How Higher Education can impact your Career?
When we mull the question of how higher education can impact our current career, we need to be sure we understand the position of both education providers, and recipients, vis-à-vis the social ecosystem. Young people are being pressured to enter university. Companies, too, put the maximum accent on the degrees earned by young job seekers. Oftentimes, however, this emphasis on university education is hard to justify. Apparently, societies find themselves in an ossified state, where they would rather neglect more reliable criteria of employability, than ease their dependence on the university route. And as we all know that higher education for any child requires more money, hence it’s advisable that every parent should have a RESP or Registered Education Savings Plan so that they don’t need to stop their child from higher education.
ROI on university education highest ever for youth:
The manufacturing industry (and allied players) continue to put a heavy emphasis on university degrees. They insist that degreed people will prove to be more competitive than those without degrees. Those with technical education are, in fact, more job ready than, say, social science graduates. Employers have been stressing the importance of internships and work experience gained outside the college setting. The more practical disciplines tilt the scale more towards work experience. This is all, in fact, working out for business and STEM graduates. If we were to limit the discussion to them, we would likely be persuaded to agree with the universities’ stance. When universities say that they are helping students become employment ready, there is overwhelming evidence that, as far as STEM and business studies go, they are right.
University for youth of every stripe:
If one is at a point in his life when he must consider whether university is for him, if he is not in the fields that are not market-savvy (read humanities, social sciences), he should accept his good fortune. The Industry-Academia collaboration has worked remarkably well, despite all the imponderables arrayed against them.
No real alternative:
Critics say that it is better to rely on psychometric testing, rather than degrees, if candidates are to be evaluated. In the case of STEM and business graduates this would never work. In the case of humanities graduates this might work – but it would mean arraigning the universities with the allegation that some candidates managed to fool university screening and got in despite low IQs /EQs. To be fair to the critics, though, it must be conceded that oftentimes the correlation between performance in the workplace and degrees is tenuous.
Explore the marketplace: One could advise humanities and allied graduates to be on the lookout for opportunities for traineeship experience in the various industries. There has to be a connect between theory and practice. There must be suitable traineeship opportunities for, say, even Geography and History graduates. The Industry-Academia consortia should help such job seekers find their place in the sun.
Universities remain highly relevant:
As far as the relevance of scholarship support for children is concerned, if they are aiming at STEM and business studies, they have a high chance of success. If the child applicants to scholarship programs wish to keep their interest in Art and allied subjects alive, they should be supported by active searches on their behalf. Suitable work experience routes will have to be planned out for them.
