Going to college wasn’t discussed growing up, it was assumed. Both of my parents have degrees and a child of theirs was not a child of theirs unless they too had an expensive sheet of parchment displayed in an overly priced frame. And you’d think parents of this delusion would have at least prepared the funds for such an overt expectation. However, I suppose they fell in the same category most parents now find themselves in; a college education or the mortgage? (and with twins? please!) After all, college is costing more and more every year and it now takes an average of 5 years to complete a bachelors degree program. Is it all really worth it?
Honestly, a diploma doesn’t mean much more than the preparatory certification I received after my state exam in piano when I was 7. Yes, after a year of private lessons I am now officially prepared to study the piano.
Don’t get me wrong. I think college is an invaluable tool for networking and establishing “street cred” in the world of academia. It can open doors that might take years to get to otherwise. But in the time it has taken most of my peers to get a bachelors degree I have been able to gain enough working experience to fall in the “degree or equivalent experience required” category. However, the difference is that I’m debt free and won’t spend a lifetime trying to pay off a depreciating piece of paper, make more than most entry level positions are paying, and am more equipped to navigate a world they’ve not yet experienced.
What could be the other side of this coin?
The job market is a very discriminating place. On one hand you have the old boy corporation where the college issuing the degree is more important than the actual accomplishment – or any real accomplishment for that matter- and then you have the “or equivalent experience required” corporation- a bigoted spawn of the first with a separate but equal mentality of the concept. This corporation would like to think they’re the next Facebook or Youtube with fantasies of a particular breed of employee that is young, smart, and forward thinking; a glorified drop-out with traits only incubated within the walls of an institution as old and antiquated as the material used to build it. But in reality, the ‘equivalent experience’ gets a back seat to the college stamp of approval.
So all I can do is distract the interviewer with my track record and passion for [industry] just for them to take “an out of character chance on me’. Only so that I may prove my way into the actual position I’ve applied for and be looked upon as a meager intern from my colleagues who are degreed. And the irony? I’ve interviewed these kids. I’ve hired, fired, and promoted them.
Going from assistant to managing director is an exhausting climb I realize wouldn’t have been as steep if I had graduated. But will it be in my future? Perhaps. I take classes now on a case by case basis as it relates to my current experience. If I need to brush up in accounting, I’ll enroll in a night class. Marketing? There’s an online class for that. My education has worked for me this way. It allows for a practical application of what i’m learning and more flexibility than a counselor telling me I’ve taken too many units. The information I’m getting is current and therefore interesting. I’ve learned to take my education on as my life long responsibility and have embraced the fact that it is dual sided- the practical and the institutional- and you can not rely too heavily on one over the other.
“I [will] never let my education get in the way of my learning” – Mark Twain
A Human Tradition 