10:17 p.m. | 2005-01-25 Straight To The Street. I went walking today with NewColleague (NC). She�s not new anymore but that�s the moniker I previously slung recklessly about her neck. She�s the only person, amongst the dozen or so of us, that analyzes the same stuff I do. Topically speaking. We don�t actually duplicate our efforts. Anyway, we were talking about some things and the conversation came around to my background. Work and education and all that stuff. Then, this happened. (NC:) So, did you go from straight from high school to college? Or, to work? (CI:) Actually, I went straight from high school to the street. (NC:) Really? So you were a drug addict? (CI:) Is it that obvious? We laughed, of course. However, I suppose it could�ve gone that way. I explained that MyDad sold the house and moved to a foreign country as soon as I graduated and told me I couldn�t go with him. Because I'd been living with him, I ended up on my own. Obviously, I started working in order to eat and whatnot. I started college when I was 20 and better situated. (I was 17 when he left which resulted in a lot of havoc since I was still a minor.) But really, it was pertinent to our conversation because we were talking about educational paths. NC went straight from high school to college to law school. Her first job was post law school. I graduated from law school when I was 34. I had been working for 17 years at that point. And, I was talking about the benefits of my experience. Since I worked the whole time I went to school, and school was accomplished in a parttime fashion, I was able to align my work and educational goals. I took the knowledge I gained from the workplace and changed my education along the way to meet the needs of a reasonable career path. In other words, I explained to her that I purposely chose to pursue a business administration degree and chose a management major because I knew that no matter where I worked, the business degree would be useful and considering what I wanted to achieve, the management major was necessary. Because, unfortunately, very few workplaces have a straight on technical path. At some point, if you want to advance, you have to pursue the management path. I really, truly hope that concept changes in the future because technical people often don�t have the necessary people skills to manage yet they have the intellect and drive to continue to advance. In fact, NC was a good case study in that sense. When she went to college, she considered a business administration degree to be another form of a liberal arts degree. It�s a little bit of every thing. And, she thought it was for people who didn�t have a goal. But, she had never been in the workplace. She told me today that she really wished that she�d had known that she�d be in the business and managerial position that she�s in now because that�d really be useful information NOW. See, that�s one of the positive spins I put on my 14-year educational pursuit. Because I was working throughout it all, I was able to shape my education to fit my work path. Plus, since I had to fund it and was normally working in whatever field I was studying, I found my classes to be particularly pertinent and paid very close attention. Any class I had that wasn�t work related, such as art history, I considered fun. Because it wasn�t work related. I ferret out those positive spins because there are also a lot of disadvantages to having such a protracted educational experience. (And, funding it too.) I could be farther along career wise if I�d been able to complete my education straight away. However, I�m pretty sure I would�ve studied something that would've had nothing to do with whatever job I would�ve ended up with. I might also be married. However, I don�t dwell � or even think about the �what ifs� � because I�m quite satisfied with how it turned out. It�s not the best nor is it the worst. It just is. And, education is not always the key. I have two sisters who earn just as much or more than I do and they�ve never set foot on a college campus. I have another sister who got the whole parental college trip straight from high school and she makes less than the rest of us. However, a couple of sisters are parents. And personally, I think that's the most awesome thing a person can do. Certainly, the most important job and educational thing you can ever do. What�s important is to do what you are compelled to do. Make it work for you. your thoughts? seed flower