Higher Ed

So, I'm now at a point in my career where if I want to advance past the point I'm at, I need a degree.

"What kind of a degree, Dave?  Gosh this sounds exciting!'

The kind of degree doesn't matter.

"But Dave, surely the military has a specific plan for you to follow!"

No, not on the civilian side.

"But then, what's the purpose of demanding that you have a degree?"

That there is a DAMN GOOD QUESTION!

Look, I love to learn.  I truly do.  A big part of why I enjoy the SCA so much is that there's always something new for me to learn, be it banging on hot metal at a forge, or learning more about brewing, or learning historical formations for group combat.  Most of my advanced education has been self-taught.  But I hate school.  I hate going to school.  I hate sitting in a classroom being yapped at by some nose-in-the-air dipshit who thinks that because they are an expert in their one small field of study they suddenly know everything there is to know about everything.  My experiences in higher education have not been.....  pleasant.  Except for the drug interdiction classes taught by a CID agent, I was bored to tears.

More to the point, if I'm going to learn something, I want a tangible result at the end.  If I learn X, I will be able to do Y.  If I practice at A, I will be able to perform B.  I do not have the patience or the aptitude for learning only for the sake of learning.  I need practical applications, not a treatise on the nothingness of ludefisk.

But this degree bullshit - if I get a degree, do I get promoted?  Maybe.  There's no guarantee, and the way the military bottlenecks higher up, I could be the greatest guy they have on the list at that time but there's STILL no guarantee.  And without a degree, there's certainly no shot.

So I've found an online school - no sitting in classrooms for me, thank you very much.  I'll most likely be starting in April, which means I'll have even LESS time to blog.  Yay.

We'll see just how craptastic my online writing can be!