In article , Radio Amateur KC2HMZ
writes:


If I were Larry Roll, I'd lament that I've seen so many people with
college degrees that still couldn't fill out a job application
properly, that the requirements for a college degree must have been
seriously dumbed down over the past thirty years, but I'm not, so I
won't.

John:

Well, if you won't, then allow me. I received my B.S. degree late in
life, having graduated in 1999. During the three years I went to college
at night and worked a full-time, 7-day-a-week job, I obtained a 3.88 GPA,
stayed on the Dean's List the full time, and graduated Summa. Many
times my professors complimented me on my work, saying that the
papers I submitted to them were of higher quality than even those they
had seen from graduate students. In fact, they told horror stories of
grad students submitting papers that were barely written in recognizable
English -- to the point where in one particular class several Master's
degree candidates were dismissed from the program and an investigation
started as to how they were granted Bachelor's degrees and subsequently
accepted into the Master's degree program. Apparently, if an honest
and objective evaluation of our colleges and universities were made, we
would, indeed, find alarming evidence of the "dumbing down" of our
educational system.

Nevertheless, I have worked with people who held engineering
degrees yet could not compose a coherent memo for circulation in their
own department.

I experienced the same situation all throughout my Air Force career.
I had only an Associate's degree at the time, but frequently found myself
having to do most of the reading, writing, reasearch, and ultimately
decision-making for my allegedly college-educated officers.

An amateur radio license is a document awarded at the *beginning* of
one's participation in the hobby for the purpose of granting operating
privileges and to certify that the recipient has demonstrated entry
level knowledge at the class of license thus received. It won't get
you a job bagging groceries. As for the accomplishments, those come
afterward when you actually start to make use of the privileges the
license conveys by putting Qs in your logbook. It is not, and is not
intended to be, comparable to a college degree...no matter how much
some people would like it to be so.

I don't recall anyone here ever attempting to make such a comparison.
A ham radio license is merely a document conferring operating privileges.
It is a license to learn and grow. Unfortunately, it doesn't always produce
that outcome.

73 de Larry, K3LT