I left University at the end of my 3rd year because my husband was going overseas with the AF. It was always my intention to finish but it never was possible. We didn't live near colleges when we came back and I couldn't afford much. In my family, you did not go into debt to graduate college. Period. Anyway I never got the degree but I had a helluva lot of experience in various things when I was hired at KUMC by an M.D./researcher to be his Administrative Coordinator. I created a bookkeeping system, got the clinic's finances back in the black, planned international trips, managed seminars and workshops that he gave, brought in powerhouse MD speakers (one a Nobel prize winner), etc. All this without a degree and no one ever complained. He was tickled to have someone with all the experience and capabilities I had plus being able to edit his professional journal articles.

When I went to work for the Research Institute where we managed the financial end of clinical trials, no one cared, either. But after they changed directors, the emphasis became to hire people only with degrees, even receptionists for God's sake. Because we had a medical school, you were supposed to be degreed.

The job I did for them, and did it damned well, knew more and accomplished more than most of their degreed people, found the screw-ups their Masters Degree Accountants made, and when I left, they wanted a degree only in my position. I wish them luck with it but I have a feeling the docs and nurses who are doing clinical studies are not getting the service they once were. But not my problem any more.

I come from a generation and family where you learned everything you could and became attuned to where you worked, what you did and what everyone else there did so you could work as an effective team. Now, it's compartmentalized and I see little team work. Politics is in everything.

I'm glad I'm out of it. Of course, now that publishing is changing so radically, I don't know yet where I'm going there.