There has been some controversy in the world regarding what makes a person into an educated individual. While some people believe that degrees and a certain type of diction dictate one’s educational level, other people swear by the “school of hard knocks,” and all of the lessons that a person can learn from actually living a life, making mistakes and then figuring out what they did wrongly to bring about such a set of results. Still other people believe that test scores are the true marks of education in a person’s life. Really, there is no objective standard against which one can measure the individual educational success a person achieves.
You can be considered educated if you can find and or accomplish whatever you set out to do. Whether that means being able to find a solid investment, being able to secure good paying employment, or find the best place to party on the weekends, if you can make it happen through your own skills, you should be universally regarded as having at least a reasonably good amount of education. So many of life’s most important lessons are not learned in school, you know. But on the other hand, there is also something to be said for a bit of more formal schooling, especially when it comes to being professionally trained.
After all, you wouldn’t want your dentist (or especially your surgeon) to have been trained in the school of hard knocks. That does tend to blur the line between a physician and a butcher. When your dentist has a body count, that’s the time to escape at the highest speed the laughing gas will allow you to move at. So when it comes to your own education, you are going to have to determine your own individual equilibrium. On the one hand, too much schooling will make you dry and uncreative. But on the other, mere folk wisdom isn’t enough for most professional functions.