What I learned from my higher education

I have a very non-mainstream view of higher education, based not only on my personal experience but on all the research I have done and continue to do in the area of home education.  The bottom line lesson I've learned, the lesson that has given me the freedom to reframe my goals for my children's education, is this:  a college degree is no guarantee for a successful life.  It's not even a guarantee for a successful career, or even a job upon graduation!

Yet if we look at mainstream parenting, one feature that jumps out is the obsession with "educating" our children.  Earlier and earlier focus on premature academics, followed by a sedentary classroom existence for 13 years, all so that the child can enter a competitive college and - what? Find their way in the pecking order of the rat race?  I'll opt out, thanks anyway.  Instead of learning anything of worth, our children are being spoon fad facts and taught to the test.  A lucky few actually come to care about anything being taught them, or they find the time to learn about their passions on their own time.

But this isn't a post about the perils of modern American education.  This post is looking at the things that I actually DID learn in my 8 years of higher education.  Interestingly, none of these things are facts, but rather skills.  Skills that I have internalized and used as part of my everyday life in making decisions for my family.  Skills that have led me to decide to homeschool my kids.  Skills that have made me realize that my goals for my kids do not necessarily include college.  Here's why.

I started my college career at Northern Virginia Commnity College.  There, I learned how to organize classes at different campuses and at different times, and how to prioritize the various graduation requirements. I "majored" in general studies.  Basically, more of the same stuff I was taking in high school at infinitismally more advanced levels. (In an interesting turn of events, I eventually taught at NVCC for a decade!)

After a quick stint in the Army, I resumed my college education at what is now the University of Mary Washington.  Here, I created my own major - Linguistics and Women's Studies, where I followed my passions and studied what I enjoyed... in addition to fulfilling general education requirements. (Shouldn't those have been established by the time of high school graduation?) I gained valuable exposure to women's issues across disciplines, including religion, sociology, and psychology.  I also gained an in-depth comparative look at the language and identity experiences of two immigrant women very close to me - my mom and my mother-in-law.

I learned critical thinking and research skills.  I learned to question authoritative mainstream opinions.  I learned to differentiate between opinion and fact.  I learned the difference between correlation and causation.  I learned how to recognize reliable sources.  These are all skills that many of my peers do not have, based on the various asanine arguments I hear against home education and my parenting philosophy (both researched thoroughly before being implemented).

At MWC (it was Mary Washington College still when I attended), I also learned to write effectively for a variety of purposes and gained the confidence to speak in front of groups of people since writing-intensive and speaking-intensive coursework was part of the curriculum.  (Thanks to the latter especially, I was able to teach adults for a decade, in spite of having social anxiety in front of strangers.)

My graduate studies (in sociolinguistics) were conducted at Georgetown University.  At GU, I learned how to pay attention to - and interpret - words in advertisements, lyrics, magazine articles, speeches, court transcripts, everyday conversations.  I learned to observe and interpret nonverbal cues in body language and images.  I learned the difference between implication and inference.

The hardest thing I learned at GU, though, was how to know when to quit.  I realized a bit too late (for my pocketbook especially) that even a doctoral degree was no guarantee of a successful career.  It was only after I had submitted the first draft of the first chapter of my dissertation that I finally realized that I had been fed a lie.  No one is going to be knocking on my door the day after I defend my dissertation offering me a lucrative teaching position that will allow me to quickly pay off my student loans and build a comfy nest egg.  I was paralyzed between this realization and the regret of all the time and money that had already gone into pursuing this pipe dream.  Finally withdrawing from the program and ending my formal higher education was like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

My education did not teach me how to market my skills and knowledge in order to land employment.  It did, however, prepare me to homeschool and provide an effective education to my own kids.  And I have to say that it really rubs me the wrong way when I hear it implied that this is somehow a waste.  If I were to influence anyone for the good thanks to what I have learned over the years, who can benefit more from my influence than my own children?  And if I don't prioritize them, who will?  What would be the point of me outsourcing their education to someone else while I continue teaching others?  Where is the logic in that?  Or is the point really that these naysayers feel sorry for me, assuming that I'm not being fulfilled through my children, because how can I be fulfilled without a paycheck proving that I have worth?   But really this is veering into the homeschooling and stay-home-parenting debate, which is not the point of this post.

I learned a lot from my higher education.  None of it should have had to wait until I finished high school to begin.  I should've mastered all of these skills in my primary and secondary education.  And this is precisely what I intend to provide through educating my children at home.  So that if they choose to pursue a college degree, they will know at the onset 1) that their post-graduation goals necessitate a degree, and 2) which degree.  And if they choose not to pursue college?  Then the world is nonetheless their oyster.