Relevance of education - eternal theme, which does not subside for a minute. She inspired us to write this review in which we will accuse and defend higher education. Talk about its importance and meaninglessness.
After reading all our arguments, you will be able to better understand the topic and decide for yourself whether we need higher education or not. For your convenience, all arguments against the tower will begin with the word attack, the argument for higher education begins with the word protection.
Attack. Higher education is a waste of time.
Study at higher educational institution you will be from 4 to 6 years, depending on the choice of university. In addition, you need to complete the 10th and 11th grades of school, or in return study for 2 years at a technical school.
Instead of the time we spend studying, we could work and gain experience, which many employers value much more than a higher education mark.
Protection. Higher education helps you get a job.
The obvious cannot be denied. Eat huge amount vacancies where higher education is not required, but there are areas where having a specialized education is an advantage. The same is true for highly specialized vacancies.
In most cases, higher education will not be decisive point when hiring you, but will serve good addition to your strengths. Otherwise, you will need to shyly talk about why you did not receive a higher education.
Attack. What is taught in universities is not applicable and will not help in real life.
You can't argue with this either. Even if your profession requires specialized knowledge and you have received the appropriate education, 95% of the knowledge acquired will never be useful to you. As does the knowledge of high school. In your life you will not solve equations or remember history Russian state or program in Pascal.
Even if 50 years ago this knowledge was relevant, now in the age of programs, computers and the Internet. Today programmers don't program in Pascal, they use Python, ruby and C++. Designers do not draw in Paint or use 3D max, Illustrator and Photoshop. Online translators will allow us to read Chinese texts without knowing the language we will understand what is written.
Protection. Communication with peers, connections and acquaintances.
Many of the people facing the choice dismiss this point without even thinking. We need a career. And there are some connections here. I have friends and I don’t need any more communication. And they will be wrong.
When you go to work, most likely you will be around people of different positions, ages, and work responsibilities. You may find it difficult to find common language with colleagues. There are jobs where there is no time for communication at all. For example, in a Call center. Your friends will go to university or go to work. Weekends will be few and far between and may never coincide.
Institute is a skill of communication and acquaintance. While receiving education, families are created and children are born. Colleagues at work rarely have enough common interests to form a relationship.
Attack. It is difficult to obtain the required specialty, and the left direction will only get in the way.
In our youth, we still don’t know who we are comfortable working with. We cannot consciously choose the right specialty due to the small life experience. There are jokes about how few people work in this profession. Why does a chef need to be trained as a logistician? What about the customs officer? Such education will not help you in any way when applying for a job.
No, of course they will tell you, “You’re great,” but at the same time they will think, “You’re great, but your education is useless for our work.” In some cases, having a higher education will negatively affect the device.
Protection. Education teaches us systems thinking.
At school and at university we solve hundreds of problems, prepare presentations, take exams, and write tests. All these skills will be useful to us in our future life.
How is a philosophy exam essentially different from an interview? Both here and there you must show yourself and your knowledge in a favorable light. And what good job Is it different from working in lectures and seminars? The teacher knows the level of his students even before the exam, and forms an attitude towards the student. Your employer should have the same attitude towards you.
Thus, even if we discard the information that we memorize, we learn to work and cooperate with teachers.
Attack. University graduates have incredibly high expectations.
Why do employers hate people with higher education? These are their high expectations. People come without knowledge, without experience, without work history and want to receive unrealistically large amounts of money. That is, the employer needs to train you to work for his money and at the same time he must pay you a high salary. A story about an interview for a web programmer position:
Our company needed a person who could quickly create websites with non-standard functionality. Salary was discussed during the interview depending on the candidate's skills.
One of those who came to the interview was a girl who had graduated from a second-rate university. She wrote six months of work experience on her resume. At the interview, she admitted that she had just graduated and had not yet worked.
Before we talk about this girl's skills, I'll talk about her expectations in financially. She is ready to work for 80,000 rubles. No more, no less. Apparently she heard that self-respecting programmers get paid that much. In fact, only good programmers get paid that much. If you don't have talent and high level training, then even with 5 years of work experience you will not receive more than 50,000-60,000 rubles.
Now let's talk about her knowledge. There are none at all. All her knowledge in programming is some kind of thesis on an issue related to databases. That is, our company, instead of a professional who immediately makes websites, will receive a girl who someone needs to train for about two years so that she can call herself a programmer. At the same time, she most likely will not become a good specialist. Do you think the employer will be happy about this prospect? And for 80,000 rubles a month? This person doesn’t want to receive less.
I would advise this girl to gain experience in a job that will pay 20,000-30,000 rubles. And after 2-3 years successful work and heaps completed projects to try out for such a highly paid position. She won’t succeed any other way, even if she is very talented.
Protection. There are positions where higher education is mandatory.
There are many high-paying places where having a higher education is mandatory. Yes, usually they add to this the presence of work experience, skills, and personal attractiveness. If an employer is so strict about choosing a candidate, then most likely there is a lot of competition for the position. But in this case, having a higher education is mandatory.
Attack. There are few such positions and there is always an alternative.
There really are such vacancies, but they are few. You will not be left without a job without a higher education. In addition, there are many jobs where you will be paid depending on sales, plan completion, number of projects and other indicators. In this case, having a higher education will not help you at all. Only your abilities and diligence will help you get more than others.
In addition, I would like to point out international research. We analyzed all the world's billionaires in the hope of finding out whether their success in any way depends on the presence or absence of a higher education. As a result, we received a clear answer. Their condition does not depend in any way on education. Relatively speaking, half of billionaires have higher education, and half do not.
Protection. Even skills that are useless at first can come in handy.
The skills that we learn at first glance may seem useless, but in fact they turn out to be in demand in life. Here's my personal opinion
We cannot always assess what skills will be useful to us in life. I always thought that my life would be connected with exact sciences. Other subjects were not given to me and I struggled with them under pressure.
I have been working as a programmer and internet marketer for more than 3 years. What knowledge was most useful to me at work? English language, Russian language and literature.
Programming languages are similar in many ways to foreign languages. All syntax is written in English. Much important documentation is available exclusively in English and the translator does not help much in understanding the text.
In my work, I often have to accept, edit or write texts myself. My huge problems in punctuation and spelling, my relatively small vocabulary and expressions hinder my development.
These jobs are more related to school skills, but you can also learn a lot at the institute that you will use. For example, experience in conducting laboratory work in physics helps to better test new solutions.
Attack. Money spent on higher education is a whole capital.
How much money do we spend on higher education? Let's do the math together and then decide whether it will ever pay off.
This is the first time that our education is paid. We are looking at an average university. Prepare 100-120 thousand rubles per year. Plus, during training, the payment will increase by 10 percent. Inflation spurs price increases, and according to the agreement, 10% is an acceptable value. We need to study for an average of 5 years. 600,000 rubles disappeared.
Even if we don't pay tuition, we could work these 5 years, gain experience and earn an income. IN major cities without education, you will start with 20 thousand rubles and after 5-6 years, if you are ready to work, improve your working skills and become a specialist in your field, then you can count on 40-50 thousand rubles a month. On average 30 thousand rubles - 360 thousand per year, 1,860,000 rubles. Yes, you could become a millionaire! And if you also pay for training, you lose 2,460,000 rubles. Sorry, but this is the cost of an apartment in the near Moscow region.
Yes, you can say that you can work and study, but it is very difficult and will negatively affect either your studies or your work. In any case, you will miss out on a tidy sum. Moreover, from my life experience I can say that a candidate with a higher education, but without experience, will not receive more than 25-28 thousand rubles, while a specialist with five years of work experience can receive 50 thousand.
That is, you not only lose money, but also find yourself a less paid employee. The situation can change only after a year of work since you received your higher education. But by this time you have already lost your apartment.
Conclusion
Our task was to be objective during the dispute. We tried to put aside the interests of both sides. How far we succeeded is up to you to decide.
Everyone must decide for themselves whether they need education. Make a decision based on your life situation, aspirations, connections, interests. Our task was only to provide food for thought. We wish to make you right choice and not be disappointed in it later.
In general, it depends on how you want to live in the future and how important the opinions of others are to you.
- There are specialties in which you will definitely not be able to achieve success without a specialized higher education (medicine, law, engineering, etc.). So if you think one of these majors is your calling, it seems clear that this is the education you need.
- If you don’t know 1000% exactly what you want to do in the future, it’s better to get some kind of higher education (in this case, I advise you to choose a faculty based on your interests, and not on high pay, because if you are very bored, there is a high probability that you will not complete your studies before receiving your diploma, but you will still most likely be working outside your profession), and here’s why:
- With a higher education diploma it is much easier to find a higher paying job than without it. Here's the question: do you need such a highly paid job? It's deeper than it seems. Yes, perhaps it won’t be difficult for you alone to live in a rented room with three other people, eat buckwheat and buy clothes once every five years. What if you want to start a family? Surely you would like to raise your children to be more favorable conditions(and in principle, quite a lot of money is spent on children). The phrase “money can’t buy happiness” is about how being super rich won’t necessarily make you happy, not about how being poor won’t make it hard.
- In principle, prejudices in society are such that people with higher education, who have gone through the realities of studying at a university, are somehow better, smarter, more intelligent than people without it.
- While studying at university you can make many new connections, both business and personal, where you are more likely to such you won't get the opportunity.
- Even if now it seems to you that you can do without the “goodies” of higher education, there is a high probability that in 10-20 years you will regret your decision not to receive it. I personally know many such people. But the problem is that at the age when you regret it, it is much less likely that you will be able to financially endure your studies (surely, you will be able to work less if you start studying, not to mention the possible costs of studying itself)
Yes, there are people who, without having a higher education, started their own business and became millionaires (or at least well-off). But it is very important to understand that such people - exception to the rule. Where did they have so much knowledge about how to produce a product/service? how to present it in the market? how to attract clients? how to manage a company?
These people either went through a very difficult path, which not everyone can do, or they are damn lucky, and such luck is also extremely rare.
There are areas in which higher education is not necessary to achieve success, and these are mainly creative or sports professions. If you see yourself in this, ask yourself two questions:
- Are my abilities in this area sufficient to receive a stable income that meets my needs?
- Is the risk of no longer being able to work in this field for any reason (due to injury, for example)?
If your answer to both questions is confidently positive, you can do without higher education. If you are not very sure about any of this, it is better to have a backup plan so as not to be left with nothing.
I would like to comment on the situation as a teacher (from the other side of the barricades, so to speak). I communicate quite a lot with my students and many tell me why they entered and why. Parents and grandparents often force it. Often a person doesn’t know what to do after school, why not go to university? Often girls believe that education is a kind of dowry and that it is more interesting to talk to an educated wife. Many people go because “now there’s nowhere without a tower.” And only a small part comes to receive education with adequate expectations and understanding of the process.
In my opinion, to answer the question of whether it is worth it or not, we need to consider several trends and facts.
1. In general, all people do not need higher education. There are a huge number of jobs and specialties where a person needs specialized secondary education or just secondary education (completed school). For example, to work as a waiter, receptionist, secretary, courier, or barista, it is enough to graduate from school and undergo on-the-job training. If you are satisfied with this kind of work (they pay for it, by the way, often higher than for the work of specialists with higher education), then higher education will simply be a waste of 4-6 years of time (during which you will earn money at work and maybe get a couple of promotions ). Many students want to gain practical skills and algorithms (do it once, do it twice, here’s the result), they want a specific craft, from which they can live. This is a good request, but it is essentially a request for secondary specialized education. And this is not necessarily about electricians, plumbers and car mechanics. There are also hairdressers, manicurists, system administrators, jewelers and many, many others. These are good, necessary and paid professions. You can make a career in them and see the results of your work. Again, if you like this, then higher education will again be a waste of time and lost profit.
2. Unfortunately, people’s attitude towards higher and middle special education not the same. In our country, higher education is still perceived with respect and honor. And they often speak about secondary special education with disdain (for example, “ugh, some kind of birder”, “this is for stupid people”, “why couldn’t you at least get into a bad university”?). I think this is completely wrong. This phenomenon has its roots in Soviet era, when specialists with higher education worked in more comfortable conditions, received much higher salaries and moved according to career ladder. About 20% of people had higher education, and obtaining a diploma was a powerful application for social success. The memory of those times is still alive in the minds of our parents and grandparents. The situation, however, has completely changed since the mid-80s (30 years have passed, but the stereotypes remain). The demand for specialists with higher education is not as great as the supply (thousands of university graduates are not in demand). And, on the contrary, the professions of a makeup artist, administrator or call center operator are in much greater demand, they pay more and higher education is essentially not needed there. Why waste 4-6 years?
3. Higher education now performs the functions that were previously performed by secondary education. Previously, the school did not hesitate to leave children who had not mastered it well enough for a second year. school curriculum. A grade of "one" was in use and a two had to be earned. No more were presented high demands, the requirements were simply maintained more consistently and clearly. By the end of school, a person had not only a basic set of knowledge, but also a number of social skills, sufficient to start adult life. Nowadays, a school graduate is rarely ready for anything. Everyone is given a certificate, repeaters are pulled up to 11th grade (even if they don’t really know the 7th grade program). But in the end, these people need to be sent somewhere so that they can “mature”, gain communication skills, and understand how, what and where. And so they are sent to a university for another 4 years to learn their wits. This is not about a full-fledged higher education, it is about socialization and entry into culture. + Of course, now it’s objective more information and more difficult social structure, people are growing up later than before (a global trend).
4. The quality of higher education leaves much to be desired (this applies to both regular and top universities). There are many reasons for this. This is also the mass exodus of teachers in the 90s. And insufficient funding, insufficiently high salaries. And excessive bureaucracy, endless checks. And as I wrote above, the level of preparation of applicants is not always sufficient (and often it’s not about knowledge, but about the ability to plan your time, communicate politely with teachers, independently complete tasks without super-detailed instructions, the ability to motivate yourself, etc. ).
5. Ultimately, higher education for many is a way to get some kind of magic crust. Its magic lies in the fact that parents and relatives will leave him alone. The magic is that the employer will not show off (and the employer requires higher education both where it is necessary and where it is not necessary).
So is it worth it or not?
If you just want to earn money in peace, it’s not so important for you to maintain your own work activity, your relatives are putting pressure on you, and you want to “be no worse than everyone else,” then it’s NOT WORTH IT. You will lose several years of your life without seeing the point in your actions. You'll miss out on the professional experience and money you could get if you went straight to work.
If it is important for you to engage in a specific job or area of activity that requires in-depth training. If you want to engage in teaching and/or scientific activity. If you want to gain deep knowledge not only about how to do a specific job, but also understand how society and the world work. If you are committed to self-development in the intellectual sphere. Then it's WORTH it.
For many it seems standard life situation, when a child, after graduating from school, enters university, receives a diploma and goes to work. In this case, those who failed begin to feel like failures or people who are a class below students. But it’s worth understanding why higher education is needed and what ways there are to get it.
The coveted diploma
Among Soviet-era people, the stereotype regarding education is very deeply ingrained. Many people think that if their child does not receive a diploma, then his whole life will go downhill. But is this true?
This opinion arose due to the fact that during the existence Soviet Union there was an excess of low-profile jobs where workers received low salary. If we tell the whole truth, it must be mentioned that people with higher education have also never been pampered high salaries. But this category already considered itself to be the class of the intelligentsia, which gave it an imaginary superiority.
Today the situation has changed significantly. The question of higher education is completely different. It relies on the benefit of knowledge that can be acquired during training. Mechanized and automated technology is gradually replacing the working class in factories and factories, thereby increasing unemployment and the number of “dying” professions. This state of affairs has significantly raised the status of intellectual workers.
In addition, teaching methods have also changed. Many private universities have appeared, where they try to teach not only the theory, but also the practice of the specialty being studied. For this reason, the cost of education has increased, and the level of prestige of many public educational institutions has decreased.
This trend makes people with little material income wonder whether their children need higher education? Many entrepreneurs have emerged who provide the opportunity to acquire knowledge and skills not through state-approved training programs, but through seminars, webinars and other apprenticeship systems.
Ways to get education
If we talk about standard methods and forms of education, the following can be distinguished:
Stationary;
Correspondence;
Remote.
Stationary means daily attendance of lectures and seminars provided for by the curriculum. It seems to be the most effective (from the point of view of obtaining and assimilating knowledge). This form of training can be carried out both on a paid and on a budget basis.
Provides passage curricula twice a year and is good for combining work and study. Of course, the knowledge gained in one month may not bring significant educational result, but together with practice they can be very useful. Do people who do not work in their specialty need this form? Many professions simply require a diploma.
Distance learning allows you not to appear at the university at all. The student receives consultations, assignments and recommendations on email. By receiving higher education via the Internet, a student saves his time and money. The cost of this form of training is relatively low, but its effectiveness is also not significant.
Each person must decide for himself whether higher education is right for him. In life best result bring actions that are performed under one's own internal management. Likewise, education can be of high quality only when a person himself wants to receive necessary knowledge and skills.
Is higher education necessary to achieve success and material goods? Today this question can already be classified as rhetorical. The employer requires a higher education diploma, already with junior school teachers and parents talk about the importance of studying at a university. At the same time, everyone knows that a diploma does not at all guarantee employment for a good position, but ways of self-realization and professional growth V modern world enough without it. In addition, everyone has many successful and decently earning acquaintances without education. Maybe then it’s not worth spending priceless years of youth and significant funds to obtain the coveted diploma?
Some statistics
An analysis of a survey conducted among Russians suggests that higher education is valued quite highly today. Thus, as many as 74% of respondents are confident in the need for it. At the same time, 24% consider early employment of young people a priority.
About 67% of Russians are ready to spend heavily on the education of their children and grandchildren. Moreover, only 57% of older people agree to save for the future of their offspring.
Young people, on the contrary, are more determined – as many as 80% are firmly convinced of the benefits of education.
It is interesting that obtaining a higher education in the eyes of the majority of respondents is not only an opportunity for material well-being, but also a path to self-improvement. This speaks to what our population considers important spiritual growth and human development.
Why against
Among those same 26% of people surveyed who are skeptical about higher education, many cite the following arguments.
- Price
It’s good if the graduate is on a budget and does not pay tuition, otherwise the family will face serious costs.
- Time
Why do you need a higher education if you can go straight to work? Anyone young man I want to start earning money and gain independence from my parents as early as possible, and not wait 4-5 years, struggling with textbooks.
- Irrationality of education
Higher education involves studying many unnecessary and uninteresting subjects that will never be useful in the future.
- Number of universities
Nowadays, the number of so-called commercial institutions has increased. Low passing scores correspond to the quality of teaching. The qualifications of teachers in such institutions also leave much to be desired.
- Lack of practical skills of graduates
Unlike technical schools and colleges that provide working specialties, a university only provides theoretical knowledge in the field of profession.
- No guarantees
No one can say with complete confidence that, having received the long-awaited diploma, they will be able to get a prestigious job in their specialty.
At first glance, it is difficult to disagree with many statements, because the university really does not provide any job specialty, does not teach how to make money or build your own business. But why then are so many students sitting in classes, taking coursework, tests, laboratory and theses? Maybe, in fact, the race for higher education takes away an extra 4-5 years of youth, after which you will have to go to lower position and receive pennies, instead of going to work right away and becoming rich and successful.
Of course - for
Naturally, among those who have not graduated from universities there are many people who have achieved success in every sense, so there is no point in saying that having a higher education is absolutely necessary. However, there are many serious reasons to still enroll in a university.
- Developing intuition
A university is not needed for a student to store formulas, constants and theorems in his head. He must teach to think, understand and not be afraid of completely new tasks and extreme situations. A person with a higher education receives certain skills and a map of such human knowledge, which allow him to intuitively accept the right decision. This is the true value of higher education, and not the presence of encyclopedic erudition.
- Always in good shape
The young graduate has a flexible and powerful brain that is capable of learning quickly. This session clearly proves this! But education is also very useful for older people. Mastering new information, a person makes the brain work and prevents it from aging. In fact, educated and well-read people do not lose clarity of mind and have excellent memory.
- Connections
Study time is a great opportunity to grow useful acquaintances, which we cannot do without in our time.
- Changing career path
Anything can happen in life. Often, even if you have a decent job, you won’t be able to get a job without a specialized higher education.
- "Educated" is a priority
Any manager, when hiring an employee, prepares for the fact that he will have to be trained and retrained, introduced to the realities of a particular enterprise. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s a red-diploma student or just smart person. However, the “crust” will still be a big plus in favor of the applicant.
- "Walk while you're young"
Student years are the most vivid impressions and memories. They will last a lifetime. This is the time when young people not only learn to be independent, but also fall in love, go out, have fun, and create strong friendships. There is simply no point in missing out on all this!
Many, after receiving an education, do not stop there and continue to develop and improve themselves throughout their lives. Such people often become successful. The main thing here is that education becomes a means and not an end in itself. If a person doesn’t want to learn, why force him? Maybe someone likes the work of a welder, then he should go to a vocational school, where he will be taught the craft and given a decent and well-paid job. And for those who dream of acting, it is better to listen to their heart and boldly comprehend the basics of art. Otherwise it's unlikely to work out good specialist in another area. How often can you meet those who have studied for 5 years at the institute in a specialty that is uninteresting to them, but do not want to work, and cannot!
You can’t become a dropout either best option. Such a person cannot be trusted. What employer would want to have an employee who is not used to getting things done?
Therefore, most often the most successful students are those who:
- choose a profession based on the call of their hearts, and not on parental insistence;
- receive education purposefully, consciously, clearly imagining themselves in professional activities;
- do not deviate from their goals and improve their education even when employed.
Who needs your higher education diploma?
Often in our time, job advertisements contain a requirement for a higher education.
It is understandable when we are talking about specialists such as doctors, teachers, engineers, lawyers, etc. But why would an employer have a sales consultant with an education, or a secretary, or even a security guard? 
Often he wants to be sure that he is hiring a person who, at a minimum, knows how to communicate with people and behave within the bounds of decency. And he hardly needs the crust itself.
This is easy to check by phone. All you have to do is call the ad and ask if you need a higher education diploma. Most likely, you will be told that it is desirable, but not required.
Psychology will explain everything here. Specified in in the right key question, you will show yourself to be competent and an intelligent person, who sincerely does not understand how higher education can be useful in the performance of work duties.
But why then are such requirements presented to applicants? Most often, this is necessary in order to scare away unwanted people who want to apply for a vacant position.
Employer's opinion
To make it easier to understand the employer’s motives, it is enough to listen to the opinion of one of them.
Elena, who is the head of a department at one of the large companies in Moscow, has had to select personnel more than once: “There are such professional areas, in which it is impossible to do without a higher education in any case - doctors, engineers, teachers... Trade does not require the presence of a “tower”, but when selecting employees for my department, I give preference to certified candidates. Why? As an employer, I need, first of all, literate people who can communicate and think. Without education, I’m ready to hire only a person with “bright eyes” and experience.”
Employers are confident that a person who has graduated from a university is able to work, has a broad outlook and knows how to analyze information.
What kind of education to have - everyone decides for himself. And let it not be an absolute necessity or collateral life success, but with it comes a career path, and life path may become much easier.
