My friend and I were discussing book sense versus street smarts because I pointed out that I don’t seem to have a lot in common now with a lot of people that I grew up with. Most of the people that I speak to have gone on to post secondary education and are relatively aware of majority of the issues that I discuss. So now and then, I get conflicted conversations when I fail to separate my friends from college and some of those I knew from highschool who never attended college. I tend to disagree more with them (I also need to walk away from those situations).

Anyway, my friend (who also went to college) came to the conclusion that there’s no such thing as book sense. There’s educated and uneducated people. There are people who go to school to learn the basic fundamentals to apply arts and sciences and there are people who simply haven’t done that and are limited to experimental learning. They call those street smarts but these are basically life experiences that (sometimes educated people can also face and learn from as well). When faced with situations, uneducated people find it very difficult to  apply concepts and are less resilient and have been limited to experiential learning – in that applying concepts can be difficult, so they are less resilient to changes. The thing is, street smarts/common sense (whatever you will call it) only applies if you are faced in the situation – I guess that applies to books people read as well. Ultimately college teaches you how to be resilient and gives you a platform to launch your career and deal with life and differences. Makes you a bit open minded – in a sense.

I’ll admit that so-called “street smarts” can be essential only because it makes you aware of experiences that can occur and sponsors you the knowledge of handling these situations. However – there’s no such thing as book sense. What do you think?

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