From my own personal experience, and I sincerely ask that
you weigh in on this too, I don’t think what I learned during my undergrad will
set me above the bar, or in front of other job candidates. What sucks is that
we have to pay thousands of dollars for a 4-year degree that in the end,
everyone else has. What makes a college graduate stand out from someone else?
Don’t tell me its grades, internships, where you go…because I don’t believe any
of that for a second. It is all who you know and what you know. But do you actually
learn what you need to know to perform you job during your college career?
That is the point of the article. Everyone now has a bachelor’s
degree. I knew that in order to differentiate myself from the others I had to
take the next step get my master’s degree. Just another lump sum of money to
get a piece of paper that says I spent XX amount of hours learning something.
But again, what even makes that degree relevant to what I am doing today?
(Disclaimer: I understand some jobs you may actually learn things in school
that will reflect greatly upon your career, however read on).
A big part of all of our “big girl” jobs is marketing,
public relations and communication. While the basis of these concepts still
remains the same, things have changed since all of us have graduated. When have
I ever used a theory in any of my positions? Any marketers out there that have?
I can say with a 100% guarantee that no one in our core marketing group has a
class on social media, YouTube, Pinterest ,etc. But yet we work with these
sites every day to reach our prospects and clients. How do you teach something
that is changing faster than the speed of light? You don’t. And that is what
Prof. Thrun preaches with his new approach (reference article).
With his plan, individuals can take online classes that don’t
cost the thousands of dollars that regular classes cost and can still teach you
the most up-to-date, relevant information. If you want to be certified in
something (basically to show it on your resume) then you can pay a small fee
but it is nowhere close to what a degree costs. In the end, Thrun’s thinking is
that the idea of a degree is that you spend a fixed time right after high
school to educate yourself for the rest of your career (like 50+ years for some
of us!) But careers change so much over a lifetime now that this model isn’t
valid anymore.
So if Thrun’s plan was an acceptable means of learning in
the world today, who would do it? I know I would! I loved the time I had in
college, but thinking back to it, I really can’t relate any more than 5% of
what I learned to my job today (and the number may be lower than that). Maybe
in the future, sure, if I decide to jump back on the broadcasting train it
might be more relevant, but right now, I view my undergrad as a good time, a
time to make lifelong friends and a time to grow as a person. It was also a
huge waste of a lot of money.
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