Attitudes toward education

Very strange movie. Talia, for example, is a fool. She drops out of college to open a business.

Some of the most successful people I've known have dropped out of college to open businesses or to begin careers. Some already had success before taking college classes. They have a gift for knowing what their priorities are to set up successful businesses and/or learned when they were young by watching others. Their confidence, hard work and determination to be successful pays off. The college classes those people took supplemented what they already knew.

What this movie never shows is how getting an education is desirable or useful.

It never showed that? I thought that was a point they were making since Larry might not have been fired if he had a degree. I thought that was the point when Larry could look over numbers for Talia's business and determine that it would make a profit (before people call BS on his ability to do that, we don't have a guarantee that he's right or wrong, just like any "beginner" the real world). Then there were the characters in the film who obviously had degrees, steady jobs and incomes.

It's presented more like college is just a place where you can reboot your social life

Nothing wrong with showing that college does expand some people's social abilities.

(with no explanation how Larry affords it).

Do we need an itemized list? A few classes at community college aren't that difficult to afford. We clearly see Larry juggling his financial responsibilities, such as bringing in an income as a cook, switching to a more cost-effective vehicle (when it's not raining), handing his house keys over to the bank, plus he apparently would've been receiving steady checks because of his military pension.


Mag, Darling, you're being a bore.

reply share

add reply

formatting help

As the other poster said, there are loads of people who didn't go to college/dropped out who were very successful. Gates, Jobs, Frank Lloyd Wright, and even Tom Hanks himself.

I will say that I very much value an education, but I've also told my kids that it doesn't have to be college per se. If they want to work on air conditioners or the such, that is fine - but they'll need to have some advanced education beyond high school.

Do I blame Talia for dropping out? I would say it depends upon why she did it. She could have gotten a great deal on the location and be the only shop like hers for several blocks around.

Plus, she was going to a community college, not a college of design or such. Yes, she was going to learn a lot there, but nothing highly specialized.

But he's still got a better resume than Larry, having a degree and executive experience.

True, however, if you read the trivia section here, he said they weren't giving away diplomas where he went to college. But, in reality, they were. It kind of explains why he went from executive to pizza driver - he had the paper diploma but not really the skills.

Larry the part-time line cook (you know, the guy who said explicitly early on that he doesn't want to cook for a living because he'd done it so long before) is hardly in a position to look down his nose at him.

It wasn't so much looking down his nose at him as it was, "Hey, look. The company fuqked you over even though you have a degree just like they fuqked me over supposedly because I didn't have a degree."

What this movie never shows is how getting an education is desirable or useful.

Larry's speech class opened him up to new ways of thinking, and his economics class helped him get out from under his heavy mortgage. I think that shows college is more than just for making friends.

It's presented more like college is just a place where you can reboot your social life (with no explanation how Larry affords it).

It only shows him taking 2 classes at a community college. That isn't that expensive. By getting out of his house and driving his scooter, he's not having to pay out thousands of dollars each month. And, he sold just about everything he had. It wouldn't be unreasonable to think he's got a little bit of money in the bank now. Not tens of thousands, but enough to live a scaled-back life.

reply share

add reply

formatting help

Your analysis of this film shows that you obviously surf I the shallow end of the pool. You missed it!

reply share

add reply

formatting help

I had several friends in college who were Vietnam-era vets (Lance would have been more Desert Storm era) who did the entire ride on the GI Bill. There are other options to retrain & retool, which decent advising from EVCC would most likely have led him to. Also, Dave Busik, the Dean of Student Services at EVCC, is a veteran, and would no doubt been abreast of all the benefits and programs available to retool/retrain veterans! EVCC also could have had a federal TRIO grant program called Veterans' (and/or Vocational) Upward Bound. And that doesn't even scratch the surface of the programs & services Larry could access as a displaced worker! (When the Bausch & Lomb plant in this area went to Mexico, the workers became eligible for all kinds of retrain/retool options that the regional network put into place to respond to the plant closing...resources that can also be accessed on an individual, case-by-case basis.)

reply share

add reply

formatting help

His boss with the degree (and class ring) from SMU says, "SMU class of '86, solid gold; they don't just give these away, Larry." The joke is that Southern Methodist got one of the harshest NCAA penalties that year for many indiscretions, including graduating students who didn't deserve a degree.

I think the point of this movie is that we value people with a vast amount of life experiences less than those who plow through college when both may be of equal value.

reply share

add reply

formatting help

good place to find zen too.



"You have to live life to its full chorizo!"-Mario Batali🏄

reply share

add reply

formatting help