Does education really matter to one’s success?
Does education really matter to one’s success?
I’ve been pondering this the past few days and come up with two answers. The short answer is no, it does not matter. The somewhat long answer is yes, but it depends on what kind of education you have gone through. Off course, it helps if you have done your schooling from top schools in India.
From the day we are born, we are told that education is important. Twelve years later we graduate from High School and go to a college or university. And it doesn’t stop there. If we can afford it, we go to graduate school too.
Does education matter to one’s success?
Does an individual with a degree in business administration do better at work than someone with a college degree in communications? We don’t know for certain, but that’s not the point. The point is that someone with a degree in business administration tends to make more money than someone with a degree in communications. It’s the same idea when you look at people who have no college degree and those who have a college degree or higher.
Without going into the history of education, I think it is safe to say that an education helps you, but only if you are willing to put forth the effort to learn and apply knowledge, which is why I think many people fail as a result of bad grades in school.
If you don’t like school and would rather be doing something else, then an education will be worth very little because you will never put forth the effort necessary to obtain it.
With all that said, I do believe that an education can help you succeed in life, although I don’t think it is absolutely necessary. For example, my neighbor graduated from high school but failed several subjects so he couldn’t go on to college. Instead he went straight into his family business as a salesman where he made good money.
A college education is the best predictor of a person’s success. Students who get a degree have better jobs and make more money, on average, than those who don’t. But that doesn’t mean every person with a degree has a good job or makes a lot of money.
The answer is no. There are plenty of people who have excelled without going to college, and there are plenty of people with college degrees who haven’t fared as well. Success isn’t just about how much education you have. It’s how you use it.
Consider two people:
Person A gets a bachelor’s degree in biology from Princeton University. Person B gets an associate’s degree in criminal justice from a community college and then becomes an FBI agent.
Which person is more successful? It depends on what they do with their education. If Person A becomes a high school biology teacher, we’d call him successful because he’s using his degree to help others learn the material he once learned. If Person B gets caught up in an undercover operation gone bad and never catches the bad guy, we’d say he failed because he didn’t do his job well enough to prevent disaster or bring criminals to justice.
The debate will rage on, but the answer is yes. Education not necessary important in terms of your financial success, but it’s on investment in yourself and a sign of intelligence.
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