How do I come across as an educated invidiaul?

Since this is a board for the humanities I feel like topic is appropriate. In our contemporary culture there is a lot of attention on whether someone is "educated" or not. In political and news articles, one of the harshest insults that can be lobbied against a group is that they are "uneducated" and thus hopelessly unenlightened about the world. This is something I'm self-conscious about, because I personally never went to college. I actually do like to read about science and philosophy in my spare time, but from what I hear, actually attending a university is essential to getting an expanded worldview. How true is this, really? Is it impossible to be considered part of the educated class, if you did not actually attend college? What does it really mean when someone is "educated"?

Again this is something I'm pretty self-conscious about, because in modern politics it seems that not being educated is among the most damning insults possible.

What a stupid thing to be self-conscious about. In what situation would you personally ever be accused of being uneducated (in a pejorative way)? Hell, even if you are, that's nothing but ad hominem and doesn't address the point being made.

Just read your books and actually understand and internalize the contents, don't just spout off facts or whatever like it's a party trick to impress people (what 99% of Veeky Forums does).

I guess I just don't like being part of the "uneducated" statistic because it is also viewed as a negative.

I'm just curious what the educated mindset really means. Is it really necessary to BE at a university and experience it to get that enlightened state of mind?

lots and lots of knowledge is on the internet
learn if you want to, if you just want to impress ppl id try something more physical

What uni teaches you that you can't get out of a book is how to write essays. This eventually gives you the ability to properly articulate your opinions under pressure. Writing a good essay has nothing with your vocabulary. In fact, the best way to spot a brainlet is their insistence on using obscure words.

Instead, writing a good essay means:
>structuring your thoughts to be easier to read
>being aware of fallacies (including the fallacy fallacy)
>addressing any counter-arguments that may exist against you position

There's other stuff but i'm coming off an adderall binge, so I'd rather neck myself than think anymore. Oh that reminds me:
>get an adderall prescription

That way you can read for 12 hours straight, while wondering if you're losing yourself to drug abuse (you are)

Knowledge is a major part of what it means to be educated. Knowing things, possessing an informed opinion, is important. But more than that it's how you use that knowledge. Somebody with a formal education has had their ability to synthesize new ideas tested and evaluated repeatedly, and so they are much better at articulating their opinions and demonstrating their knowledge and skill. A big part of college is the tests, the labs, the essays, the projects. Things that push you to show your mastery, to show that you actually understand and can use what you have learned. So it's not just information, being able to recite a list of facts you read somewhere, since anyone can do that with a smartphone these days, it's about being able to take those facts and form new ideas, to build an informed, educated opinion on a topic that you didn't just read out of a book, and defend that opinion with the evidence you've gathered in research. I can't really imagine how you would acquire this skill outside a formal academic setting, because there's basically nowhere else where your ability to argue effectively is routinely evaluated.

But all that said, it's unlikely you'll find yourself in a situation where you need to argue like an academic. Most of the time, simply knowing things and being able to recall facts is sufficient for not seeming like an idiot. But if anyone asks you a question that can't be answered by google, like "what do you think should be done about the war in Syria?" then your wikipedia binging isn't going to do you much good. You need to be able to synthesize opinions or you won't get far.

>&Humanities

lol waow ill b able to write essays like an alpha dildodick gawd and only b in debt a trillion yeers grate

This

>American academia is fueled by amphetamine abuse
Really makes you think

I'm not that guy but I managed to get through college without abusing amphetamines. I was basically addicted to caffeine by senior year though, needed several caffeinated drinks to get through the day.

How true is this?
Short answer: Not at all.

We live in an age where alot of university students have next to no knowledge of the world. This is because education is about recitation rather than learning.

Does that mean nobody in the internet went to college?

Because any internet argument turns into retarded shit flinging, and people using cheap escapes like "muh fallacies" or "LOL implying "X" is a valid sauce"

During finals, I was drinking two pots of coffee a day and took a 30mg xr adderall in the morning and another in the afternoon.

I developed this system where I would have controlled nervous breakdowns to alleviate the stress cause by all those stims. Basically, I would go into the shower and burn my self with hot water and focus on heart palpatations to try and trigger a panic attack. I'd panic for a bit and after that, I'd be exhausted. The I'd eat a huge meal and go to bed

got As tho. Except for my Classics course, but the professor was a pedantic ass-pain. Fuck him

Jesus christ man.

I love the idea that we're raising a generation of well educated tweakers

It's like something out of a cyberpunk dystopia

I survived college by abusing the shit out of amphetamines. Every finals week, I would be up for 2 days in a row, crash on the 3rd, repeat. I'd also drink several espresso and smoke almost a pack a day. Got so bad I started getting chest pains and shitting out nothing but diarrhea. I'm so glad I've stopped doing that shit and started exercising and managing my time better instead of wasting my time and money trying to get drunk and laid.

>I would be up for 2 days in a row, crash on the 3rd, repeat
Finals benders are brutal

I'd do exactly what you were saying, but I'd would also throw back a few swigs of whiskey to get myself to sleep. Then in the morning I'd drink like two bottles of gatorade and some alka seltzer to get rid of the hangover and then I'd hit the books again

Oops, forgot 's (you)

Don't give a damn about what some stranger thinks of your intelligence. I know that far easier said than done, but, seriously, don't.

And like other folks have said in this thread, college mainly teaches how to do papers and gives you a fancy sheet of paper that'll hopefully help you get jobs. I do feel like some courses were superbly educational and fascinating, and really helped me broaden my horizons, but most didn't. I honestly wish there was some discount class program for folks who might want to just take a course but don't want to go for a degree.

If you want to do some self-study, I might recommend the Great Courses. They're video and audio classes on history, philosophy, and whatnot. Check to see if your local library has them, or if they can get 'em on ILL. They also apparently have some sort of subscription service, but libraries can have 'em. Only issue is that they're fairly expensive, so some might not want to ILL them.

I didn't take any drugs to get through college, but I was really damn depressed during my junior and senior years because I ignored my mental health and didn't realize I was having a bad reaction to the ginseng in energy drinks until just recently. Oh well, I graduated magna.

My master's studies were a lot easier, though, and I even managed a 4.0 with what felt like minimal stress. Library Science just jibes with me better than English, I suppose.

What reaction did you have to ginseng?

Enjoy those rotted frontal lobes and lifelong Parkinsonian tremors.

Americans have been addicted to speed since the 1930's. Amphetamine is -the drug-, it's made for this country and it embodies America more than anything else, even corn whiskey.

It can apparently make folks feel very nervous and anxious. I haven't had any weird nervous episodes like I had been when I drank monsters on a regular basis, so I'm pretty sure ginseng, at least, exacerbating part of it.

to an educated individual? appreciate their knowledge.
to an uneducated individual? appreciate their ignorance.

Using moonshine to treat the meth comedown = the true American experience

Sounds like you're talking about Veeky Forums, in which case it's not really a matter of education. Trolling is too easy on Veeky Forums. Anonymity as default means you can switch sides in the argument and nobody will know. You can even start arguments with yourself to hook people in and then just fan the flames with stupid comments to keep it going. I know because I've done it before, I've used just about every troll technique you can think of to derail threads I don't like. Trying to have intelligent discourse on Veeky Forums is like sifting a sewer for edibles.

Okay that's a lot worse than my problem. I just needed 3 or 4 cups of coffee a day, mostly cause when I was writing essays I got maybe 2 hours of sleep per night.

>I honestly wish there was some discount class program for folks who might want to just take a course but don't want to go for a degree.
Well you can audit a course, but I think you still have to pay tuition. Only people I know who audited courses were elderly folks just passing their time.

But people here have more knowledge than the average person...Well, not here.

I appreciate people with knowledge even if they aren't that great at putting it into words, teaching is a profession, I wouldn't expect everyone to be able to do it.

>Only people I know who audited courses were elderly folks just passing their time.
What? Most grad students in my program audit at least 1 seminar per semester (need the material but don't need the grade/want to write a research paper).

Well I mainly only remember auditors from community college, and they were elderly people just doing it for personal enrichment.

Veeky Forums is a weird community. The dominant age demographic and the general content of the site means it's going to have a much larger than normal proportion of college educated people, but the nature and culture of the site runs very contrary to the kind of discussions you'd expect from an educated community. So that's why I say education doesn't really matter on Veeky Forums. We have people with PhDs who post here, but 90% of their posts are probably shitty memes and not what you'd expect an esteemed scholar to say.

The one knowledge field I'd say Veeky Forums excels at, and which demands its users to be fluent in, is popular culture. It's very hard to parse conversations on Veeky Forums if you're not very knowledgeable about pop culture or "nerd culture," the density of references and memes is very high.

Go to college if you want to be respected by people who care about education.

You Sokal it.

"Uneducated" usually just means "Has opinions I don't like" rather than literally "Without education". You can go to a public library and check out a few books on history and philosophy, and you'll come away with a more cultured and worldly outlook than 99% of the STEM grads you run into.

real advice here
read a weekly news magazine every week cover to cover ( not just the parts that interest you). Don't expect for it all to make sense at first. Read real books. avoid most or all TV news.

Branch out into many different areas. From politics to economy to philosophy to mathematics to physical science to psychology to art to linguistics to programming to history, etc.


Then dive down into specific areas of interest to gain specialized knowledge. Have atleast 3-4 specialized knowledge.

As someone who has gone through the military, sales jobs, construction and now university I can tell you with the utmost confidence that college students are just as dumb if not worse then the average person. Intelligent college students these days are just good at temporarily memorizing a book and that's it. I knew an engineer who had a 4.05 gpa she could tell you everything about physics but ask her the months in order and she stumbled on them like a child would.

you don't have to be smart to go to college, you just have to have enough money and stability around.
One more depressing fact about life you realize one day

I don't think so, just keep reading and try to be thoughtful and so. Or are you just explicitly worried about being called uneducated, in which case why do you care?

It's largely arbitrary, in America most of the Republican elites are highly educated but they're all treated like uneducated redneck hicks by college dropouts for example.

I would say getting educated is a good start, then start saying things that are agreeable with educated society rather than heresies. Well educated people are conformists, non-conformists simply are not educated enough.

I just read wikipedia and act like I know my shit. I'm not proud of it but it works

Education means nothing, the knowledge does