🎓 Education & career paths

We have associates degrees, 🎓 bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees, PhD’s, technical certifications, post-grads, post-doctorates, apprenticeships, and so on. Attaining degrees is costly and many of us are saddled with student debt. So the question isn’t really: Is education necessary? But rather: **What’s my education for?**

Your education is for you to define. It’s not to appease your overbearing parents (they’re not taking your final exams for you). Your education is not transferable: You can’t give your degree to someone else. You worked hard to earn it, so make it count in whatever way you want. My hope is that the value of that education translates into more money.

When it comes to job hunting, your education could easily determine if you’d get hired somewhere. It’s significant for the Applicant Tracking Systems that will assign a value to every degree you hold. (More on this later.) Education can improve how recruiters perceive you at first glance because many of them run on ignorant assumptions like if you have a degree, recruiters assume you can work hard. (I heard a recruiter admit this to me 👀)

If you haven’t worked in an office before you might not realize that your co-workers have very different educational backgrounds, or any degree at all. My mom was adamant that if you only had a bachelor’s degree from a local community college but you had good work experience and weren’t an asshole, she’d hire you. (She was the head of human resources for over 20 years, so she would know.) So just sayin: Education isn’t everything, unless your career path requires it.

Certifications can also help people pivot careers for a lot less money and time compared to a four-year degree. Hell, it worked for me. Recruiters may be impressed by a degree from an Ivy League university, but they like job experience even more. So if education matters to you, make sure you’re making the best use of your tuition costs. Go to college & have fun, but when you graduate, get ready to work, because you know what lies ahead of you? A job hunt.

## Follow your passion

There are a lot of careers out there that pay well where you don’t have to sit at a desk. There are careers where you travel. There are careers where you get to shake hands with new people every day. There are careers where you can do things most people don’t enjoy doing, but you love the hell out of it. Don’t just “do what your parents want.” This is your life, and you’re gonna be working during most of it. So follow your passion.

Many of us follow the money first, then loose interest and eventually fall back to what we originally had a passion for. It’s a common story among career changers (like me). Money pays the bills, passion is the fuel that keeps you going. Find your passion, use education as a launchpad, and 🚀 you’re off to a great start. This course focuses a lot on money, but you gotta find something that lights your fire so the money comes easily.

Choose a job you love and you'll work every day of your life, including weekends. You'll never retire. Your family will hate you. @danwilbur

The concept of a dream job is to keep you working. The concept of a good life is to stop working. Some of the best jobs out there are allow you to focus on your friends, pets, & family first and the job comes second. Your life outside of the office takes priority. That’s a dream. Taking vacation takes priority. That’s a dream. We work hard, so that we can one day, stop working.

Recalibrate what _work_ means for you.