The steady increase in college enrollment in general has given me reason to think about my own degree and what it has meant to me and to me. Here are my thoughts on the matter.

I received a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communications in 1995. I have gone back and forth with myself about the purpose of the degree in my life. My initial impression was that the title is job related. I studied television and radio journalism in college, so my degree means that I have had enough training to work in the field of radio or television. In fact, I was able to get a job in the radio business for 10 years. However, the work I was doing had nothing to do with my career. I have never worked in television or radio journalism. None of the radio jobs I had during the 10 years I was in the business required a degree. Several of my co-workers did not have degrees and held positions similar to mine.

After my stint in radio, I decided to make a career change to the IT field. I took some night classes, got certified as an Oracle Database Administrator, and began my job search. At that point, I started to focus more on my past work experience on my resume. I have always indicated that I have a degree on my resume, but it has been losing priority the longer I have worked. My first employer in IT didn’t openly require me to have a degree, but I think they gave me more money than they would have if I didn’t have a degree.

My current employer took notice of my degree topic (mass communications), which is the first time in my career that it was focused on. My salary was a bit higher than my previous employer, which gives me the impression that my title still has something to do with the additional salary.

I’ve had conversations with my parents in the past about “why did I get this degree?” While I initially thought that the title was directly related to his choice of employment, I now believe that this is not always the case. If you’re getting a degree in accounting, pre-med, pre-law, then of course you’re getting a degree biased toward a certain line of work. However, there are many other degrees (liberal arts degrees like my mass communication) that often don’t apply directly to a line of work.

So, the following two questions remain:

1) If you get a degree that fits directly into a career, will it benefit you?

It seems self-evident that a degree directly related to a career will follow you if you choose to pursue that career, and in some cases if you pursue a similar career (for example, my current job involves some writing, a skill I started developing while working at my race).

2) If my degree doesn’t have a direct correlation to a specific job, do I really need it?

I’ve been asking myself this question almost since I graduated from college and I continue to ask it today. The selfish person in me would say, “Don’t waste your time, focus on what will get you a career.” However, my more philosophical side argues: “Get the title: life is an adventure and you don’t have to be so shortsighted as to believe that everything you do should advance your career.”

I make homemade beer. Do you think it has something to do with my title or the job I currently do? Mmm no. I play the trumpet. It hasn’t come up at all in any job I’ve worked (except maybe a job interview here and there). My point here is that the experiences you get in life generally add up to make you who you are. You’ll pick up skills along the way that will help you with the job. You’ll also learn what you like to do, which is ultimately what you spend all that time working to earn enough money (hopefully) to do.

So I say get the title. Get financial aid if you need it: I’ve been paying off my loan since a few months after I graduated. Guess what? In a little over 3 years, the loan will be paid off and I’ll still have the title.