# Your formal education. Was it best under formal education , or after you left?



## shoreline (Mar 29, 2014)

Hi.

Firstly; I messed up the title/ heading, as I always seem to do, and I find that it can not be edited afterwards. It will read better as 
" * Your education; Was it best under formal education, or after you left? "
*
This poll arises from an INFP thread, where many have been saying that their education prospered due to the freedom experienced after formal education.

Obviously this poll is not going to work with anyone still in formal education. This poll is only going to work with the benefit of hindsight of the results from the two conditions for learning.

By including all of the broad groupings of the personality types, we might see some sort of interesting pattern arise, or not? 

Please enjoy this. Ready? : )


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## Helweh18 (Jul 30, 2013)

I learned more after I left formal education through mentors and personal experience in my field.


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## LadyO.W.BernieBro (Sep 4, 2010)

Oh, l thought the thread was going to be about the instruction-if it was understood more clearly while being taught or if the material made more sense afterward. To which l'd answer afterward, l rarely understand something as l'm learning it.


l think the freedom and comfort level one can expect to receive, assuming they find employment in their filed, after formal education is a major factor in why anyone pursues a degree-unless they're still planning on working themselves to the bone even with said degree which is entirely possible.


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## lightwing (Feb 17, 2013)

I don't know that I could say either.

Typically, I learn best by doing. I'm very hands on. However, my formal training I received has been very instrumental in helping me to learn and understand better in jobs than I could have had I not received formal training.

Had you asked me how I felt while I was in classes, I'd have told you a lot of it felt like stuff I'll never use (theory type stuff). In the long term though, I can see now how I've applied things I thought I'd never use.

Is one better than the other? I would say no. They complement each other. That's not to say everyone should seek formal training. With some jobs, you'll get all the training you'll need to do it and do it will while you're doing it.

I guess you could say it depends on the job.


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## RedRedo (Jul 8, 2014)

About the same since I spent my free time during formal education making up for it with actual education, instead of having a life. If things have improved, it's mostly because there are more and better websites now and I live closer to the library.

Practical skills have improved since leaving school, since I now have time to learn some. School is the only job that teaches you no practical skills. I've also found that a summer of volunteering is worth more than years of lectures and tests.

I found the opposite of the person above me. Some of the theory stuff in class, I'd look at and imagine it was useful in the real world. I half-believed those posters in math class that show how all the biggest careers use math, as though needing to make accurate blueprints somehow justifies calculus. Now though, I know for sure that no, I didn't need algebra, I didn't need history, I will never need to write another essay in my life nor will I ever meet someone who uses vocabulary from Shakespeare's time, studying Latin doesn't improve your English, no sport played in school is a part of my life, cooking and sewing in home ec do not resemble doing those things for real, and while art theory could potentially find its way into my life, what I needed was devART tutorials, not a list of dead painters and which ones were pointillists. The venn diagram of instruments/singing styles used in school, and instruments/singing styles used in music I like, is two circles so far apart that you could draw sunbeams coming off them and name them Sol and Sirius.

Sorry for length of rant. That was the short version.


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## Antipode (Jul 8, 2012)

I'm not really sure what is being asked.

Are you asking if my education was best during formal (public school?) education, or after that (after high school?) when I continued my education through my own research?

If that is the question, then the criteria is a little skewed. Yes, after high school, and outside of college, I've always done my own research on many things. I've even bought books, like John Rawls, random law books (not even in law) and so on. 

But I wouldn't be able to do that without the foundation of "formal" education. 

---

Although, I've probably misunderstood the thread topic.


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## Mender (Apr 23, 2014)

I hated high school, and I've found self-education to be far more enlightening.


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## Zster (Mar 7, 2011)

It depends how you define "best". I have probably learned much more since grad school, but, not always pleasantly. Grad school was so much more safe. On-the-job and general life lessons tend to come without a net and downright suck sometimes.


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## tanstaafl28 (Sep 10, 2012)

shoreline said:


> Hi.
> 
> Firstly; I messed up the title/ heading, as I always seem to do, and I find that it can not be edited afterwards. It will read better as
> " * Your education; Was it best under formal education, or after you left? "
> ...


We talking just K-12 here, or is undergrad/postgrad also considered formal education? I would say that once I had the basics down, it was far better for me to go off and learn on my own.


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## Elyasis (Jan 4, 2012)

I've always learned best researching things on my own time than receiving lectures in class. What did help me from formal education is exposure to a wider net of things that I might not have looked for on my own.


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## badwolf (Jun 17, 2012)

I learned equally well under both.


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## shoreline (Mar 29, 2014)

badwolf said:


> I learned equally well under both.


This effect seems to happen from time to time with Polls; we find that we have overlooked a category. 

I have no idea how one would have squeezed in this option for each type, without overdoing the number of options and making it all unwieldy. Of course that means just one opt out option at the bottom of the Poll. But there are now several of you, for whom the option is about 50/50. With this hindsight in place, maybe someone will improve on the idea one day? Anyway, my apologies to those who require the overlooked option. So it goes.

Just to add, that I really appreciate everyone for joining in. There is still a picture emerging from this. : )


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## baby blue me (May 9, 2014)

I learned better after formal education. It's formal so it's restricting.


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## Im FiNe (Oct 17, 2013)

INFP
I did well enough through high school. Although I continued to learn to degrees in college, I pretty much self-destructed there. I left without completing a degree. I attended police academy for just under a year becoming certified. For over twenty years since then I have learned independently or through work training. I have not had any other formal classes for which I had to pay.

I would embrace being able to make a living as (be employed as, be paid for being) a formal student.


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## Valargrim (Jul 20, 2014)

ENTJ - Honestly, I was bored during high school and college. I spent a good portion of my day sleeping. Normally right in front of the teacher. They didn't like waking me up because I would counter with some obscure knowledge they didn't know about. Afterwards, I had free reign to consume knowledge at my pace. On a good day, I read about 400-700 pages from a wide range of articles. Mainly science but I love history and art too.


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