Understanding Education in 2017
One of the questions we often face is - 'Why MBA after Engineering', or 'Why take a break when you're 40 to get back to college?' etc., Degrees as it turns out are windows to opportunities that you knew existed. But in highly connected world with information available at your fingertips, what does education actually mean?
Well, to kick things off, primary education where one has to go to school is (in my books) still indispensable. Some try their hand at home schooling or alternate methods, but the joy of making friends, creating memories as a kid, goofing up and learning from it all as we grow old is a journey that is best lived. This apart from harder standards of learning foundation stones of discipline, humility, hard work and basic mannerisms. As one ages, real questions on specializations, life goals, career paths and other terms you can think of (mostly pasted on billboards of these businesses) are questioned. My humble opinion is that a vast majority are clueless as to what they want to do in life. As teenagers, education is only a way of keeping minds in check. Differentiation and integration taught in colleges might never be used by 99% of them upon getting their first jobs and that's absolutely fine.
If we could all connect dots so well in our lives, the world would be a different place - better even perhaps. But the reality is that most of us are stuck in the perpetual cycle of studying concepts that bare little relevance in the real world. Again, this is perfectly fine. When you read about some of the greatest leaders of our times, you understand that they connected the dots not via Fourier Transforms, but the foundation pieces they learnt during college. The way you think about Fourier Transforms is more important than Fourier Transforms - if I have to be explicit. Still, ancillary benefits of going to college where one can brainstorm, experience heart breaks, make friends for life, the list keeps on going are reasons enough to enroll and be regular.
What about learning after that? Is a Master's course really necessary when online degrees are equally competent and might end up fetching decently paid jobs? Well, yes again. Learning is not as simple as reading few books or whitepapers. It is much deeper than that. Organizations spend significant chunk of their budgets trying to train their employees to be better equipped to handle situations, but many fail because of hierarchies or general lack of willingness to accommodate new ideas in the team. Of course, smaller firms might give you better flexibility on this, but overall, this is not something that many companies can boast of. So, why go to a college to study the same lectures by Peter Drucker? Well, it's about the surroundings. There can be no substitute to peer learning, experience, all night projects and the free-spirited nature of college education. Failing to know definitions by heart might not affect one's success on the long run, but fundamental learning coupled with emotions, experiences and peers make titles irrelevant. At times when software giants like Google are hiring carpenters, farmers and other seemingly non-techie folks, it is important to understand that skills can go beyond few pages of a book. Temperament, attitude, clarity, focus, humility are lessons that no literature can teach - you should let them shape you irrespective of age, college, university or country.
Education means different things to different age brackets, but fundamentally, they are all the same. We only learn to appreciate them differently.