making excuses for moral & ethical failures excuses nothing.
Scram. :mad:
Besides that, his analogy isn’t worth dogpoo. Anyone whose ever worked in film or TV can tell you that. Repeating take after take after take is costly. Those who unnecessarily cost the production company tens thousands in re-takes (or tens of thousands – it can get that expensive) is considered an incompetant boob.
Analogies suck. Cheaters like “pure” prefer to think that the purpose of school isn’t to learn but to get a credential; therefore any method of getting that credential (which certifies that you have learned) is okay. I respect people who decide that school is not for them, that they can compensate by good performance in the workplace, extra effort, etc., and so choose to drop out, but I don’t have a lot of respect for people like him who want the credential that others work for but are unwilling to put in the effort. It’s just lazy rationalizing that he’s indulging in, and beneath contempt.
My former mother-in-law was going to college while I was a grad student teaching English composition, and she would bug me to help her with her papers. Up to a point, I would, but beyond that point, I’d explain “That’s what you’re going to college to learn. Figure it out. I can’t help you there,” which strained my marriage to the breaking point, but that’s another story. The point is that she was taking college classes, at no little trouble or expense, for no practical purpose–she was on the verge of retirement at her job, she was not seeking to do anything except earn a college degree that she’d missed out on earning earlier AND SHE STILL INSISTED ON CUTTING CORNERS BY CHEATING ANY WAY SHE COULD HAVE. This kind of taught me something about plagiarists’ motivations, which derive IMO from some kind of psychological misperception of one’s own value as a person than any of these rationalized explanations of expedience such as Pure supplies.
Also, if the “real world” were indeed as pure states, eventually where would original problem-solving and decision-making solutions come from? It would all become a closed cycle of reference to “authoritative sources” for the answers. The economy and the culture – not just “academics” – would stagnate.
And those so satisfied that a small handful of really creative “academic” fools toil away while they, with “real world smarts”, get ahead by cheating, would be at the mercy of Atlas some day Shrugging.
pure seems proud that he’s not an “academic type”. Well, in that case why not go to a higher trade school and be an honest and good skilled technician? …Oh, right, “in the real world people cheat and you gotta compete with them” meaning, I suppose, the title gets you a bigger paycheck. Well, that only lasts so far, dude. Betcha the top brass at Drexel-Lambert/Enron/Arthur Andersen/WorldCom/GC etc. felt that way. Eventually you get into a position where if your first thought when faced with a goal is “how do I cheat/lie my way into making it look like I did it?” instead of doing it, you’re going down if only because some other ruthless competitor blows the whislte. Someone who subscribes to this method will not exercise his “thinking outside the box” neurons. Maybe his boss won’t lock him in a room with pencil and paper to produce something with no outside help, but what happens the day that an original and different interpretation of the data is required to solve an unforeseen problem?
… and Eats_Crayons is dead on: a TV/film actor who forces repeated take after take after take will NOT be able to “compete”. He will be stuck doing commercials for used-car dealers in his home town, or in the role of “first decapitated cop” in B-horrors. The one who delivers the performance the directors want is the one who’ll rake in the millions.
It’s not about not needing to look up data, knowing everything off the top of your head. It’s about having the skill to take real data, make sense out of it in the context of the situation at hand, turn it into something useful for said situation.
Notice:
(A) real data – that is, not something you made up out of thin air. Thus, being able to look up a real source.
(B) make sense in the context – i.e. not just “parrot” authority but be able to figure by yourself what it means
© useful in said situation – know how to apply it to the case at hand
In the “real world” this happens all in your head EVEN with “technical data” – after all, you DO look up if the numbers for the latest interest rate came from the Fed, or your local bank, vs. from Jack Chick Comics, don’t you? The only way the prof has to know thay YOU know to look up proper sources is by requiring proper referencing. And so forth.
pure is a “pure” example of what many students these days are after, as pseudotriton r.r. mentioned: the degree, the certificate, the ticket out, the prize at the end, the toy in the cereal box. Not learning, and certainly not pure research for the sake of synthesis and critical thinking.
:rolleyes:
To be fair, I did say that I never went to acting school. And I don’t mean a complete moron that can’t remember ANYTHING. I’m saying someone who can’t remember EVERYTHING.
And you can pick apart an analogy all you want, but it’s just that, an analogy. Even if there are faults in the analogy it doesn’t make the original idea invalid.
Well, if i could’ve gotten my job without the credentials, I would have. But the fact is that I’m lucky to get the job I have considering I don’t have an MBA. If i didn’t have a degree I wouldn’t have even gotten looked at. Never mind hard work or good performance.
At the university i went to, you had to start in eeither science or arts, do a year, then choose where you went from there. So I was forced to learn a bunch of stuff i have no use for (biology, chemistry, et al.) Trust me, if I could’ve gotten my job without taking those classes I would have.
You can hold me in contempt, I can see why alot of people would. My OP was more to give another side of the story. Some cheaters are stupid, some (like me) make a decision. We say “This is pointless. I’m just jumping through hoops and learning things I don’t need to learn. Why give it my all?”
The real world is like i said it is. The majority of people (defined as 50%+1) don’t have to come up with original ideas at work. They just do their job. A plumber doesn’t think “What’s a new way of unplugging a toilet?” a mechanic doesn’t think “what’s an original way of fixing a transmission?”
I also never said that it was bad or wrong to come up with your own ideas. It obviously is a very very good thing, because innovation is what drives the economy foward, like you said.
And again, I would say the majority (if not all) blue collar workers go their entire lives without referencing an “authoritativesource” and alot of white collar workers are in the same boat. I reckon more people don’t reference anything than do (in the workforce as a whole).
I most certainly never said that and if my tone was such I apologize. Fact of the matter is that “academic types” have it alot tougher than i do. They could prorbably do my job with some training, but there is no way I could do theirs. I have alot of respect for academics, researchers, and the like.
So if you can’t be an academic that reads and writes all day you should go to a trade school? Huh? It’s probably obvious from my posts that I’m not the best at putting my thoughts to words. According to you I should be fixing cars or building houses instead?
And yes, as a matter of fact a title and some designations behind your name does get you a bigger pay cheque.
There’s a big difference between getting someone to write a paper for you and running a multi-billion dollar shell game. That’s like comparing a guy having sex with his GF to a rapist because they both did it because they were horny. They’re similar yet completely different.
I would ask for outside help, opinions, etc. The expression 2 heads is better than one has been around forever for a reason. And i would give credit where it’s due. I suppose my boss could come up to me and ask for “an original and different interpretation of the data that’s required to solve an unforeseen problem” and add “NO OUTSIDE HELP or you’re FIRED!” In which case I would ask him what’s up his butt.
And again, how often are regular working schmucks (that is to say, the majority of workers) like myself asked to come up with original solutions to unforseen problems?
(a)I use real sources, but I’ve never been asked to list them in a bibliography.
(b)agreed
(c)agreed
Again I ask though, writing a ten page essay on Hamlet helps me do this how? I can’t write a lick about Hamlet because I don’t give a crap. I can write about Return on equity because I do give a crap. If I failed english 101 I’d be deprived of a degree, which would mean I’d be deprived of the qualifications for my current job or anything similar. But somehow writing about Hamlet competently means I am qualified?
I actually look up rates from the bank of canada, but i get what you’re saying 
I suppose you got me on the last point. I still don’t have to do it in real life though 
People, alls I’m saying is that cheaters aren’t necessarily lazy or stupid, and they’re certainly not the scum of the earth as some have implied and outright said.
Some people who cheat do it because they don’t see the point of what they’re FORCED to do, so they take the easy way out (which i suppose does imply some laziness, but cheating is hard wok too you know!). I simply didn’t see the point of alot of the stuff I did in school, so I cut corners, and it has not affected me one bit at work. The guy beside me that did bother to write his own papers on shakespeare or got an A in organic chemistry compared to my B isn’t any better at the job than I am.
And i realize that coming up with original ideas is good, I never said it wasn’t. And even though alot of my points involve “most people don’t need to come up with original ideas” another thing to consider is the fact that some people can’t come up with an original idea when it comes to, say, creative wrting, but when it comes to new marketing ideas they’re a genius (can you tell I hated english 101 and have a business degree?). Cheating is a way to get “help” in areas where you need it (english for me)and concentrate on what you’re good at and what matters to you(finance for me).
And if it seems like I’m picking on academics, I’m sorry, I was just addressing the previous posters in this thread. I was hearing alot of “my wife the professor” “i was reviewing a research paper” and “I’m a TA” type things. No offense was meant.
And I’d like to say that I came up with this all by myself! 
(let’s keep the tone light guys, I’m just offering a view from the other side)
You’re so special I gave you your own box
I guess I am as you describe me, I want the degree, the acronyms after my name, and i want to make bank. That’s wrong why? Because I didn’t “pay my dues?”
And I love learning, with one caveat, it has to be something I want to learn about. When i went to university I knew what I wanted to do for a living and i knew how to get it. About 1/2 of the stuff I leanred in University I could forget today with no ill effects on my performance at work. If I actually learned everything i was supposed to, it would be closer to 3/4.
Some would just say that I’m goal oriented. I knew what I wanted, I knew what i needed and I knew what I didn’t. I cut corners on what I didn’t need.
Thanks for keeping this civil.
Problem is, that once I learn that you aren’t really a student, but just posing as one to defraud me into helping you get a degree, I think it’s part of my job to keep you from getting that degree. After all, it’s just a big bullshit-give-'em-what-they-wanna-see goal-oriented game, right? Well, if that’s what you’re playing, instead of playing the game by my rules, I’ll play your game, in which I have a pretty heavy hammer over you–failure, suspension, expulsion, all that good stuff.
After you get caught (and I catch at least a few plagiarists every semester) I start hearing all sorts of nonsense: denial, claims of innocence, claims of “not understanding what plagiarism is,” which (once I have the evidence) only makes me more determined to follow through. Students protest “Why so punitive? It’s just a course. It’s only a degree. I haven’t killed anybody, yadda yadda yadda.” Well, those questions answer themselves. If it’s ONLY a course, why were you so desperate to get through it? By your standards, if the course were so daunting a barrier, you had to cheat, then it must be pretty important. I’d rather you thought of my courses, actually, as UNimportant–i.e., where you were willing to take some risks, write a paper that you felt (as we all feel) insecure about, took some criticism of your work, knowing you were at worst risking a bad grade, but at best, advancing your knowledge and your skills.
Not every course advances those things, of course, but you’ll never know which experiences teach you something until you actually do them. If only one course in five (a very low figure) teaches you something valuable that you can use for the rest of your life, that’s pretty good. (And if your school is so bad that you never learn anything from doing the work, go to another school because that degree probably holds very little cachet anyway).
Kant’s categorical imperative (one of those things you learn about in boring, waste-of-time philosophy courses) tells us that it’s important to prosecute plagiarists because everyone suffers when people behave unethically. Guys like you ask, “Who am I cheating? Victimless ‘crime,’ pal.” Well, let’s see, you’re cheating me out of the time I spend carefully preparing my classes and scrupulously grading your fabricated papers. You’re cheating your fellow students, whose degrees lose value once it becomes known that your academic institution allows people who don’t actually know things to call themselves college graduates. You’re defrauding your employers who tell themselves that in hiring you, they’ve got someone who not only has the specific skills that you do actually have but also the ability, as evidenced by your college transcripts, to learn new things beyond that narrow area. (That’s what your degree means, by the way–a degree from a trade school assures your employer that you can do your job okay but doesn’t tell him anything about ability to grow and learn.)
If I’m going to teach people who are just pretending to learn (and when I catch a bunch of plagiarists, that’s exactly how I feel), I’m mightily tempted to put in less effort myself, and just pretend to teach. Your plagiarism demoralizes the entire institution of higher learning, once everyone catches on to the game you’re playing, and eventually the degree, that’s so valuable to you that you’re willing to cheat to earn it, is a worthless piece of paper.
That’s why I take this seriously, and why I always try to follow through on seeing that plagiarists are dealt with severely. And when I have a plagiarist in my office weeping pitiful tears (“Oh, I swear, Professor, I never did this before and I’ll never do it again. Please, please, please…”) I’ll try to remember that if I let this cheater off, he’ll just be smirking (as you do), “Man, I’m good–I pulled it off again! Yessssss!” as soon as he leaves my office, and sending other students the message that working,learning, researching (my entire professional life, in other words) is a colossal waste of time. I’d rather he spread the word that defrauding the university is way too costly a risk.
Well said, pseuditron. The only thing I’d add is that it sounds like pure’s biggest victim is himself. If you don’t see the value in learning things for their own sake, regardless of whether they are “useful,” you’ve missed not only the point of a college education but most of its pleasures as well.
The purpose of writing about Hamlet is to make you give a crap – to force you to engage the text and come to terms with it, to think about what it means and what it says to you, to understand why other people care so passionately about this play, even if you didn’t like it or relate to it when you first read it. (You may still not like the play when you finish writing about it, but you’ll almost certainly have learned to respect it.) The process is what matters, not the product.
When I call in that plumber who advertised his journeyman or master credentials in the yellow pages, I expect him to know his craft. That’s what the certification is for. When the water from the busted pipes is gushing into my home, I don’t want him standing there saying, “I didn’t have to actually learn what to do. I can go get some reference books and look it up. Or maybe I’ll call somebody else and ask for outside help.”
And that auto mechanic? When carbuerators began getting replaced by fuel injectors, I hope she updated her knowledge of the field. When cars started getting microprocessors embedded in their innards, her diagnostic and repair techniques had better have changed as well.
One reason that school requires you to show that you can memorize, that you can read and understand new things and learn from them, is because in the real world people do have to memorize, to read, to learn new things throughout their lives.
Just because you don’t love learning for its own sake does not mean you should have gone off to a trade school. Trade schools are great for people who already know the trade they want to pursue. But try to understand that, if you stay in a non-specialized academic setting, what your school will be trying to do is to provide you with the tools and flexibility to learn the specialized skills in whatever career you do choose and, yes, to, certify that you have that ability to learn.
Cheating in a class because you don’t think the topic of that class is directly useful to your future career is cheating on that certiication that you are a person that can learn what they need to, when they need to. And I don’t mean to imply, pure, that you are incapable of such learning. I don’t know you well enough to make that judgement. But the behavior you have tried to excuse says to me that I have no reason to trust the academic certificates that say you have that ability, and, I’m sorry to say, that I have no reason to trust your word or your expertise when you make any kind of professional representation. Other people with whom you have developed a long-term professional relationship may have good reason to believe in you now, but then it’s usually true that the importance of ones’ academic degrees diminishes over time in comparison to one’s post-acdemic record.
Look at it from an employer’s pont of view. Given a choice between two newly graduated workers with similar academic transcripts, would you hire the one who admitted to having cheated to get those grades?
Well, that may well have been the point some time ago, but I’m willing to bet that for the majority of people it’s not really the point. The point is to get a degree so that I can get a good paying job. A degree that is by and large necessary in today’s society.
- Hamlet doesn’t say anything to me. I read it, it was ok, but nothing special. Hundreds if not thousands of stories written as well, if not better.
- I don’t respect it any more or less than anything written by any author. I have respect for anyone that can put their thoughts and ideas on paper.
- People care passionately about all sorts of things that I don’t. There are people that care about dog grooming, knitting, cooking, decorating, woodworking, and other less savory things. I will never understand why they really care about any of that stuff. Does it really matter? No. Just because institutes of higher learning have always taught the importance of Hamlet doesn’t mean that it really is important.
- Perhaps you do not realize it, but every time I get passed over for a job, for no other reason than not having a degree, it drives yet another nail in the coffin of my contempt for “higher learning”.
Mayhap you’ve never applied for a job recently, but usually, the first screening checks for a degree, then looks at the qualifications, or experience. So by not having a degree, even though I have over 12 years experience, means that I have a difficult time even making it past that first line of interviewers. It is highly insulting to someone of my level of competence to be told that a 5 year graduate with a degree in Comp Sci is any better at my job than I am. Hell I don’t even want to count the number of times I’ve helped one of my co-workers with papers that they’ve written, programs, or database construction. Yet they have a degree, and I do not.
What, because I do not hold a degree, I cannot appreciate literature? I’ve read Dante’s Inferno (thought it sucked myself), * Don Quixote*, Atlas Shrugged and others. Just because I didn’t choose to do it at the demand of a professor does not mean that I am either unwilling or unable to. To say that someone that does not hold a degree is unable to problem solve, or have creative or interpretive ideas is the height of arrogance.
So, to put this on something resembling OT, while I do not have a degree, if I ever have the time/patience to pursue mine, I most certainly will not waste effort on a Freshman Lit paper just so a Professor can get his jollies feeling superior with his interpretation of it. I most certainly would put the least amount of effort I could into those types of classes. Why? Because I am highly doubtful that there is anything that I can be taught in those classes that is pertinent to my day to day job. And since I’ve been doing it for a long time now, I have a pretty good idea of what is going to come up.
*on Preview
ChordedZither-
You make a very good point. And in some ways you’re correct. If you’re hiring a Network Administrator, you want someone that has an MCSE. Oh, but wait. Those of us that work in the field know that those are about worthless, anyone can get one with a weekend, and some memorization.
The problem as I see it is the very wide gap between the types of jobs you can get with a degree, and those you can get without a degree.
Let me give you an example. I’m a government contractor. I specialize in War game simulators, and analyzing data and processes that are used in those war games. I’ve been doing particular type of work for about 5 years now. In September of this year, I wrote up a nice white paper outlining improvements to the current game architecture to provide more realism, and a higher quality of training. Response? Nothing…zip…nada. Yet last week, I received an e-mail with a list of “enhancements” that our command was recommending. And low and behold, there are 3 on the list that are almost directly from the paper I wrote. But even as the “expert” in M&S (modeling and simulation), I am not in charge of any of those projects. Why? Because I am not a retired officer, with a degree. It doesn’t matter at all that I have the knowledge, I don’t have a bunch of letters after my name. I can almost assure you that if they had not desperately needed someone of my skills in this position, and hadn’t been given my name repeatedly while looking for someone to fill it, I would not have this job, strictly due to a lack of a degree.
So it’s fine to say “When hiring someone with a degree, an employer is ensuring a certain level of professional status”. But in reality, all it means is that they paid money, and managed to get through. It has absolutely no bearing on their skills, or qualifications*.
*exception to this is those schools that truly stand head and shoulders above the rest. Harvard, John Hopkins, MIT. Places like that.
pseudotriton-
BRAVO!
Wonderful post! May I have permision to re-print that? I would love to give my students a copy of that at the begining of every class.
Thanks,
MM
Though I don’t condone cheating, I do agree with some of the points raised by pure.
College education was initially designed to give people a breadth of knowledge about the world, and make them better prepared both socially and professionally. I don’t see this as the case anymore. It’s rare that I’ve ever been to a party, whether attended by those with degrees or people with high school diplomas, where any type of literature was discussed. The times have changed, and schools need to change with them.
For example, I’m a network engineer with 12 years, now almost 13, of experience. I’ve got an MCSE, a CCNA, A+ and Novell certifications. I’ll soon have my CISSP. BUT, I’m finishing my degree, because I’ll never go beyond a senior engineer position without one. So I’m getting a dgree in information technology.
I’ve got about half of it finished. In order to get my degree, which requires 120 hours of coursework, I’ve got to take 40 hours of degree specific classes, and 80 hours of “other” classes, including but not limited to:
Written communication (6 credits)>>>
Oral communication (3 credits)>>>
Quantitative reasoning (3 credits)>>>
Information technology (3 credits)>>>
Literature (3 credits)>>>
Fine arts (3 credits)>>>
Natural science (7 credits)>>> (One lab course, plus one regular course)
8 credits of a lab science sequence.
Western civilization (3 credits)>>>
U.S. history (3 credits)>>>
Social and behavioral science (3 credits)>>>
Global understanding (3 credits)>>>
Synthesis (3 credits)>>>
The remainder is equally divided between Math and IT classes. So, essentially, for me to get a degree in IT, I have to spend two years studying things that have no relation to my job.
Some of it is useful. Written and oral communication for instance, should be a heavier requirement, IMHO.
However, please explain to me how Psych 100, Religion, or Biology will help me be a better network engineer. Describe the use of Astronomy in Network Engineering.
It’s not there. I’d rather take every single IT course in the IT cirriculum (180 hours) to get a degree than take a single course in Global Understanding or Literature.
Not because I’m lazy, but because I chose a long time ago to educate myself. I read most of the “classics” before we ever had to read them in school. I bought the works of Shakespeare when I was a teen and still have them, and still re-read them form time to time. I signed up for an individual Geology course because I found it interesting. I need no one to direct my learning, because I have spent my life directing it myself.
I think that the easiest way to curtail cheating in a university enviornment is to make degree requirements more major-centric, and stop requiring students to take classes that they KNOW will be useless in their professional life.
My thinking (and hope) is that when a student sees a schedule in front of them that is useful for thier career path, they would be more interested in completeing it.
Before this descends into GD or the Pit, I’d like to share an old joke that a friend of mine was fond of telling.
A frustrated student, planning on entering a career in medicine, is furious at being forced to take a year of physics for a career that will never require him to calculate the angular momentum of a checker on a record player or how fast a block will descend from a frictionless Atwood machine.
He confronts his physics prof and kvetches about how useless this class is for an aspiring doctor such as himself. The professor calmly retorts that his physics class is actually quite relevant–making would-be doctors take it saves thousands of lives.
“How can that be?” the student retorst incredulously. “How can a year of stupid physics save a patient’s life?”
Responds the professor: “It keeps the idiots out of med school.”
That is the point of college. You’ll never need to know the plot of Hamlet or the family structure of the Yamatoma (sp?) Indians to be a successful widget salesman.
But the point of college is not to brand in your memory facts for the rest of your life. A great professor of mine who taught early Christian history explained that he had no delusions that any of us would remember Josephus’ descriptions of the distinctions between the Sadducees and Pharisees 20 years from now. What he hoped would that we would develop skills in writing and analysis that would serve us for the rest of our lives.
Yes, there are some people without college degrees more skilled at their jobs than others in the same field with a degree. But a college degree does strongly corelate with perserverance, analytical ability, and future success at the job, more strongly than just about anything else.
I just wanted to share a funny story, but now you guys have gotten all serious. (But I’m gonna tell you anyway.)
When my assistant was in design school, his professor warned them never to put anything in their portfolio that they didn’t themselves have a hand in creating. He told them this because he was interviewing prospective hires one day and one of them had placed one of the professor’s designs in his portfolio. The professor didn’t get mad, but asked a few questions about the piece and then said “I like what I see here, I want to you to interview with a few friends of mine”. The prof.'s friend would say “You really have something here, I want you to meet with this person.”
Apparently, the prof. and his friends sent him all over the city for possible jobs, just for the chance to ask him questions about ‘his’ work.
I’d say you’re absolutely right. It is wrong to assume someone cannot problem solve, etc, because they do not have a degree.
However, if someone has a university degree in Computer Science you should be able to assume they can do all these things and more. Further, if the have a B.A. in Computer Science you could assume they have some exposure to a foreign language, or a B.S. they can at least do rudimentary algebra.
It’s obvious you’d only be interested in an advanced degree to the level it applies to your job. There are many places that offer those types of degrees. A bachelor’s degree from a college or university, also should convey the you have a least a passing familiarity art, history, philosophy, mathematics, biology, and whatever else “those type of classes teach”.
Of course, it’s taken me so long to write this we’ve probably moved to pit by now.
BTW, ALL argument by analogy is inherently fallacious, IMHO.
(I had to say that, it’s my mantra.)
Hmm, just going to address a few of Atrael’s comments:
Actually, I agree with you that employers place far too much value on degrees. My point is precisely that a university is not a trade school, and both employers and students are doing the institution a disservice if they regard it as one. I would be delighted if there were more employment opportunities out there for people without college degrees; it would leave more room in the classrooms for people who want to be there.
(By the way, I’m quite familiar with the process of applying for a job, having done it twice in the last three weeks – we ivory tower types have to eat too, ya know.)
I haven’t said anything of the sort. I do believe that studying literature – sharing ideas with other students, arguing with the prof, reflecting on and writing about what you’ve read – teaches people to read in a different way than they read for pleasure, and that this process is inherently valuable. (Among other things, it teaches people to form and express more sophisticated opinions than “It sucked.”)
OK, so you’ve never actually attended “those types of classes,” but you’re sure there’s nothing valuable to be learned from them? And you assume the professors would be people who want to “get [their] jollies feeling superior” rather than people who genuinely love their subject and want to share it with their students? You seem have a very narrow view of what goes on in a college classroom. (Not that there aren’t ego-tripping profs out there, but the good ones far outnumber them.) If you ever do decide to get the degree and go into it with an open mind, you may be surprised at how much you end up enjoying and caring about some of the required courses. (Of course, if you go in with your current attitude, you’ll probably have exactly the opposite experience – you generally get as much out of a class as you put into it.)
Nice post Fretful Porpentine.
Rock On!
Here’s an example slightly better than Atrael’s.
Through no fault of my own - my advisor didn’t give me any one of six vital pieces of information - I was left with an incomplete degree in 1996, one unit short of graduating as a Bachelor of Science. I’ve just taken a course to complete that degree, in History and Philosophy of Science.
How am I better educated now than I was six years ago? I already had all the courses in Computer Science, Mathematics and Psychology completed - I just needed this course to push me over an arbitrary limit.
So the answer is, I am no better educated now than I was then. I’m no better an employee than I was four months ago before I began this course. I just have a piece of paper that says I am.