Post-JW education?

rebelledat12

I was interested in how many of you took up higher education after leaving the JWs, and how old you were etc. I started college at age 23 (still enrolled at 24), my mother got her GED at 35 - disfellowshipped and started college at 40 - and will graduate at 45 from the University of Florida in June. My inactive sister is a freshman in college, right on time.
My JW brother has two kids and washes windows. His wife cleans.
My dad has a respectable blue-collar job, but his boss is his best friend (JW).
I feel a little out of the loop because I am so much older than the other students, did anyone else experience that?

Fredhall

I have many friends who are JW's and not JW's have a degree in something. Yet, they have a dead end jobs. There is no way out of it. We are all in hell.

ConnieLynn

I didn't go to college until after I left the organization. I felt very strange at first. I was mid 20's and had felt much older, but there were several other students my age in a few of the classes. I think you appreciate it a little more when you're older anyway. I'm not saying secondary education is for everyone,but for myself, I think it was worth it. I have a pretty good job and I like what I do.

Dutchie

I started law school late in life. I was over thirty when I began and am now in my late 30's. It was a long, slow struggle, but its something I always wanted to do. I am proud that I was able to complete my studies.

Want to sue somebody?

Carmel

Leaving the borg at age 15, I still had the mindset that college was a waste of time...talk about programming. Fortunately those terrible "worldlies" headed me in a different direction so I accepted a scholarship and got into what I was sure to be way over my head. Glory of glories, it wasn't so darn hard, infact is was enjoyable even to the point of a heady intoxicant. Couldn't see how I could have ever done the things I've done without the degrees and track record.

IMHO, secondary education is not only for virtually everybody, it is a crime that it is not available to everyone just like highschool. The country and the world would be far better off if kids were in school until they were 22 rather than learning to pack uzzies and learning to hate and kill.

cheers.

carmel

teenyuck

Since my mother got divorced when I was 12, she realized, when I was 15, that an education would help. And Armageddon did not happen in 1975...I got to go to the community college at age 18. Then I went to the state university for Jr and Sr year. Problem was I did not graduate.

I took one year of math in HS. Never took an SAT because I went to the community college and they accepted everyone. Got into the university because I had two full years of college behind me and all the requsite credits....except math.

Cut to 1998...I worked for Lucent Technologies in Wichita and since there is nothing to do but watch the wheat grow, I went back...they paid and I finally graduated with my bachelors. I had to take remedial math to graduate and prove I could do algebra.

All in all, I graduated with 189 undergrad credits. My husband got his MBA and only had approximately 180 credits for his advanced degree.

Math counts...I wish someone had told me that. I also wish someone had told me I had to pay back the loans...(this was the early 80's, college loan default was high).

ConnieLynn

Carmel,
If I may clarify my statement that secondary education isn't for everyone. I say that because I have a friend that worked as an apprentice in her fathers lucrative electrical business and now is part owner. She know's more than most people about residential electrical inspections and makes a butt load of cash. She really didn't have the desire for college or the need to learn a specific trade. I know a lot of really smart people who never went to college. I don't think that everyone who skips college ends up on the streets with a gun. I agree that by and large, everyone benefits from education, I just think it is pretty general to say everyone has to go to college to get it.

Five Gospels

ConnieLynn said:

I don't think that everyone who skips college ends up on the streets with a gun. I agree that by and large, everyone benefits from education, I just think it is pretty general to say everyone has to go to college to get it.

I wholeheartedly agree. There are many avenues to obtaining "education." Formal collegiate training is not the only way. I think it is a copout for somebody to assert that they cannot accomplish something because they never had the opportunity to receive classroom instruction. In our modern industrialized world, there is no excuse for ignorance... information is ubiquitous and easily obtained.

In my own case, I graduated from high school but didn't pursue college immediately. However, I never discontinued my studies of those subjects that are of interest to me. Learning, for me, is a life-long process. Over the years, the range of subjects that interest me has grown. As an adult, I have been able to simply walk in to my local University and take a few courses to complement my professional interests, but I still consider myself mostly self-educated. I have an extensive personal library that I have meticulously built up over the course of my life - with subjects ranging from business and science to mathematics and philosophy. I also have a very high paying job (in the top 80th percentile of the nation) in the software industry that I obtained before taking any college courses. I'm very good at what I do and I enjoy my work. I'm not trying to glorify myself... I'm just reinforcing the point that college is not a necessary path to a higher standard of living... it is merely a sufficient one.

At the same time I see great value in a complete (2-4 years) formal collegiate education following high school - so I'm not knocking it. I think it's contemptible that the WTBTS has such a callous attitude toward higher education but I think even more contemptible is the reason why: education of any type, above and beyond simple reading, writing and arithmetic, interferes with their own "educational program" of indoctrination and mind control.

So, rebelledat12, to answer your question, I'm in my early thirties and plan on completing my undergraduate education so that I can enroll in a graduate program. I'm working full time, I have a family and I'm doing the WTBTS fade-out thing, so I'm sure it will take time... but I'm not doing it out of necessity, but out of want.

Five Gospels

invisible

Hiya

I left just over 7 years ago at the age of 28. First summer of '95 spent in a tad of a daze.

Then did the underground drugs thing for a couple of years and partied my socks off bigtime.

But it was whilst I was upon the festival scene in the UK that I got to see glimpses of what I really wanted to be doing with my life, which is all about design of community spaces.

Last year I was accepted for an interview at Oxford Brookes to study Entrepreneurship for the 21st Century.

Now belong to an independent and very well respected UK pro-active think tank in Community Regeneration and Social Exclusion/Inclusion issues. http://www.can-online.org.uk

Still have not one peice of paper qualification to my name, it has hindered me yes, but not so much so that it serves to defeat me from where I have my eye on where I am going.

[email protected]

Celtic

bonnie38

I earned my degree the same year that I turned 30.

Post-JW education?

Share this