Newsflash: Degrees are still a Good Thing
I have seen many articles recently (on LinkedIn and in business journals) that question and downplay the value of a college degree. The articles encourage people to enter the workforce straight out of High School or to attend specific trade schools instead of four year degree programs. While college is not for everyone, I have some concerns that these types of stories discourage some people from pursuing degrees. Dismissing the value of college send the wrong message to young people. Is education really a bad thing? I don’t think so. If it was, there wouldn’t be people adding degrees to their resumes that they didn’t earn.
Over many years, I have encouraged several people to pursue degrees, both undergraduate and advanced. My reasoning is not because college graduates on average do better financially (they do, but that’s not the point here). I encourage people to pursue degrees for the advantages one gains from education... and there are a lot of advantages.
So in order to counter the articles against higher education, I submit to you a brief listing of benefits that education provides to graduates.
- Networking: When I think of my list of closest friends and associates, nearly all of them are my classmates and military friends, many of whom I have known for over 30 years. Alumni groups and organizations are great ways to keep in touch with classmates and to meet other graduates. The Naval Academy Alumni network (aka the “Long Blue Line”) is a great one to be part of. Individuals who go through common experiences and struggles together tend to bond and form lifelong friendships. I found this to be the case in my life. I speak with my classmates all the time. You don’t have to go to college to develop networks and friendships, but it does help a lot.
- Degrees are forever. As I have gotten older, I realize that most things in life are temporary. They can be easily lost. Money comes and goes. Many friendships and relationships do too. But degrees stay with you for a lifetime. We are forever part of our respective classes; our stories are interwoven into the histories of the institutions we are part of. It is something that no one can take away from us.
- Social mobility: Education helps us to become established in our careers. It opens doors for us which might otherwise have remained closed. This allows us to attain better jobs and careers than might have otherwise been possible to get. In the case of women and minorities, this is especially true. It’s a way to get ahead... And its a major factor in why many immigrant families (like mine) place such a heavy emphasis on higher education.
- Bending the Brain: Education forces us to learn things we never thought we would want to know about. Many degree programs have core required courses which are not within a given major. These courses, while often painful, make us think differently. By forcing us to operate outside of the comfort zones of our majors, we learn and understand concepts from these courses, even if we don’t master the subject matter. This is a life skill that is undersold by most colleges; providing skills to make graduates more effective learners.
- A sense of Accomplishment: Earning a degree is an accomplishment. Completing hours of study in pursuit of a diploma is not easy for most people. It takes commitment and effort to complete a given course of study. The sense of accomplishment (and in my case, relief) at the end makes the hard work worth the effort.
- Lastly, degrees help us to be able to change fields during our careers. Technical programs tend to focus on specialized skills; colleges tend to also emphasize general skills. So in my case, while I am not an accountant, I had to take basic accounting classes to earn my degree. This doesn’t make me a CPA, but allows me to speak accounting with finance professionals in jobs I have had. The generalized skills allow for more diverse options in career paths.
Not all degrees and all schools are the same... Some colleges and universities open bigger doors for us than others. But most of these programs provide a sound base of skills which can be built on and expanded over time. And these skills are not just work related; they are life skills which enrich our experiences.