LEE KRAMER'S ROOM: With Views

[newmedman]

I understand where Janice is coming from. You obviously can't get a Masters or a Doctorate from a community college but there's nothing wrong with starting your journey there.

As long as they are accredited you can transfer to a place to seek the higher knowledge or the degree that you want. By that time, you're probably already working and the prestige might or might not mean anything because you're already making a name for yourself in the workforce.

Most kids don't know what the hell they want to do after high school and sure, there's others that do but they get full rides to anywhere they want to be.

In my example, I wanted to be an engineer. High school came easy to me because I could retain knowledge before I blew up my brain. When I wound up at my community college I tested into advanced math and science and got completely blown away in the first year. It was just overwhelming along with the golf team I played on and all the partying and work I was already accustomed to. I just couldn't hack it and I gave up.

I found computer aided drafting classes with my best friend at that time and absolutely loved it, so I ran with that in the second year. After that we both went out and got jobs in the same field. I went from place to place looking because I hated the office environment. He got his first job and stayed there for the next 20 years drawing tractor trailer suspensions until he went back to school and learned animation. He now has his dream job working for Pixar in Cali.

I wound up being a carpenter, building the same offices that I despised and I'm not unhappy about it because I'm still looking for my dream and chasing money. A university would have done nothing for me except rack up student loans that I'd probably still be paying now.

I could go on with my sister's example but I'm getting a little long winded here. So I'll stop.

We don't need an ivy league degree to be good productive humans. Weather you graduated from Yale or Hard Knocks doesn't mean a hill of beans to an employer as long as you produce.