An MBA of Another Variety

It’s a long time since I graduated from university. Fifty years ago getting an undergraduate college degree was a huge deal. It was something new for most people of my generation to be able to get a college degree where the previous generations had rarely gone beyond high school with their educations, if that far. It was a lot of hard work. At the time the only way to go to college was to get a job and pray for grants, scholarships or, if worse came to worst, loans that could be paid off in five or ten years. Maybe there were some people my age who didn’t have to get a job to be able to go to college. I probably knew some since I went to high school with a lot of trust fund babies, but I was too busy working and trying to become independent to pay much attention.

Where I went to college there were an extraordinary number of teaching and research assistants who worked with the professors. As is often the case, I enjoyed some of my teaching assistants more than the professors. They were closer to my age, but what made the difference were their senses of themselves. They had a far better sense of humor about themselves and their foibles than the male professors for whom they worked. Honestly, I cannot recall of the few female professors having assistants.

Like the professors, they all had advanced degrees. Definitely a masters in something or other. They were either working on their doctorate or in a post-doctorate program. Teaching and research helped pay their bills, the same as slinging burgers and working on farms and in factories paid the…