And the path that you take to get there should be one that works for you and not
for everyone else.
Hi, and thank you for joining me.
My name is Grace and I'm host of the Career Revisionist Podcast
and founder of Mastery Insights where I help people to achieve more success and
growth in their careers
and expand that into living a life of fulfillment and inspiration.
So thank you for joining me today.
I'm actually right now I am in the suburbs of Vancouver,
Canada and there's right here behind me and
this scene behind me is the Frasier River,
which I'm at the tail end of the Frasier River,
which eventually flows into the Pacific Ocean. And I did my college degree here.
My last degree was a PhD,
for those of you who have been following me for some time,
I have a PhD in neuroscience and I came to Vancouver specifically to do my PhD
because I dreamed of living and settling in Vancouver.
So here I am happy to share my city with you and today very appropriately,
I want to share with you a question.
One question that I get asked quite often, as a career coach and as a counselor,
people ask me, well, how do I know that college is right for me?
How do I know that I need to go to college to get to that next career level?
How do I know that whether or not I need to go back to college in order to do
what I want to do in my career, in order to get the growth that I want?
So that's the question I want to answer for you today and I want to ask them
also give you five questions to consider,
if you are thinking about whether or not college is the right choice for you.
Most educators assume that it is important and necessary to go to college in
order to have a high paying job and a good salary and job security.
And I was caught in that too. When I finished high school, for me,
there was no other choice.
The only thing I knew was that I needed to go to college, to do well in college,
to get good GPA so that I could get
a good job that eventually leads to a good salary and to be stable.
And that was the only worldview I knew.
And the reason why that's the only world view I knew was because that's the only
thing people told me. During high school,
my teacher would impress upon me that you got to do well in school because you
want a good future. And that was the thing that they said,
you want a good future then stay in school. You want a great future,
then do really well in school. So that was the message that I was told every
single day in high school.
And it made a really strong hold on me because I was ambitious. I am ambitious,
I am a go getter,
I am an action taker.
And so for me it was congruent to who I was to want success.
And so therefore the solution which was told to me was I had to go to school.
So I did that. I went to school again and again, and three degrees later,
I'm standing here to tell you that there are considerations to make.
It's more than just going to school will get you a good job. Because I mean,
how many of you know people who have gone through multiple degrees and they're
in jobs or they're in careers that they're not inspired by,
or maybe they're in careers where they feel
undervalued or maybe they're in careers that are related to their degree,
but they feel that this wasn't the best
choice for them because they're not living lives that are inspiring.
So nowadays, careers are so different.
They're not these long tunnels that last 10 years or 20 years or maybe
not even five years these days. They're more like micro careers.
So when I give you these five considerations,
they'll help to guide you within the context of what's real today,
the context of society today, and what careers are like.
The first consideration is, what are my goals?
Think about what are the things that you want in your professional future?
What are the things that you want for yourself in your life that are going to be
fueled by the career that you build. If it is, for example,
that you want a profession, and when I say profession, I mean things
like a doctor, a lawyer, those are high income professions.
If that is what you want and that's truly what you want,
not someone else telling you that's what you should do.
If that's truly what you want and those are your professional goals,
then those professions are things where you
do need a college degree. You can't become a doctor,
you can't become a lawyer and you can't become an
accountant without some formal education.
And so that is just a requirement. So that's one such one consideration.
If your goals lend themselves to a necessity, a real necessity,
not a perceived necessity, a real necessity for college education, a degree,
some accreditation or a certificate
optimized education then college is right for you.
But there are most often, most cases, the goals that you want in your career,
the goals that you want in your future don't necessarily lend them towards
a certificate optimize education. For example,
if you wanted to become successful in retail management, you know,
if you wanted to become successful in that industry,
it doesn't require a degree.
It doesn't require accreditation.
That's one of those degrees where your work experience can trump that.
Right? So think about very clearly for yourself what it is that you want.
I'll give you an example. When I was eight years old,
I was involved in a car accident and my mom passed away because she had,
she was driving, she was in the driver's seat and it was a head on collision.
And I learned that it was a brain trauma,
that she was in a coma and she didn't wake up from the coma.
And so that really seeded my interest in helping other brain injured people.
So when I grew up, you know, it was, it planted the seed.
And then so as I grew older and
it came to the point where I was making decisions on my career,
I wanted to help brain injured people and I wanted to become a doctor.
So that required a college education and it required a very specific type of
education and I sought that education
out. So make the best decision for yourself. What are your goals now?
And make that decision from a non-judgment zone.
It doesn't mean you have to be right, because I'm not currently working, like
I'm not currently working right now with brain injured people and my work
doesn't help that audience of brain-injured people per se.
But at the time it was the right decision for me. And it's okay to change.
It's okay to change because today's modern careers are not tenured tunnels or
five-year tunnels, right?
So the goal is not to be too rigid in your goals,
but to know what it is for yourself and to make a decision
that is in line with your values and not someone else's.
Consideration number two, what is my level of enthusiasm about school?
So you really have to be honest with yourself and not judging it,
but be honest with yourself and your feelings about being in a classroom and
your feelings about the academic nature of being in school. I mean,
maybe you had a positive experience
being in the classroom or maybe you did it right.
So what were those feelings that you have that are
associated with the classroom? Is this something that you are okay with,
that you are okay with living with for the next two to four years?
Because college is such a heavy investment in your time, in your energy,
your wakefulness, and also in money as well.
So you want to make sure that this is in line with your level of enthusiasm.
Because if it's something you're not going to be enthusiastic about,
then chances are you won't perform as well as you need to to get the
accreditation.
So think about when you are enthusiastic about something,
how does that feel and are you
experiencing the same level of enthusiasm,
the same quality of enthusiasm when you are in the classroom setting?
Maybe you are, maybe you have experienced the classroom setting before.
Think back to those times or maybe it's been such a long time.
So try to imagine for yourself,
if you were to spend two to four years in that culture, that academic culture,
what would it be like? And is this something that you can live with.
Consideration number three, is my learning style compatible with academia.
So do you prefer to learn alone by.
yourself or do you prefer to learn in a classroom setting?
In the presence of a teacher or professor? Right?
So this is really important consideration because you want to know whether or
not you have the skills that will
help you to be successful and the skills that are compatible with being
successful in academia.
So these include things like reading, writing, analysis, you know,
data analysis, collecting data, solving problems,
note-taking, things like that are skills that are compatible with academia.
Now I'm not saying that if you don't
have those skills or if you're not good at those skills that you shouldn't go to
school, that's not what I'm saying.
I'm saying that this consideration will help you to get clear on what your
starting point is. What you have to work with.
This is your intellectual capital.
So what capital do you have as your starting point?
If it is college that you decide to do it,
that is a decision that you are making, what are you starting out with?
And that starting point,
getting clear on that starting point will help you to be able to know what you
need to do to. get to that level.
So if you are finding that you're not quite there with your reading and
comprehension or that you just don't enjoy taking notes,
you don't take notes and you tend to forget stuff, then that's a limitation.
That's a gap that you need to work harder to fulfill in order to make the most
of your time in college if that's what
you decide to do.
So get real with yourself on where your skills are and if they're compatible
with the academic style. Like for me,
when I was first considering go to college,
whether or not that was right for me,
I was in high school and I was in grade 9 or grade 10 and I wasn't certain,
I really wasn't certain whether or not college was right for me.
I just knew that that was the only way, in my opinion,
my worldview at the time was that it was the only way to get a good job to have
a good future. Right? But I was afraid. But the thing is,
I really buckled down on it and I really did this experiment where I applied
myself.
I was all-in in school and that's where I found that I could get straight A's
and throughout high school
that is what happened. I did well in my classes,
I did well in all of my elective classes as well,.
and I really developed and honed those skills at an early age on reading and
writing comprehension. and retaining memory,
retaining what I've learned into my longterm memory.
So that was the pain that I went through that I chose to go through to develop
my skills so that I could make the most of my time in college.
Consideration number four, what are my financial resources.
You want to be in a point where you are
considering all the costs associated with a college education.
Tuition costs are the biggest thing. I mean they are,
they're going to be different depending on the location of your institution,
depending on your academic major and the focus that you want to be on.
And also depending on whether it's a public or private or a trade school, right?
So do the research in terms of getting to know for yourself what are all the
costs associated with going to college. They don't just include tuition.
I mean there are student fees as well.
There are other hidden fees of applications and of course the cost of living if
you are deciding to move there and going to live on the university properties,
right? If you can't afford to pay for college straight up,
it's important that you plan ahead of time and look for resources.
Are there student loans that you need to take?
Are there loans from friends and family?
Are there loans from the bank or specific institutions and get
familiar with the policies of their loan.
Sometimes they have grace periods after graduation that it's
interest free before you pay them back.
What are the policies? And finally, once you have all of these,
once you've completed all the research,
to look at a trajectory,
do some forecasting and forecast for yourself of the length of time that you
might
need to take to be able to repay any loans that you have withdrawn for your
college education. So for me,
when I went to college first for both of my bachelor's degree and my master's
degree, and I couldn't have paid for it,
I couldn't afford college because I didn't have parents who were paying for my
college education. I didn't have anyone who was paying for me.
So I had to do it all on my own. It was truly scary.
I remember feeling that I did the research and I learned at that time how much
it would cost each year for my tuition.
And it was really scary because in my master's degree, I went abroad to the UK
and I'm paying international student fees.
And I remember one year costing upwards of $30,000 Canadian for one year.
And it just seemed impossible.
But I knew that was what I really wanted to do and I felt that it was the right
choice for me at the time after having considered all those other questions?
And so what I did was for me, I knew I needed a student loan.
That was it because there was no way I could work as so summer job and earn
$30,000 so what I did was I focused on scholarships. You know,
whatever I was doing beforehand, what could I do to put myself in the
best situation to earn a scholarship?
And sometimes you think about scholarships and that's like, oh,
it's probably for students only, right?
That could be your first impression that you can't get a scholarship
unless you're in school already and you're getting good grades, right?
But now these days,
there's scholarships out there for people who have important contributions in
the
community.
There are scholarships out there for people who are going back to school, right?
So scholarships now take on many different forms and they're not just for
current students or students that are just starting out from high school.
So do some research and get resourceful.
Because there's never a lack of resources, right?
It's more a lack of resourcefulness.
So do for yourself if this is what you've decided,
that colleges are right towards choice for you. in the next step in your career,
do yourself some favor and do that research on getting
resourceful and figuring out what financial resources you have that you can draw
from. And now for the most important consideration,
which is consideration number five.
Changes are if you are watching this video you want to get to that next level of
your career.
You want to grow and accelerate your career. Well, I have something for you.
I've created a free training,.
a free four day training that helps you to frame how you can get to that next
level of your career. So check it out.
The link is careerrevisionist.com/training.
I'll put the link below careerrevisionist.com/training,
it's a free four day event, a four day training just for you.
So go check that out and see if it's right for you.
Now this question is extremely important if your financial resources don't cover
the greater part of the cost of going to school or going to college, right?
And so what you're doing here is you are considering other alternatives.
So for example, if you are wanting to go into healthcare,
if that is how you feel inspired to help people, if that is how you feel,
that is your calling and it's truly what you desire to do,
then you can consider, what are the alternatives?
Can I achieve my career goals in an alternative way?
So I'll give you an example. In healthcare there are many
allied health care professions like chiropractors and nurse practitioners that
don't require a college education.
Instead what you do is you go into some other accreditation programs instead of
a four year degree and that saves time. It saves money.
And it also saves energy because you are not going through traditional four year
college. So you don't have to take many of the electives,
elective courses they required you to take in
college that don't end up having any direct application on what you want to do.
So consider for yourself what are my goals and can I achieve my career goals in
any other way outside of a traditional four year degree.
The bottom line is that while formal education, college education is an asset,
it's not a requirement and it's not necessary for everyone.
It's not for everyone either.
The important thing is that you're not deciding to go to school,
you're not deciding to.
go to college because you feel that you're a failure without it or that you feel
that it's something that you need to do,
rather than more important thing is to consider what your career goals,
the things that you truly,
that you truly want in your career and focus instead on accomplishing and
achieving those goals.
Because sometimes the path to achieving them does not include college and that's
a good thing.
So decide for yourself what are the things that you truly value and how do you
get there? Remember,
your career narrative is unique and the path that you take to get there should
be one that works for you and not for everyone else. So comment below.
Where are you at right now?
Are you considering going to college and which colleges are you considering
going to. Comment below. And if you like this channel,
if you'd like the content for today,
give me a thumbs up and remember to subscribe to
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upload a new video every single week.
So thank you for joining me in the suburbs of Vancouver,
and I look forward to hanging out with you again in my next video.