I am wrestling again with a problem that keeps recurring: what to do about my education. Apologies if this is getting boring. The same old arguments go round and round my head, and every now and then I need to let them out.
The starting point is that my work experience significantly outruns my paper qualifications, which means that I don't even measure up to the point where I would be considered for anything similar to my current job in any other company. That means that, if I lose my job or resign, I have the following options:
1. Work for myself.
2. Take a pay cut and a less fulfilling job (probably).
3. Get a qualification.
4. Go on benefits.
5. Lie to prospective employers.
Somewhere between options one and two is the possibility of a more open-minded company, probably a small one, who want a self-starter with experience and don't much care about education, but as a few months of looking have failed to turn up such a company and the employment market is tightening, I am discounting it for now. Options four and five are out, at least as deliberate courses of action. Agreed, I could say I had a degree just so as to get onto a shortlist, but I think the untruth would count against me at that point, whatever other star qualities I might show to make up for the lack.
That being the case, option one has looked the most likely for some while now, and remains where my effort is directed. But should I hedge my bets by redirecting a proportion of that effort towards option three?
Pros of doing a degree of some kind:
1. It gets me the all-important bit of paper.
2. The process itself is (I'm told) beneficial.
3. The contacts made could be more useful than even the qualification itself.
4. I can choose something that is interesting and useful, probably.
Cons of a doing a degree:
1. It takes time, energy and money I can hardly afford.
2. By the time I have the qualification it's likely to be too late.
3. I remain skeptical about conveyer-belt knowledge.
So still I dither, and I get advice that goes both ways. What is bothering me at the moment is that I could have been partway through that long long process already, so how do I know what I will wish I'd been doing with my precious time a year from now? Should I hedge my bets by enrolling in a January course just in case? Or will it be a diversion from better uses of my time and resources?
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5 comments:
I share your scepticism about conveyor-belt knowledge. However, even if it is delivered by conveyor-belt, as it sometimes is, you can still do quite a lot with it. You can examine it, question it, find out what evidence it is based on, see if it relates to and is consistent with other knowledge, explore its implications, think about its uses, see whether it provides an explanation for other facts, or a basis for predicting other facts, or a means of influencing events or influencing people. Does it also have a cultural value, independent of its uses?
“By the time I have the qualification it's likely to be too late.” Well, it is possibly a bit late to reap much financial reward, unless you concentrate on acquiring the more marketable skills. Or maybe financial reward is not the main motive.
Some students don’t enrol in degree courses until they reach retirement age. I know of an ex-EB lady in her eighties who is in her final year of an Archaeology degree course in Newcastle, and thoroughly enjoying it. Mature students often perform better academically than those who go straight from school to university, maybe because they are more motivated, or maybe because they have absorbed a lot of knowledge and understanding before they start.
I'm not so concerned about marketable skills as I am about the sheer number of jobs that state "graduate only". I suppose I could buy myself a qualification off the shelf, but it seems a bit of a waste of money. I don't think I could concentrate on a subject just because of its value as a career-enhancer. The most likely subject I've seen so far is Computing and Mathematical Science at the Open University. Hard subjects (in the sense of being less open to subjectivity rather than difficult) seem to fit the bill better for me.
As far as questioning things is concerned, isn't that a good approach to take to anything, not just education?
Another advantage of subjects perceived as hard is that employers tend to be more impressed by them.
I agree with you about questioning. The importance of a questioning attitude was emphasised by Socrates in his discourses with the youth of Athens. For this he was convicted of being a corrupter of the young and sentenced to death. I must confess I have often been guilty of the very same capital offence. When people asked me what I did for a living, I sometimes said I was a corrupter of the young.
Survivor, I have gone through this very same dilemma every year for the last ten or so years. And every year, I ask myself if I've left it too late. There will come a time where I don't need to ask myself this! I still don't know what to do.
There is a saying about psychologists, that they are would-be physicians who couldn't pass organic chemistry. Whether that is true or not, I cannot say, but it is certainly true that organic chemistry is one of the more difficult subjects in the undergraduate curriculum. If you were to enroll in such a course, you might find it a useful way to measure your ability to acquire and use knowledge. If you do well, you have more than average ability.
I'd also recommend the study of philosophy, if only because it forces the student to learn and potentially accept ideas that are contrary to notions the student may hold dear.
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