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Has your education paid off?

By austin316 ·
I'm talking formal education as it seems to be a big business these days. A bachelor's degree now = a high school diploma 20-30 years ago. Colleges (and certification mills) are advertising like crazy in the newspapers, radios, and on TV. Millions of people are going into debt to fund their education, whether it be a college degree, vocational degree, or certificate.

Obviously there isn't a job for EVERYONE who invests their time, money, and energy on schooling. Have you gotten a degree and it hasn't paid off? Do you know anyone who has? I'm kinda curious as I'm considering furthering my education (grad degree) but not so sure that it is worth the time and hassle as it seems the job market is oversaturated with college grads.

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agree to it at certain point

by nazil dsouza In reply to Has your education paid o ...

hi u cant say that there isn't a job for everyone first of all the society is getting bigger and bigger there is more ways of making a living provided we discover them, well indeed we see unemployments around us thats bad, but being humans we should find ways of discovering jobs esp those at which we have the potential within us to put forward and most importanly living in a society like this our education manipulates us to face chanllenges and basically that happens only if our brains develop thru years of education in other words when we come to a certain level we come to know what we should do next and its only at that point of level we come to know... will give u a short exp of myself when i was doing my grad my dad came upto me and was like "nazil u r eating my money do something " i felt bad even cried that day but after a year i came to know what he actually meant and that was "i should be walkin on my feet" so i took up a part time job coping up with my studies so basically now feels great about my dads decesions cos if after my educations and on the verge of my job hunting i would have been not well prepared to take up but now the confidence has already built within me .... so dude better think cos i dont want u to repent later for the time u wasted for not taking up a grad

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Wow, that hurts my eyes

by Dr Dij In reply to agree to it at certain p ...

did you ever consider putting periods at the end of sentences?

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Get it

by DC Guy In reply to Has your education paid o ...

"Obviously there isn't a job for EVERYONE who invests their time, money, and energy on schooling."

Yes, that's true. So do the math. Extrapolate the jobs that are available to the people who DON'T do that!

There are a lot of really good people looking for work, competing against each other... and against YOU! The job market is utterly awful. Anything a person can do to increase his opportunities is worth doing.

A master's degree won't necessarily move your resume to the top of the pile on a hiring manager's desk. What it will do is give you the qualifications to get your resume ONTO the desks of some hiring managers who otherwise would never receive it.

I would invert your question and then the answer is a no-brainer. I know a LOT of people who did NOT get a degree and that strategy has definitely NOT paid off for them, on the average. I can't point to any specific people who have only a B.S. or B.A. and are not getting jobs because they don't have an M.S. or M.A. (Or--yucch--an M.B.A., what a way to take the fun out of getting educated.) But I do know a number of them who are pretty desperate for work. Whereas no one I know with a master's degree has been unemployed for a significant period of time.

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Gets you in the door

by jdclyde In reply to Has your education paid o ...

While a formal education does not determine if you are a capable tech (as many of us know here), it is still a bench mark that is used in MANY companies when they are looking for techs beyond entry level.

Keep in mind, it is often non-technical people that are the first line in hiring people and they almost always College grads themselves and so will place an even hirer emphasis on College because it helps to validate themselves.

Just a degree is often not enough. Getting a valid mix of certs and education will serve you well.

Note: There are many here without either that will tell you up and down that both formal eduction and certs are a waste of time, but in the tight markets, you need something to make you stand out. To these people I say, don't get any letters behind your name. It makes it easier for the rest of us.

Exceptions are to be made for people that had 10+ years in the field BEFORE certs and formal education became so profitable.

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As an exception

by Tony Hopkinson In reply to Gets you in the door

I never got the degree, but got my start in house in heavy industry a long long time ago. I can always get a job, but even with 18 years in IT and some pretty good stuff on my cv, I still get binned by HR types who need the bit of paper to 'prove' , that they aren't putting forward the wrong guy.
Every time I consider validating my experience with a qualification, somebody comes along and offers me a job, so I keep not getting round to it.
Nowadays the opportunity to do what I did is rarer than an honest politician though and I would n't recomend anyone trying to make it in IT without a degree, no matter how talented.

So get the bit of paper, it will be worth it if it's backing up your innate abilities.

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Degree to get started.

by Too Old For IT In reply to As an exception

I agree with you, since you pretty much need a bachelors from a brick-n-mortar (in this town, a brick-n-mortar with a NCAA 1-A football program) to get a entry level help desk job for six-fitty an hour over at Small Tech. Maybe you can pick up your MBA while you are grinding it out there.

All of this to get past the gal in HR who barely knows how to turn on her PC, but has half the alphabet behind her name.

(In a way, I envy my daughter, who will "merely" have to pick up her flute, and give whoever is parked in first chair a run for it.)

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Gives you the edge

by Namco In reply to Has your education paid o ...

At uni, you learn alot more than just the details of the subject you study - teamwork, report writing, communication skills, project management, prioritisation etc all in a formal environment. Its very tempting not to do a degree when you hear of peole "working their way up" or friends the same age are out there earning money, but getting a degree proves you can work hard to achieve a goal and have all of the transferrable skills above.

Now i'm in a management position I can definately see the difference employees with and without degrees - not so much in subject knowledge, but in transferrable skills, ability to learn and problem solving

I'd employee and IT grad over someone the same age with with experience, if the market is over saturated with college grads what chance do you have without one?

good luck

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Obvious you have n't met me then

by Tony Hopkinson In reply to Gives you the edge

Still I'd have to think how to solve the problem of your academic snobbery if I worked for you. Do you learn that at uni too ?
While you were taking your degree, I was working shifts, raising and paying for a family and learning off my own bat to improve myself. So don't take a degree beacuse it proves dedication, take it because it's a lot easier !.

If you are seriously saying that you'd pick someone with a bit of paper over someone without whether they were more capable or not, you must have missed a few classes !

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The market is over saturated with college grads

by Too Old For IT In reply to Obvious you have n't met ...

I think Namco hit the nail squarely ont he head "...if the market is over saturated with college grads what chance do you have without one?"

Tony you are the exception, and God love you for it. I am not, and will be going back to school (at age 50!) for the degree I should have gone for right out of high school.

To say that the bachelors of today is the same as a high school diploma is a fallacy, in that back then a good man with a high school diploma could always find work.

Today with core industries shuttered, mom & pop operations as well as major consumer goods manufacturers "Wal-Marted" out of business (Rubbermaid, Thompson Electronics), a "good man" with a bachelors has his resume on the heap in file 13, along with everyone else HR and/or the Diversity Manager has chosen to ignore. (my personal bias showing through, of course.)

I thank the heavens that my daughter has musical ability to pursue if she wants her, as opposed to IT. At least there is the blind audition in the path to a job, where you get judged on your ability, to compensate for the politics.

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Don't know about the US

by Tony Hopkinson In reply to The market is over satura ...

but educational standards in terms of content have dropped enormously in the UK. Most of the stuff I had to learn in Maths and science isn't even on the syllabus anymore. My daughter's teacher showed me the hardest grade maths paper for a sixteen year old and I almost cried, could have passed that when I was 11 and without a damn calculator.

The really scary part was when she told me it was harder than the one she took !

A musical gift is a great thing, whatever else happens if you can earn money at it, you are going to enjoy earning it.

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