Dear Friends,
Do you believe that the study of Economics is something one can do as a hobby, and still be taken seriously? Or if someone has a sincere interest, should they pursue formal university study?
Sure. It won’t be as specialised as that of an academic economist, but you could definitely know enough to speak wisely on the topic.
Why wouldn’t one be taken seriously even if it is a hobby? It’s all in the presentation, like Bill Cosby says. People who have invested thousands of dollars and have multiple degrees can have terrible presentation and look worse than those who have no formal education but can present their ideas in a way that’s understandable. If you can’t communicate and get your point across, it doesn’t matter how much education you have. Sometimes a basic speech class is all that’s needed, if you’re wanting to present yourself in a way that you’ll be taken seriously.
What about a private mentor for guidance in your studies instead of paying for a formal university education?
You will never be taken seriously, no matter how much you know what your talking about, unless you have a piece of paper that says, “He knows what he’s talking about.” People don’t want to take the time to actually LISTEN to you, or THINK about what you say so they can DECIDE that you know what you’re talking about. They want a certificate of authenticity, so they can be done with it and get back to thinking about themselves.
The Rev
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You could learn all your economics on your own, and still get published in economic journals. They usually use a blind peer-review process, which means they won’t know you don’t have a degree.
How nice. They don’t hold a prejudice against someone for not jumping through the same hoops that they went through. Isn’t it truly educational to learn from everyone? It seems it would be more constricting to education to only have information produced from people who followed a certain path. That’s more biased than anything else. The more viewpoints we learn from, the more we understand. We are not all the same, as it seems many appear to forget.
If you don’t go through a formal education process, you are not subject to the prejudices that are tought in those institutions. Does that make what one has to offer to the world through their insights and studying less important than someone who went broke funding an education?
Ron Paul isn’t an economist, and he’s sold a lot of books.
Catering to people who are lazy intellectually is a losing game. You’re right about their laziness, but I wouldn’t invest time and money in a degree just so I could be an authority to fools.