One of my sisters has a whole raft of friends who are degree/course junkies. Everytime they complete or come close to completion, they change their minds about their careers and dive off into something else. I think the key is to have a real passion that you're following, rather studying something hoping to find passion along the way. What do you ultimately want to do? How do you see yourself working?
In NZ a free magazine distributed by our national paper wrote an article citing statistics on the number of people who work and earn an income from field they have tertiary quals in. 46% don't even complete their degree and of the ones left, on average only 36% use it. That's a heaps of people with student debt for little gain. They compared the earnings of an accountant with those of a plumber over a ten yr period. Financially the plumber had earned twice the income of the accountant after student loans etc were deducted. The plumber had been earning all along while his employee paid for him to study and attain his papers of registration then earning capacity was equal or more if he became self employed. Who's the dummy?
Tertiary education is big business. Countless numbers of people are being trained in industries in this country where it is already known that vacancies are limited to a few. We live in qualification orientated societies where at the end of the day we have a piece of paper to say that we have learnt how to learn. I believe young people are being railroaded in tertiary education before they have any of the life experiences that prompt passions.
Lallymac  |