High Cognitive Minds

I ran across this blog post yesterday, and it was pretty apropos my current trend of mind. There's an element of nastiness in it that I don't care for (the person the blogger is talking about, not the blogger), but I can understand the feelings, even if I wouldn't choose to express them in that way.

A college drop-out’s revenge

Speaking of a high school friend who was an extraordinary artist: "Paul failed to pursue art in college.  After struggling through general liberal arts classes for a few years, he dropped out of college to take jobs involving manual labor.  He has always been a diligent worker, but his jobs have never really challenged him.  When I spoke with Paul today, he indicated that he still has a passion to draw, but hasn’t pursued it. "

Paul recently told him about an encounter he had with an artist, a professional with a college degree. The man's boasting, and the attention he was getting, got on Paul's nerves so he challenged the man to to draw a hand. The whole thing was embarrassing for everyone, especially for the professional artist who, as it turned out, couldn't draw a hand.

Vieth (the blogger) said that he wondered if Paul wasn't more angry at himself for failing to develop his talent and pursue a career in art, than he was at the artist at the party.

"I’m fully aware that a college degree can open employment doors.   But a degree has almost nothing to do with competence or intelligence.  I am often shocked at the ignorance, incompetence and lack of curiosity of college graduates.   Many of them happily turned off the learning process the day they graduated.  Many of them never really ever turned on the learning process–they got through college by regurgitating factoids."

Like Vieth, I realize that a college degree doesn't necessarily indicate an educated ignoramus, like him, as the years roll by I'm less and less impressed when someone says that they know what they're talking about because they've been to college.