It’s no longer a controversial take. Everyone from former IBM CEO Ginni Rometty to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the chief executives of Microsoft and LinkedIn has extolled the virtue of hiring for skills instead of connections or an Ivy League degree.
Granted, “I want my doctor to go to medical school,” Varoquiers said. “But not all jobs require it. And if we can start to shift to a skills assessment process versus using a degree as a proxy for those skills, we can really change the world for the better.”
Anyone can acquire a specific skill, but not everyone can acquire the breadth of knowledge that a college degree offers. If you want to just do a job right, maybe a skill is all you need. But if you want to push the boundaries of the field you’re in, college is still the correct answer. I know this is a hot take for many of you, but this is the difference between being a mediocre professional and one that innovates and keeps advancing the field as a leader of it, and not just a practitioner. Interdisciplinary knowledge is not something you acquire just by doing. A person can only do so many things. A lot of knowledge must be learned from many others across a spectrum of fields to help you draw that larger picture.
Relevant. I’m finishing up my 2 years of prerequisites for dental hygiene school. My classmates all intend to move on to medical school, dental, veterinary school, nursing, etc. I’m not sure why I need two rigorous years of primarily science classes to clean teeth, and my classmates don’t get it either. Granted, many of these classes are fun and I enjoyed organic chemistry and Anatomy and physiology, but surely this material could be compressed somehow without compromising my abilities to clean teeth?
Did I mention there’s a profound shortage of RDHs in my area? Or that my GPA needs to be 3.8 or better?
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It’s no longer a controversial take. Everyone from former IBM CEO Ginni Rometty to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the chief executives of Microsoft and LinkedIn has extolled the virtue of hiring for skills instead of connections or an Ivy League degree.
Granted, “I want my doctor to go to medical school,” Varoquiers said. “But not all jobs require it. And if we can start to shift to a skills assessment process versus using a degree as a proxy for those skills, we can really change the world for the better.”
Anyone can acquire a specific skill, but not everyone can acquire the breadth of knowledge that a college degree offers. If you want to just do a job right, maybe a skill is all you need. But if you want to push the boundaries of the field you’re in, college is still the correct answer. I know this is a hot take for many of you, but this is the difference between being a mediocre professional and one that innovates and keeps advancing the field as a leader of it, and not just a practitioner. Interdisciplinary knowledge is not something you acquire just by doing. A person can only do so many things. A lot of knowledge must be learned from many others across a spectrum of fields to help you draw that larger picture.
Relevant. I’m finishing up my 2 years of prerequisites for dental hygiene school. My classmates all intend to move on to medical school, dental, veterinary school, nursing, etc. I’m not sure why I need two rigorous years of primarily science classes to clean teeth, and my classmates don’t get it either. Granted, many of these classes are fun and I enjoyed organic chemistry and Anatomy and physiology, but surely this material could be compressed somehow without compromising my abilities to clean teeth?
Did I mention there’s a profound shortage of RDHs in my area? Or that my GPA needs to be 3.8 or better?