Let's imagine you're an ambitious teenager. Who's fresh out of high school. Your goal is to have a successful career
What's the best way to maximize your chance of achieving this goal?
The correct answer is to go to University
Now, I know this path sounds outdated
Especially when universities are so expensive and when you have all these other learning resources online for free
But in reality this path has never been more fitting because right now people who have a Bachelor's degree
earn 60% more than high school finishers
That's an extra seven hundred thousand dollars over the course of a lifetime and this gap is only set to get larger
they are also three times less likely to be unemployed and
They tend to be more satisfied with their jobs too. Why then, are so many people complaining about degrees being useless
Why are they thought to only teach books and neglect real life skills?
These are baseless accusations either. One meta-analysis of around 300 studies found there was only a
Low correlation between a person's education level and how well they perform on their jobs
So, is university worth it or not?
to figure this out
We firstly have to understand the real reason why university graduates are doing so much better in life
The universities would like you to think it's because students are taught skills which are valuable in the job market
But with anecdotally and empirically this just isn't happening. For example consider a degree in IT
One survey of around
40,000 programs, asks: where did you learn your skills? And by far the most common response was
"I learned it myself", with 69% of people claiming to be either partly or fully self taught
The next most common answer was "On the job training", and only after, the people acknowledge the bachelor in computer science
in fact around
3/5 of Programmers didn't even have an IT degree
clearly
Universities aren't that essential to the process of learn
Also, take a look at a degree in education
It's surprising that out of a hundred and seventy studies only 9% found that teachers with higher
University education were better at teaching
the majority of them found
No effect and some of them even found a slightly negative effect
This means that both bachelor's and Master's degree, don't do much to improve the quality of teachers
Sure there are exceptions, for example, teachers who've had more Maths related coursework are better at teaching Math
You can see this because the students score higher in Math tests
But the same paper that said that, found no such evidence for English, History or Science
So while this degree might teach some schools, by and large is quite useless
Now I'm not going to go on and say that a medical degree is also completely useless
But unfortunately with the way that the course is set up, a large portion of it is
specifically at undergraduate degree
You must complete before you enter medical school. This degree can be in any field you want
But to make the most of it, most students studied biomedicine, so they have some sort of foundational knowledge
Some students though, will get a degree in something
completely unrelated like film studies or political science
but in the end whether you choose biomedicine or film study, it makes no difference
As research shows, both groups of students will score equally on the clinical exams by third-year
Both groups will also be scored equally by their supervisors during internship
In fact getting a high GPA in undergraduate years is barely
Predictive of a student's lated clinical skills in hospital and yet medical schools won't let you in unless you have one
So once again if these degrees are teaching you anything, What gives degree holders their huge advantage?
The answer lies in Signalling Theory, a theory which won the 2001 Nobel prize for economics
It states that while a degree itself isn't worth a lot, what it signals to others is
See a good recruiter knows that degrees are hollow and don't really prepare graduates for the job
But with potentially hundreds of applicants. They need a quick way to separate a good employee from a bad one
They can't use IQ unless they want to get sued so they use the next best thing: a degree
Because even if they're useless people who choose to attend university tend to be smarter in the first place
They're also probably more motivated for their career, more accustumed to deadlines, less likely to do drugs
Harder working, and so on. And while this filter works, it creates a deeply flawed system
For the employers one day an outstanding candidate is going to apply for the job
and it's going to get rejected simply because he didn't fulfill this superficial criteria
As for the employees, well, they're now forced to get a degree
To stay competitive regardless of whether it's useful or not
And this is no easy sacrifice either
For some it costs their whole life saving and for all it wastes our most youthful years
So what can we do about it?
Well someone said we should ban employers from asking about University credentials
Just like how he banned them from asking about religion or politics
Perhaps then, people will stop mindlessly substitute a degree for the actual learning or skills
But as this won't happen any time soon let me suggest some personal advice
Don't listen to anyone who says that it's important to study hard and get good grades in University
It's a waste if all that's really important is the signal
instead aim for the bare minimum
And more importantly use the spare time to focus on the other opportunities that universities offer
For example if you don't know what you want to be when you grow up. That's fine
But use this time then to experiment with different courses and figure out which fields genuinely interest you
Or perhaps you want to improve your social skills if that's the case
Universities are one of the best opportunities
you'll have for socializing with multiple clubs and societies and a diverse range of people to interact with
Alternatively you could apply for an internship to get some job experience
You may even start your own project like a YouTube channel or a startup company?
all these aspects of University
Aren't really emphasized to us and yet all of them would be a better investment of your time
Because ultimately what you do when you're not studying is what you learned the most from
So make sure to get the most out of your time at University
Hey guys, if you want more psychology videos to check out head over to psych2go and see what they've got
I hope you've enjoyed this video till next time take care