Vera Dan is 100% correct. $ 100 isn't too bad to cnaghe a ticket on an airline like Jet Blue who have such low prices to start with. The cnaghe fee is an integral part of their revenue. They offer dirt cheap tix on the condition you do not cnaghe them. If you do want to cnaghe then they charge a service fee.I think this is a much farer system for those who do stick to their original as they don't have the cost of other people's cnaghes built into their ticket price.All that aside I have heard that begging, crying or continual phone calls until you do get someone on the phone willing to break the rules has worked with some airlines.

Adela I'm definitely on board with your views. I see no cons to tecnhiag character education as long as the one tecnhiag isn't in need of it as well. It's a great tool for children who don't get the support they need at home and as a reinforcement for those who do. We, unfortunately, live in a society that doesn't value accountability. It'd be great to change that.

Hitesh Interesting, but the article lavees me with some questions, like: When higher ed institutions throughout the world are making online and virtual world education options available, is digging up another chunk of Chaska for a physical gathering space the best economic and environmental solution? And if folks are going to be able to tailor their higher ed experiences like this, is EdCampus intending to serve as some sort of aggregator to issue an academy-approved piece of paper/degree from this a la carte work?

Ali Interesting post! I don't think that a degree is nesecsary, but a few courses even taking a new class every year can be helpful. I do web design and blogging and would find taking a new design and a new writing class annually to be incredibly helpful. It isn't in my budget right now but truthfully I bet it would pay for itself.College as a whole though, seems to set people up to fail. The college grads I know all think a certain way and expect things to go a certain way that is not in sync with the real world' as I know it.

Suraj that you are far less likely to be fianlcinaly successful without a college degree.So what IS the value of a college degree? Far more than a secondary school atmosphere, college teaches you to think critically and be more evaluative (if it doesn't, you're at the wrong school). It broadens your horizons in terms of general knowledge (assuming you don't just pick one subject for all your electives and waste your money). It helps you create personal and professional contacts.In short, college is very much what you make of it. Can it be a waste of 4 years and a lot of money? Absolutely but that speaks far more about the type of person you are at the age you went to college than it does about the college experience. I would argue that someone who wastes their college years isn't going to immediately step outside the door and be a successful person at that point in their life regardless.Is college something that not everyone should do immediately following a secondary graduation? ABSOLUTELY. I speak from personal and professional experience (both as a student and a teacher) that the push to go directly into college is not always well-advised.Nor should it be for everyone people need to work in the service industry, people need a technical education (plumbers, etc) rather than a traditional 4 year liberal arts education, people need time to figure out their direction in life.I suppose it could be argued that I wasted a great deal of time and money with my education. I got a BA in History with minors in Literature and French (a very useless trio of majors, I'll admit, as I had no interest in going into law school or another fianlcinaly lucrative field I studied them because I loved them). I started a MA/PhD program in women's history, which I abandoned once I saw the reality of my career trajectory (ie, teaching a podunk school in Kansas, praying for tenure and a never ending cycle of publish or perish). Not sure what else to do, I got a Master's in Education and taught for 5 years before I left work to have my daughter. Now, to be fair, I didn't *hate* teaching, but it's not my passion. Had I married someone with different finances, or chosen not to marry, or if tomorrow I were made a widow I could make a reasonable life off of that degree. I'd likely eventually get a PhD in education and become a principal for the financial boost, possibly a superintendent to provide the life I feel is appropriate for my daughters.However, as things stand, I have the financial luxury (because my husband has a Master's from MIT there's that education=money equation again, and because MIT gave him the professional contacts to get a job that puts us into the top tax bracket) to pursue my interests. I am making money as a writer about sexuality, pregnancy and the post partum experience. The education I received in these subjects was not in an academic classroom (until now) I trained with Planned Parenthood, I trained as a sex educator in college, and I taught sex ed as a middle school teacher. I have had the experience of pregnancy and the post-partum period. I saw a lack of information and am trying my best to help fill that void. I also have had a story accepted for publication in a short story anthology (which you can argue is base talent, but I would argue that talent was helped along by many years of writing and English courses).BUT I have reached a point in my career where, to advance, even as an entrepenuer in my field, I need additional education. I'm taking courses in social work, counseling, and furthering my sex education in areas where I have less professional education. This will probably turn into a Master's in Social Work at some point.Do you need business school? I'd say no. Like you, I hire people to do my taxes, and at some point I'll hire someone to do a better website than I can manage on my own. But that doesn't mean college, or professional education with credentials isn't important for those of us who are not the 1 in a billion exception to the rule.But the reality is that most of us can't support ourselves with our innovation right away it takes years of effort to be successful. To pay the bills in those years, to fund your enterprise, to pay for those web designers and accountants .it's helpful to have a useful (ie NOT history) degree to fall back on. Otherwise, your chances of making a middle class income are slim and an upper class income virtually null. Money isn't everything to everyone, but as someone who has been on welfare and who is now fianlcinaly stable, I'd make a strong argument that it helps. Otherwise, you have a dream and no means to afford it.

Evani I was so disappointed with the sitsttaics education that was part of the exams and VEEs that I quit my job and went to graduate school to pursue a masters in sitsttaics. In the exams I memorized formulas and process to solve problems. I focused on mindless memorization not because I didn't want to learn, but because in the exams there is no time to really think about a problem. In graduate school I learned how to apply a framework of thinking about problems and use that framework to solve problems. Mr. Meyers makes a great point that Bayesian methods are superior could easily be incorporated and taught. But Bayesian sitsttaics is already on Exam C. And I believe that if you were to ask most recently credentialed actuaries they would be able to determine the posterior from a prior and conditional likelihood but they wouldn't know what that posterior was used for or how to interpret it. And Markov Chains are also already on exam 3. In general, I strongly believe there should be more sitsttaics. But there should be more problems that involve analyzing and interpreting general output and less involving mindless memorization.

Ahn I've made this comment in ahetnor forum, but the vision of the level of understanding required for membership approved by the Board sets (IMO) an appallingly low standard for Associates. Should not the CAS expect Associates who are members and actuaries, mind you to synthesize methodologies? Exercise complex judgment? Develop practical solutions to business problems not necessarily encountered before? Clearly communicate this to ahetnor party? If not if these are expected only of Fellows then it's worth asking whether the Fellowship level exams are achieving this differential between Fellows and Associates, or if instead we're attributing some kind of value judgment to the passing of a couple of exams that don't test for these skills. I haven't taken exams in a long time, so I can't say firsthand how it currently is. But I've read the vision to current Fellowship candidates and they've laughed at the distinction. I bring it up here because I believe it's relevant to the discussion. Statistical methods are rapidly becoming basic methodology for ratemaking or at least risk classification and reserving. Like others above I believe it is inadequately addressed in the current basic education structure. It strikes me that if we are to add such material to the syllabus it should be part of the requirements for Associateship, if we are to follow the vision as articulated by the Board. I don't want to derail this thread into a discussion of the vision and its implications on the basic education structure. (It probably warrants a thread of its own.) My point is simply that current usage of statistical techniques in insurance demands that more material/evaluation be added to the basic education structure, and that the vision would suggest candidates for Associateship should demonstrate competence in it.

Nurmaiia There's some pretty big jumps toawrd the conclusion of this post. Less foriegn language will cause us to have a deluge of low level workers? Really? So, with an increase in foriegn language training we would eradicate low level jobs? While the main point of the post is to point out that language education has decreased in elementary schools elementary schools it doesn't follow that this will have any particular outcomes. What have elementary schools gotten better at? What has increased by 40%. Is it only bad? I don't think so.

Fery Sorry I missed you in NYC. Heard your sesiosn was great. Glad your progress is going well. TechSmith has been really supportive. They donated a combined $1500 to the 2 TeachMeets I've been planning (1 past, 1 in March) and I believe are supporting several EdCamps. Keep pushing for EdCamp Detroit. It's a lot of work, but totally work it. I'm sure it will be a great event.Do you have a date/venue yet?

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