Rob,
You make an extraordinarily good point here.
@rslade wrote:
Not necessarily. I used to tell my seminars that the test was to see if they actually
had five year's worth of experience, rather than one year, five times over. It's
very easy, in a job, to simply do the same things over and over again. (You don't
have to, but it's easy. It's harder to stretch yourself.) It's a bit harder to do one
year, four times over, in university.
Experience is not the same as progressive experience. Additionally within the constraints of knowledge and experience, the University experience encourages a well rounded person knowledge wise (general humanities/arts requirements and electives), it rewards and provides venue for "good citizenship" such as social clubs and volunteering opportunities.
The College/University at the Undergrad level acts as a filter for maturity, even later in life. The fact that someone attended and stuck it out, regardless of the major, speaks volumes to a person's ability to function in diverse social settings, deal with stress and time management, and recall knowledge to solve problems across a wide range of both related and unrelated topics.
At the Graduate level, the experience acts to provide folks a safe space for critical thinking, conducting research, engaging in debate sometimes around emotionally charged topics, and dealing with emerging and sometimes perspective altering new data.
Some of the biggest reasons that students drop out of school based on an insurance industry study are:
(1) inability to balance work and school [patience, and financial and time management skills];
(2) Tuition is too expensive [patience and financial management skills];
(3) Illness/Injury [not relevant];
(4) Stress [poor stress management, coping skills, and stress resiliency];
(5) Not academically prepared [ability to self assess knowledge and skill gaps, recognize deficiencies and weaknesses, make reasonable preparations for taking on more difficult assignments];
(6) Too much socialization/not enough time on study [time management, focus, overall maturity];
(7) Not emotionally ready [not sufficiently independent and unable to adapt to new social environments].
Think of University as a 2, 4, 6, or more year multi-tiered certification program for independence, critical thinking, time management, stress management, focus, and ambition... not so much in the context of what subject the "major" was in.
The subject of the degree really only matters for "Professional Degrees" as opposed to "Academic Degrees". Professional degrees are prerequisites for a license, like Attorney, Medical Doctor, Accountant, or Engineer. Academic degrees on the other hand, the subject is less important than the life experience.
Sincerely,
Eric B.
