Career education

Many of you have asked yourself that question. The traditional way of thinking is that without a college education you will never amount to anything or ever get paid a decent wage.

I agree that you need an education, but I do not necessarily subscribe to the traditional way of thinking that it must be a college type education. Don’t get me wrong there is a lot to be said for this education. More importantly, however, I believe in self-education, or the school of Hard Knocks if you will.

Just because you are no longer in school it does not mean that your education is finished. Everything is changing daily. What worked yesterday does not mean it will work tomorrow.

Look how technology has changed in the last 20 years. There are very few industries I can think of today that are doing things with the same equipment or process that they were 20 years ago. If you’re not constantly learning to keep up you’re going to get left behind.

Technology isn’t the only thing that is changing. People are changing, the way they view things, the way they think, the way they are persuaded has changed. Have you noticed how you pay less attention to commercials on television? It’s because you’ve learned to block it out and ignore it. Now if you’re going to buy a product what convinces you? Marketing is changing to compensate. Yes many are trying to do things the old ways, but they’re finding out that they’re not making the money they used to.

There’s always more you can learn, and new topics to discover. Even if you didn’t go to college it doesn’t mean you can not self-educate. Many companies for years have complained that the traditional educational institutions do not really prepare people correctly for the work force.

If you don’t have that bullet of education to put on your resume you can always counter it with proof of your knowledge through accomplished projects. I’m sure more companies would rather see a bullet of how you can affect their bottom line than whether or not you attended class.

Now I’m sure you see how this brings in mentions of a job and career, but how does it relate to a better life?

The more you educate yourself and train your brain to utilize and think about what it’s acquired in knowledge, the more opportunity you will begin to see in life in the avenues of better work, better jobs, better careers, but it can also if you desire spill over into better life decisions, better investments and sounder and quicker recoveries from failure.

The more you know the more you understand the more you can shield and adapt to the changing world around you. By learning a keystroke short cut you can exponentially save time at work, by learning the changes in the tax code you can learn to keep more of your money to spend how you see fit. There are a myriad of ways to apply newly learned knowledge and how it can affect you and what you do.

By: John Woodman