What is your education worth?

A friend of mine (on Facebook) just asked: "What's your education worth?!"

I just had to put my answer on my blog:

"That depends on how you define education. If you define it as the learning of course material, explicitly, then it is not worth much (and don't get me started on how little respect I have for that kind of 'education'). If you define your education as the learning that helps you enter or master what you are doing (be it work, or sports), then you can measure the worth of your education by the results it is producing. I think this is why Prof. Kranc once told me: 'Working is a part of your education.' So, as far as I am concerned, while Bill Gates was a dropout, I certainly think he taught himself enough to be considered educated in his line of work."

Yeah, I had to make the comment about Bill Gates, because, prior to me, another friend had commented that Bill Gates had gotten to be rich without a degree. Of course, I have little affection for the man, for his company has fraudulently put many companies out of business (DOJ vs. MS Anti Trust Suit), so I just referred to the man's being good at what he does. Of course, I also do acknowledge his charitable efforts.

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A friend of mine joked, when he saw my comment, that I was talking Sun Tzu, so I had to respond:

"Heh Heh! Hey, man, maybe I do think along the lines of "Art of War" when I tackle research problems. A few days ago, I was thinking how to get a material that will behave a certain way, and it turned out I would have to understand the chemistry of the material to proceed. "O well", I thought, "looks like I will have to get up close, and personal with the material, rather than be the observer who sees things from afar." Of course, I prefer to compare it to rock climbing, where if you want to conquer a vertical wall you have to pull yourself "up close, and personal," getting intimately close to the wall, bringing it too close for comfort into your personal space, and then push the wall under! Just as that act of conquering can give you a delirious vertigo, a successful project can give you an "engineer's high" (yeah, I coined that; look at the appendix to: Back in Training -- Butterfly Kicks and Cartwheels)."