The more I think about this potential higher education bubble it makes me think more about the potential ramifications for my future career if this is correct. Maybe it should worry me, but it really doesn’t.
At risk of sounding cliche, I think this could be a giant opportunity for higher education to take a good look at itself and see if there are things that can be improved. I can’t say what those improvements are, but it’s exciting to think I could be a part of the reshaping of an industry. The fact that many individuals think college graduates are ill-prepared for certain careers in itself is a reason to evaluate the current methods.
On the other hand, I don’t want to come across as saying education needs to be completely career driven. There are certain jobs that people can go to trade schools for that will teach students a specific trade. However, when I’m hiring someone for a technical position I’m not necessarily looking for someone that already knows a particular technology. I want to find someone that can problem solve. You give me a smart person that can problem solve and understands technical theory and I can teach them the technology. Also I think there is something to be said about taking a diverse set of classes. You may not think a history class helps much if you are going to be a programmer, but just the fact that you are forced to think about something in a different way than you are used to will give additional perspective when trying to solve a problem.
So overall, I think different people learn better in different ways. For some people a structured higher education is the only way they’ll be able to learn a skill and some people can be quite successful without it. You should always keep that in mind while you are evaluating talent, and I think it’s valuable to have people on your team from both backgrounds as they are likely to look at problems from different perspectives, which can greatly help in developing creative and effective solutions.
