What degree are you most proud?

Good for you! It's something that doesn't fade from memory easily.

There was nothing quite like that day I walked up on the stage and shook the hand of the official and was officially done with high school. Nothing at all. Several weeks before graduation, someone broke into my locker and stole all my class notes -- thus cementing my decision to not take the provincial scholarship exams. My notes were largely written in a kind of shorthand (T-Line) and were mostly indecipherable -- so the only person they could have been of any use to was me. I almost decided to give up that day I went to my locker and found it had been raided by someone.

I graduated high school with exactly as many credits as required to graduate, since I was skipped ahead halfway through grade 10 into 11, and managed to squeak out a year early with core specialization in Art and English, and with honors -- and with the right courses to get into university. Had it not been for that "year early" -- it likely never would have come -- I'd have been forced to quit. Maybe one day I'll order a new copy of my Dogwood (long since lost).

(Trivia note: the British Columbia graduation certificate has a Dogwood flower on it -- thus is called a "Dogwood Diploma". In BC we have provincially examinable courses -- half the year's mark comes from a single exam at the end of the year.)

The six-year "Dogwood Completion Rate" in BC is now about 80% province wide. I don't know what it was back in '87 -- but it appears to be climbing at least since '99.

http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/reporting/grad/cmpltnrate.pdf

It's good to see that it is so high. I for one think high school completion is one of the best gifts a child can be encouraged to aim for.

 

Darn, are you guys lucky. I am in trouble in the first to do something department because my dad is an M.D. and all my uncles are Engineers. Not bad for seven kids of a marriage were neither husband nor wife went to school beyond the second grade.

 

A youth who bore mid snow and ice, A banner with a strange device . . . .

My Regents external degree is the only one I'm actually proud of; the others are pretty much passages in a well-worn career path.

I'm not much of be-true-to-your-school guy, but I get a little choked up whenever I get the Excelsior mag and see what my fellow alums have accomplished.

 

I said that I was most proud of my bachelor's degree; MBAs seem so culturally illiterate.

 

Well, I also had a bit of motivation to go back. First, when I married into my wife's family, only two people did not have college degrees, me and my new 12 year old nephew. My late father-in-law was a professor in Caracas and wrote a Spanish language math text. My mother-in-law is still teaching at 76 years old. My eldest sis-in-law and her hubby are both PhDs in Linguistics. Sis-in-law was a dean at a teaching college in Venezuela before she retired, and her hubby still teaches at the Simon Bolivar. My wife has her MSCS from USC (she went on a Venezuelan scholarship). The next sis-in-law has two BS degrees. La chama, the youngest, has a BS in biz admin, got her California teaching credentials, and is now teaching full time and taking her masters in education at SJSU. So, I had soem catching up to do!

The second motivation was the company I was with said if anyone wanted to move up in the company, they would need a degree.

Money and in-laws- a potent combination!