If the SHTF, what educations will be the most valued

[SA Friday]

They've been playing Armageddon stuff on the history channel this week. I've been watching some of it. It got me thinking. Also, if you've ever read the book, 'The Time Machine' in the end he goes forward in time to stay after armageddon occurred. Before he does this, he goes back to his lab and takes three books forward in time with him. The book never says which three books he takes with him.

So, combining these two ideas, what three education areas are going to be the most valuable after everything swirls the bowl. It's tough to choose three. So many skills will be needed to survive.

Here are the ground rules: You have to choose only 3 educational fields and you have to justify why you think they will be in the top three most advantageous in long term survival. The educational field must be a field that one can get a higher education in from an educational institution. Consider the maximum level of education is a BS or BA. No masters or PhD level degrees. Navy seal doesn't meet this criteria, but a Gunsmithing cert would. Be realistic with the educational background.

I'll kick it off.

#1 Agricultural Studies: I grew up working on a farm in NE during school holidays. We farmed 6 square miles of land and the farm sustained four families full time. Each family had a minimum 1 acre garden at their home place. Growing food is hard; hard to learn what plant need to grow, hard to learn how to rotate crops and soil management, in just flat out physically hard. Being able to self-sustain through food crops will be vital to stay alive long term.

#2 Security and Protective Services: Growing self-sustaining crops will require homesteading. Living nomadic may work for a while, but without a healthy infrastructure, supplies are going to dwindle very fast. Roaming the earth like Cain isn't going to last long unless you are willing to raid settlements for sustainment. So, settlements are going to have to have a robust security system in place to prevent being raided into non-existance. It's easy to find soldiers, but tough to find someone to put security plans in place, evaluate weaknesses and neutralize those weaknesses, and asses the potential threats to the community. People with the knowledge on how to bring this information together and keep a self-sustaining settlement alive and in once piece are going to become settlements leaders.

#3 General Engineering: The one that can make stuff work and build from scratch is the one you never send on security details. He will be just too valuable to the community. This is the person that turns wrecked out vehicles into farming impliments and turns rivers into power sources. Eventually even in tact structures and equipement are going to start to need maintenence or even catastrophically fail. Being able to save those assets or replace them with low tech alternatives could be the difference between self-sustainment for the community in a couple of years or a couple of decades.

There are just so many things that would impact this scenario, this topic has the potential to spiral off into god knows what. Try to stay focused here if you would please. I've thought about this question for quite a while, and I'm still only convinced about my #1 choice. It's one of those questions that requires some serious time and critical thinking put into it, and I'm not sure there really is a correct answer per se. But, in the end, it really narrows down which friends you want to have around if we skip back to the 1800s. Financial planners are pretty low on that list for me.

Have fun with it.

[Irving]

Agricultural
Medical
Engineering

I'd say something about economics for long term society building, but in my experience, any one smart enough to be an engineer is also a person whom economics and other logic based issues comes naturally to. I won't put too much thought into this, but as long as each of your three things are different enough to capture the different minded people who excel in those categories, you will likely be able to pretty adequately cover the middle ground.

So to sum up, I wouldn't be concerned with picking an absolute three. Rather I would make sure to focus on certain areas of education that aren't likely to overlap, without working too hard for a specific degree. If I had to pick three areas to learn myself though, it would be the three I already listed.

[Mtn.man]

Agricultural
Medical
Engineering

I'd say something about economics for long term society building, but in my experience, any one smart enough to be an engineer is also a person whom economics and other logic based issues comes naturally to. I won't put too much thought into this, but as long as each of your three things are different enough to capture the different minded people who excel in those categories, you will likely be able to pretty adequately cover the middle ground.

So to sum up, I wouldn't be concerned with picking an absolute three. Rather I would make sure to focus on certain areas of education that aren't likely to overlap, without working too hard for a specific degree.

forgot about medicine.
I know alot of engineers and they can't tie a knot but they might be able to design one.
Picking people with common sense.

[GreenScoutII]

I think a scenario like that one would be where guys like me would be really valuable. Not trying to toot my own horn, its just that our society today places so much value on a college education and tends not to reward those of us with other skill sets nearly as much. In a post-apocalyptic environment, it might be just the opposite.

Also, I think elderly people, particularly those from rural environments would be particularly valuable for thier knowledge of now nearly forgotten skills which may prove invaluable again some day. Skills like canning and preserving food without the need for refridgeration/freezing, organic gardening, animal husbandry, soap making, and many more aren't exactly common knowlege anymore.

So, I would break down the three most usefull types of people into three groups:

1. Mechanicals. This group is comprised of those with the skills to build and maintain structures, equipment, vehicles and other similar things. Also, engineers might fall into this category as well, though all the good ideas in the world are worthless without guys with the skills to implement them.

2. Farmers. These are the people who know how to grow food. Nuff said...

#. Medicals. These are your doctors and nurses as well as other people with a medical background. Veterinarians fall into this group as well.

I think in general people who know how to to work with thier hands and have a diverse set of practical skills would be in the highest demand. Paper pushers and computer geeks, probably not so much

[Mtn.man]

All in all finding Like Minded level headed people.

[GoldFinger]

If you really want to subscribe to TSHTF, TEOTWAWKI, etc... Here is the place to find anything you could want know. It's hosted by James Rawles, Author of the Partriot (i'm sure a few on here have read it).

http://survivalblog.com/

(seemed appropriate for today)

[Mtn.man]

I have been fortunate enough to grow up farming, hunting and having to fix everything man has made just about.
Maybe that is part of the devine plan.