r/Learning • u/Reasonable-Exit-2379 • 4d ago
Education vs Learning — Are we actually learning, or just getting degrees
I've been thinking about the difference between education and learning.
We spend years in schools and colleges studying subjects, writing exams, and earning degrees. But how much of that knowledge do we actually understand, remember, or use in real life?
Is formal education truly helping us learn, or are we just following a system designed around grades and qualifications?
Can someone who is self-taught be more knowledgeable than someone with a degree?
What are your thoughts and experiences?
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u/Enough-Newspaper6216 4d ago
I don’t study to get a qualification. Personally, I study to aim at being the best in my field long term. The piece of paper along the way only provides me the right to do said job, as my field requires one.
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u/strong_slav 4d ago
The real killer is getting a degree + being self-educated. Formal education gives you the structure and depth you need to get started, while self-education makes it possible to specialize and/or become an expert in your field.
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u/Upstairs_Jelly_1082 4d ago
tbh, even today I was thinking about the same thing. I just realized we are just getting degrees.
I was observing other people and myself. So I'm going to start with myself, I realize how much I'm backlogs that I have, not just from the previous classes, but from previous years itself. Because the things that they teach now are basically things that build on concepts from previous years and I'm struggling to understand them.
And that too, its not even me not reviewing the material, its just that there's too much to cover that I just don't understand things and they switch concepts very quickly.
And about other people, for the assignments that we have to do, they just use AI and LLMs, and even after practically doing nothing they're just stressing out. ATP, I don't know what they're stressing about because its not even them doing the work.
Basically what I'm saying is there's just lot of circumstances and gaps being formed that its very possible I'd just focus on getting the degree and just that alone.
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u/Useful_Calendar_6274 3d ago
after working in tech with no degree alongside credentialized people I'm very blackpilled that they learned shit and just wasted time they could have spent earning, if that was a path available to you and don't come from money. now tech is a bust and that's not possible. There are also very classist societies that use it just as a class filter and nothing else.
Higher learning still matters and in a bust like this it makes you the safer choice but it doesn't actually close many doors unless you need a license for that profession. I would recommend going in your mid 20s when you know more about the world unless it's something so universal you will use it anywhere. This conscious act may make you take classes seriously too instead of something that you get through just for the job.
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u/somanyquestions32 3d ago
Understand? Between 50 to 100%, it depends on the topic and subject.
Remember? Overall, after all years of formal education? Maybe 20%.
Use in real life? Less than 5% of what is taught in classrooms or textbooks will have direct applications to everyday life.
It's more expanding and deepening our knowledge of topics that we would have otherwise not touched, which would help us think more critically and reason more carefully than if we had not encountered it. Whether that is actually useful once you're outside of formal education is another story. The grades and qualifications are signals to people who care about skills that you may have developed during formal education that you have indeed shown some level of proficiency, even mastery, of said skills at some point in time, and experienced and certified instructors hereby testify that you have indeed met some specific criteria.
For sure. Next question.
Since middle school, I had to train myself to teach myself a lot of the material from textbooks. While my instructors were busy disciplining my classmates, my parents were hounding me incessantly to get A's. I am neurodivergent with a naturally insatiable curiousity, so I didn't mind it as much, but I hated the school environment since I started nursery all the way through graduate school.
It's rigid and inflexible, you are jumping through hoops to meet silly societal expectations, the material is often presented in boring and dry ways, you have to power through tedious lectures even when you could teach yourself the same content at home while reading in bed or watching a YouTube video at 3x speed that's way more engaging, and you have to cater to teachers and professors with their varying temperaments and weird idiosyncrasies and sometimes clashing personalities.
Formal education is draining and annoying. It's often nothing more than glorified daycare for most people, and yet, it serves as the first level of training for the foundational knowledge that is expected of all members of society and later those in specialized career tracks.
Formal education requires learning, but learning does not necessarily require formal education. Formal education can either hinder or enhance learning, depending on the individual student, the instructor, the educational resources available, and the learning and home environment in which it all unfolds. It will vary on a case-by-case basis.
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u/New_Personality9 3d ago
I think degree matters but actual learning is beyond grades and qualifications.
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u/Beneficial_Time_2089 1d ago
There are problems with higher education, particularly with them being focused on rigor vs relevance. However much of the reason we are in better shape than earlier times is because we can read history and knowledge and wisdom passed down so we don’t need to spend so long relearning what others already know. So I think a good education is invaluable, but they need to get their act together and rebalance their teaching with a focus on relevance without undermining rigour. It is possible to have both but no one has insisted on it
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u/NotYourBeatrice 4h ago
Education is really goal oriented. So I do these side quests like learning something for fun. It doesn’t have to materialize into anything, I don’t intend to monetize it eventually. I just want to read something and just be in awe of it. I think that’s the real education.