When we are in a youth we are in a mental chaos to select a good college for a four year degree program to build a successful life we go in debts taking student loans up to twenty thousand dollars and more and then worry about paying it off. As the concept of a stable economic future is only guaranteed by a college degree. You either enter a licensed profession like a doctor, lawyer, engineer, or do a PhD. research or even join a big traditional institution like an investment bank or a government office. Keeping all this in mind you opt for the best college where you try to get into the course you wish to attend. To make decisions in going to college, a youth needs an alternative way to select a way out, which would provide skills and financial security. At times young adults decide to skip college and get into a self directed learning.
As successful person does not always have a college degree, rather success is found within a person. The efforts and labor put in with zeal and fervor leads to success. Moreover, it is the enthusiastic determination of the person that is the key to success. A college degree might take you to a job, which you might hate later on and so you may not be able to become efficient enough to earn as much as you need. However, gaining experience in a good company would enable you to rise and learn more and more as experience counts a lot in bringing success in your career. Furthermore, earning a college degree does not come with any guarantees of job opportunities, at times you do not even get a job in the field you have qualified for. There are many doctors and engineers who are working as IT professionals, so what was the use of getting a college degree for something you do not even use to work with. For instance, Marguerite Ann Johnson, mostly known as Maya Angelou, became a famous writer, producer, actress, dramatist, historian, filmmaker, and civil rights activist without having a proper college degree. Before becoming a writer she was a dramatist and dancer and she did a number of other occupations to make a living for herself and her son. She studied dance and drama to a very high level and faced a lot of hardships since childhood, which are mentioned in her biographies. She had interest in literature, but she pursued her writing career at a later age in 1959. Later on Maya was honored with many honorary doctorates for this skill.
In addition to this practical life is very much different from college life. What is learnt in a classroom is not all applicable in the real world when you start working. Usually, with the passage of time new researches come forward leaving behind or overpowering the old ones, hence whatever was learnt in college is of no use for what is useful for the new work system.
Moreover, there are a number of entrepreneurs who never used their education in college, however, they are millionaires. People like this are Mary Kay Ash, Reagan High School graduate, but a millionaire because of her business of cosmetics. She never took any sort of training for her business, but still is successful and approximately half a million women are selling Mary Kay cosmetics and improving business. The book she wrote to help women in business turned out to be her plan that led to making the company Mary Kay Cosmetics. On the other hand, we have Rachael Ray, who has no training in culinary arts instead it was her mother’s profession which she adapted without requiring any degree, yet she has a successful food industry. Her talk shows, cookbooks are famous and she even has a magazine of her own. Hence by knowing about her we get to know that only earning a college degree in any profession does not make you a professional, instead it is the skill within you that makes you professionally successful.
Many people think success lies only in education, obtaining degrees could only pile tons of debts leading to a disturbed mind. Nevertheless it is amazing that some of most successful people don’t have college degrees. They make up for their business sense by their own personal skills for example; Richard Branson, who did poorly as a student because he was dyslexic and hence did not earn a college degree. He had other skills which made him a founder of the famous Virgin Music Record Company. In the beginning he made records on order but later opened a shop in London. This company was among the top companies in the world. Later he sold the company for one billion dollars yet he remained the chairman of the company.
Barry Diller started his career in mail room of William Morris Academy, when he had completed only one year of his college education. Later he had to discontinue his studies and in 1966 he created the ABC Movie of the week. This was a television show. At the age of thirty two he became the President of Paramount Pictures and produced feature films and television shows. During 1984 and 1992 he worked as a chairman and as a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Fox Studios. Moreover he was propelled for creating Fox’s Broadcasting Company.
There is also a thought that if you need a white collar job you need to earn a college degree, which is not true for all. It may prove to be right for some who do not have skills to become successful without a college degree but it is not correct to say that success comes with a college degree. With hard work, determination and creativity one can achieve success by getting a white-collar job. Lauren Miller worked as a ‘Vice President of public relations for women’s coaching and development business known as Leadership Gold 4 Women’. She also did not have a higher education, but worked hard to achieve a position as Vice President. The road leading to such a success was not an easy one she says and people did not consider her motivated, but she worked hard towards proving herself to be skillful and talented for the job. Similarly, there is Amber Dixon, whose parents were also successful without college degrees and hence did not pay for her college fees. She was the founder of ‘Workforce Development Committee, a nonprofit women’s networking group’ where she works as a Vice-Chairman. Hence it proves that one can become successful with determination and correct thinking even if going to college is not affordable, still getting a white collar job is possible if one tries hard.
We can find many people who are successful without having a degree from college, yet parents and teachers are in the dilemma that there are less opportunities for the students who are intelligent but do not have a degree. Hence they force the youth to study hard in order to get admission into a high rated college in order to lead a successful life. However, if they focus on the successful individuals who dropped out of college or even high school but still can be seen among the most powerful businessmen in the world.
The most important personality to take into consideration is of Steve Jobs, the founder and CEO of Apple Inc. he is considered as the most powerful businessman of America, yet he attended college for only one semester because his parents could not afford sending him for higher education. He along with a friend worked towards creating electronic items and named their company Apple which is now one of the leading companies. In addition to this, he was also the major investor of Disney when he sold Pixar, high quality software for creating photorealistic images to it.
Similarly, we have Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook which is worth 1.5 billion dollars. It is the most used social networking site found on the internet. Though being a successful creator, Mark was a drop out from Harvard University. He started working on this site in his dorm room in 2004 when he decided to continue his carrier and dropped out of college in his second year.
Furthermore, we have Larry Ellison, who dropped out of college twice, once from University of Illinois and then again from University of Chicago to pursue his talent and formed the Oracle Corporation in 1977. Oracle Corporation is the world’s second-largest software company known today. Elliot is considered to be the third richest American, having an estimated worth of forty one billion dollars, yet Ellison never obtained a degree. He dropped out of University of Illinois because he did not take the final exam as he got the news of his adoptive mother’s death. Later he moved to Chicago University where he studies for only one term when he decided to move permanently to Northern California and pursue his passion for software development which later on led to the development of Oracle database.
We need to remember that not all youngsters are able to complete college successfully. This is due to a number of reasons, like some hate attending college, some may have certain learning disabilities that become a hindrance for them to pass with good grades from a reputed college, some have to drop out due to financial or emotional problems and so on. Hence making it mandatory that college degree is the key to a successful life is absurd, but the culture that we live in has given it a premium position in the society. People who are not college graduates are considered weird regardless of their talents and skills, employers give priority to the degrees on a resume when they select a candidate for a job.
What about people who are more interested in making enough for them to live happily and even afford to go on vacations and party out. This is also considered success for many as they are contented with their lives. For people like these there are certain jobs that do not require a college degree, but still pays off well or at times even more than the regular jobs. For instance opening a restaurant does not require one to obtain a college degree, rather if you can cook well you can become successful. Simple house wives have catering businesses where they cook from home, which provides them a more than enough home based income. Similarly, people will require hair cuts for which we can find stylists everywhere who are popular and their salon runs successfully. Moreover, the cars which we drive would require to be repaired at one point or the other, so no degree is required for becoming a car mechanic or a hair stylist. They just require skills and expertise which can be achieved by experience.
Keeping this in mind there are hundreds of jobs that we find now a days that do not require college degrees, but still are paying for the people who do them. To emphasize, we can see there are some plumbers who go on family vacations, some computer technicians make more money than lawyers and even some people with learning disabilities can work in the marketing field. (Kasdin)
Some more high paying jobs proposed in the United States in 2006 are, Margin department supervisor with a salary $83,579/ year, Air Traffic controller with a salary $ 74,922/year, Automobile service station manager with a salary $72,246/year, Real estate broker with a salary $71,994/year, Web Surfer with a salary $70,604/year, Lead carpenter with a salary $63,345/year, Cable supervisor $60,887/year, Home-care aide supervisor with a salary $56,157/year and so on. All these jobs do not require higher education or degrees and it is expected that this number will go up to 71 million by the year 2016. This shows that even if one cannot earn a college degree due to any circumstances or if one does not have the aptitude to do so will still be able to earn enough money in order to live peacefully. Though the path to achieve success would be difficult, however, not impossible for people who do not have college degrees. (Zupek)
Considering the success of the people who became millionaires helps one get a better understanding about how can success be achieved without a college degree. This makes it a lot easier for the one who cannot afford going to college and even does not want to borrow from the bank to pay the tuition fee. Then he will have to work for many years in order to pay the loan back to the bank leaving him with no choice of time off or any other easiness that life has to offers.
It is very important that we think through carefully as to what we want to do in our lives. It is not necessary that success will be achieved by attending college, or may be for some it is true that success has come when one graduated from college with a good grade. Anyways when we plan to start a career we need to think very carefully. First figure out the skills that is within oneself, basically find out your talents and then develop goals for yourself and pursue them. Do not be afraid of hardships that come in the way instead face them optimistically. Every successful personality started small before reaching the top. Learning is not necessarily done in a classroom environment, you can learn from anywhere and everywhere. Make it a habit to learn from what is happening around you and avail each and every opportunity that leads you towards accomplishing your goals. Relationships and networking are significant part of success. Take help from friends and family and other colleagues who you trust in order to get guidance for accomplishing the objective. To sum up success comes when one is ready to take challenges and avail the opportunities that come forth, however planning plays an important role but it needs to have space for adaptations and be flexible. You might need to change tracks all of a sudden if you find something that would play a more beneficial role towards your success.
Works Cited
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