Why Go Back To School

Why Go Back To School: My Motivation and Reasoning


“I don’t care how rich and successful a man is… he’s nothing without an education.” This is the counsel 50-year-old financially successful Norton (played by Rodney Dangerfield) bestowed upon his only son Jason in the comedy movie, Back To School . It is the same point I delivered recently to my son, in much the same manor, and at pretty close to the same age!
I, like the middle-aged Norton, found myself well into my career having been fortunate enough to have experienced relative financial success . However, the nagging consequence to my dissatisfaction is having never accomplished the goal of completing an education. My son would make me revisit this goal.
As irony would have it (and what would later become an epiphany), my son’s response to my counsel of being “nothing without an education” was much the same as Jason’s in the movie script. “Why?” my son asked, “You didn’t get your degree a...