When I was 16, my parents didn't know anything. It's amazing how much they've learned in the intervening six years, now that I'm off on my own, living in the real world, with major responsibilities.
In some sense, that's the value of an education — in this case, a practical education in the school of hard knocks. It gives you perspective. More important than what you learn, you begin to get a sense of what you haven't learned. Looking back at high school, I'm stunned by my ignorance of what I didn't know.
You learn what you don't know in two ways. First, greater exposure to the world at large gives you a dim sense of many different areas. If you've taken a couple of math classes, for example, you realize that there's a whole lot more to mathematics than "2+2=4." If you've taken a couple of art classes, you realize that there's a lot more to art than slapping paint on a canvas with a brush. When you talk to a car mechanic, you realize that what goes on under the hood is horrifically complex.
Second, by studying a single subject in-depth, you begin to appreciate what other subjects are like in-depth. I know some people, for instance, who work in purchasing at Saint-Gobain. I am not a business major. I am not a manager. I do not know the first thing about the business of acquiring the raw materials for glass, transporting them and then storing and moving the completed products. I am, however, a reasonably competent mathematics major. Realizing the intricacy of the mathematics I can do and the time I've sunk into understanding it, I can get a reasonable sense of the intricacy of the business management problems these gentlemen face and the specialized knowledge (both practical and studied) they have acquired in order to solve them.
In other words, by acquiring your own specialized knowledge, you should gain an appreciation for the specialized knowledge that others have acquired, especially for the work and time that goes into learning.
This is not to declare that all fields are equally difficult, or that all people are equally able to understand the various specialized areas of knowledge. It's only to say that in general, especially for those of us with university educations, people who have acquired specialized knowledge should appreciate the boundaries of that knowledge.
This is not just an academic appreciation. If you don't have the knowledge to repair your car, take it to an auto shop. If you don't have the knowledge to diagnose problems with your body, go to a doctor. And if you're not a car mechanic or a doctor or nurse, you don't have the knowledge.
Google does not give you sufficient knowledge in any case — that's one of the big problems of the internet; it deceives people without specialized knowledge into thinking that they have it. You can't reliably diagnose yourself with information you find online. You can't do major car repairs safely.
It can be fun to speculate or mess around with things, but don't think that you have specialized knowledge in areas you don't. Hopefully, your college experience will help you appreciate the limits of your knowledge, both studied and practical — and who knows? Maybe you'll turn to your parents for advice more.
Write to Neal at necoleman@bsu.edu.
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