In recent years, there’s been a rise in the notion that practical knowledge outweighs formal education. Many argue that a degree no longer gives you better chances at employment. I believe there is truth to this sentiment… with caveats. In this essay, I will guide you through the entire landscape of this idea and show you why I believe what I believe.
I have come to find many studies that show that a college education now does not guarantee you employment any more than a person next to you with zero formal training. While this is alarming to some, it’s also a glimmer of hope to others who hold strong beliefs against the traditional system. In general, since the COVID pandemic, we have seen a rise in anti-traditional and anti-establishment trends on social media. Public figures like Andrew Tate and many others have worked hard to provide alternative income sources for youth and it seems like they had great success in doing so. Teenagers earning twice the average salary of tenured traditional workers has become more of a norm than an anomaly in recent years. This in turn has created a positive feedback loop of more people choosing the alternative side which further undermines the traditional systems. Looking at the current trends, I too wonder whether a traditional degree holds significant value in my life.
Here’s what I think: Whether you’re in a university or not, you learn something regardless. A plumber in real life learns about plumbing just as much as the student learning the theories and history of plumbing in a lecture hall. I would argue that the plumber in real life gets a much deeper understanding than a student learning theories since they are directly exposed to their craft. I personally have picked the road of the anti-traditional way myself, doing all kinds of business related activities ranging from e-commerce logistics to digital marketing strategies. Comparing myself to 30 year old MBA graduates as a 24 year old scrappy hustler, I have consistently outperformed my peers many years ahead of me on multiple different disciplines without a professional degree in any of them. I passionately believe that real life experiences make you more competent than anything you can learn from the comfort of a university lecture hall.
After all, direct exposure will teach you more about a subject more rapidly than anything else you could do. So why waste your time looking for a safe way to study them conceptually? Furthermore, I believe that universities should increasingly focus on making their programmes dramatically more practical than conceptual. This way, we all have a structured and trustworthy way to learn skills that ultimately lands us a living.