Does your child really need a degree?

Written By Sheryll Paul

Whether you need to go to university or not is not a topic that’s up for debate in most Malaysian households. Even a student trying to play devil’s advocate for a minute would surely begin to anger their parents.

Emma Watson was praised two years ago, when she tweeted a selfie of her in a graduation robe, for deciding to take a break from fame to obtain her bachelor’s degree. The hashtag #WeAreProudOfEmmaWatson trended worldwide just minutes after, so it is obvious that a large number people put degree holders up to a higher standard.

If your child dreams of pursuing a career in a profession such as medicine or law, then clearly they need a degree. Such a demanding career should require a rigorous amount of study. But of course not everyone dreams of becoming an engineer or a neuroscientist or something equally as demanding, and it is for these people that there is reason to debate. This group of people fall into the dreaded ‘it depends’ category that makes it difficult to say whether or not going to university is something everyone should do.

There are, however, convincing arguments on both sides regarding the necessity of higher education for jobs that require a set of skills that are best learnt through practical application in the industry itself.

Why you might not need a degree after all?

You can ‘find yourself’ anywhere.

Many graduates love talking about how attending university helped them discover who they really were and find their place in the world. And yes, college does expose you to a completely different environment, with new people and responsibilities. But so does an internship. And the experience you’d have trying to start your own business. The age you are when you go to university is also the age most people begin to have an existential crisis. People at this age will be more inclined to make efforts to learn more about themselves and establish concrete goals no matter where they are and do not need a higher education to give them a kickstart.

It doesn’t do a very good job of preparing you for the working world.

Going to university doesn’t do very much to prepare you for that scary ‘real’ world you’re forced to enter once you graduate. It really doesn’t, but most parents are convinced it does. The knowledge you gain from your textbooks has very little, if any, practical application in your actual job. Employers often place a higher value on expertise that aren’t taught on the average campus so it doesn’t make sense to spend all your life savings on sending your children to the best universities in the world if they’re going to graduate being unprepared for their first job.

Don’t celebrate over the prospect of using your child’s college fund to go on a European tour just yet though.

Why getting a degree might help?

It’s better than having zero experience

In certain fields, it might not matter so much what you studied but the fact that you studied something at all. Many graduates who have ended up working in fields very different from their degrees would agree that it was through university that they were molded into more capable individuals. Going to university trains you to be more organized, learn how to effectively communicate with other people, enforce self-discipline and cope with strict deadlines; all soft skills that would help guarantee your success in the working world.

You can form connections in university

University is a great place to meet people of all sorts. It’s different from school since, in your classes at university, you’ll be surrounded by people who share your interests and plan to go into similar fields as you. Thus, building relationships with the people around you may help you out later in life. Networking in university goes beyond just interacting with the other students. Even being in the good books of your professors may help open up future opportunities.

You will seem more qualified

You can’t deny that paper qualifications will more often than not have people hold you up to a higher standard. Let’s say you’re an artist and everyone who’s seen your work knows just how talented you are. Your skills as an artist were developed by you yourself and not by the guidance of a college professor. However, if you and another artist were being considered for the same job, and you two had similar skills sets and experiences but the other guy had a degree, it is likely that your employer would choose the other guy. Going to university makes you seem more educated and thus, more valuable to the company. It is an unfair viewpoint held by most of society but that is the way things are.

So, after addressing both sides of the argument, it brings us back to the question; does your child really need to get a degree? The only person who can make that decision is they themselves. Statistics show that people with degrees are more likely to receive better job opportunities and earn a higher income, but what these numbers don’t tell you is that it is possible to build yourself and your brand without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on college tuition. Maybe you don’t need an elegant graduation robe and a fancy piece of paper to succeed. Maybe you need to learn how to foster the drive and ambition that already exists within you.

But maybe going to college is what you need to for personal growth to occur. Or maybe you think the time used to ‘find yourself’ is time that you think is best spent in university. Every individual needs a different environment to build themselves in and so it should be up to them to decide whether or not a higher education is necessary.