Common Sense Versus Degrees: The Man Who Has One Hundred Degrees
)Professor VN Parthiban, a lecturer from Chennai, India has 100 degrees. According to The Sunday Indian, his credentials include 8 Master Of Law degrees, 10 Master of Arts degrees, 8 Master Of Law degrees, 8 Master of Commerce degrees, 3 Master Of Science degrees, 12 Research degrees (M. Phil) and 9 Master of Business Administration degrees.
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In Asian society, education is highly valued. Most parents tend to pressure their children to excel academically. I was born in the village of Tebakang, which at that time had no electricity or piped water. Although I was the first generation from my family to go to school, I knew early on that education was the passport out of poverty. I studied very hard and managed to earn a degree in Economics and later a Masters of Business Administration(MBA). My parents though illiterate and had no formal education(I won't call them uneducated) had the good sense to send me to Kuching at the tender age of 7 to start my primary schooling. The schools at Kuching had much better teachers and educational facilities.
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This brings me back to the topic of common sense versus degrees. Do having more degrees make one more educated? It is sad to observe that in the present day society, as more and more people attained higher levels of education, common sense is becoming less and less common. One needs just to scan the headlines of newspapers to see examples of how scare common sense has become. A child was left at the backseat of car along a busy road after his parents high on drugs passed out. College students who after a few beers, decided to jump from carriages of a moving train. At the end of the day, the pursuit of educational certificates, has become an end by itself instead of a means to acquire knowledge and skills.
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Headline Picture Source and Reference: The Sunday Indian
Cheers
Charles
Degrees have lost their meaning and have become a title that simply shows you have the money to afford college or some other means to graduate. This is not to say that one cannot receive an education through such a process but rather that the individual must be motivated by the pursuit of knowledge to attain such. @dwinblood has a great article about the worth of labels should you ever get a chance to read it. :)
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