[Advice] Something my uncle gave me

I fully understand your viewpoint, however I'd like to add a few things to the conversation.

Refreshingly polite, thank you.

While I agree a college or uni degree sometimes isn't worth too much (I live in Europe, and I can tell you for a fact that the McDonald example you gave is also present here (not literally McD, but you get the point)). But educating one's self isn't always about just the diploma. Additionally, "study hard" may refer to many things, we shouldn't limit this debate solely college or uni. Learning new things is self-improvement.

That is true, but I often find that one good cramming session is good enough for learning the key points about any certain subject, and if I ever need it again in my life, I can remember that I've read something about that and then Google it to learn in depth about it. There is no way we can carry in depth knowledge about every single thing we learn, but we can remember a reference to it, and our brains are built to do that in this day and age anyways. We are built to index things, not remember things, in the internet age. I have studied hard for and passed a course in Latin, but I do not remember it as well as when I was studying for it. But I have reference knowledge to those times and can pick it up again quickly. So in many ways, studying too hard is useless, in the sense that I am not actively using that language every day and it will be forgotten anyways, since the memory is so unreliable. To synthesize the point further, if the knowledge is not going to give you anything beyond the degree, and you can't possibly remember it in a practical way anyways, then it is a waste of time to study too hard for it. I find it hard to counteract your point, but I do not disagree on the self improvement argument you are making, in fact I am saying that all the extra energy you save from studying should be redirected into self improvement to make you more well rounded, well traveled, healthier, etc.

An example from my personal life: I study in uni, finishing my masters degree. I study at the most accredited, of highest regard school in my country and I attend the most difficult specialty. But honestly, the degree I receive will be worth much less to me than the certificates that I received along the way and especially the one I'm working on attaining now. They require the "study hard" mentality to get. Because of that they have value. On contrast, the uni degree's value will be diminishing due to numerous reasons (one being that intelligent and lazy students find ways to get by with much less effort).

Well there you go, you are capturing many good points here. Yes, many many many lazy and witty students are finding way to pass tests and employers know this. All sorts of lucrative financial incentives are making sure plenty of people are getting into university who don't belong there, because society tells people that university is how you get a job and make money, even when that's not necessarily true, they forgot the part that you have to actually be an independent thinker, self driven and understanding of what intellectual systems are.

So yes, things like certificates are often worth more than degrees, and I realize this, and I suspect that something like programming might be an area I want to go in after university, and that will require some certificates. But working at jobs like in the government will REQUIRE some sort of bachelor's degree. I am perfectly aware of this. They require that I have a certificate, it doesn't matter which one. And it also requires programming skills. It does not require a computer science certificate (an incredibly hard course), it just requires "a" certificate. So why go overboard to meet that requirement? Great numbers of people get majors in unrelated fields and go on to become programmers and get nice jobs, that is something I'm looking at and witnessing the reality of that, and the fact is that given the truth of how things really work out, it doesn't seem like there is a lot of pressure to thrive in the degree. It is just "a" degree, a listed requirement by a government or company, they are not going to go into too much detail about that as long as you have the relevant skills to the job, which are often not even taught in computer science courses.

You might call all of that a waste of time/life. But consider it an investment, and see that sometimes studying hard is worth it's payoff.

I am all for making effort as long as it is intelligently directed. Remember that the first rule was "study hard, no matter what", I think that is stupid, and should be rewritten, "study hard, if it matters". We have precious little energy to go around, it should be directed to the areas that matter most in our life. I think such a rule such as "study, no matter what" is a sign of ignorance into the reality of the human condition. We need to operate from an austerity mindset and put our energy where it will have the most fruitful results. There is no way you cannot succeed if you follow such a mindset, but when you are doing things just for the sake of doing them, you are easily exploitable by those who want to use your effort to get rich. They don't care if you are working for them or going to school, as long as you are doing something to make you feel like you are getting ahead and they are making some money off of that, they are happy to let you go ahead and do that. Many students get into huge debt this way, or many people grind their lives away at jobs that are below them, because they are working hard for the sake of working hard, they are not critically evaluating things and trying to find where their effort is best applied.

/r/getdisciplined Thread Parent