Snap!

[alexpgp]

Jane Galt puts her finger on something I've been trying to crystallize:

College does not provide one the tools to make a living. For most people it is what economists call a signalling mechanism: something not intrinsically valuable, but only as a signal that the applicant has something else employers value. Which is to say, employers do not value your college degree because they value what you learned; they value it because it shows that you have sufficiently internalized middle class values to get through four years at school, whether through being born into the middle class, or having sufficient gumption to get yourself through college.

Amen.

It probably goes a way toward explaining why I've only had to cough up my transcript about four times since graduating from college. In each case, the reason for getting the transcript was to "punch" some procedural "ticket" (grad school entry, P.E. license application, and once each for employers B and T, for human resources reasons).

It also goes a way toward debunking (actually, dismissing) arguments from typically bright yet undisciplined students along the lines of "if the professor was really interested in what I know, he or she would [do this, which would prove how smart I am] instead of [that, which is tedious, boring, conventional, and something I'm not necessarily too good at handling]."

* * *Files are sent. The client sent some glossary files on Friday; somehow, I overlooked their arrival in my inbox. The bad news was that I "mistranslated" a very important verb (in the sense of: what I used and what the client uses are different; my choice is workable). The good news coming out of this is that my habit of translating consistently made changing the translation to the accepted term fairly easy and painless. Other than the one term, a look at the glossaries resulted in only a few other minor changes.

* * *Galina returned from Farmington a few minutes after my previous post, by which time I was feeling pretty lonely. I don't know how I'm going to get through the next couple of weeks.

* * *Drew called earlier, indicating that he and Shannon would be by around 7 pm, on their way to a farewell dinner with Brady. I wonder what's keeping them?

Cheers...

Comments

[kf6gpe.livejournal.com]

I firmly agree with Jane Galt's assessment of college; it was something I realized about it a few years ago when a good friend got his doctorate. He and I realized at the same time that, as important as his achievement was, it was just that: a signalling mechanism. He was stunned at first to realize that just the "Ph. D" after his name suddenly meant people expected he knew what he was talking about, even though he hadn't had time to really do anything but his thesis over the last year, and, in his words, was more rusty than as a younger graduate student in his field.

I had shared a similar conclusion about the same time, managing a couple of software engineers, one with a degree, one without, at the same age, and coming to some general conclusions about what their --- and the other members of the team --- could show on a resume viz a viz what I knew after working with them for two years.

As for the other, I know it will be rough --- but you'll pull through and do well over the coming weeks.

[brenk.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, definitely agree with Galt. My own take is that higher education (college is the equivalent of your high school here *g*) teaches you how to learn, analyse, assimilate a whole lot of things, including non-academic skills.

Just don't tell some of my rather formalist clients that I have no formal qualifications to translate from French apart from 'A level' (i.e. high school specialisation)! Although, on reflection, it wasn't hard to apply what I learned for 2 other languages, building on that. As we all know there's nothing like total immersion for progressing, and fast. When I first came here, 24 years ago, it was a case of 'learn or else': i.e. survival in the office and outside it, necessary despite the fact I'd been hired because I was qualified in German and Russian. Tt would have been a lot harder and taken longer if I hadn't 'learned how to learn', however. So ideally, to be *really* good at something, I think this 'learning how to learn' from many kinds of academic study is a huge advantage: combining that with good, solid experience and willingness to *keep* learning makes people really outstanding.
At least in languages: I do acknowledge that in many fields, 'on the job' learning probably takes precedence over academic study. I've just been to an international seminar that dealt with theory vs. practice in police training where things are very different. There, the 'doing' and 'watching others do' seems to be far more effective, far more quickly, than 'telling how to'. Particularly for lower ranks with little 'academic orientation'.

Oh my, that sounds sanctimonious. But I've seen a lot of 'translators' who have *only* the experience and much fewer 'nuts and bolts', and it just ain't as convincing - at least until they've had years and years of practice. And yes, I'm sure there are exceptions: I'm just a little sick of English-speaking expats who have fairly solid French and tell me 'oooh, translating sounds fun, and lucrative too. Maybe I'll give it a whirl...". Ouch.

Will get back to you on the URL you mentioned when I've done battle with a (yes, French) text on ethics. And oh my what a ramble.