Who is the "educated man" in RW profiles

[pokerintherear]

If you browse many dating profiles you find the term "educated man" as part of the criteria.

Can this man be described? Is this "street smart" or "book smart"?  Opinions?

[Larry1]

At a minimum I think they mean a guy with a university degree.  The vast majority of RW on dating sites have university degrees.

[pitbull]

BA at a minimum

[GoodOlBoy]

Oh well, so much for my Community College (AS) degree. 
 
GOB

[Lily]

If you browse many dating profiles you find the term "educated man" as part of the criteria.

Can this man be described? Is this "street smart" or "book smart"?  Opinions?

This would be a book smart one. Not a self-learned but rather someone with years of formal education that requires absorbing lots of specialized knowledge. Perhaps a combination with a high IQ.
 
Agree with Larry, we 'd talk about an university degree and above here.

[Vasilisa]

That's an interesting question to ask.
For me it's not about the degree but about how much the person knows about different aspects of life and how open he is to learning new things and self-education.
After living in the US I'd definitely say that "being educated" in Russia and "being educated" in the US are 2 different things. In the US the education is narrower but deeper and is normally concenrated around the major, in Russia it's shallower but wider and covers a lot of different subjects, so I'd say the expectations of the RW are more the way the Russian education is.

[Lily]

Agree with Vasilisa. I'd also add that for a RW, "educated" would be closer to ''cultured'.

[SANDRO43]

In the US the education is narrower but deeper and is normally concenrated around the major, in Russia it's shallower but wider and covers a lot of different subjects

Which reminds me of some extreme job characterisations we had at IBM about the different expertises of our Systems Engineers (SEs, techies) and our Sales Representatives (SRs, salespeople):

- SEs: know everything about nothing (too narrowly specialised).
- SRs: know nothing about everything (too widely UNspecialised).

I was both at different times in my 30 years there, because I know everything about everything (or maybe was it nothing about nothing?)

[Ooooops]

I was both at different times in my 30 years there, because I know everything about everything (or maybe was it nothing about nothing?)

Jack of all trades 

[SANDRO43]

Jack of all trades 

Flexibility was a hallmark of us IBMers :

[LAman]

Jack of all trades 

and Master of none???

[Ooooops]

and Master of none???

That part was not in the original saying, it's a later addition.      

[LAman]

that is why I said it afterward......

[vwrw]

A person must have at least BA or BS to qualify as an educated person.

[Faux Pas]

A person must have at least BA or BS to qualify as an educated person.

Education can come in many forms. I've known and worked with people who didn't have a high school education yet were very intelligent and conversely, known some that spent years in schooling with a Master's and even a Doctorate or two that couldn't poor piss out of a boot with the directions on the bottom.

Nothing beats a good education for preparation for life but, it doesn't end there. Too many seem to think it does

[Voyager36]

Agree with Vasilisa. I'd also add that for a RW, "educated" would be closer to ''cultured'.

Lily, you are agreeing with two opposite points here it seems. 


Larry said at minimum a degree, while Vasilisa said it is knowledge and learning, not necessarily having a degree.


And as Faux Pas pointed out, some people are clueless even with degrees.
Just because Mike Tyson has a doctorate doesn't make him "well educated"

[Misha]

A popular image that has been making the rounds on Facebook: http://scholasticadministrator.typepad.com/.a/6a00e54f8c25c98834017c317442ea970b-500wi

[Lily]

Lily, you are agreeing with two opposite points here it seems. 


Larry said at minimum a degree, while Vasilisa said it is knowledge and learning, not necessarily having a degree.


And as Faux Pas pointed out, some people are clueless even with degrees.
Just because Mike Tyson has a doctorate doesn't make him "well educated"

 
I believe that a regular Soviet / Russian mind may often use the terms 'educated' and 'cultured' together. If someone has spent lots of time reading books as part of his or her studies, then they may also have read books that brightens their cultural horizonts. People who have their homes full of technical, medical, scientifical literature often have the books in arts, history, poetry and the like.
Russians may have a hard time believing that in some parts of Earth, there are people who learned languages, arts, history, dancing and all other treasures of human mind not as part of their education, but rather as part of their general upbringing. That would be an example of what happens in the upper class families. The late Princess Diana, for example, was not educated but cultured. For a Russian mind, however, the way of how her personality was formed is rather alien. People acquire culture together with their education. That's what Russians used to know!

[ML]

Many words are thrown around in these types of discussions and often used in an incorrect sense.

For instance people often confuse educated with intelligent and/or smart.

And yes, as has been pointed out, sometimes it seems that a person with a university degree (or even several university degrees) is less 'smart' than someone you know that only went to high school or maybe even less.

But it is all dependent upon what sort of tasks are at hand, or what experience is needed, etc.

Take a person with doctoral degree in physics and put him out on a cattle farm with an 8th grade educated cowboy who grew up there; and the quick judgement would be that the physics doc is rather stupid.  But, of course, that would be an erroneous conclusion.

In my extreme example, most everyone can see the falsehood, but many people still draw these wrong conclusions in cases which are not so stark or clear cut.

One of the hallmarks of a truly educated person is that, over time, they can usually master many of the ideas and tasks that are put in front  of them; whereas the less educated person cannot, even as the  less educated person looks very superior in his/her small realm.

We never really know at first just what an educated person knows, how adaptable they are, whether they have any 'street smarts' to go with their 'book learning', etc.  But because it is known, or should be known, that most educated people can master many more tasks than can uneducated persons, we . . . especially employers and mate seekers, use level of education as a screening tool.

Sure, this screening tool can eliminate a very few who might be perfect for us . . . but time and other efficiency concerns dictate that we cannot be spending time looking for the 'needle in a haystack' when so many other qualified candidates are available.

The discussions on this topic remind of the situation with prenups. 
Those who have very little assets to begin with, take the road that those who consider using prenups are somehow lacking in character, etc.

In these education discussions, often those who have less than a stellar education take the road that an education does not prove or mean anything regarding what a person knows or can do.

[Ooooops]

Education can come in many forms. I've known and worked with people who didn't have a high school education yet were very intelligent and conversely, known some that spent years in schooling with a Master's and even a Doctorate or two that couldn't poor piss out of a boot with the directions on the bottom.

Back in USSR when education was "free" there were way too many people with BA or BS diplomas if you ask me.   Now and then I get a "really?" remark to my admitting that I had 5.5 years of Chemical Engineering study in college.   I guess I don't show it clear enough.       

[GQBlues]

If you browse many dating profiles you find the term "educated man" as part of the criteria.

Can this man be described? Is this "street smart" or "book smart"?  Opinions?

I would hazard a guess that the distinction inferred has more to do with a preference to someone in the professional field (skilled, accomplished, etc..) as opposed to someone who is in the unskilled, labor-type work (blue collar). If so, then it's indicative of why the MOB exist.
 
No differnce than the notion that WMs prefer 'traditional' women in short skirts and on high heels.
 
Don't make anymore of it than you need to. Most of them also state they don't smoke.
 
***Tits4Stats***

[SANDRO43]

I had 5.5 years of Chemical Engineering study in college.

Aha, a colleague who also left the stink of of labs for greener pastures :

[BillyB]

One of the hallmarks of a truly educated person is that, over time, they can usually master many of the ideas and tasks that are put in front  of them; whereas the less educated person cannot, even as the  less educated person looks very superior in his/her small realm.

Sounds good to me. Working in the construction business I meet a lot of blue collar workers. Some carpenters or laborers move on to be Superintendents building buildings worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Some of these guys are so smart they tell engineers and architects their designs may not work and fix it for them.


It takes time to know how intelligent and wise someone will become whether or not they went to college or dropped out. The advantage a college person has over one who stopped getting educated after high school is that they are more likely to be educated and have shown some desire to advance in life.


The desire to advance in my opinion is more important than education. Some people such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs dropped out of college to start up their businesses. College teaches people what others already know. For Bill and Steve, college would have held them back. They seem to understand a few things that nobody else knew and college couldn't teach.


Last time I read, the majority of college enrollment in America is by women. Men will still continue to be the better of the two when it comes to being innovators, inventors, and starting up businesses which is good for the economy.


With all that said, if RW have a choice between two men they know very little about or everything being equal except one man has a degree and doesn't, of course they'll most likely pick the more educated one. But choosing between a man who has a degree or his uneducated boss who signs his paycheck because he's the owner of the company, I'd bet the ladies choose the owner.

[Ooooops]

Aha, a colleague who also left the stink of of labs for greener pastures :

Oh, the stench!!!   I had to do half-year research work at one of the Moscow's rubber plants for my theses - yikes!!!      I stunk like a skunk of vulcanized rubber all the time - hair, clothes, everything...  Good thing that after college I got to work in R&D lab vs. real plant...   

[lonedrake]

One of the hallmarks of a truly educated person is that, over time, they can usually master many of the ideas and tasks that are put in front  of them; whereas the less educated person cannot, even as the  less educated person looks very superior in his/her small realm.

We never really know at first just what an educated person knows, how adaptable they are, whether they have any 'street smarts' to go with their 'book learning', etc.  But because it is known, or should be known, that most educated people can master many more tasks than can uneducated persons, we . . . especially employers and mate seekers, use level of education as a screening tool.

 To an "uneducated" person like myself......this makes no sense. Now if you substituted intelligent for educated....then it would.