An Effective Way to Learn That Will Pay You
For the majority of the 20th and into the 21st century, young people have been told that the best way to acquire knowledge was to go to college or university and learn from their teachers. Having a degree was the best way to get a good job that you could build into a career. Unfortunately, the value of a university degree is declining rapidly in the 21st century and a large number of companies have stopped asking for them altogether.
There are a number of reasons why attending college and university can be flawed. The most obvious reason is the age of students when they start attending the school. Many of them are only 17 years old. It is a very tall order to expect that someone that young will not only know what they want to study but also what school will be best for them. These are supposed to be decisions that will affect the rest of their lives and yet their age and inexperience cannot possibly allow them to make a sound judgement, even with guidance counselors and parents giving advice.
The second issue has become a major crisis: the cost. It is very normal for a 21-year-old to graduate with $100,000 to $200,000 in student debt that they will carry with them for decades as they try to pay it off.
The third issue is that most teachers are speaking from a theoretical standpoint. They are good at teaching but may not have lived the advice that they are teaching. Very often, teachers are moved around between faculties and do not even have a degree in the subject they are teaching!
The fourth issue brings us back to the first one. Not only are 17-year-olds expected to know what they want to study, but they must also know that they will like it. Changing your mind and your major is not an easy thing to do and can cost you not just more money in tuition, but the loss of time as your graduation can be delayed.
So, what is a way to gain practical knowledge and skills, have the flexibility to change if you don’t like it or want to try something different and not cost a fortune in loans and debt?
Work for someone else with a goal.
Working for someone to learn a trade or skill is not a new concept, as apprenticeships have existed for thousands of years, but this approach will not lock you into a career for life, as many ancient and medieval apprenticeships did. You are free to try a number of things until you find one that you like enough to pursue long term.
Having a goal is the differentiator that makes all the difference, rather than just finding something that will pay you money.
What are the goals you should have? One of the most obvious is to acquire knowledge. You want to gain knowledge of the work and how the business runs.
Another goal could be to acquire skills. You might not want to become a car mechanic as an example but want to learn how to repair cars and so you go to work for a mechanic until you learn the skills to do that. You could take courses on car repair but working on cars directly with experienced mechanics can be a terrific way to learn.
Another goal could be to expand your network. As you work, you will hopefully be meeting others in the same field and that could help you find new employment or business opportunities in the future. Many successful people have gone to work for others and changed a number of employers so that they met a large number or people in that business world and expanded their network.
Another goal, particularly for students, would be to gain experience that you could put on your resume. Even if it is an entry level, low paying job, having done some work in the field will make your resume stronger than if you had little or no experience.
The last goal is the simplest one, and yet it is so important. You will learn if you like the work. After working at it, you will have at least a basic idea of whether you like it or not. Your may grow to like it more or less over time, but you will at least have a starting point, and if you don’t like it, you are not locked into any long-term commitment and can change to something new.
So, the initial question anyone who wants to learn a new skill or trade should ask is, do you need formal schooling do this job? Is it mandatory to go to university or a college or trade school, or can you go to work directly and learn on the job instead? If school is not mandatory, you can consider working in the field, then you have another learning option open to you.