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The ol' degree is an admissions card (a certificate validating your
right of passage..proof that you finished "finishing"school) as much as
it is a certification that you actually KNOW
anything. Think of it as a filtering medium. How else would prospective
employers pare down the 200-300 resumes they receive for every job
posting.
On Sat, 16 Sep 1995 powen -at- MAIL -dot- LMI -dot- ORG wrote:
> Marilynne says:
> > Also, having worked with a large number of college graduates (grin),
> > my personal observation is that college scores in general have little
> > to do with a person's success on the job. What really counts is the
> > information they absorbed in college and their ability to apply that
> > information to the needs of the work place.
> Two years ago, when I went back to college, I got a 115, a perfect score, on
> my Physical Geography exam (it had 15 bonus questions) and an "A" for the
> course. The other day, my Australian neighbor asked me how what that day's
> ambient temperature was, in Centigrade. I had to go look it up. In fact, I
> remember almost nothing from that test or the course. I'd like to blame it
> on age, but I'm not that old. What happened is that I did a great job of
> cramming, but retained very little I learned that semester. For assignments
> I've had since then that relate to physical geography, I've also had to go
> back and reread what I, judging by my test score, had "learned."
> In the course of the incredible variety of assignments I take on, I've found
> that having become familiar, at some time in my life, with many subject
> areas has helped tremendously - but less in remembering specific facts or
> formulas than in understanding how to approach the subject and being more or
> less conversant in its terminology.
> So I guess I'm making two points here: judging potential employees (or
> consultants) by their college test scores is truly bogus, and, no, you don't
> have to be a subject matter expert to write about it, if adequate expertise
> is on hand - either from people or from written references.
