This is a critical question in the process and needs more personal reflection as much as a realistic and updated answer. We must digress a bit to understand in full what a college degree entails and what life is like with or without a college degree. A college degree is more of a certificate in universities or colleges that confirms the course of study that you took there, or that affirms the qualification that you get when you have passed the course. Lets’ start with Can You Survive Without A College Degree?
Have you ever wondered about the worth of a college degree?
If you have, then it is important to take you back to how a college degree came about for you to have more insight into it and determine its relevance to the present world.
From the 1750s to the 1950s, we entered the industrial age, the industrial revolution. Something happened, this is the first time in history that people who were born poor could be rich, people who have no property like land could do something to make them rich. In the industrial age, machine equals wealth.
Don’t pause because you will soon understand the onset of a college degree. Years into the industrial age, all the peasant farmers and other laborers were convinced to consider working in those industries for five days- 9 to 5, a week instead of tilling the land for seven days a week with little or no outcome.
These persons accepted, after all, they will also be taken care of (pension) when they get to 65yrs of age. What happened was this- this was the first time in history that a new class of people was born which is the middle class. It was the first time in history when people began to have extra time, extra income, weekends, vacations, and others. This generated what we all know today as ‘retirement’. Retirement came and started from the industrial age. The interesting thing here was that the higher your school time (education), the higher your position and then the higher your pay.
If this sounds familiar, then you must have understood where the idea of high school degree, college degree, post-graduate degree, and others came from. Don’t get things mixed up, getting a good formal education is still important but trying to create wealth from the old centuries’ ideas even with the revolution that has taken place isn’t feasible.
We are in the 21st century and this is a digital revolution age where you don’t need more years in school to create wealth.
The problem is that we have beclouded education with schooling and that is why most persons are more interested in the certified piece of paper than the knowledge itself.
Schooling is only a form of education that is formal education versus informal education which takes place outside of a structured curriculum. Informal education which is the best form of education means a learning process whereby an individual acquires the needed attitudes, skills, and knowledge from the educational influences and resources in his or her environment and daily experience. It involves proactive discussion, exploration, and enlargement of experience.
A college degree is worth the cost if you are interested in pursuing a career in the following fields:
- Agricultural economics
- Soil science
- Food science and technology
- Agronomy
- Fisheries
- Religious studies
- Linguistics
- Biochemistry
- Zoology
- Botany
- Marine biology
- Microbiology
- Accountancy
- Business administration
- Insurance
- Hospitality and tourism
- Child dental health
- Dentistry
- Civil engineering
- Electronic engineering
- Petroleum and gas engineering
- Metallurgical and materials engineering
- Quantity surveying
- Urban and Regional planning
- Medical rehabilitation
- Medical laboratory science
- Private and public law
- Anatomy
- Pediatrics
- Surgery
- Psychological medicine
- Pharmaceutical Technology and industrial pharmacy
- Clinical pharmacy and pharmacy management
- Geophysics
- Pure and industrial chemistry
- Political science
- Economics
- Veterinary medicine
- Veterinary physiology/pharmacology
Etc……
Otherwise, you can survive and even excel above a college degree holder if you are into other fields that require more informal education, training, and mentorship:
- Music
- Theatre art
- Fine and applied art
- Painting
- Writing
- Dancing
- Cooking
- Sports
- Fashion designing
- Public speaking
- Artificial intelligence
- Digital marketing
- Social media marketing
- Affiliate marketing
- Data science
- Computing
- Project management
- Data management
- Graphic designing
- Technical reporting
- Data analysis
- Virtual assistance
- Website designing
- Traction management
- Coding or programming
- Branding
Etc……
The rise of the covid19 pandemic speeded up the rate of digital transformation.
Therefore, the demand for digital skills and self-taught skills like the above mentioned were intensified and this direction has been gaining more ground for decades across all industries.
Presently, the adoption of digital skills needed to cling to the transformation is very important to securing in-demands careers. In other words, careers aren’t limited any longer to the courses offered in colleges and universities, and these aforementioned skills are essential to the survival of businesses.
This change has produced many benefits, like greater flexibility for workers, removing geographical barriers to hiring workforces, and has also expanded the skills gap. This entails that you can prosper much well even if you can’t invest in a four-year degree course.
It’s a struggle and daunting experience to learn a digital skill but the low supply and high demand for digital skills have increased the chance of success for anyone willing to take digital skills to power companies’ transformation now and in the future.
What are the problems of not having a college degree?
Below are the presumed problems of not having a college degree:
- Without a college degree, you will run out of high-paying job opportunities which are given only to the talented and hardworking students based on their performance.
- People without college degrees lack confidence in their ability and thus, their career awareness is also jeopardized.
- Without a college degree, your sense of duty and responsibility will plummet.
- A College degree guarantees excellent communication skills which is one of the major prerequisites for establishing oneself in the world.
- Securing a college degree is a great way of developing new skills and expanding one’s social network.
All the listed above problems might be the case in the former decades but not anymore in the present world. In as much as colleges drive education and learning but it’s not a reliable source of acquiring it especially when your chosen career is feasible without it. Formal education is an end to a means in respect to learning due to its tendency to produce experts with the college degrees idea rather than visionaries and thought leaders.
Conclusion :
With the rate of innovations and revolutions ongoing, employers are getting more interested in persons who are avid learners and this can be achieved only when one can unlearn, learn and reinvent themselves. However, a college degree doesn’t enable that because of the idea that the college degree holder has learned enough and is certified.
Over the years, it has been proven that a college degree doesn’t make you perform better at work, and the certificate doesn’t override good work ethics.