That depends a lot on the field in which you plan to work, and even on professional contacts and access to certain spaces; it depends on a larger context than just the desire to pursue a degree or not. So what about it? In 2023, is it still important to go to college? We will try to answer that question in the next lines.
Many professionals do very well in their careers without a college degree, it is true, but in those cases it is often a matter of more self-taught profiles, or of people who belong to social circles and contexts that encourage certain kinds of learning and direction, or even of contacts who gave them opportunities to explore and learn by doing.
The truth is that people need to start from a solid foundation to become professionals focused on a specific field, especially in fields with greater added responsibility, where there are even bodies that must validate a professional’s skills and specialties.
But the topic addressed here is not about those positions and professions with greater legal responsibility or that involve the health and safety of other people. More precisely, the purpose here is not to deal with careers such as engineering, nursing, law, and so on.
The discussion proposed here stems from questioning in light of the number of professions geared toward creativity, or that can be learned through continuing education courses and other technological tools made possible by the many opportunities and exchanges available across the internet.
With all these considerations made, to make sure the reader is on the same page about what is at issue in this piece, we can begin to actually try to answer this question.
Why it is still important to go to college
The main reason for justifying this importance today is the fact that a degree program puts people in contact with a context rich in elements capable of influencing focused development.
When you are enrolled in an undergraduate program – especially in in-person courses – constant exchanges make your education not just a set of technical foundations, but gradually contribute to a change of mindset, to becoming part of the field you chose to develop in and work in.
An undergraduate program brings together people who have similar goals but unique points of view. The value of this lies in the fact that, when we choose a field of study, we focus our career, but we also open a door that leads to many possibilities.
So, gaining references and different perspectives becomes much more important than getting the best grades in college.
That is why there is so much talk about networking. Meeting and exchanging ideas with other people deepens knowledge immeasurably.
What about a more self-taught profile?
Even a more self-taught and curious profile has a lot to gain from the structure that educational institutions provide in an undergraduate program. After all, the learning process is much more effective when the student is curious and is always questioning and researching.
For these more engaged student profiles, well-founded undergraduate programs will offer paths and encourage ideas that could take much longer if developed alone.
The technical side is much more complete in an undergraduate program
Interpersonal exchanges can be considered the most transformative element in the context of an undergraduate program, and we chose to highlight it before anything else because it is evident that it is, indeed, what people take with them most into their professional lives.
But educational institutions are not structured without a technical foundation. And, in order to share that foundation in the best possible way, students have access to an entire structure and curriculum designed to cover everything most important within an education, including spaces, technologies, and sources.
So, it may seem obvious, but higher education remains relevant today because it centralizes a set of essential inputs for deepening and shaping knowledge that, in other settings and on one’s own, could perhaps be developed, but would demand a level of resources that many people do not have.
