If that educations does both then all the better!
usually it does not 
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So social work is more personal to me because I have personally been in social care myself as a life experience, I admire social workers, this is my basis on working in it, plus I feel I want to give back to society in a way, through the kids, the course itself probably be boring, but education isn't supposed to be fun or enjoyable, its to learn i suppose, there's always the partying, on top of that I'm doing it for the job, and there's job security in this field.
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I hope you understand that most likely you will need to study bunch of unusable theories and other unusable things to get a degree....
You mentioned something about people learning new definitions or words with the mentality that they are smarter, I see that as true, been there done that, now I see it as like....just putting more information into your head, most definitions leave me trapped, fixed and stuck, 90% of theories are bullshit, there's only 10% that will truly help you and you need to know...I've filled my head with so many theories thinking I need to learn this, this and this, to only come to the realization that most of it's bullshit, most people bullshit. They add extra crap to the original idea complicating it more and more.....urgh /rant off.
To what you were saying about the degree I agree, I spoke to quite a few people that told me something like, what they learnt, they straight away forgot about it after they did the tests and passed, they never needed to to remember it again, what does that tell you about education, theories and definitions?
what I mentioned was not that they learn the new words and definitions, they just use them whiteout actually understanding the words or definitions.
as for theories - yes, most of them are bullcrap, mostly in practical fields. A friend of mine finished something related to economics this year, and said that t=only useful things was thought on first year, all the rest was just repetition of the same thing over and over again and gain by "a bit" changing it. So yeah, 99% of theories in practical fields are bullcrap, can not say the same about academic sciences. For example in philosophy you actually need to know most of ideas and theories starting from Ancient Greece to fully understand theories and ideas that surface right now, its like connecting the dots and so on, but yeah, if you specialize in one field of philosophy you don't actually need all the stuff, just basics.
And now to mention that higher education even before master degree originally is not meant to mass produce people with knowledge, but for selected few who work in academic level - yeah, higher education is as big load of crap. Doctors, architects and specialists like that do have to study, but the rest.....society does not need so much people with higher education, it simply loses it's meaning.
My kind of work in field of education, so I know a bit 'bout that as well.
