{"id":1410,"date":"2011-01-20T14:29:12","date_gmt":"2011-01-20T06:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/visaisahero.wordpress.com\/?p=1410"},"modified":"2015-02-18T09:57:29","modified_gmt":"2015-02-18T09:57:29","slug":"the-university-dilemma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/2011\/01\/20\/the-university-dilemma\/","title":{"rendered":"The University Dilemma"},"content":{"rendered":"

2014 Update: <\/strong>I didn’t go to University in the end. All my applications were turned down. I ended up working for ReferralCandy<\/a>. I love it.<\/em><\/p>\n

I seriously think that going to university after I complete my NS isn’t a very good idea. I think it’s a decent idea, but I don’t think it’s a “very good” idea.<\/p>\n

I predict that university degrees will be worth very little over the next few years. And I believe this so strongly that I’m willing to put my future where my mouth is.\u00a0I don’t even think that not going to university is risky business. I can always go to university on my own accord at a later time, after all- if I see the need for it.<\/p>\n

I can’t shake the feeling that conventional wisdom about university education is seriously flawed- outside of fields where there are barriers to entry for people without university educations, such as law, medicine and physics. I actually think these barriers aren’t entirely justified, but that’s another topic altogether.<\/p>\n

What am I going to be? I’m going to be a manager, a consultant, a salesperson, a coach, an entrepreneur, a promoter, a marketer, a designer, a writer- all of those things. And I sincerely believe that all of those things require skills that can and should be developed effectively outside of university.<\/p>\n

University requires two things- time and money. I don’t have the money, and I’m almost conceited enough to say I don’t have the time. By that I mean to say that I sincerely think I could be making better use of my time. I understand how silly that sounds, and I will not pursue that thought further at this point.<\/p>\n

Too many people are getting degrees. What we have is a degree inflation epidemic- if it isn’t obvious now it will be soon. The “obvious” solution, apparently, is to get more degrees, and Master’s, and PhD’s. I don’t understand. I have met many people who are in university right now who are- there is no way of saying this nicely- not very skilled.<\/p>\n

It all seriously doesn’t make sense to me. It gives me an awkward and uncomfortable feeling in my stomach that I can’t explain, the same feeling I had growing up as a child and sensing the inconsistencies inherent in religion, and reading arguments that are eloquent but flawed. I don’t normally describe myself as an “intuitive” person, but when I do get these gut instincts they are strong, powerful, and almost always correct.<\/p>\n

“Who is going to hire you?” I think conventional notions of employers and employees are going to become largely redundant in the near future. Almost everything is going to be a lot more flexible- it already is, and it will be even more so. It’s like how musicians these days can bypass the entire record industry to reach out directly to their fans- if you have skills that are valued and you know how to sell them, you should be just fine, if not better off than most people.<\/p>\n

I am fully aware that these ideas seem controversial, even iconoclastic. Some of my closest friends think I’m crazy. I may very well go to university. But I would much rather not. I’m writing this blog post right now to validate my perspective. I fully acknowledge that my point of view may change, that I may be hit by “reality” like a drunk-driven truck in the near future and swallow my words. But I feel so strongly about this that I am willing to put myself on the line for it.<\/p>\n

I will be applying for local universities anyway, to appease my family. But if circumstances permit, I would probably prefer to strike it out on my own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2014 Update: I didn’t go to University in the end. All my applications were turned down. I ended up working for ReferralCandy. I love it. I seriously think that going to university after I complete my NS isn’t a very good idea. I think it’s a decent idea, but I… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[23],"tags":[142,176,569],"class_list":["post-1410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections","tag-education","tag-future","tag-self-evaluation"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5gxNz-mK","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1410"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9911,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1410\/revisions\/9911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}