I’ve read lately many claiming that education is not important and that people shouldn’t be in college but drop out instead as they will waste their valuable time.
A piece of advice, mostly said by those too lazy to educate themselves. Still, there are always differences. Theory is often illustrated with a novel approach to reality.
Having a vast and solid theoretical background is unquestionably advantageous for any field of our society. Maybe the nepotic state of our society is helping some achieve far more than what they deserve, but eventually, when the difficulties happen, there will be a lack of required education to handle different situations.
The same is with investing. It becomes gambling when there is no scientific approach when there is no academic knowledge and you just “hope” prices will go up and feel that you are so intelligent to drop out of college, but in fact, you just got lucky for a moment.
Being Lazy is Obvious, Just Don't Try to Justify It
Sometimes I meet people challenging logic with their failures to understand basic human concepts. How wrong is the perception of some people and how much they will suffer to find a solution to the first minor problem they will face in their life still amazes me.
Other than in academia, degrees hold almost zero value in the society. People are interested in what you offer and not what diploma you have.
Source: A Hive user
I completely disagree with this point of view. How exactly ar edoctors, phycisists, technicians, accountants, etc. going to perform without having vast background knowledge of their field? This is not even a question, academic knowledge provides thousands of percent value in societies.
My response.
There was no further response because it is obvious this guy would never bother answering, as he knows he was wrong.
“People” are interested. A vague sentence that means nothing. When we don’t have a valid argument, we will often refer to “people”, or perhaps some people.
Let’s find out what “people,” think about this, though.
I would never hire a plumber to fix my bathroom unless they have a vast understanding of the problems they can cause to me with the slightest error they make. And you know what? Those that have no degree in their field don’t have the required knowledge. They will 100% mess up and make a lousy job that will make my life more difficult and will also cost me extra.
This has nothing to do with intelligence. Someone just decides to become a plumber but is too lazy to study all the concepts required to perform the job correctly? Do you think that any technical job is easy and only requires experience? I’ve met technicians with 40 years of experience, and they were completely clueless about the basics of their work. I hired them and they induced more damage because they weren’t properly educated. Instead of providing value, their incompetence and ignorance caused more damage.
Incompetence and ignorance cause costly mistakes. A misreading by a technician can induce fatal accidents or increase the chance of infrastructure failure. These mistakes will always happen, but it is academic research that diminishes the odds of happening.
Accumulating knowledge and achieving a spherical understanding in our field eliminates the odds of failure.
And yet, the author of this comment, just as many more, are just ejecting nonsense out of their mouth that degrees hold zero value to society.
What has a tremendous risk for our societies is an incompetent and uneducated workforce. Degrees are a requirement, except for just some fields of manual labor. So unless you plan to just dig holes in the ground with a shovel for the rest of your life, get educated and finish college.
95% of jobs require i) knowledge, ii) skills. If knowledge comes just from practice, then it is incomplete knowledge.
And incomplete knowledge is dangerous. It can lead to increased cost, terrible outcomes, and more than often is a cause for an accident.
Now, hire someone having no theoretical background to fix your plumbing, electrical circuits, service your car, helicopter or airplane. Without having a valid degree that proves vast knowledge on the subject of their job. And wait for the results that will definitely be catastrophic.
Would you trust a “self-taught PHP expert” to run your crypto exchange or prefer someone with vast computer security knowledge having a degree from an esteemed University? How much better are the odds of having better security with the latter?
I keep reading about this claim that degrees don’t matter, and even worse, advice to skip the education process and drop out of college. This is a piece of terrible advice to give and an opinion that seems to be mostly expressed by Americans.
Opportunities in the USA are nowhere to be found in the entire world. It is probably just the US, Canada, and Australia that give so many opportunities to everyone. Those that make it wouldn’t stand a chance in the conditions they would meet in other countries, even in Europe.
Maybe you don’t need a degree in the US, but just read a PHP book to become a PHP engineer and get a great job. But that is just in the US. Chances are that in Europe you will achieve to get hired and get paid the minimum for the same job for the rest of your life.
You might be lazy enough to study and spend 3-4 years to grow a solid academic background. This will always be reflected in your work, though, and your potential will always be limited.
Exact sciences
When it comes to exact sciences, how vastly ignorant can one comment, like this one, be.
The comment I used in this post (and sadly too many more I’ve found) is claiming that mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy, and any other science has contributed nothing to our society...
Literally, he writes “a degree offers almost zero value to our society“. And got a few upvotes at Hive for this comment (possibly bots upvoting though).
Well, if you completely lack intelligence and have had absolutely zero education in your life, having barely finished high school, brought up in a society/economy where everything was going the right way no matter what approach you take, and had a government paying you taxpayers money for all your business failures, then you can come to such a conclusion.
The US offers genuine opportunities - Still, you limit your chances by dropping out
Looking at the world in the last 5-6 decades, the USA has created a strong economic model that works for the benefit of the overwhelming majority.
It contributes to this the fact that it has an army that makes it the top superpower in the world and helped it open access to cheap resources. This has helped corporate America and Musk explained it well with this Tweet:
In Europe, having no degree is similar to going to war without holding a weapon. The population growth has stagnated for decades due to various reasons, but mainly because of the average wage decline compared to productivity. This is the increased wealth distribution inequality gap and the increased cost of living.
A rise in inflation could further increase this gap and create more issues, especially for the nations that don't follow the production model of industrial Germany. However these economies have no ability to change since the economic model of the EU has specifics for each country's production, thus it has doomed several states and reinforced the German and satellite states economy.
Basically in the EU, you don't just require one University degree but a Master's too and perhaps even more. Equally important is the knowledge of at least one foreign language (possibly two), and even more academic knowledge validated by approved degrees.
In the US the unemployment level is about 2%, meaning only those that don’t need a job are unemployed. Unemployment reached 10% in 2008 and the effects this has on an economy were only then visible.
What about the 20% unemployment that the EU and IMF decisions brought to Eurozone countries like Portugal and Greece? How can you say to anyone to drop college and find opportunities when there are only chaotic reforms that destroy innovation and economic progress?
Being ignorant when everything is perfect and you are living the dream doesn’t mean you are right.
Counted in numbers were those of us that knew what happened in Argentina since 2000 and we were expressing our concerns openly on the EU's foreseeable failures in its economic design back then and until 2008.
It was the EU that was accommodating enormous debt for the Mediterranean countries. GDPs were rising and government spending was increasing at a higher rate in anticipation of better results. All with the EU’s approval, until chaos arrived, and then the blame game started. The German (Merkel) led EU blamed the countries with high GDP and started a campaign accusing the citizens of these nations.
And there were these suspicious comments you would find everywhere about what the German news called: “PIGS” (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain) and how much “people” had to hate these nations for their misfortunes.
Comments like “Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Greece, we want our money back” appeared out of nowhere. But were these comments were coming from? Who in their right mind was asking for money when nobody owed them anything? The fund managers that bought debt from these countries appeared suddenly in forums and online chat rooms asking for their money back? What was this all about?
It is what will happen when there is a financial event. It is bots and paid spammers that we also notice today acting with a similar approach inside the crypto communities. These are the lowest life forms, paid in bulk by the decision-making centers. Divert attention, find a scapegoat to accuse of everything, and keep ruining the lives of millions. This is how this game is played.
Without academic knowledge, you can’t reach this conclusion. You will just be the sheep that will fall in errors of judgment. You will fall into the composition fallacy, thinking that private lending is the reason for government debt, and think that the “people” create the government debt because they lent too much with their credit cards.
Just an example of all the mistakes you will keep making in your life, being ignorant about topics you think you understand, but you don’t.
Without academic knowledge, you will always be the sheep that will need a government to lead them.
If you are too lazy to exercise whatever brain functions, the evolution process has inherited to you, then you will always be also keeping your possibilities to a minimum.
To End With This Absurdity
How can you tell someone not to acquire the required academic supplies and just ask to become an entrepreneur without any real understanding of business administration and the risks undertaking? Especially when unemployment is at 10-25% is this a mature response? How can you ask others to drop out of college and tell them this is a waste of time?
"People are interested in what you offer, and not what diploma you have"
"People", may not be interested in what diploma you have, but people with education and intelligence understand even the details between different diplomas, and how one may have managed to achieve getting one.
The educational system in the US may contain favoritism to those capable of paying for top universities but I also don't think this is happening extensively. In Europe, we have to pass exams with high scores to reach the top institutions. There are private colleges too that may or may not (usually they don't) provide the same depth in educational terms. While typically degrees are considered of the same value, this is for "people" only, and not for those that understand the differences. So not just a degree is important, but also the foundation (institution) is.
There is a thin line that gets crossed when I read advice like this. Yes, you didn’t need a college degree to get a better life. In my position, without a college degree, I would be far worse financially, though.
Odds suggest that all those that dropped out of college and think they made a great decision would probably have done a lot better for them if they got that degree instead. Something that you also learn in “academia” is the opportunity cost. Look this up.
Society values degrees, and academic knowledge provides thousands of percent of value to our societies.
You can’t be forced to get a degree, but you should also not listen to anyone of those telling you to quit college.
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It is an excellent piece of article on the need for education in life. I fully agree with your views.