What will happen with the education system

I got asked by a colleague about my opinion on the education system and my experience with it. The many reasons why is changing or should change, and I think I have a saying on it.

Every industry is changing, so, why we are so afraid of changing education too?

This can take many interpretations from the academic and non-academic people, but the truth is that making things more efficient is only worth it if there's no better alternative.

And from my point of view, there is a better option to educate ourselves now, in many if not most of the fields of knowledge we need nowadays.

The digital revolution is at its peak performance right now and more and more jobs and positions are offered related to the electromechanical and software world. It is very attractive for a lot of people who want to get a job and start a career.

That way you will think, well, we need more scientists and engineers, we have our colleges for that, we just need to find a way to attract more young people to study that, and what a better incentive than good salaries when they graduate and join these companies.

Enter the business people, the ones who help planning the new undergrad programs to make it attractive to the prospective students and economically sustainable to the university, and depending on the business goals and reputation of the university, the tuitions can go from a couple of thousands a year or tens of thousands a semester, in the case of state or national universities that sets with the budgets the institution has assigned for that purpose.

In any case, you will spend ~5 years and X amount of money to prepare yourself for the challenges the profession has right now, when most probably in five years that industry will be having very different challenges, and then you will consider taking a masters or specialty program, just to get to the same result at the end of the next degree.

Alternative #1 Self-taught people who are really excited about the industry, who can learn as they practice numerous exercises and activities using real-case situations and understand how they work and in which situations need to be fixed.

Just like you will do it inside a classroom, but using the technology available to reach more people that don't have the chance to pay for the full tuition of a good school.

The internet and the immense amount of content that we have available, the new teaching platforms that are emerging, Teachable, Masterclass, Skillshare... give the alternative of learning the basics and some deep knowledge about these topics.

It may be still on the early adopters' side, but I have found courses and programs about subjects that I learned in college or wish to have learned that are presented and develop in a very dynamic and useful way of learning. So much that not only more people are creating their own personal courses on the various specialties or expertise they have learned over the years.

Alternative #2 The businesses and companies themselves are creating courses and online certifications that teach the basic entry knowledge needed to do some of the jobs they offer, that way they don't need to wait for the graduate student to finish their undergrad program and invest the same amount of resources training them again for the particular challenges they have.

For the same reason is that companies like Apple, Google, Tesla and more, are starting to offer jobs without the obligation of having a bachelors degree.

Now some of the biggest universities are now creating online courses and programs that have the same certification as their in-person degrees. They don't have of course the same level of experience or expertise as being in a traditional classroom, but if what you want is the knowledge and the paper that recognize you as someone prepared for the field, we have that option now. It is just that we as people get scared of anything new, and just a few like to give it a try.

I remember hearing a professor from Standford University saying:

The students don't pay for the information and knowledge they learn, they pay for the people and the relationships they get inside the campus

That is something that I'm sure replicates in many more universities than I can imagine.

But that high-quality group of professionals that can leverage you to the next place after graduation is a thing that only the biggest universities can offer, and only if you also happen to be good at PR.

For the ones reading this and are from the United States, is no new topic, all the media is talking about the economic crisis related to the student debts, that is almost double to all the credit card loans in the country, that's why this issue is going harder and faster over there.

And since all of the western people take the American universities as reference for the best possible option for quality education, this crisis extends to more people trying to find the best options for them and possibly their kids to learn.

That is the scenario of all the digital professions, but what about something more critical, like health or construction, I don't want my doctor to have a degree from youtube or one of these educational platforms.

Well yes, that won't happen any time soon, but I can see where that can go in 10 more years, with the improvement of VR, simulation programs and teleoperation systems, the opportunity for the best surgeons to create programs and teach their techniques to thousands or millions of medical students and perform an operation with a teleoperation robot really increase the quality of their education and creates an opportunity for also other businesses manage that possibility.

In the end, the speed at which the world moves is going to drag everything that doesn't adapt, and I hope the governments and education institutions accept the changes and open their options investing in new ways of education that can reach more students and create better possibilities for the market.

Thanks for reading and if you have any questions or thoughts about this leave a comment below.