College Education: Why we Go
Penelope Trunk is the author of "The Brazen Careerist" and in my opinion has one of the most well written blogs out on the Internet. I also find myself not agreeing with a lot of her posts. She is what I like to call a great blogger: One that you can really get into her writing, even disagree with, and yet still go back and read more. She has an interesting life and perspective.
I caught one of her recent blog posts: How to manage a college education. It is an interesting read, which discusses how obtaining a traditional liberal arts degree is elitist and overpriced. She mentions how the Internet already has places for learning and discussion, and all that needs to be supplemented is experience. She tells us that career centers are generally terrible, and concludes that prospective students should pick a college based on a good track record for getting student jobs.
I didn't graduate with a Liberal Arts degree, so I cannot speak to this this mentality directly. My gut tells me it's missing two important advantages college offer which work experience right out of high school doesn't: trying new things in a safe environment and it's difficult to find a first job in a field you desire when the employer generally requires a degree, such as application development.
I graduated with a degree in Information Technology from RIT three years ago. When I was 18, I was convinced I wanted to build circuits and design computer chips. I was accepted into the Computer Engineering program. After 18 months however, I decided engineering was not what I wanted to do. I then was convinced I wanted to be in network administration where I would help set up routers, learn the OSI model, help decipher IP address and sniff packets. I joined the IT department at RIT in hopes of doing this. What do I do now? I am a lead web developer, developing and maintaining a platform for Brand Integrity -- far from networking, and I am STILL searching for my career path!
I've changed my career path 3 times in the 5 years I was at RIT. I could have gotten all the information for my current path online. There are millions of resources out there that teach and discuss web design and database architecture. But being part of the student body, seeing my peers go through exactly what I was going through was invaluable. Making mistakes in class planning would at worst make for an uncomfortable 10 weeks (at least at RIT). Having access to teachers to reach out to was also a perk, one I don't think a majority of the student body really appreciates as much as they should. Guidance from those teachers really helped me figure out where I was going.
So the question to ask is, "Which is more useful-- four years of education, or four years of experience?" In my field, the former is true. Sure, we can all come up with the raising stars-- those who have not gotten formal education. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are always good examples... but how many of us are a Steve Jobs or a Bill Gates? It's a great goal to strive for, but we ALL cannot be Steve Jobs!
Penelope does bring up a great point in her post however... schools need to learn how to get their students great jobs. The relationship shouldn't end with education. Schools need to become more aggressive in alumni affairs, teach how to effectively network, and provide networking events.
So in conclusion, why do we go to college? Because, at least for us in IT, it's required by most desirable entry level job postings, and it's a safe environment to experiment on what you THINK you want to do with your life.
January 26th, 2010 - 03:14
From the tone of her article, I got the impression that she isn’t really hostile to the idea of going to college, just ideal of going to an expensive, higher-end private institution (which are stereotypically liberal arts based) in order to get the best possible education and be assured of landing a good job right out of college. From that view, I can see her point as the average tuition costs continue to go up thousands at a time (don’t forget, RIT is a hefty 30k+ a year, nothing to sneeze at). Whatever benefit you receive from 4-5 years of college, will hinder you in the long term when you have to spend potentially decades paying back the financial costs of that benefit plus interest, unless you are fortunate enough to receive financial aid, scholarships, or other funding (and even then, it is rare that those cover the entirety of your costs). The two advantages you mention college provides: a safe environment to try new things and the chance to obtain a degree can be found at their core at a cheaper, lesser school all the same. Also, while the degree is important for getting a job later, it won’t exactly get you into the cube right after you get it (not anymore at least). From my experience (in relation to IT), most employers seem to count the degree as a binary decision when evaluating you (do you have one or don’t you), and after that initial check, the decision to hire you a mainly based around your job experience and your knowledge of the subject matter, the latter of which, as she points out, isn’t exclusively obtainable at college anymore. Baring all this in mind, and playing devil’s advocate, what makes going to RIT that much more valuable than say DeVry?
Something I’m curious to know is how do you feel about post-grad education? Specifically in relation to IT? I remember you tried to do it around the time you were graduating, but now, three years later, do you still think its worth it?
January 26th, 2010 - 09:55
I’ll handle the easier question first. Personally I would only consider going back to school if I were to focus on something vastly different than what I studied, or to sharply focus on one aspect of my current degree. For example, I think about going to get my MBA often, because eventually I would like to be in more of a leadership role sometime in my life, and the strength of that training would assist me that that leadership role. Or, I could go back to school in IT, or CS or whatever, and focus on a very specific specialty, and become an expert in it.
I don’t feel qualified to answer this question because in your post you brought up money, and I’ll just say it outright: I am one of the very, very, VERY fortunate people out there that I was helped 100% financially through my college education. I don’t know the pain of paying for a really expensive school. However, I will give my honest opinion: Up to present time, it’sall about the name. RIT is regarded as a fine technological school, DeVry is joked about on Family Guy (I personally won’t judge what I don’t know). I think moving forward however, paying the higher price will have to net you more than a name. For example, while it can never be guaranteed, I believe high end (and high cost) schools should have one of their core values to be “Help each and every one of our students find a job after college.” Also, schools need to take care of their alumni. RIT is ranked top 20 of the best career services schools.
Paul, thanks for a well thought out post.