A prestigious university, a sought-after degree and post-secondary education. The South Asian recipe for success. Growing up in a Pakistani family, education was given priority above all else. Like me, many immigrant and non-immigrant families value higher-level education. I suppose this is the way the previous generation grew up – they saw success as being directly correlated with a university degree. And to a great extent, they are justified in this belief. The global job market was a completely different landscape a mere decades ago.
In the past, obtaining a simple bachelor’s degree made you eligible for several stable office jobs with great retirement plans and enough income to afford a house – the American dream, if you will. When the modern job market was still developing, and specialized careers were open fields, ready for harvest, post-secondary education was the ultimate weapon. For many of our immigrant parents, education became a means to an end. I once read that the easiest way to move up in society is through education. However, we no longer live in a world where every degree is valued to the same extent. Although I agree with this statement, I believe that it should be considered in the context of the present day, where globalization and digital media have shaped an entire generation.
We can see an increasing correlation between the type of degree and its career prospects post-university. It’s pretty common knowledge that certain degrees, such as a teaching degree, hold a smaller job market today than they did a few decades ago. As a result, graduates from teaching college are less likely to become employed and reap the benefits of their educational investment. A survey in the US found that not all post-secondary degrees are equal and thus don’t lead to equal opportunities. Results further indicated that humanity-based degrees are less likely to lead to full-time employment and more likely to unrelated career pursuits.
It can then be argued that a post-secondary education pertaining to certain disciplines is no longer necessary, at least temporarily. Pursuing a degree that fulfills our personal interests as well as the market demand is the logical thing to do.
What further distinguishes today’s job market from a few decades ago – in my opinion, the more interesting by-product of globalization – is the ability to learn from the comfort of our own homes. We have the ability to learn anything and everything, as long as it has been thought of by another human being on this planet. And I don’t just mean figuring out how to solve for torque on Khan Academy; I mean learning profitable skills such as coding, stock exchange and digital marketing. In this world of technology, the tools to excel have been made widely available to us. In some cases, a university degree merely acts as a stamp of certification from a reputable institution. The skills are learned long before the degree is ever obtained. I will mention here that education, on its own, is a privilege and a responsibility. It creates critical thinkers and change-makers; it is the bridge that can mend cracks between societies and create a better world. So, without negating the importance of a post-secondary education, I simply want to point out that the world is changing. Education, still as vital as it was a decade or century ago, can now be acquired through different means and in various forms. As part of this changing generation, we need to move with the change, not against it – reap the rewards of globalization, in addition to education.