A Few Thoughts On Continuing Education

This is one of those things I've kind of got mixed feelings about.

So, for awhile now, I've been getting these calls from what were obviously telemarketers. I figured that's what they were because I'd been letting them go to voicemail and there was never any message. As a result, I've been wondering who these callers were and what they wanted. When I got one this morning, I decided to take it and see for myself what that was.

Turns out, they were trying to get me to enroll in some sort of higher education program. Like I said before the jump, I've got mixed feelings about that. See, in general, I'm all for people getting themselves educated. Knowing things and being able to think and make informed decisions about things is a good thing in my book.

At the same time, though, I also strongly believe that there's only so much that formal education can do for a person. Sure, it's a good thing to be educated, but there also comes a point where the classroom education has to end and practical experience has to take over. I know employers, especially ones who hire for what are considered professional jobs, like to have educated people on staff. But they also prefer to hire people who have practical experience in whatever field their business is in.

And that, my friends, is where my conundrum of sorts comes in. You see, I've got more higher education than some people may realize. I've got what is essentially a bachelors degree in gen ed, though it's largely in journalism, and associates degree in medical transcription. So, I've got skills and intelligence, as I would hope the various blogs I run, at least, and potentially the Mixlr show (showreel here) I do on Tuesday nights as well.

What I lack, at present, is experience that most employers would accept. After all, I would think that these blogs, at the very least, would count as experience. My potentially mistaken understanding is that most people who hire writers like me don't necessarily count blogs and podcasts for an awful lot when it comes to hiring potential candidates to fill positions.

Really, that's one thing that makes things a little difficult for a lot of people, especially ones like me. It's hard to get the kind of jobs that would give us the experience in our desired fields without the experience we'd get from those same jobs. Now, maybe more formal education would help me with that, but I've got my doubts. I could use some contacts, connections, that sort of thing, and I'm not entirely sure how to go about getting those.

Basically, I know I need to do something to change and hopefully improve my present situation. Things are not exactly great in my world right now, after all. It's just that even though I'm not entirely sure what to do right now, somehow, going back to school doesn't seem like the right thing to do right now. What the right thing is, I don't know, but I do know things need to change somehow.

At any rate, I need to get back to work on figuring that out and making the change. Until then, I just might do this as a segment on my podcast later as well. See you then.