is not always good advice.  So if you get good advice and you get bad advice, how are you going to know the difference? 

"Wisdom is wasted on the elderly."  By the time in life that you have had enough experience to know the difference between good and bad advice, you're probably too old to act on it.  What can you do in the mean time?  Educate yourself where your experience is lacking.

How do I educate myself?  Start with learning the fundamentals of communication.  The more people you can communicate with and at higher levels, the more you can learn from others.  You have to  learn to learn.  Formal education makes a valiant effort at this so you can continue your informal education.  And that is what will really determine what you are able to achieve in life.