Continued Education

[TheBigDog]

Yesterday I finished my second class. It seems like I just started, yet I have already gotten 5% of my required credits (6 of 120).

 

The course I just finished was PSY202 Adult Development. It was the first time that I had read much about Freud, Erikson, Levinson, and the other modern giants of learning and emotional development theories. The course covered the whole scope of human life at a pretty high level. I am not majoring in psychology, but I can see the appeal from taking this course. I guess anyone who interacts with other people and attempts to understand what motivates and makes them tick is an amateur psychologist in their own right.

 

My paper was about how each of the competing theories is valid, even when they appear to be in at least mild conflict. That they are all attempts to simplify the vastly complex nature of the human being, and they use differing methods of framing our lives into definable compartments to create this simplification.

 

My next class is part of my English requirement. Introduction to Film. I am looking forward to it. I love movies.

 

Bill

[Sacri Sankt]

good luck, tbd! id have liked to go to college, but circumstances lead me to leaving school at 14, so i didnt even get a basic education! O.O

 

an entierly online course sounds great, tho. do you know if such things are common?

[TheBigDog]

good luck, tbd! id have liked to go to college, but circumstances lead me to leaving school at 14, so i didnt even get a basic education! O.O

 

an entierly online course sounds great, tho. do you know if such things are common?

I highly recommend the experience for anyone who feels they are ready for it. The fact that you didn't finish school doesn't need to stop you. You can complete HS or get your GED online as well.

 

My participation at Hypography was a big help in preparing me for the online school experience. I was very doubtful of what going to college would actually teach me before I started. My ego around my ability to learn on my own is huge. But I have really been taken in by the process, and the college experience has been far more fulfilling that I had imagined. When I first started I looked at it as a necessary evil, now I am sold on the necessity of the process as a whole.

 

If anyone feels like they are ready for formal education, I highly recommend it.

 

Bill

[TheBigDog]

Well, here I am again, marking another milestone. 7.5% of my degree is complete. I just finished ENG 225 - Introduction to Film. I am not sure how much I learned in this class, as I have been exposed to the movie industry through my normal mode of curiosity and research for years. What I did get out of the course was more practice in the world of formal writing.

 

I did my final paper, a complete analysis of a movie that needed to show understanding of all the major principles taught in the class, on The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1967). I watched it at least four times from beginning to end, stopping along the way to take notes, and to rewind looking for repeated symbols and such.

 

Our professor was big on "aperture framing" and how directors use frames as symbols and messages about the story and characters. I picked The Good, the Bad and the Ugly from the visual image of looking at different characters through a noose that they were about to be hung with. But when I watched the movie with a critical eye, I had a much more valuable treasure trove than I had intended. So as I wrote the paper I suddenly realize that I have 15 written pages, and they only want to see eight. In the cutting process my nooses end up in the deleted pile, but the paper was a success.

 

Now I am taking English composition. I don't foresee any problems.

 

Bill

[Buffy]

I *love* that movie! Its the best of Clint's three Spaghetti Westerns with Sergio Leone, especially because of the direction. I *hope* you were watching the wide-screen version if you were analyzing framing! There are so many scenes there where he used the entire 70mm format to build suspense (especially the three-way shootout at the end: note both the long shots and the "shifting eyeballs" extreme closeups need the whole frame...

 

Congrats on 7.5%!

 

English Comp? What's in that? I would have thought they'd make you complete that before taking anything else!

 

Thunder or cannon fire, it's all the same to you. Adios, Blondie, :P

Buffy

[TheBigDog]

I love it too. Not only did I watch it in wide screen, I watched on the 92" wide screen in the living room. It is sweeeeeeet. The technical detail in the movie is spectacular. Just the first 10 minutes before any dialog is worth the price of admission.

 

"There are two types of spurs my friend; those that come through the door, and those that come through the window."

 

or

 

"There are two types of people in this world; those with a rope around their neck, and those who do the cutting."

 

or

 

"There are two types of people in the world; those with a gun, and those who dig."

 

Bill

[Pyrotex]

I begin courses on Nov 27th. I discovered that you cannot get a MBA without a BA or BS as a prerequisite. So I am going to get my BA first, and then continue through my MBA. This will take me several years. I will post here from time to time about my progress.

Big Dog!

Gosh, sorry to be so late in finding this thread. :evil:

 

I hope you are off to a good start. I'll know in a minute when I read the remaining posts. :P I'm on your side, dude.

 

I tried to go back and finish my Masters in Computer Sci back in 1982, just two years after arriving in Houston, and nine years after leaving grad school. I just couldn't hack it. Working full time and taking even just six hours at a time, had me so tired and exhausted that I began nodding off at my desk. I fought hard, finishing one semester, but a month into the second one, I had to drop out.

[TheBigDog]

Working full time and taking even just six hours at a time, had me so tired and exhausted that I began nodding off at my desk.

The hours I spend sleeping at my desk are the best hours of sleep that I get. No kids crawling into the bed tangling up your feet, no wife sleeping with her arm straight out poking you in the side, no dog snoring, no TV playing infomercials that play with your subconscious. Ah....

 

Actually, I am beat. Between work and school I have all but disappeared from these boards. I just don't have the energy to keep up eight posts a day like I used to. Oh, well. It will come again.

 

Bill

[TheBigDog]

Here I am again. I just finished English Composition I. Simple course, I didn't find out until I was done that I could have taken an alternative. Oh, well. I do enjoy writing, so any class that helps me with that is a good one.

 

I am now 10% done with my degree. It still feels like I have just started, yet I am already on my fifth class. My current class is Judeo Christian Thought. I was raised Jewish, and I am surrounded by Christians; this should be a piece of cake.

 

Bill

[Buffy]

Here I am again. I just finished English Composition I. ... I do enjoy writing, so any class that helps me with that is a good one.

Way to go Bill! :cheer:

My current class is Judeo Christian Thought. I was raised Jewish, and I am surrounded by Christians; this should be a piece of cake.

Well, you never know: it may be about what some people think they thunk a long time ago and how they think they ought to think now, but very little about what they actually do think.

 

Could be rather confusing actually... :confused:

 

What's the syllabus for that class look like?

 

Here's another fact to add to your endless fund of useless knowledge, :eek_big:

Buffy

[freeztar]

This is a great thread!

Congrats Bill! It seems to be going well so far. :confused:

[coberst]

Introduction

 

I am a retired engineer with a good bit of formal education and twenty five years of self-learning. I began the self-learning experience while in my mid-forties. I had no goal in mind; I was just following my intellectual curiosity in whatever direction it led me. This hobby, self-learning, has become very important to me. I have bounced around from one hobby to another but have always been enticed back by the excitement I have discovered in this learning process. Carl Sagan is quoted as having written; “Understanding is a kind of ecstasy.”

 

I label myself as a September Scholar because I began the process at mid-life and because my quest is disinterested knowledge.

 

Disinterested Knowledge

 

Disinterested knowledge is an intrinsic value. Disinterested knowledge is not a means but an end. It is knowledge I seek because I desire to know it. I mean the term ‘disinterested knowledge’ as similar to ‘pure research’, as compared to ‘applied research’. Pure research seeks to know truth unconnected to any specific application.

 

I think of the self-learner of disinterested knowledge as driven by curiosity and imagination to understand. The September Scholar seeks to ‘see’ and then to ‘grasp’ through intellection directed at understanding the self as well as the world. The knowledge and understanding that is sought by the September Scholar are determined only by personal motivations. It is noteworthy that disinterested knowledge is knowledge I am driven to acquire because it is of dominating interest to me. Because I have such an interest in this disinterested knowledge my adrenaline level rises in anticipation of my voyage of discovery.

 

We often use the metaphors of ‘seeing’ for knowing and ‘grasping’ for understanding. I think these metaphors significantly illuminate the difference between these two forms of intellection. We see much but grasp little. It takes great force to impel us to go beyond seeing to the point of grasping. The force driving us is the strong personal involvement we have to the question that guides our quest. I think it is this inclusion of self-fulfillment, as associated with the question, that makes self-learning so important.

 

The self-learner of disinterested knowledge is engaged in a single-minded search for understanding. The goal, grasping the ‘truth’, is generally of insignificant consequence in comparison to the single-minded search. Others must judge the value of the ‘truth’ discovered by the autodidactic. I suggest that truth, should it be of any universal value, will evolve in a biological fashion when a significant number of pursuers of disinterested knowledge engage in dialogue.

 

Experience

 

We develop as we gain experience—interact with the world. Self-learning is one way of interacting with the world. Through the process of reading we apprehend the world and in this interaction a dialectic process develops. As I experience, through reading, I attempt to 'make sense' of the world and thus develop ever-richer and more sophisticated concepts. As I conceive this more sophisticated worldview I am also creating a more sophisticated self. The word ‘conception’ is an accurate word for the result of this experience. Just as the interaction of the two genders of all creatures result often in new life so does the interaction of reader and author.

 

There are books available in most community college libraries written by experts especially for the lay reader. I would guess that virtually all matters of interest are copiously and expertly elaborated upon by experts wishing to inform the public about every subject imaginable. Quantum theory and theory of relativity are examples of the most esoteric domains of knowledge accessible to most readers sufficiently motivated to persevere through some difficult study. For twenty-five dollars a year I am a ‘Friend of the Library’ at my community college and thus able to borrow any book therein.

 

The experience the September Scholar seeks is solely determined by his or her own internal ‘voice’. The curiosity and imagination of the learner drive the voice. Our formal education system has left most of us with little appreciation or understanding of our own curiosity and imagination. That characteristic so obvious in children has been subdued and, I suspect, stilled to the point that each one attempting this journey of discovery must make a conscious effort to reinvigorate the ‘inner voice’. We must search to ‘hear’ the voice, which is perhaps only a whisper that has become a stranger in our life. But, let me assure you, once freed again that voice will drive the self-learner with the excitement and satisfaction commensurate to any other experience.

 

I grew up in a Catholic family living in a small town in Oklahoma. My teachers were nuns and I learned how to read often by reading my Baltimore Catechism. The catechism is a small book, fitting easily in the back pocket of a pair of overalls, with a brown paper cover that contains the fundamental doctrine of the Catholic faith. It is in a question and answer format. I can still remember, after more than sixty years, the first page of that book.

 

Question: Who made you?

Answer: God made me.

Question: Why did God make you?

Answer: God made me to know Him, to love Him and to serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him in the next.

 

Before I had read the adventures of “Jack and Jill”, I had learned the answers to the most profound questions that has troubled humanity for more than twenty-five hundred years. Such was the educational methodology that changed little for the next sixteen years of my formal education. My teachers always told me what was important and what I must ‘know’ to be educated. The good student learned early to understand that education was a process of determining what questions the teacher regarded as important and to remember, for the test, the correct answers to those important questions. Since I was not required to provide the questions for the test I never concerned myself with such unimportant trivia as questions. I could always depend upon the teacher to come forward with all the questions.

 

I seek disinterested knowledge because I wish to understand. The object of understanding is determined by questions guiding my quest. These guiding questions originate as a result of the force inherent in my curiosity and imagination.

 

The self-learner must develop the ability to create the questions. We have never before given any thought to questions but now, if we wish to take a journey of discover, we must learn the most important aspect of any educational process. We must create questions that will guide our travels. We can no longer depend upon education by coercion to guide us; we have the opportunity to develop education driven by the “ecstasy to understand”.

 

Education

 

I suspect that most parents attempt to motivate their children to make good grades in school so that their child might go to college and live the American Dream. The college degree is a ticket to the land of dreams (where one produces and consumes more than his or her neighbor). I do not wish to praise or to bury this dream. I think there is great value resulting from this mode of education but it is earned at great sacrifice.

 

The point I wish to pivot on is the fact that higher education in America has become a commodity. To commodify means: to turn (as an intrinsic value or a work of art) into a commodity (an economic good). I would say that the intrinsic value of education is wisdom. It is wisdom that is sacrificed by our comodified higher education system. Our universities produce individuals capable of developing a great technology but lacking the wisdom to manage the world modified by that technology.

 

How can a nation recover the intrinsic value of education without undermining the valuable commodity that our higher education has become?

 

I think that there is much to applaud in our higher educational system. It produces graduates that have proven their ability to significantly guide our society into a cornucopia of material wealth. Perhaps, however, like the Midas touch, this gold has a down side. The down side is a paucity of collective wisdom within the society. I consider wisdom to be a sensitive synthesis of broad knowledge, deep understanding and solid judgement. I suggest that if one individual in a thousand, who has passed the age of forty would become a September Scholar, we could significantly replace the wisdom lost by our comodified higher education.

 

Knowing and Understanding

 

For a long time I have been trying to grasp the distinction between knowing and understanding. I think I have recently stumbled upon a new theory that might help me a great deal in my attempt to discover this distinction.

 

I have recently discovered a contender for paradigm within the cognitive science community. Metaphor theory has in the last thirty years begun to advance important discoveries regarding the nature of the ‘embodied mind’. This theory insists that much of our mental activity is unconscious and driven by the neural networks associated with body sensory and motor control networks. Metaphors are far more important to our knowledge and understanding than previously thought. We live by metaphor.

 

I have just begun to study metaphor theory and perhaps will change my mind but, as of this moment, I am getting hints that this theory will be very important for me and for cognitive science. It has already helped me to grasp the distinction between knowledge and understanding. I am not sufficiently knowledgeable of this theory to give detail now but, if you are interested, you might do a Google to begin your journey for understanding metaphor theory.

 

To get an idea of the distinction between knowing and understanding we can examine the metaphors we commonly use for these two concepts. I ‘see’ when I know and I ‘grasp’ it or I ‘got a handle’ on it when I understand. We can see much but we grasp little. We see at a distance but grasp only what is up close. We are much more intimate with what we grasp than with what we see. We might say ‘seeing is believing’ but I do not think we are comfortable with saying ‘seeing is understanding’.

 

My interests tend to lead me toward such philosophical matters but the point is, each person determines what is important to her or him. Each person takes that path that ‘fits’ for them. No one knows what that might be but the individual herself and often she will not create the same type of questions tomorrow as today.

 

I pointed out earlier that the September Scholar was driven by an interest in disinterested knowledge. You might add to that paradox that the September Scholar seeks disinterested knowledge because s/he is engaged in a journey of understanding of both the self and the other.

From Net-worth to Self-worth

 

In the United States our culture compels us to have a purpose. Our culture defines that purpose to be ‘maximize production and consumption’. As a result all good children feel compelled to become a successful producer and consumer. All good children both consciously and unconsciously organize their life for this journey.

 

At mid-life many citizens begin to analyze their life and often discover a need to reconstitute their purpose. Some of the advantageous of this self-learning experience is that it is virtually free, undeterred by age, not a zero sum game, surprising, exciting and makes each discovery a new eureka moment. The self-learning experience I am suggesting is similar to any other hobby one might undertake; interest will ebb and flow. In my case this was a hobby that I continually came back to after other hobbies lost appeal.

 

I suggest for your consideration that if we “Get a life—Get an intellectual life” we very well might gain substantially in self-worth and, perhaps, community-worth.

 

As a popular saying goes ‘there is a season for all things’. We might consider that spring and summer are times for gathering knowledge, maximizing production and consumption, and increasing net-worth; while fall and winter are seasons for gathering understanding, creating wisdom and increasing self-worth.

 

I have been trying to encourage adults, who in general consider education as a matter only for young people, to give this idea of self-learning a try. It seems to be human nature to do a turtle (close the mind) when encountering a new and unorthodox idea. Generally we seem to need for an idea to face us many times before we can consider it seriously. A common method for brushing aside this idea is to think ‘I’ve been there and done that’, i.e. ‘I have read and been a self-learner all my life’.

 

It is unlikely that you will encounter this unorthodox suggestion ever again. You must act on this occasion or never act. The first thing is to make a change in attitude about just what is the nature of education. Then one must face the world with a critical outlook. A number of attitude changes are required as a first step. All parents, I guess, recognize the problems inherent in attitude adjustment. We just have to focus that knowledge upon our self as the object needing an attitude adjustment rather than our child.

 

Another often heard response is that “you are preaching to the choir”. If you conclude that this is an old familiar tune then I have failed to make clear my suggestion. I recall a story circulating many years ago when the Catholic Church was undergoing substantial changes. Catholics where no longer using Latin in the mass, they were no longer required to abstain from meat on Friday and many other changes. The story goes that one lady was complaining about all these changes and she said, “with all these changes the only thing one will need to do to be a good Catholic is love thy neighbor”.

 

I am not suggesting a stroll in the park on a Sunday afternoon. I am suggesting a ‘Lewis and Clark Expedition’. I am suggesting the intellectual equivalent of crossing the Mississippi and heading West across unexplored intellectual territory with the intellectual equivalent of the Pacific Ocean as a destination.

[hug]

"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."

-- T.S. Eliot

 

I support education and going for it -- education, that is. But as you move forward with education, don't forget other priorities -- family, friends, etc.

 

I also think coberst's notion is a great one . . . education should never stop, and ideally it should be passion-and-curiosity driven. The September Scholar idea is great.

 

Also, don't forget the importance of breadth. Breadth of education helps with creativity and also helps with forming an evolving but ever improving big-picture of life. It sounds like this site has many people with broad interests, an MBA who also knows about film stuff in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly; a September Scholar who has made posts on an amazing variety of things, a person with four children who goes back to school, and all sorts of people I haven't even met yet.

 

I'd just add one thing for now. If you want to really complement your education and life experience, and if you want explained some things that you aren't able to understand yet, listen to lots of Bob Dylan, read Emerson's Essays, and read at least several of Shakespeare's plays. If people do all that when they're 18 or 20, they may well miss 75% of the wisdom. But, if you do it when you're 30 or older, you'll pick up alot. If in your 40s, you'll get even more. And, I suppose, if you read/listen to those things in your much later years, you'll still learn alot. Although you'll probably know much of it already -- it might still be nice to know that someone else knows what you know, and even so, they can still sing, joke, and make fun of it.

 

Another great Eastwood film is Unforgiven. Super.

 

Best of luck to the genleman attending school! Great choice (as long as you are also paying attention to family and kids).

[TheBigDog]

Another five weeks; another course completed. This last course was Judeo Christian Thought (Theology - Old and New Testament). It was a great deal to cover in a five week course. It started out very interesting, but my interest really waned toward the end. I guess I am just not cut out to be a theologian. I did however dis-spell some of my misunderstandings of Christian dogma, so that did provide some value to me.

 

My next course is Informal Logic (PHI 103). Read that as Critical Thinking. Here in week one I am learning all about the art of the argument. I think I am going to enjoy this course more than I did the last one.

 

I have now completed 12.5% of my degree. Well on my way to graduation.

 

Bill

[Boerseun]

Good going, Bill!

 

I've never been able to study successfully towards a degree. And believe me, I've tried.

 

First off, after school, I went full time to study towards a degree in geology.

Financial considerations and the fact that I can't do one thing for too long without becoming bored out of my skull made me quit and get a job in IT.

So then I enrolled part-time to study towards a B.Sc. in information tech. Finished the first year, and most of the second. Same problem. Got bored out of my pip for doing the same crap. Then I did an MCSE, a totally worthless piece of MicroShaft crap designed for MS to make money, and the student to make some quick bucks. Then, after getting bored with that, I enrolled part-time, once again, in a B.Comm. in business management with IT as a major.

Finished the first two years, again, and got bored. AGAIN.

 

So I decided to hell with it, and started my own business. It's going very well, and luckily its giving me the freedom to do new things as I want. For instance, I started off doing TV ads (in static captive-audience format), and that's been going well for about two years now. This year, I'm launching a magazine. I suppose another two/three years down the line, I'll get bored with that and do something else.

 

I've got a world of respect for you being able to stick to your plan. I can't, and this mental balls-up I've got will come back and bite me in the *** yet.

[Tormod]

My next course is Informal Logic (PHI 103). Read that as Critical Thinking. Here in week one I am learning all about the art of the argument. I think I am going to enjoy this course more than I did the last one.

 

Sounds like you're doing great, Bill!

 

I have my exam on Tuesday for the Innovation and Commercialization course I'm taking for my Masters degree. :doh:

[TheBigDog]

Late, late, late... seems like everything is running late these days. I finished my last course almost three weeks ago. Since then I started PHY107 - Ethics. And I went on vacation, and I kicked off a new project at work, and I totally swamped myself and now I have late work for school, and I am in the dulldrums about it. The reading in this course is so boring that I can't get through it. I literally fall asleep within a couple of minutes of reading, which is making it difficult to get the work caught up. This is the first time that I am struggling at this and it is frustrating as hell, but I know that the rewards are there at the end, so I need to tough it out.

 

So I have a question, what strategies did you use to get through courses that were so boring that you could not get through the reading material? I know this must happen to everyone, so how do other people handle it? What is funny to me is that I find the topic of ethics very interesting, but the text book is unbearably dull!

 

Bill