Why Your College Degree Might Not Be Enough

I feel a little sad when I see the bright, potential changemakers and young minds run after degrees to determine their path of life - first get degree 1, then degree 2, and then get a job that pays x amount a month and live in the comfort zone forever.

Why?

Because, and I guarantee you, that in our lifetimes, degrees will hold limited value, in my opinion. Most people will disagree with me because it is not a conventional line of thought. In the age of hyperconnectivity and internet taking over everything, it’s just a matter of time before freely flowing “qualifications” are also mass disrupted by the internet. (Professional qualifications like law, CA lesser so.)

What is VALUABLE more than ever are your skills - what you can do that will add value to your own life or to the lives of people around you. Nobody will give you a job just because you have a degree, and even if they do, that will not always be your ticket to ride. You will get work because you have or can develop the skills that will add value to your place of employment. The biggest companies today have stopped even considering college degrees as an indicator of anything.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a victim of the same system. When I was getting into college 6 years ago, I thought, THIS IS IT! I will have a graduate degree and people will die to have me work for them and perhaps bag the top job offers from the best companies.

But obviously, that is not what happened. I didn’t have any job offers waiting for me. Forget me, I’m from your tier-3 college, my colleagues and friends from better colleges of the country had a similar experience. 

I realized that I had to build up my own skills, I had to offer what the industry asked for, and unfortunately, I wasn’t taught MOST of that in college. It’s a different debate why I think our current education system is extremely outdated, maybe I’ll write another post about it. Which is why all of us started to take the alternate path: BUILDING UP OUR KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS.

“When I hire people, I never look at their diplomas, I just see whether they’re optimistic, whether they want to learn new things, if they want to change things, If they want to work with a team. That’s enough!”

Jack Ma

Am I asking you to drop out of college right away? NO. Then..

What should you do?

Use Your Hours Productively: Do freelance work online, sell on Amazon, do social media marketing, or just take up a remote job.. Trust me the opportunities are endless. Try to work on projects that pay you for your skills, utilizing atleast 12-14 hours a day productively. There are a lot of websites like Freelancer that offer online work (that I’ve done too). We’ve been trained to feel just 8 hours of effort is enough.. it isn’t. Even working night shifts at a nearby store will be worth it in the long run, because it will help you develop the productive mindset of success.

Build Up Your Skills: The internet has enabled access to information like no one else, use it too your advantage. Just YouTube has more information and course than you could complete in a lifetime. Identify your field of interest, and do free courses online. Read books that thought-leaders in your field recommend. Understand how the industry works. Courses, books, blogs like The Ken, journals like HBR (my personal fav) will expose you to ideas, thoughts and opinions of the smartest minds.

A smart way to get started on this is to get active on Twitter and follow your favourite leaders, influencers and businessmen, entreprenuers there. This will help bridge the gap between what’s taught in college v/s what is outside in the real world. 

Just as important are life skills that aren’t online - public speaking, positions of responsibility, even fitness. Exposing yourself to new initiatives will help you open up, shape your opinions and provide the exposure so necessary in the real world. 

Give Time To Your Passion: If you love what you do, you won’t have to work a single day for the rest of your life.. Cliche but true! In today’s world, any passion can be a profession - aided by technology. If a 106 year old Mastanamma (RIP) could be a Youtuber, there are just no limits! If you think you would make a great dancer, don’t forget to dance a few times every week and keep the fire alive. 

Remember Every Big Idea Started From Nothing: You might not be lucky enough to have people around you who support, help and guide you. Most might just ridicule or laugh at your efforts at first. Remember that people laughed at the idea of a flying machine when the Wright Brothers proposed it, and people also laughed when Donald Trump ran for President. Historically, people have a habit of laughing at the people who think and do different, so don't let it affect anything.

These are just a few ideas of a non-exhaustive list of things you can do to make productive and full use of your time - and this applies to people of all ages - you can’t expect to make millions while working 9-5 like everyone, else everyone would be millionaires :)

Don’t let the rat race of degrees and jobs define who you are and what you want to become.

You don’t want to become xyz only because the 20 people around you told you it pays well, and you will lead a comfortable life after that. Trust me, you will never lead a comfy life if you intend to do what a bunch of relatives and strangers told you would have “Great Scope”.

A majority of people in my generation who have been to college know that they didn’t gain or learn anything of major substance there. All our learnings happened after we started working, or after we finally came to terms with the realization that, that COLLEGE DEGREE didn’t do anything for us. WE HAD TO DO IT FOR OURSELVES.

Follow me on Twitter for more frequent banter: https://twitter.com/vedantm_

Agree or disagree? I am a fan of debating on LinkedIn comments, please start below :)