Education is never wasted, being a student for life

I have an art degree.  My college was paid for by my family and I left school debt free but not everyone sees that anymore.  My grandparents were adamnant, I would get a college education.  So I got one.  I took art because in the end, it was something I understood and actually liked.  I don't use it as much as I could have, and I should have paid more attention to where I went when I got it.  Was it a waste of my time?

Here is the thing, I have an active mind.  I know that I reference what I learned those years frequently.  Did it give me a better future? I don't know but I do think it made me a more rounded individual.  I don't think it was a waste of my time, I do think I spent too much money on it.  My degree sits like expensive jewelry that is never taken out and worn, but I do look at it a lot.

Education can come from so many places and most professional artists that I have known, never stopped educating themselves.  They research, they study, they question and actively ask questions to seek answers.  Some of them are self taught, and know more than I could have ever learned in college.  What college gave me was an understanding of how to look for the information that we as artists are looking for.

The world has changed however, and the internet is right at our finger tips.  We can access answers as long as we have wifi, is that education?  No, because we don't work for the information so it doesn't stick.  That is what an education is.  When you have to work for the information, our mind actually holds it longer.  An education is exercises in finding and "learning" the information.  Everytime I find the information at my fingertips; I read it, and move on.  Consequently, when I need to have the answer, it isn't in my head and I have to look it up on the internet again.  I am not doing the work to learn the information.

Higher learning is important, do I think we pay to much for it? Oh yes.  I think we pay too much for a lot of things.  I agree we need to pay, perhaps not as much as we do.  That isn't the point of this blog,  Seek answers but do the work for it.  Give a man to fish, he will eat for a day.  Teach a man to fish, he will eat for a lifetime.  Learning is the same thing, It is the information I have actively worked for that stays in my head, not the quick thing I was given off the wifi.  I am going to go back to researching my answers, so I can keep them.  Take notes, find material, write things down; now is the time for me to start learning again.  Thanks to my college education, I know how to do that.