In message , Tex Houston
writes
I have a lot of hours in college and the thing I liked about community
colleges and commuter campuses was the mix of students you encountered. The
students who entered directly out of high school, with few exceptions, had
little to contribute. Without some life experience their horizons were very
close.

I went to university almost right from school, with one year of work
experience intervening.

Just over a decade later, I went back into academe to do a Master's,
having been in full-time gainful employment until then (and during the
course, it being a part-time degree). I gained *much* more from the
second course, most of it from my fellow students (which is no
disrespect to the excellent tutors).

Perhaps no student should be permitted to attend college until they had
worked a couple of years to smooth over some of the unfinished edges.

I was interested to see who pressed the course and graduated on time,
and who delayed and deferred. I was very surprised by some of my fellow
students: some I'd expected to fail graduated on time beside me, others
I was sure would excel were no-shows for reasons never stated.

And I learned a *lot* from my colleagues on the course, much more so
than I did getting my BEng.

I'm sure my USAF travels did not handicap me in class.

One of my fellow students was a former RN submariner. He at least I feel
deferred because he was a perfectionist: he was going to submit his
dissertation when it was ready, and if he could cheaply get an extra
year then he'd take the time to polish the cannonball to a fine gloss.

I personally think he was wrong, but that's just opinion. (I feel that I
was given a deadline, and I met it... I might have got a distinction
with another year of editing and honing, or I might have reduced my
dissertation to meaningless pap by eliminating everything controversial.
Whatever... I submitted on time and passed)

--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk