By Greg Horner, Informer.
How often do you hear people disparaging a degree or downing their own? I’ve probably experienced it five times in the past week. “Blah blah blah communications” or “blah blah blah theatre.” Some people seem to have paid a lot of money just so they can talk crap about their chosen field; it’s sad, it’s self-defeating and it’s weird.
For all the Spanish literature majors who keep tilting at their own personal windmills, I’ve got some news for you. Just about every degree, whether it’s engineering or journalism, is worthless, because no amount of accreditation is going to make you a worthwhile person. Maybe it’s not “politically correct” or “fiscally sound,” but people seem to have forgotten that education is about self-improvement and not getting rich quick on the stock market of life (I’m great at metaphors I know).
I’m not trying to sound anti-intellectual, I just know plenty of people who have a degree in something they know nothing about. Diploma mills are all the rage, with online schools like the University of Phoenix spitting out unqualified graduates like it’s going out of style. Even if you have a degree that you have no plans on using, at least be happy that you have an actual honest to god degree.
The important part about school isn’t the degree you get at the end; it’s the skills you’ve learned and the connections you’ve made to get it. If you’ve ever spoken to a counselor one of the first things they’ll tell you is that people don’t have one career anymore, they usually end up having several. Plenty of people get degrees in accounting and end up working in public relations for some start-up in Detroit, and plenty of people who’ve majored in art end up writing taglines for Coca-Cola advertising.
Who knows if any of us are going to use our degrees? I feel like I’ve said this before but if the robots have their way my degree in Electronic Media isn’t going to be very useful when I’m digging up silicon in a post-fallout Kentucky. The best I can hope for is that our robot overlords will have use for a few human broadcasters to lure out the last remnants of organic resistance from their dirty caves in Appalachia.
If you feel like you blew it on both ends that you didn’t learn enough skills and that your degree is still worthless… I don’t know, man, just give up already. I mean, you couldn’t possibly teach yourself something new right? Or, god forbid, take a few classes and learn the skills without getting that degree. Maybe you’ll even decide that you like that trade so much that you actually will pursue another, just as useless, degree.
Because “knowing things” is only half the battle. The important part of that degree, the education and those skills you’ve acquired is how you sell them to an employer. Look at me, I dropped out of High School in the ninth grade and I’ve somehow managed to convince everyone at this community college that I’m a student who works for the school newspaper. It’s all about confidence. If you believe hard enough, anything can have worth; the unspoken truth of this world is that, if you want to succeed, you have to be a bit of a con-man.
So dust off that “worthless” degree and feel a little bit better. Look in the mirror, and say that you’re going to succeed and you’re going to succeed at something you enjoy. As long as you work hard enough and are willing to lie little bit, whether it’s to others or even to yourself, you’re going to do just fine.