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I Don't Think a College Degree Always Indicates Intelligence

I'm not bragging about myself but I've always been an a+ student and going to college was a big dream of mine. I was bullied in highschool and I naively thought that college will be my heaven: a place full of people eager to learn , smart and open-minded. Now, I'm aware of the harsh reality.
College gives you education, it doesn't mean that you possess the intelligence to use it in a good way.After all, many presidents were Ivy league students and made a mess of the world.

I studied in an average university in France, I saw people who were there only to get laid. I saw them bullied other students (I never thought this kind of things could happen in college). I also met open-minded people who, at the end of the year, were unable to think outside of the box.
It made me understand that college is a place of conformity,not critical thinking. I rarely met a professor who was happy to see a student standing against his theories . Most of the time, you have to sit and swallow whatever will be given to you.
But worst of all,college turned me into an arrogant person detached from the reality of the world.I'm ashamed to say,I thought I was better than the janitor because I have a college degree and I was able to talk about existentialism or the complete work of Shakespeare.

Then reality bit me: I was forced to drop out due to some personal problems. I became a cashier at the local supermarket and my opinion on what the word "intelligence" really meant, changed drastically. In this supermarket, I met coworkers who have left school at an early age. They didn't have a college degree but they were street-smarts; they had a good common sense and they were as intelligent as the people I met in college. Their path of life was simply different.Their low wages made them fight for a good life everyday and I learned a lot from them (all the tricks to survive when you broke😉) .
But this is the most important thing they taught me: never judge someone on his level of education, his job or the weight of his wallet. Never forget that College degrees are often a result of opportunity, related to family, economic circumstances... It doesn't determine someone's worth.
(Sorry for my bad English)
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Livingwell · 61-69, M
It sounds like you went to a poor school to have that experience and come away thinking that way. I’m sorry you went through that.

My experience was completely different. I was an adult student working in my engineering degree. I did run into instructors that wanted to hear you recite what they said. But I met many more that encouraged me to think. I also met people that said “I didn’t learn anything from college. I already knew everything”. It was obvious they didn’t with that attitude.

The purpose of college is not to teach you “things” but to teach you techniques of problem solving that can be applied to the real world. College is also a social learning place. One is supposed to learn how to form teams, communicate ideas, interact socially, learn how to budget time and money, etc. These are things that are not classes but learned through life experience.

I’ve met my share of college snobs. I’ve also met good people. I worked full time to put myself through college. I started jobs at the bottom. And I never forgot where I came from. To this day, I will nod at the janitor or cafeteria worker because I was once in their shoes. And I’ll never forget where I came from.