<p>a person is NOT educated who has not learned about the 2nd law of thermodynamics.</p>
<p>I got to thinking about this when evaluating a particular college. I was thinking what is an important item to learn or take away from college, whether in an arts, sciences, business, or humanities line of study. Then I thought I'd throw the question out to the parents who have the benefit of hindsight being on this planet lo these twenty, thirty or more years beyond their youth...</p>
<p>It can be something critical to take away from college, or it can be something that 'you cannot leave home [college] without', sort of like something that is a part of a 'complete education'. It does not have to be academic.</p>
<p>I don’t know that there is anything truly <em>important</em> that you need college in order to learn. But some of the things I feel all college graduates should know includes (far from an inclusive list, mind you):</p>
<ol>
<li><p>When it comes to a primary residence that you plan to be using for years, buy if you can rather than rent. Don’t allow being picky and/or a procrastinator and/or fear to keep you a renter.</p></li>
<li><p>Even if you think you will never want to retire, be sure to put the maximum allowable by law into a Roth IRA as soon as you have earned income; you can always take out the initial investment five or more years later <em>for any reason without any cost to you</em> (check this with an expert, but I am pretty confident here) and meanwhile, the interest (which you do have to leave in the account till retirement other than for special exceptions) continues to grow tax free and to be not taxable when it is finally taken out in retirement.</p></li>
<li><p>Don’t charge to a credit card anything you can’t pay in full each month with two possible exceptions: 1) engagement and/or wedding band, and 2) honeymoon (and be sure even those “loans” can be paid off within a few months of the wedding).</p></li>
<li><p>Love will not cure all (even if my husband still believes in this idealism and fortunately has never had to learn otherwise) and you shouldn’t marry <em>purely</em> for love; two people who are best friends and incredibly compatible to share the same home but lack physical passion for one another will have better odds of having an easy life with no divorce than two people who are “madly in love” but lack compatibility in interests, values, intellect (not meaning they have to be equally intelligent, but just that whatever difference that exists doesn’t bug the other person), etc. Odds are best if you are both compatible and passionate.</p></li>
<li><p>How to say “I’m sorry”, “I was wrong”, and “I love you”.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Idic5: here’s the version of the three laws of thermodynamics I learned at college:
First law: you can’t win
Second law: you can’t break even
Third law: you can’t get out of the game</p>
<p>But the most important thing you can learn in college is how to learn. Not how to study something, or the details of something specific, but how to approach a discipline systematically and identify the areas of controversy and the areas of consensus, without resorting to beliefs.</p>
<p>I’d say the most important thing to learn in life (whether you pay $50K a year for it is something else) is how to get along with different types of people.</p>
<p>Read: Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.</p>
<p>OK, I’m going to take this less philosophically.<br>
A person is not educated who has not learned . . .
basic geography. (That is, which countries are in Asia and which are in Europe; that Nevada is a state, not a city; that Ohio does not touch an ocean; where the countries on today’s front page are located.</p>
<p>Not everyone can write creatively, but I think that every educated person should be able to put together a coherent paragraph, with correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation.</p>
<p>I’m with dbwes on geography. How can you understand what’s on the news if you don’t even know where that country is and what’s important in that part of the world?
I’m afraid writing skills will continue to drift downward - there’s a direct link between reading and being able to write well and kids are reading less every year (Harry Potter not withstanding). The spell-check feature doesn’t help if you aren’t familiar with seeing the word you are attempting to spell.</p>
<p>goalie, I might think that was a personal disparagement but I’m not sharp enough to figure that out. Not sure what cc would have to do with exploring what it means to be ‘educated’ and what to take away from college. CC is simply a board of speculation, a tavern without the drinks.</p>
<p>This all sounds like things you can learn at the school of hard knocks. I’d say the basic knowledge anybody needs to get out of an undergraduate program are the kinds of things you can only find in academia, such as:</p>
<p>A general knowledge of micro and macro economics
A basic understanding of western history from the cradle of western civilization through modern.
The genesis and formation of the major ideas informing western thought.
The impact of western colonialism and imperialism on Asia and the Americas.
The ability to limp through a conversation or read a text in a foreign language.
Working knowledge of the principles of statistics.
Familiarity with cultural/literary archetypes–either through literature, folklore or anthropology.
Principles of logic and argument.<br>
Enough science to be able to separate the pseudo-science from the real deal in popular literature or in a conversation.
Enough knowledge of biology and physiology to understand a doctor’s explanation of a diagnosis and its treatment and prognosis.</p>
<p>Beyond that, it depends on the major. I don’t expect everybody to understand the ins and outs of chemistry or calculus, but when a college graduate starts babbling about going to the doctor because they have a cold and they need antibiotics, I find myself thinking they should know better.</p>
<p>je_ne, nice --and smart. links to ggh1 post #7 above.</p>
<p>Did you go to college to learn that saying?</p>
<p>[ another saying, fwiw, sort of the converse of je_ne’s, but a similar school of experience kind of saying…</p>
<p>Sonny to brother Michael in The Godfather,</p>
<p>
]</p>
<p>I like mombot’s list of things to take away from the college experience. We’re paying enough for the college experience; thought we might want to be clearer or at least think more about what we’re getting for our money in addition to a sheepskin.</p>