What's your education background?

[Scott]

I'm interested to know where some of you are coming from. In what type of system did you spend most of your years?

[Minishark]

I went to elementary, middle, and high school all at the same public district. It's a pretty affluent part of New England, so the public high school I went to rivals many private schools, in terms of number of graduates who go on to higher education. Right now I'm a junior at the University of Vermont, studying Computer Science, and I love it. Even when it's 20 degrees below 0.

[annie]

Public school....didn't learn a thing!

I feel like I'm self-taught. I read a stack a books a week, learn what I need to, to develop my business.

I went to a year of State college, a year at a private college and took a few classes from an Ivy League school. I'm a college drop out

[Michael Chui]

I went to private, non-boarding, from K-5. Got kicked out and have been at public institutions ever since. I also feel I am self-educated, but I'd be lying if I said my professors and classmates didn't help me know all that I know. I find class most useful as a motivator for learning things, such as programming languages, that I'd have trouble doing on my own.

[zpivat]

Graduated with an honours degree in Applied Computer Science, just 5 months ago. Didn't and still don't like it though. Wish to have studied Aerospace Engineering or Naturopathy instead.

[Qilfish]

I went to a puclic school from Kindergarten until year 5 and I have been going to a religious private school from years 5 to 8 (in year 8 now). I often feel that alot of my classes are a waste of time, although they do serve as good motivators and school is a relatively good way to learn social skills and the such.
I still think I'd rather be out frollicking in fields of flowers, dangling my lunch in a basket from my arm...

[songwriter]

It doesn't matter because I didn't learned a thing...
"When I remember all the crap I learned in high school
I wonder how can I think at all
But all those years of education (...)
I can still read the writing on the wall"... Paul Simon, Kodachrome

My real education before the Internet days, now with access to unlimited information were rock and roll songs. (The Beatles, Queen, etc.)

"You can be anything you want to be..." Queen, Innuendo...

[SenorKaffee]

Kindergarten, Grundschule, Gymnasium, all public school forms.
I´m not sure if it is possible at all to be homeschooled in Germany, the Schulpflicht dictates that all children of a certain age have to be sent to school.

[Dan032]

Public school - High school - Community College

After all that, I self-taught myself programming and got into the field that way.

[Akashic_Librarian]

Regreettably I am still at school. I am only 15 see. But I am in a Comprehensive school (High school) and I want to go to University. I hate the school system. You learn very little until you get to sixteen. Even then is government regulated...Pfft its awful.

[Raoh]

in France i think the system is of an overall good quality, at least, in mathematics (and sciences in general) in university... and access to quality education is very easy for the mass.(a contrario of US/British system i think.. where quality is very expensive)
but nowadays, sadly, there is a great degradation of the public school sytem mainly due to economics factors and government orientation
pff in fact that made me renounce to my teacher carreer (i did it 2 years) in the system, i'm now more more free as a freelancer coach.
but it's a paradox for me, for i strongly believe in public education... it's just that i can't do my best in the current state of the system... sad.

[Strangemagik]

Went to public school and don't feel like I learned much of anything there. I've also had 2 years in a public community college as well. Didn't learn much there either.

I always got good grades. I did my work and passed my tests without any struggle at all. I guess the biggest thing I learned was how to read and I already knew how when I started school. So I guess all I did was practice reading skills. I'm a very quick learner and pick things up easily. I also self-teach alot of things by reading.

I retain info at pretty large rates with the help of a photographic memory. More so written or pictorial things than audio or lectures.

edited to fix some typos very very tired tonight.

[yacapo]

I graduated two and a half years ago with a bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Massachusetts.

It is my opinion that the system just doesn't work. Teachers don't know how to teach and the whole system needs to be re-structured. I'll give you an example...

At UMass, I despised physics. The teachers were horrible and they don't teach how it relates to Computer Science. I think there should be a physics class just for those in computer science, for example. That way, students become really interested in it because they see how it directly relates to their field of interest. For example, they should teach how electricity makes communication possible; how electrons are what computers rely on to pass information to other systems. If they had done this, I definitely would have been more interested in it, instead of memorizing stupid formulas.

Now, two years after being out of school, I love physics!! I've been reading books about electricity and I find everything very interesting. School actually made me hate a lot of things instead of making me learn them.

[elainevdw]

Pre-kindergarten through 8th grade, I went to a small Lutheran school with all of 40 students in all grades, combined. It really was a great experience. I grew up with a lot of those kids, and so older kids help younger kids, and younger kids look up to older kids, like we were extended family. We also got lots of one-on-one time with teachers due to small (minescule?) class sizes.

Two years of high school, I went to a much larger Catholic school (500 students all told). I'd never had a locker before, so it was interesting. Also, being raised Protestant, I really gave the religion teachers hell!

Last two years of high school, I went to a kind of charter school at the local community college. Core high school classes we took with other high school students, but we got dual credit for college classes -- they'd apply to our high school diploma and towards a future college diploma.

I went to the state university for a year (thanks to the charter school, I began at a sophomore level), then a private Calvinist college 1,000 miles away for a semester, which was rather traumatic, and finished off my bachelor's back at my original university.

I'm hoping to go back to the university for grad school.

[Lotus]

Technically went to municipal public school, but realistically was only there 1 semester out of 2, because of health problems growing up. So I also homeschooled. My dad and (his mom) my grandma were both teachers, so it was cool until I got into subjects that they didn't have experience with, like calc and psych. So, in high school, I was partially self-taught.

When I was in school, I was in the gifted program, which focused mostly on self-teaching anyhow. We got to play in a room with couches, comfy chairs, a tv, free passes to the library whenever, several computers, and any arts we wanted to bring in... mostly structured chaos. We played jeopardy... a lot.

[Pooka]

I'm still in a public high school. People tell me that New York has a very good public school system, but as the people who tell me this are invariably public school teachers or officials, I'm not sure how much of that I believe. New York students take a lot of important-sounding exams and then forget a lot of material, it seems.

I'm torn between a state school right now and a Catholic private school-- leaning towards the state one, as it's smaller, less expensive, and I've visited it before.

[WanderingOak]

I went mainly to public grade schools, although I was fortunate enough to get into a 'magnet school'- Brooklyn 'Tech, when I was living in New York City. Otherwise, I would have wound up going to my 'zone' public school, which was full of gangs and drugs. I do not think I would have survived. I managed to get a BS degree from Berea College pretty much for free. Berea mainly accepts poor applicants, and all students recieve a financial hardship scholarship. The scholarship included room and board as well, although there were some pretty obsolete rules and regulations while living on campus. But, beggars can't be choosers. They do have a mandatory work-study program, that only paid $1.35/hour when I was there, but it kept me in pizza, so it wasn't too bad.

[The David]

I was homeschooled until my senior year of high school, which I spent in a public school. I've spent this fall in a private Christian university.

[joelyle]

Actually, I am still enrolled...
I learned to read/write through formal education. It has been adversity which has taught me the greatest lessons. There are no defeats in life/ just lessons (it's not a loss unless there was no gain). I am learning to see the lesson in everything.

[cftwo]

Public grade school, junior high and high school. Private Prebyterian college for BA. Public university for Master's Degree. Private Catholic university for Ph.D.