I took one of those stupid internet quizzes the other day. This one said they could guess my education level. I knew that was bullshit but I had some time on my hands so I took it. I think it was 60 questions and most of them referenced stuff I had learned in high school. Some of it I learned in college. I can’t remember my score (I might have missed 5 or 6 questions) but it told me without a doubt that I had Ph D. BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
Let’s look at my educational background. I graduated from high school in 1964. Yep! I’m that old. I went to college and I wasn’t ready for it. I flunked out by majoring in bridge. Since we were poor, I didn’t get a second chance. My mother told me to get a job since I was now gonna have to start paying room and board. Also, I had to pay for my own car insurance if I wanted to drive her’s or my father’s car. I also went 1-A draft status. I got a job and worked for nine months and then joined the Navy before I got drafted. I decided I’d rather drown than get shot.
I studied electronics in the Navy which I figgered would do me well after I got out. I was right.
I went to college on the GI Bill and worked three jobs. Burned out the second semester of my junior year. Wound up getting a job with IBM and the rest is history. I did go back to junior college and got an Associate Degree in Management and Supervisory Development to use up the rest of my GI Bill. Compared to Engineering it was a piece of cake. Got all A’s except for a B in Econ 101. Anyhoo, far from a PH. D.
I was talking to my cleaning lady and her kid just started school last week. In early August? She gets out in mid June. Back in the 60’s we started the week before Labor Day for three days and got out two days after Memorial Day and apparently we got a better education that they do now since a high school degree allowed me to pass a quiz that said I was a PH. D.
No wonder there are people dumb enough to vote for Crooked Cankles. Our schools have become socialist indoctrination centers that have trained three generations of SJWs. That explains Prez Hussein getting elected twice.
We’re doomed!
Took one last week, 50 questions on general knowledge with the title “93% of Americans who take this test cannot pass it.”
Missed 3 questions (1 because I clicked on the wrong damned box). I will admit to having answered 3 or 4 as “eliminate the most ridiculous choices” guesses.
Results came back as “You are more informed and educated than 99% of Americans.”
HFS! If that’s true, we’re in a mess of trouble. Don’t remember more than a few of the questions, but here are some I recall:
The President who brought the US into WWII was (and the choices were FDR, HST, JFK, WW).
The earth’s magnetic field is created by (and the choices were solar bombardment; oceanic tides; radioactive material breakdown; inner core spin).
The earth and other planets revolve around the sun because of (acceleration, inertia, gravity, rotation).
The US federal government is divided into three branches of equal importance: (legislative, executive, management; executive, judicial, legislative; judicial, military, executive; economic, legislative, judicial).
A nuclear power plant converts (chemical energy to mechanical energy; heat energy to electricity; photovoltaic energy to electrical current; radioactivity to horsepower).
At the present time there are (109; 435; 190; 57) free-standing nations in the world.
One of the ones I missed had to do with the most abundant materials in the earth’s crust. Each answer contained 4 items which included such things as iron, bauxite, silicon, oxygen, hydrogen, copper, sulfur, and so on. Don’t remember why I missed it. Think it was because I excluded gases.
Anyway, the bot informed me that there’s a job waiting for me at NASA or a teaching position at M.I.T.
Oh, and another one was “The fastest growing religion on earth today is (Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Christianity).
By the way — I graduated from high school in ’58 and did 2 years of college, finally realizing that I wasn’t learning a damned thing. My mother gave me 30 days to get a job or get out when I packed it in.
Joined the USN, went to ET”A” school, did 24 years, and THEN finished my MA so I could teach. Musta been somethin in the water in the Midwest back then.
If you paid attention in high school and got at least a bachelor’s degree in college before 1980 your level of general knowledge is easily the equivalent of that of a PhD today.
Compare the first edition of Trivial Pursuit to modern editions, which are dumbed down and polluted with pop culture references, and you’ll see what I mean.
Without knowledge and acquired wisdom, intelligence is an unrealized and wasted asset.
I’ve never lost at Trivial Pursuit, but the last time I played was 20 years ago. I prolly wouldn’t come close to winning now.
Why am I flashing back to the IQ test in the movie “Idiocracy”?
I love that movie. But sadly, I firmly believe that it’s an accurate depiction of the future.
PhD = Post-Humanoid Dude.
Cheers
Good writing. And you are right about the quality of education in the 1960s compared to the 1980s and later. Where a student got a ‘C’ in 1965, the same student would get an ‘A’ today. Teachers and the education system all suck.
I took the same test on line that you did a few weeks ago. I’m a PhD as well.
It’s the Weber genes we share from your grandmother and my grandmother.
PhD really means “Piled higher and Deeper”
Got my PhD the hard way….Post Hole Digger
Granddaughter did 2 degrees in 4 years. Computer Science and Geology. Did computer to make sure she got a job, geology for the love of it, graduated in May, got a computer job paying nearly $100k. Oh, by the way Denny my high school started after Labor Day and ended just before Memorial Day. To escape the coal mines I went straight to college and got an engineering degree.
Another one here who went to school on the GI Bill. Several years at night while puttin’ in my 40 hours at work every week. Other than an Anatomy class with hands on a dead body, not sure I learned much, other than how to play the instructors. One class had a hippie teacher who came from UC Bezerkley who assigned me a report on one of John Kenneth Galbraith’s books. It looked too long to read and I kept puttin’ it off ’til a week before the assignment was due. Sat down and looked through the glossary, pulled out 6-8 word/terms and went to the appropriate pages and read ’em. Re-worded a few paragraphs, added a couple of pages of my own extraneous bullshit, and closed with the necessary citations of chapter, page, etc. and scored a B+. Even in the Seventies it seemed easy.
If find it interesting that anyone educated in the Public School System (after 1980) appear to lack in just about ever one of the following:
Responsibility, Respect and good old fashion common sense.
As a parents we seemed to spend more time de-programming our kids after their daily exposure to the over education, under achievers that where suppose to educate them.
An actual quote from my daughter’s history teacher during the 2000 election – “If your parents are stupid enough to vote for Bush – they should not be allowed to vote”. My enterprising daughter recorded that comment during class.
We need the get the education system out of the hands of the liberals now!
Parents are too busy trying to make a living in the bad economy to pay attention to what is being “taught” to their children in our gummint run socialist indoctrination centers. My sister and her husband paid attention to what was being crammed down my nephew’s throat. They corrected the bullshit. My nephew got in trouble with his teachers by calling them on their bullshit. He’s now career military.
Dudley1 here…Yet another who had to climb the ladder of success the old fashioned way by working, experiencing real life & adding formal education on my own time & expense .I like the description of what a PHD stands for , how about an MBA! …Might Be Able?
Reflecting today & thinking back I realize very few of today`s youth would ever consider making the choices we all made back then. Somehow we understood it was our responsibility to become successful, society dictated this & our ever watchful parents made sure we did so.This is probably one of the more important accomplishments of the greatest generation, one which receive`s scant recognition.
Today`s youth lacks that self responsibility & instead believes they are entitled to what we worked & sacrificed for to gain…… just “because”,well just because I suppose is all the justification they need!
Unfortunately the world is fast gaining on America & many nations mostly hostile are about to pass us economically, educationally & militarily meaning they soon will surpass America with influence & power in the world arena.
Today`s youth by any name or description is the generation which history will record as the one which presided over the decline & fall of America.Probably not their entire fault but they will be the ones in charge as it happens, but clueless to the very end as to how or why.
Denny, we all have said”We Are Doomed “. Not really for we won`t be here, but our children & their children will be.Not a future we envisioned for them.