What is your educational attainment level?

University of Hard Knocks is American as apple pie. Just can't bring myself to grips with all your fancy talk and deciphering......You are really sumpin'! Can you see me and others as you look down your nose?

 

I suppose I had no idea what you referring to, and you didn't make it clear in your post at all. Too bad if I offended you because that certainly was not my intention. Hell, I was going to trade a few phrases with you in German if you were a German-speaker.

As far as 'looking down my nose' goes, I only have a Bachelor of Science degree from the Univ. of Texas at Austin. My GPA, surprising to me at the time, was good enough for me to graduate with a simple "Honors" designation, but I never took another college class after that.

I had to get my ass moving after getting my education and make more money, and that turned out to be far better for me than loitering around pointlessly in some graduate school.... Oh, and if it makes any difference, I worked a full-time job every single stinking day that I went to college. Now, ya want to continue to play the game of "lowlier-than-thou"...?

 

You and I must be on the wrong thread then.

 

I had responded to your Post #22 in this thread in which you wrote, "I received my Doctorate at UHK. I bought my Birkenstocks and Cardigan Sweater at Saks."

I thought you were referring to the University of Hradec Králové in the Czech Republic (UHK), but evidently I was wrong. Forget it.

 

My "educational attainment level"?

Hmmm...Lemme See...

After receiving my 31st PhD. (and being a certified expert and fluent in 37 Languages including Classic Chinese (which entailed memorizing the entire Kangxi Dictionary)) 3 days before the date of my Kindergarten Graduation--I lost count.

 

Hate to mention it, Dr. Andy, but you are supposed to use parentheses within brackets. You know, [...(...)...]. Guess they didn't teach that at the skool where you got your thirty-one Ph.Ds. . Just a little weekend humor... what the hell, the whole country is in the neo-socialist toilet now, and nobody cares.

 

Also, someone who happens to be accomplished in one area is not necessarily accomplished in another. But having a degree from a reputable institution that is relevant to what you're talking about certainly does mean something. But when it comes to getting to the truth, consensus is usually where it's at. Consensus among people who demonstrably know what they're talking about and can back up what they're saying. Of course, even consensus can be wrong, but at that point they're more likely to be correct or at least closer to the truth.

 

I'd rather just respond that I have a computer networking certificate, an Associate of Arts and a Bachelor of Arts, all from different institutions and with some breaks between studies. It was all kind of a mess and I attended more years and schools than I needed to.

 

Yeah, this poll doesn't much account for these types of things either. Also something that I notice after having read this post of yours is that this poll implicitly is "what is your highest level of formal educational attainment."

Picking up an Associate degree is equal to 2 years and the Bachelor which generally includes the same credits used for the Associate is 4 years. Curious - did all or most all of your Associate hours transfer in completion of your Bachelor? Transfers seem to always cost credits.

The number of years has nothing to do with time, it's just a convention to account for hours of formal education. Each year being roughly equal to 30 semester hours or 45 quarter hours. The convention kinda falls apart after the Bachelor degree level since at the Master level it's about another 30 hours of classes and another year of thesis work. And a lot of PhDs are almost all independent study toward developing a successful dissertation. So, in many ways I suppose it could be argued that after 16 years the concept of "formal" is not applicable.

And it's not applicable for folks that somehow manage to complete multiple Bachelor degrees, but there are practically no folks in this category. I'm not sure - do dual majors receive two separate Bachelor Degrees?

 

Good question about the dual majors. I never investigated that, so I couldn't say.

Yeah, I got plenty of stuff to transfer, even from my one year of study at a community college for that networking certificate. Certainly my generals were all taken care of by the time I went for my Bachelor's, and that was a German major for which I was able to apply past German course credits (I was taking German for fun before going for that degree).

 

Yes I have more EXPERIENCE than those who went to college more than I, part sophomore year. That had proved VERY valuable throughout my work history.

 

About 16 years of education, almost done with a Bachelors degree in wildlife ecology. Plus 20 years in both Marine Corps and Army infantry, if that counts for anything. Education of a different type, lol.

 

All experience counts in life of course, this thread is just asking about formal credit hours attained. I just browsed through some online schedules at UT Austin and UH and they both list military science courses that seem to add up to about 30 semester hours, so 1 year of credit seems to be a minimum equivalent.

Congrats on doing 20 and going for a degree afterwards. Smart decision I think. Gives that retirement check a nice boost as well as shaking you into something new. Are you considering becoming a park ranger next by any chance? That is definitely a sweet job as far as I'm concerned. Fish and wildlife, etc....

I did 4 years active Army from 83-87 and got out under the VEAP program. Weird program. The service member had to contribute $2100 dollars to qualify for $27000 toward college payments after their service. I can't remember for sure but I think it was tax free which helped increase the value a bit. The payments were scaled back if I took less than the minimum of 12 hours a semester, but this wasn't a problem for me since I was full time all the time.

That program was transferable to one's spouse too I think. I remember getting on one of my bro's about him not making his $2100 contribution to the veap program as he was getting out. Dude, it's $27k free money for $2100! Susan can use it if you don't want to. It's like getting paid just to go to school! Rick didn't buy what I was selling. Told me about two years later that he should have listened to me. I gave a presentation about the program to some soldiers at Ft. Knox that I was somehow invited to do. I barely remember the events that led to that. Holy s, a roomful of disinterested dickheads like I've never encountered - except of course when I was in the audience for a mandatory Army class. Threw me off, didn't really prepare a strong enough presentation to capture their attention.

Several of my peers from serving in Pershing ended up in trucking and automotive work. My buddy Rick that I just mentioned owns about a dozen school buses that he leases out and a service center that he uses to maintain the buses and to do work for external clients.

Formal education ain't all that and a bag of chips by any stretch, but for me it worked out great. The best thing that I learned was that I was not nearly as smart as I thought I was and that humanity doesn't know nearly as much as I had thought we did.

Brilliant kid I grew up with skipped college completely and got a job making corrugated boxes. Stashed the cash and smoked pot everyday for over 20 years. He has a nice little house and new Escalade and has been living quite well on his savings for almost a decade - effectively retired at 50.

So many variables in life, if I'd known then what I know now seems to be a continual theme in my head from time to time.

***
Then as I've crossed the line into middle age comes the old man attitudes. Son, I've forgotten more than you'll ever know type thoughts. Meh... Not really me... What I am experiencing, disturbingly, is that I've often actually forgotten what I know.

For example, back in the 90s as I was finishing my degree I prepared a resume to try and get a job with a local sound company. I put everything I could on the thing and went to their building. It was a totally non-descript place that housed probably at least $750M of audio gear. I knocked on this grey door and waited to see if anyone would answer. I was surprised someone answered almost right away. Can I help you? Yes, I wanted to give you guys my resume in case you're looking for some help. Ok, he said and took my resume, told me I'd get a call if they were interested.

Now, at this point in my life I was on the cusp of being able to solve some pretty complex math in my head. And I had almost forgotten that I had even ever been in the Army from time to time, much less that I had a lot of experience with heavy equipment operations - but of course I had remembered to put it on the resume I'd prepared.

So, they hired me as it turns out and one of my first assignments was to drive a derelict truck they had that couldn't have been worth $20k with a $75k mixing board in it. Freaked me out. What? You want me to drive this? Yes, and be careful, that mixing board is worth $75k. How do you figure I'm qualified to drive this? Well, you gave us your resume - didn't you drive trucks in the Army? Ah, hmm, I sure did, I almost forgot about that. So, you can handle this then? Yeah, I suppose I can. So I went for it, not taking into account that I had no idea if the brakes on this piece of s truck even worked! That was a cool job for a very brief amount of time. I learned a pretty cool technique for coiling up audio cords, applicable to all types of stranded wire cords, which reduces stress on the cables and allows the natural curvature of cords to form into a perfect coil. Works for garden hoses too. No formal credit hours for any of it....

 

Sounds like you’ve had quite a life! Yeah, the military has given me all kinds of experiences I wouldn’t have had otherwise. And I’m totally taking advantage of the GI bill. Sorry your brother and the guys you gave the presentation too didn’t listen! It is definitely a good investment. I’m pretty sure it was mandatory when I was in. If it wasn’t, they made it SEEM like it was mandatory, lol. Probably because they knew we were a bunch of “disinterested dickheads”, lol. At any rate, I’m glad I did make that investment. Now I’m able to attend school full time, making enough money off of my pension and other investments where I don’t have to work and can give it my full attention.
And I agree, we think we know a lot, but the more education you get, the more you begin to realize how little you really know. The world becomes a much bigger and more interesting place.

 

I have 6.25 years of college or roughly 188 college credits.

BA degree in political science and history(Rockford college)

Then I took about 15 hours of banking and real estate course work in support of jobs I was working at.

In my 30s I went to nursing school.

I also CLEP tested out of 2 science courses, Microbiology and organic chemistry in preparation of continuing my nursing but never followed up on that.

 

Depends, did it work, are you beautiful?

 

Well I got two Bachelor's, two Master's and all this post graduate applied training because my area was not something you did a doctorate in as it was applied in the field not theoretical. That said my area mixed psychology and law. There are now two doctorate programs in the world for it, but the training I talk of in the area I talk of would be best done outside a university and at Quantico taught by the FBI. The FBI for what I was doing have world leading experts in forensic psychology, profiling, examination, surveillance, lie detection and hand writing analysis. There are also specialized units in Israel, Germany, Britain, France, etc., but I am not sure quite frankly how much is developed in the field as compared to controlled scenarios in ivory towers.

All I know is in my area which was/is sex crimes, we had a wide range of experts some with ph.d's some self learned detectives, some social workers, nurses, doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, some with simply military basic training...man it was wide ranging. All I know is I learned education is fluid. Its not always out of a book and an ivory tower and nothing substitutes for someone in the field who has learned from past exposure and mistakes.

I know guys that are total gut guys....they operate on their gut and intuition and just comes from years of exposure. I mean they taught me some stuff from books and lectures, but I learned a lot from watching older people in the field and what triggered them. I am at the point now you can put me in a room and certain people will trigger me and I am usually accurate as to their agenda but no one can realy catch sociopaths. They can get past the best of the best. That said I respect people regardless of their degrees. I respect everyone. Everyone can teach us new stuff. The key...anyone who is humble has something to teach. Anyone arrogant, I pass. Humble people are in my life, usually the best teachers. Y ou can't learn humility from books.

 

Interesting stuff. Did you ever run across any of Dr. Ronald M. Holmes books in your field?

 

I know he was a Coroner and Professor at University of Louisiana and did some profiling but personally I am not versed in his work.

Of course the one I read a lot from the US is/wAS Roy Hazelwood who is famous because he helped start the Behavioral Science Unit which studies and analyzes criminals. He is credited with profiling serial sexual predators including defining the six types of serial rapists but over the years profiling of course has evolved.

In Canada we have Dr. Clive Chamberlain among others.

 

University of Louisville, not Louisiana. I had several friends that studied criminal justice. At least two of them went on to become excellent police officers.

Since you specifically mention specializing in sex crimes it reminded me of a text book that Holmes co-authored with his son, Stephen. You might find it of interest. It is likely full of stuff you already know, but it might be a resource for you to recommend to any new guys that are entering your profession.

https://www.amazon.com/Sex-Crimes-Patterns-Stephen-Holmes-dp-1412952980/dp/1412952980/

 

Wouldn't a Bachleor's Degree add up to 15 years whereas a Master's takes 17?

 

If you mean beauty as in hair stylist, make up artist or whatnot, I would say of course it does.

 

The convention is 16 and 18 - it's not a measure of actual years. 30 semester hours = 1 year and this assumes 15 hours in the fall and the spring with the summer off. Quarter hours are credited 45 = 30 semester hours.

So then a B degree is about 120 semester hours and an M degree is about 180 semester hours.

I'm not really all that familiar with current PhD / Doctoral degree requirements.

Back in the 90's at my program there were pretty much no or minimal formal semester hours required to complete a Doctorate degree. There were instead a battery of "qualifiers", which were written tests that had to be orally defended. This was pretty intimidating for most if not all candidates. Then, candidates had to TA the Prof's classes, grade their tests and homework assignments and do pretty much all the work on whatever "research" project the Prof had funding for, or an even worse case on occasion was maybe that a candidate pursued their own dissertation without funding.

I posted previously in this thread that the concept of formal education kinda falls apart beyond 16 years.

 

I learned humility in college for the first substantial time in my life, in calc 101, at 24, after my four years at Ft. Sill failed to hardly teach me a drop of it. Fall of 88 and Spring of 89 taught me more humility than I've actually caught up with incorporating into my actual behavior. I've received several substantial further lessons in it over the years that I've also failed to optimally incorporate into my behavior and, uh, what is the phrase or word I'm looking for here - comportment towards others? disposition, maybe?

I've got an alternative motive in reviving this old thread. I reread this thread as I ran across it while looking for a reference to something completely different and in doing so I was reminded of your professional quals. As something a little different from the back and forth that goes on around here at PF, maybe you might be interested in taking a look at this case for me and letting me know your opinion of the validity of the charges against this guy, www.casemine.com/judgement/us/5914f157add7b0493497a8f3

At your convenience if this is of any nominal interest, I'd appreciate it.

 

I earned my MBA in a little over a year because I took course overloads, at one point 24 credits in a semester. I still marked 18.

I agree that skilled craftsmen get shortchanged. Their work is just as important and often more important than what the college graduates. Today they can often earn more money and get hired more easily. A college degree is not what it used be. I have great respect for what a skilled craftsman can do. I know I can’t do a lot of it.