Education vs Experience

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#off topic forum #experience education
  • Education is NOT book smarts! It is stuff that is LEARNED! And experience is NOT street smarts in the colloquial sense, but time in which the education has been applied and refined.

    Education often DOESN'T cost money, though it does cost time.
    Experience MIGHT cost money!

    If ONLY that were true! It usually ISN'T!

    Highschool quarterback, huh? IF ONLY!

    Education with no experience is next to WORTHLESS! THAT is why colleges now may stress the idea of real world experience, faculty in the industry, etc.... It is ALSO why doctors MUST intern! A lot of experience WILL get you the education.

    Steve
  • You could easily say that experience is education.

    There is school education and there is the path of educating your self through experience.

    You can't get loads of experience without being educated somewhere down the line.

    Like if you want to learn SEO or any area of IM you are going to have to educate yourself in it weather it be reading books of forums or whatever method you choose.
  • whoops.... double post, maybe I should have got a better education.
  • Education gives you the background for hands on experience -- and also trains you to think in ways that you can improve the experience if the methodology currently used is not up to snuff.

    Can you substitute one for the other? Only to an extent. That's why many high level appointments call for both education and experience.
  • I've always found that when hiring new grads the education is nice - shows they can complete it and that they've got some understanding of how things work. But ultimately, when they start, the book theory they've learned will fly out the window for the most part. Then they get hit with how things are really done (i.e. contra deals, delinquent account, etc).
    • [1] reply
    • That is exactly my point. Spend 4+ years at a college. Get a job and that "book theory" is out the window. Then they get hit with how things are really done, which is EXPERIENCE.
  • Education vs experience? Assuming that by 'education' it's implied, theoretical knowledge (i.e. you read it in a book) and by 'experience' it's implied practical experience (i.e. you actually did some work in the field/industry)...

    I think that theoretical knowledge is great in preparing you for when you actually work, but it can't replace practical experience. Some knowledge is gained better through practical experience than simply reading up on it. You may find that there is a difference in how things are described in books and how things actually work in real life.

    You can read up on something all you want, but if you want to see whether what you learnt actually works...how things actually work... then at some point you're actually going to have to do it. In other words, theoretical knowledge on it's own may not be enough.

    However, to try an learn everything through practical experience isn't practical. Some knowledge may be easier, cheaper and quicker to gain by reading up on it than to gain that knowledge through practical experience.

    So, instead of seeing theoretical knowledge as being better or less than practical experience, rather see both as beneficial. Whether more emphasis is placed on theoretical knowledge or practical experience will depend on the task or job. For example, if you're looking for a book keeper, just theoretical knowledge may be fine, however, if you're looking for a CEO, you'd want them to have loads of experience.

    ... I have this strange feeling I went off on a tangent here... like what i wrote doesn't actually make sense... what was the question again?

    Anyway, I think both theoretical knowledge and practical experience have value and it will depend on the situation to determine which one deserves more emphasis.
  • Hey,

    I am just wondering, I could know as to in what respect you are asking.

    However, initially instead of comparing I would say that both has their own importance. Education refers to learning while experience to work and so as we all know that even to work being uneducated and gaining experience, it is required to learn about that work and its ways so ultimately education gains importance here
    But again if I ignore the previous lines that I said in preference to education then my personal opinion will neither go for experience nor for education as with my personal experience I know that what mater is knowledge no matter how you have gained it and the next thing that matters is its implementation at the right time, else even it becomes useless.
  • I don't see any need to establish a pecking order. The question is like asking which is more important, a truck or a car. Depends on what you want to do. In some situations education will be more important, in other situations, experience will be.

    It's better to consider each of them as vital components of competence.
  • If you wish to be a carpenter, spending 3-4 years in college is completely pointless. If you wish to be a doctor, College is a necessity. It really depends on your chosen field.

    -Chris
  • Experience every time! I've seen so many educated morons who have no common sense whatsoever and can't even perform the most basic of tasks, and this is simply because they lack experience in whatever it is they're trying to do.
    • [1] reply
    • Every time?

      For some things you can't get experience until you have the education. Doctor, dentist, lawyer, etc.
  • I do think education is very important,It is the smart guide in our life. and it will guide how to do one thing in general.But the experience is important too.This is aimprovement for our ability to work and live in life well.
  • There is NO chicken and egg here! FIRST came experience! The idea of 2*4=8 or 2^3=8 is derived from experience. And education comes first from the community and parents. THEN it often comes from some primary school which is apparently offered generally free in most countries. THEN you speak of like college I'm sure. The first book was written from a persons thoughts. Schools predate paper, etc...

    You can often think of an education as exposure to agreed on ideas from experience broken down to some summarized basis. Think about it! Whether chemistry, physics, biology, carpentry, math, language, etc... it ALL boils down to the SAME thing! HECK, some "education" today is created by some other groups failure to adhere to it. People here have spoken of simple changes in pronounciation and spelling between american and british english! HEY GUYS, we are TAUGHT that way! And it is WRONG in the other country! People that realize that merely ACCEPT both as correct. What of cajun? Ebonics? New building methods, that may BREAK old established cast in iron rules?

    Do you know how the FIRST recorded doctors learned about the human body? One robbed graves, and put materials in them to preserve things, and exposed things. His "work" at least WAS at some major museum in france. It was FORBIDDEN to do such things to the body. The CHURCH said it was a SIN. So they had to rob graves. One of the proven cases where the church DID stop sciences advancement.

    But after all, there was NOBODY to educate the first physician! Even TODAY people strive to determine the smallest and largest items. BIG things, and little, that a human being CAN'T live without were discovered in like the last 60 years. Only about 81 years ago someone discovered a NEW vitamin. I guess they didn't find out about it in the US until a few decades ago. And many multivitamins don't have it, even today.

    It is hard to imagine TODAY, but you know "bones mccoy"? It was a throw back to SAW bones! Doctors used to carry SAWS that they used if extremities were damaged too much, or appeared to have bad infections. IMAGINE, someone had an EXPERIENCE, decided to try it on a buman. It was a published success, and TODAY a person with a RAGING infection that is ALREADY infecting the torso(effectively a DEATH SENTENCE in the revolutionary war), can be fixed by taking a few pills. So when you are EDUCATED about that fact, remember that it came because some stupid clerk left a petrie dish exposed, and someone realized that the mold seemed to kill off the bacteria he was looking at.

    Steve
    • [1] reply
    • Banned
      I think the University of "hard knocks" can be a good education.
  • I think it depends solely on your career tract. Do you know how many friends I've made in the hospitality industry that worked their way up the "corporate" ladder and into very high paying positions?

    Same goes for sales. I have quite a few friends that make a very good living for themselves and their industries have absolutely nothing to do with housing and automobiles. They didn't go to school and one of them scored a big time job because of his EXPERIENCE.

    I don't have a college degree, but have several college credits in business, theatre (oh-so-dramatic!), and language-arts. I am an SEO for an ecommerce company and I got this position because of my experience consulting in the SEO world. I am, however, not doing brain surgery every-day. I think a proper education might be needed for that.

    Finally, you can get an education without going to college. It's called your local library and I assure you its filled to the brim with reference materials that could keep you busy LEARNING for a lifetime.
    • [1] reply
    • OK, try going to a medical school and ONLY work with the books. HECK, stick to the actual university, and stay there 100% of the time. Do you think you will ever be able to operate? Probably not. I guess you COULD take a few hundred years of class, and petition to assist a couple times, and have one specialty that is the ONLY thing you can do, but hundreds of years? A one trck pony? No track record? NO THANKS!

      Steve
  • Banned
    Just out of curiosity, Vettec5, do you have permission to sell all of those products?

    Heres How To Get Over 150 Marketing & Business Products

    [Edit]

    OK. My mistake. Seems like you do. : ) (Providing you're selling them 1 time.)
  • i personally think that Education and Experiences are two relative words, because in education, you are learning the theory of some stuffs and Experience makes you apply the theory you have learned in school.. the product of the two important word, education and Experience is Learning..

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