its not so much that school prepares me to do a job well. perhaps i misspoke. i just dont see how even with a phd in building financial models i could trust myself with coming up with or testing an investment model for 500 bucks of my own money let alone millions of someone elses. the fact that i absolutely hated that crap is a whole different story but i find the sheer amount of knowledge even in a very very narrow field quite overwhelming. i dont have many other examples to give but my fathers. watching him work is an absolute treat. He is pushing past 55 but when he gets a call about something gone wrong in some random oil tanker he knows exactly what part the engineer is talking about, what current substitutes are available, what would be economically feasible to get across the world overnight, how best to approach the repairs and who to contact for said repairs. this came after sailing on oil tankers for 20+ years. he was once challenged by a younger engineer to recite from memory the pathway for the coolant from the bilge pump to the main boiler. he did so. correctly. i have seen him be calm and collected and be able to think while the ship we were on was on a collision course with another. its a long shadow to have to grow up under.