dxmio.com

During what I would usually consider a very dry class the other day, I had a satisfying realization. A discussion was taking place about what motivations students had for completing a college degree, and one student piped up and said “If I could just get the piece of paper (degree) and make a lot of money, I wouldn’t be here learning right now.”.

It occurred to me that I am precisely the opposite. If I could continue learning indefinitely, without the need to make money (a world without currency), I would. It is much more satisfying for me to learn everything there is to possibly know in the field of computing than it is to get a piece of paper that someone has defined as a qualification. This is of course not the way the world works, and I will need my piece of paper and the job that it leads to, but it was an interesting bit of self-discovery.