On the 25's [entry], I insinuated that a sheetmetal worker making 90k a year was unfair, given the fact that my college-educated father made significantly less while working a research-based position at the same compay. Please note that I wasn't attempting to put down manual laborers in anyway. In fact, I have [stated] several [times] that I hold farmers and those skilled in whatever task they have in great esteem.
I guess my central concern is that education means very little in american society. The R&D departments of many industries make only a slightly larger [salary] then relatively unskilled workers, and definitely less than managerial positions.

It wasn't always so. University degrees used to indicate that the person holding such an honor had truely done the work and deserved the honor of the title. Unfortunately, this is no longer true. It is now expected in our culture that nearly everyone should go to college, esp. if their parents can afford to send them. Not only does this cheapen the efforts of those who might not have had "moneytree" parents and yet managed to go to college, but it also decreases the level of expectation for graduates overall.

Whereas college was once reserved for only the brightest (which was determined during highschool), graduate or profressional school is now the winnowing fork. Schools like Texas A&M will gladly hand out bachelors to any idiot who can cram or cheat his way through the education process. This doesn't mean that there aren't highly intelligent graduates of such state schools, it just means that the signal to noise ratio is exceptionally high.

I'm not pulling any punches here. I goofed off a great deal during my studies at Indiana Welseyan. But overall, I worked my butt off. Note that this wasn't through any particular virtue of my own, I had the pressing yet background expectation of my instructors to live up to. Chances are, if I had gone to a large state school, I would not have devoted myself to my studies as I did at IWU. This environment of understated high expectations was a wonderful thing that I wish every university student could enjoy. Simply put, however, such an environment would not be possible at a school significantly larger that IWU.

I was confronted with vast chasm between the IWU and TAMU's environment when I TA'ed my first biochem recitation section. Keep in mind that all of my students were science majors, and that many were bound for medical school. That said, I can't say I was encouraged. Few were what I would even state as competent in basic algebra, or even basic chemistry. Most could not identify chiral centers, even though they had taken organic chemistry less than a year previously. There were, of course, several exceptionally intelligent (or more accurately, motivated) individuals (three to be exact), but the majority were simply interested in the least amount of work necessary to pass the class.

Again, I can't say I particularily blame them for that last sentiment. However, near the end of the semester, after watching many of them struggle with and complain about the most basic of concepts, I told the entire class the awful truth: If you're not in science because you like it, get out. You will likely make less money than people who have spent less time on their education, and you will end up bitter and dissappointed.

And me? I like science because it's cool. A wise man once said that if you have a job you love, you'll never work a day in your life. I can't say that applies in it's entirety to me, but I take comfort in the fact that I can't see myself doing anything else.