My Geoscience education: reflection on good behavior by someone who did not utilize his degree

At times I am disgruntled when I reflect on my education - B.S. Geoscience, geology emphasis, Boise State University 2012.  Still I study geology but frustrated by the seemingly intentional cloud put up, a cloud of pomp, of professors being anointed as secret holders of information, the concealing clouds meant to hide, meant to be hiding worthy mysteries that you are supposed to be desirous of getting closer to.

And, so, I've just described what I usually - what perhaps most people usually - see as knowledge.  That cloud I described is my own fog of non-understanding that as a student I should desire breaking through because then I will be educated which is what all that time spent was meant to accomplish.  Once broken through I would see open roads - options.  I would see paths to income and further edification.

I saw classmates do it, make it through the mystical vapors = profs deferred to them, talked to them, laughed with them: that friendly chiding from the prof over the effort the student was putting in.  I caught glimpses though basic, easiest-to-see-through clouds.  I saw how it was important to work with a professor, helping them with their research.  I saw classmates completing research papers that their profs helped them with, guided them. 

A different life-path, if I was willing to travel, to relocate, geology would have meant more.  Still have it I suppose: I thought it would be nice to have a little notebook to carry with me esp. when backpacking or hiking, a little scrapbook with info on the areas I frequent.  So just went now to the garage and got my little 3.5"x 5.5" Moleskine notebook that I've had for years, the first 10 pages or so containing entries that I'll read sometime but not now - pages and pages empty though, ready for info.  Right now I'll jot some facts about the the Idaho Batholith, a structure so interesting, so integral to understanding the Sawtooth Mountains to the north of me, which I visit and gaze upon from atop Lucky Peak.

Yeah, I feel if I was all about heading to work in a mine I could have contacted those employers, tailored my time spend studying for my degree with an eye on that eventuality.  A better part of a decade downstream from those times, get something out of it still.  I feel I recognized good traits in people now and that in the past I did not have that full perceptual ability.  I'm working on it now.  Sure I've heard of "focus" but it was abstract hearing about that quality in others.  Now with my focusing I get ti and I get how it may be beneficial to me, if the ability to focus is in actuality a benefit to others.

It is that ability to "snap out of it" and think forward (positive) thinking thoughts - there it seems to slip back under the veil of abstraction but for me it is a real technique I practice concretely.  Especially when the thoughts do go negative (and this is with the primary purpose of minimizing/controlling/getting rid of negative thoughts) I ask what I want to work on with my writing.  As simple as that.  Or I think of my run plans for the the next day, for the week.

I guess it doesn't' matter if this is what others do or if this is solely a special adaptiation for myself.