This really seems more of a niche audience type of blog post, so if you’re reading this, you either like the way I write, are related to me or are really into music and education. As you may have surmised from the title, I’m attempting to appeal to the latter audience.

I’ve written in the past that I love to play guitar. In fact, it’s less of a love and more of an obsession that would have driven away my wife if she hadn’t been raised by a father with a similar dysfunction. As a guitarist I started out with the instruments that I could afford, namely inexpensive, foreign made off brand guitars that I would hot rod until I got a sound that was suitable to my ears. The guitars had little to no value outside of what I could create with them. They were special to me in what I could do with them, and pawnshop specials to the rest of the world of little or no value. Since then my tastes have matured and my financial situation has improved to the point to where I could afford a couple of what I call investment grade instruments, namely those name brand guitars that fetch a particularly heavy price once they hit the 2 decade mark in age. Vintage is the moniker that usually follows these types of guitars and there is a rare, yet financially endowed collectors market for these types of guitars. In the meantime, they provide years of reliable and excellent sound that only improve with age. I get the same utility out of the guitars as with my pawnshop specials, only now these will also provide much greater personal gratification as I watch their value grow by virtue of those outsiders who wish to acquire a similar instrument.

Education is the same way. There are 2 types of people going to school, those who do it for personal gratification and those who do it for an investment. Usually as one matures they more clearly recognize the investment value of a good education from a properly accredited school as well as the personal gratification that comes from the accomplishment. This is especially true when they begin to see the tangible yet indefinable differences between those who have the benefit of an education versus those who do not among their own age group.

A younger student however may miss the personal gratification aspect becoming fixated upon the utility of the degree instead, completely missing out on one of the two sources of value in getting an education, they may miss out on the personal gratification aspect at the outset. After all, young graduates often do not realize an immediately perceivable gap in income between them and their buddies who have been slinging wrenches for 4 years instead of going to school. At first it may seem a wasted effort, until that degree has had time to age a little. Like a finely crafted guitar, as years of experience begin to compound upon that original investment of work the wage gap will slowly but surely increase. As you begin to interact with people further up the hierarchy of the job place you will begin to slowly see what separates those at the top from everybody else. Often the further you climb the corporate ladder the more credentials you will see among your peers and you will note a common trait you all seem to have, such as an educated background. The quality that was present from the beginning and then allowed to age gracefully. Just like those vintage guitars.