The Value of an Education
I know, in advance, that there is a significant value to an education and having a degree... or several.
My intent is for the several.
As I write this it has occurred to me that I have a high school diploma-slash-degree. By the end of this year, I will have a Bachelors of Arts Degree in English. After this, this hope is to work on a Master's of Fine Arts in Writing - essentially a degree that allows me to write and show improvement in writing. The Master's degree is a professional degree. After that, if I am capable of still moving on, I intend to get a PhD (Doctorate of Philosophy) in Writing or English or whatever will advance my goals in that direction.
Several years ago, I worked with a man who was the Executive Vice President of the company. He would become the CEO of that company, spin off into a new company, go out of business, and start an entirely different company. We ended up speaking about the kinds of people he was likely to hire, one day.
One of his requirements was that a person have a degree before he would hire him. Fortunately, he was not involved in my hiring, while the job I was doing was not something one would (normally, outside of Utah) expect a college grad to be doing. That did not negate the relationship or the advice.
To get a good job get a degree.
Hence my being back in school in my 30's and dealing with traditional college age students, which is often a pain.
And yet, it is that degree that you pay for, that qualifies you for more. By going to school you show - not a mastery - a willingness to spend the time doing something. It is more a mark of completion than a mark of qualification. A student, having graduated from college, is no more qualified to do a job than anyone else; they have merely met one of the qualifying characteristics that employers are looking for.
If I want to be taken seriously in the world outside of school, in the business or academic world, then I have to spend time in school and in class working toward specific goals. If I want to write for some company, the prerequisite is to have a degree. If I want to be recognized for genius, I have to go to school.
The outcome is not that I can't make my way up through the ranks and files of people who all want similar outcomes as me. I want to be published. I want to have multiple degrees. I want to have a family. And I want to be financially comfortable by achieving my goals.
Along with accomplishing goals is the economic reasons to have a degree. Someone with a bachelors degree are more likely to make more money over a lifetime than someone without a degree or with only a high school diploma. More, when economic recessions hit, it is the people without degrees that often succumb to the recession than those with. Companies pull back and focus in on the people with an education, trying to fill employment slots that way, first, before resorting to those without degrees and without an education.
The long and short of it is that I am better off being at BYU, getting a degree, and pursuing more education than I would be going back into the workforce and hoping that my employer(s) are willing to continue working with me regardless of the economic circumstances of the world around me.
Good thing our plans are to go a more academic route that allows for more stability during economic fluctuations.
John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West
Real Heroes Fly