Both. School was very good for learning the fundamentals of a subject. I could usually take it from there. University didn’t get interesting until the Junior year when I had the prereqs to study subjects that I was acually interested in. I never used my degree really, but the education diciplined me and the subjects I was forced to take broadened my horizons in areas I probably would never have approached on my own. I was a lit major with a minor in history, but I got interested in computers and biology along the way. I got the degree which opened academic doors much later when I needed them opened. I came out a surfer, diver, and sailor with an interest in history, art history and litereature. I was just damn lucky I wasn’t saddled with a wife and children at the time. I took my degree and went to Key West to dive for treasure for a guy named Mel Fisher.
I think actually going to a formal school to learn to sail was one of the best things I could have done. Learning as a deck hand can be grueling and you will take a lot of abuse if the other guys don’t think you are pulling your weight. It’s a lot faster, too. It’s a helluva lot faster and more effecient to get real classroom time to study theory on a technical subject before you actually are exposed to field work. And you’ll take less abuse along the way.
If I needed to know about a technical subject of which I was not familiar in the days before the net, I would go to the library and get middle school-level or even grade-school books on the subject. These are very good for learning the very basics of any subject and its related terminology. Within a few days or a week, I could understand most of the adult stuff. I learned AC vs DC electricity and how to wire a sailboat this way, learned about how to build a leech line and septic system that wouldn’t poison me or my neighbors. I initially learned celestial navagation and how to use a sextant this way.
Alternatively, one day when I was about 19 I decided I wanted to be a carpenter in order to escape the drudgery of my family’s restaurant business and fish store, so I simply went out and bought a hammer and holster, tape measure and square, hopped in my pick up and went to the nearest construction site. They were putting up a new four-story apartment house. They were almost done, installing the exterior doors, down to the finish work. There was about twenty-five on each floor. So I went up to the contractor, told him I was a carpenter, he asked me if I could hang doors and I said yes. He pointed up to the second floor and told me that another carpenter and I were to finish hanging the doors on that floor. No problem, I said. I marched up there and proceeded to totally fuck the first door up so bad there were guys coming by just to see it. That contractor let me work on that same door the whole day until quitting time. Eight hours on one door and it still didn’t get hung right. I was totally embarrassed when he paid me off in full and said that I should come back when I had learned something. He was incredibly calm about the whole thing. I basically screwed this guy out of a day’s wage and he didn’t flinch. I didn’t deserve the money the man gave me, but I needed it, and I took it, but I left with my ears down and my tail between my legs. That was my first carpentry job.
I think I went through about five jobs in the first month before I knew enough to hold onto one. It was tough. You had to be thick skinned. Men on crews do not hold back when they think you’re getting over where they can’t. Men who work with their backs don’t go to the boss and complain, or complain behind one’s back, they take their anger to the source where it belongs and deal with the problem directly. But I eventually became a good framer, dry waller, poured and reinforced lentels (lintels?) and even helped helped with some fine cabinet work with expensive woods in the interior of a church. And then I went back to school.
I’ve had formal training in just about every job I’ve had since. Except the one I’m doing now. I went to school to enter the merchant marines, went to school to become a paramedic, and went to school to become and nurse and later a medical research coordinator. All of it was worthwhile.
I’m a goat herd now with arborist duties. I haven’t been on a farm, or ranch, or worked in an orchard since I was in high school. I have a dog who knows the animals and my job better than I and the animals know when they need to be up, milked and where they should go and when. From home gardening and professional nursing I pretty much know when something’s unhealthy and a local or the internet will tell me what to do about it. I’m flying by the seat of my pants here, but I have great help in Sam the border collie. But I am also aware that inexperience during a crisis can spell disaster so I’m very careful and don’t let things go undone. But knowing enough to know where to get answers, good answers from reliable sources is key.
Composing members:
0
Composing members:
0
