Saturday was the first day of my Ultimate league. For those that aren’t familiar, Ultimate is a sport very similar to football but played with discs (don’t call them Frisbees; Ultimate folks don’t like to be associated with Wham-O and vice versa).
It’s a bunch of strangers coming together and playing a fun game for 4 hours every Saturday throughout the winter. My favorite thing about the game is being able to meet a bunch of brand new people.
One of the people on the team is a freshman in college. I asked him about his school and he told me that he’s majoring in Electrical Engineering. He seemed to be pretty happy with the choice, but did mention the fact that it’s difficult. While he’s studying, the kids in the business school are out partying six nights a week.
This is where I jumped in with my unsolicited advice as the wise old soul. Sure, I’m pretty far away from being old and almost certainly farther away from being wise, but this is the best I’ve got.
Skills are More Important than GPA
College kids should be a lot more worried about learning skills in college than they should be about a high GPA. Anyone can get a high GPA when you don’t actually have to learn anything to pass the courses.
Sorry general business majors, but that’s just one of the eight points in this article about why you shouldn’t major in Business.
You can learn business when you work in business. In fact, the only place to really learn business is to get a job. Every company operates differently, so how is some college course supposed to teach you “business”? It doesn’t even make sense.
Reading about how business works in a textbook is not a marketable skill, and it will never get you a job. Sorry.
On the other hand, a student can use his or her time in college to learn how to do accounting for a business. Maybe the student learns to write a computer program a business can sell. If you study something more specific, like business intelligence rather than just general business, you can learn to handle massive amounts of company data, a skill of increasing importance in the ever-advancing digital age. Visit this link for more information about getting a masters in business intelligence. Perhaps the student learns to design for a new plant that would make a business spend less money and produce more product.
These are all skills. And they are all very valuable skills that businesses need.
Take a look at the highest paying college degrees and see if you can figure out how many of those degree programs teach a valuable skill. If you don’t feel like clicking the link, here’s a spoiler: “Business Administration” didn’t make the list.
You might also notice that the list didn’t mention GPA. Because in the real world, your GPA doesn’t matter. The only time a college GPA will be on a resume is for a student’s first job out of college. After that, the GPA is gone and it’s all about what degree you have, what skills you have, and how you’ve applied that knowledge to the workforce.
So if you are a kid in college, get yourself a skill. Or maybe two or three. You don’t need a business degree. Heck, you don’t even need a business minor. Spend four years learning a skill that makes you incredibly valuable.
While your friends are pulling down 3.8 GPAs in their business schools, you can smile knowing that you’ll be making $38k/year more than them when you graduate with real skills to go along with your degree.
Kevin McKee is an entrepreneur, IT guru, and personal finance leader. In addition to his writing, Kevin is the head of IT at Buildingstars, Co-Founder of Padmission, and organizer of Laravel STL. He is also the creator of www.contributetoopensource.com. When he’s not working, Kevin enjoys podcasting about movies and spending time with his wife and four children.
Kevin, I have to agree with you, mostly, I spend a ton of time learning new skills, going to seminars, teaching those under me new things, and it is all skills. All the business majors are learning is theory, which can be helpful, but not unless they know the business they will be building a business in.
I have seen certifications becoming more popular nowadays, over degrees/diplomas. I believe this is due in part to the certifications actually using your knowledge of a skill for a standard, rather than you knowledge of a theory as a standard like a diploma/degree.
Albeit, in certain situations, you actually have to know theory as well. If you are a psychologist, well theory is about all you have. If you are a scientist, that is going to use a lot of skill, but you will still have to know the theory. Business on the other hand, the skill in the business field you are in is more valuable than theory. but theory can be a little helpful.
I agree with you to an extent. A bigger problem is that college students do not know how to market the skills they have acquired. For example, the ability to read and write analytically in addition to critically is an extremely valuable skill that many people do not have. It is something most pick up in college and it is why majors like history or English are valuable. Overall, I do agree with you though, the highly technical and specialized jobs do have a tendency to pay a pretty good amount.
These were always my thoughts as an engineering major, too. Most engineering majors had lower grades, too, and there were a lot less Latin honors read for engineers than art or business students. But, truth be told, most of my engineering friends graduated with $50k+ salary jobs lined up (I went to grad school).
I would add that you should say “Kids Need In-Demand Skills,” since there are skills out there that you can get in college but won’t be as good for finding as job as other certain skills are.
I think you need to clarify “good grades”.
Most engineering companies, mine included, will weed you out if you don’t have at least a 3.0 (as an engineer, 3.0s are good grades).
Having a 3.0 and skills, including the ability to market yourself, shows you have brains and balance.
Having too much of one or the other is not beneficial to the company unless they are hiring scientists or jacks of all trades.
Bottom line is most companies want balance.
Yes, if you are below a 3.0 in engineering, you’re gonna have some trouble finding a job. But a 3.2 in engineering with solid technical skills is way better than a 3.8 in business with 0 technical skills in my opinion.
I had a GPA below 3.0 when I was in college. I had offers from a couple of engineering companies and interviews opportunities. What I lack in grades, I made up for in work experience. I tell college students all the time that you need an internship in your major to land that first job. If you work while you are in college, it is hard to maintain a 3.0 in your engineering classes. After that first job, I never have to explain my grades again, especially since getting my P.E.
This is a great post. I’m currently studying communications and the reason I got the paid internship that I have now is because I made it a point to learn other skills like video editing, camera skills, script and blog writing etc. One of the major problems in colleges today is that they rarely offer “technical” or “real-world” courses. It is ridiculous that universities like mine offer courses like “Philosophy and Harry Potter” but refuse to include personal finance or basic web development classes in their offerings.
I can relate to this, my sister, who is at UGA, is taking a class titled “History of Rock”, according to her they listen to music, and watch movies. I don’t see the point in a course like that. Unless you are a music major. She is not, and most students taking it are not.
Being a web developer myself, I have seen web development classes at colleges, and tech schools are kind of a joke when they do have them. I have had interns in and out of the office I work at, and I usually have to teach them basic html. They usually only know how to use Dreamweaver, or FrontPage. I expect to have to teach them the tricks of the trade, that is standard, but basic html and css…. seems like a waste of their, or the government’s money.
Great job recognizing you needed additional skills. I’m sorry your college isn’t giving you the training you need, but it’s great that you’re doing it on your own!
I agree with you on degrees other than Engineering. In Engineering, if you’re busy acquiring skills, you’ll flunk out. This is true especially for a freshman. Your advice was a bad one for an Engineering freshman. Maybe when he is a Jr. and can slack off a bit….
Engineering in itself is a skill. The ability to create engineering designs is a highly specialized skill that theoretically every engineer should learn. Trust me, I know. I have a EE degree.
I didn’t go to college and look at me…I’m kick a**!
I agree, to an extent. There is value in general business degrees too, though. Someone with a technical background will not be able to understand how Human Resources, Marketing, Accounting and other parts of a business intersect. True, these can be learned while “in the industry”, but you will not be able to get the level of knowledge needed to set the direction for a Fortune 500 business, for example. The perception that general business degrees do not impart “skill” may be because there is an oversupply of graduates in these fields, but many debates on these issues focus on current entry-level salaries and early-to-mid career individuals. Graduates in technical fields may earn a great starting salary and have their skills valued presently, but their compensation may level out later in their career or their skills may not be valuable anymore (where technology becomes obsolete). Business managers are always needed and their salaries have the possibility of rising in later career as their sphere of influence increases.
For me that just sounds like the typical thing an engineer would say about business students. I didn’t major in International Business to party all the time – I majored in Business to get a job later in international marketing and sales. I learned things like accounting, cost calculation, finance (from compound interest to things like bonds and currency exchange), business taxation, how to write business letters (in four different languages), differences in how business is conducted in different cultures (and the theory behind that), how to market a product strategically as well as in daily business, what to do if something doesn’t work out and how to know actually that you’re headed for disaster, how to start up a company, what to look for if your company wants to buy another company, how to negotiate and the like.
I don’t think the problem with business majors is that they don’t learn any skills, but rather that there are many kids who think with a business major they will make much money and later be the boss…
I felt compelled to second this comment. I am an undergraduate business major concentrating in finance and I have found my studies to be very rewarding with respect to both compensation and increased aptitude. Thus far, I have completed two summer internships at a Federal Government consulting firm and was paid an annualized salary rate of $36,000 during the first summer (as a sophomore) and $40,000 during the second summer (as a junior). I also completed a 6-month co-op with the firm and was paid a before-tax sum of approximately $18,000 for the work I completed during that term. In addition, I received a full-time offer from this company a year out from graduation and will be joining them full-time in June 2012. I would hardly say that my business degree was not worth all of this.
Mind you, I have worked at this firm in a full-time capacity for 12 full months and am still able to graduate on time. While interning, I worked with other interns that had backgrounds in engineering (civil, industrial, electrical, and systems) and I cannot name one that was asked back to do a second internship or was extended full-time employment offer. This is primarily due to the fact that interfacing with clients is paramount in the consulting world and while the engineers has solid technical skills, their client service, presentation, and communication skills were all lacking.
Again, finance is a skill. Secondly, your work experience gives you the skills you will need in the workforce (which is pretty obvious).
A business degree that includes hard skills is just as good as an engineering degree that includes hard skills. You are a great example of that.
You’ve also found a place where soft skills are essential too, which probably means you’re going to be paid a lot of money. To be very good at hard and soft skills is rare, and you’ll be rewarded handsomely for that. Congratulations.
You are proving my point, not disproving it. You just named a bunch of hard skills that you learned in your degree. Accounting, cost calculation, finance, etc. These are the kinds of things that are valuable to employers and won’t be learned on the job; you are expected to know it before you get there.
Some of the soft skills you mentioned, like doing business in different cultures, negotiating, etc. are things that are nice but will rarely get you a job.
It is absolutely possible to acquire skills within the business field in college. I’m not saying you shouldn’t get a business degree; I’m saying you shouldn’t get a business degree that consists only of soft skills.
So you’ve trashed your own point. Business majors learn hard skills, like accounting. Also all majors teach “skills” that fit a broad range of opportunities.
Geez, so according to your logic learning about reaction kinetics but getting a job designing heat exchangers not involving reaction kinetics means that the knowledge about reaction kinetics I learned was a “soft skill” since I didn’t need that skill to get hired? If the job the business major interviews for has an international component would knowing about doing business in different cultures make that a “hard” skill?
Face it, even in engineering these “hard” skills you talk about are the barest fundementals of what you need on the job and just like you don’t learn “business” until you are out in the business world, you don’t really learn “engineering” until you’re in a field doing specifics. Engineers make great money right out of school, but unless they get training on the “soft skills”, they will hit the ceiling on the technical side in about a dozen years or so. Most business executives I know who were engineers went back at that point and got MBAs or other business degrees or certifications to move into the management side of the house where the really big bucks are. So it strikes me as funny that you’re trashing business majors when in my experience (20 plus years) most of the guys out there that started as engineers and moved to management have plenty of “business” training behind them as well.
Patrick L says, “For example, the ability to read and write analytically in addition to critically is an extremely valuable skill that many people do not have.”
While these are highly desirable and useful skills, they are not sufficient. While they are excellent secondary skills to have, few people are hired for these skills alone. Whle I believe I hve these skills, I never acquired a primary skill of the sort for which enployers hire.
Today I am unemployed and have never earned $20K in a single year.
I’m sorry to hear you are unemployed. It’s never too late to go back and get some hard skills. Or you could even just teach yourself hard skills on your own.
For example, in starting this website I now have lots of skills in the wordpress content management system and how to build a website. Over the next few weeks, I’m helping a friend’s small business redo their site on wordpress and making some good money for it. You can always learn new skills! Find something you like and go for it!
Some of the best businesses I’ve seen have been run by people without a business degree. I think the most important thing isn’t what degree you have, it’s whether or not you have a desire to teach yourself and to constantly learn, long after you graduate. You also need “savvy,” which you get by observing the world.
You are correct about skills being more important than gpa but unfortunately you will not get opportunity to show your skills if you do not have good grades. Many companies look for grades if you do not have experience in the same industry. This is why it is important for college students to get summer jobs to gain that experience. And guess what? To get summer intern jobs you need to have good grades.
Nice post. You’ve hit upon a fundamental issue here: K-12 systems do not teach students enough academic skills to to succeed at the level that should be expected in universities and colleges, and when college and university instructors confront large numbers of students who are unprepared for advanced work (in my classes, that would be 70 to 80 percent), they dumb-down, dumb-down, and re-dumb-down their courses until they contain so little real content that all a smart student has to do to get an A is sit in the front row and look like she’s awake.
In my experience, after the initial job, future employers do not much care about one’s grades. A decent GPA helps at landing that first job, but after that, experience is what matters.
Interesting post and comment thread. Business majors could definitely benefit from the “hard” skills that are offered within the major: the accounting knowledge that leads in correct interpretation of financial statements and concepts, statistics and math to track company performance and metrics and trading. Fuzzier courses in management and marketing have *some* value, but the real actionable knowledge is learned on the job.
Great post! I agree with you completely! I actually have a Business Admin degree and I also had a high GPA and it didn’t really help me land a job. I was just able to apply for those jobs now that required a bachelor degree. Thankfully, I worked full-time in an accounting dept all through school and that’s what they focused on in my interviews where all the skills I acquired on the job.