Should You Pursue Higher Education or Get a Job?

In the postgraduate period of your life, you will inevitably observe the different paths that your peers will embark. Some will go further in Higher Education by pursuing a Masters or a Phd; others will get an internship; a few might immediately get a job and some would even redirect and choose a totally different path and field from where they began. 

Despite their different routes, it’s important to remember that they are all valid. In going forward, there’s no right or wrong steps. ‘Different strokes for different folks,’ as they say. However, if you have no clarity on your path, that next step is much harder to decide, let alone take. In the current volatile job market, there has even been a re-questioning of whether higher education is even worth pursuing. 

The traditional narrative is that having a Degree/Masters/Phd will make you more marketable to potential employers. However, Stepping into the real world and talking to everyone in it for even 5 minutes will tell you that it is no longer as clear cut as this. We’ve all heard the stories of a Degree/Masters/Phd holder who has been unemployed for months or even years. So should you even pursue Higher Education at this point? It all depends; what do you want to do?

For example, If your career goal is to be a teacher or lecturer, taking a Masters is a prerequisite. But If you’re interested in getting an admin job or business or management, then the question of higher education gets a little murkier. And if you are setting your sights on breaking into the creative industry, many would even say that higher education should be bypassed totally and you should just build your portfolio.

Some employers are not even remotely interested in achievements in higher education from their employees as they’d much prefer to see a richer portfolio and years of experience. For some, online resources and self-initiatives like up-skilling is a worthy alternative to higher education. In many ways, our traditional assumptions have all somehow been inverted and the only thing that is certain today is uncertainty.

While we have no pretense in having the answers, let alone a good one, the safe answer or rather the question to always ask yourself is: does this step that I’m taking bring me closer to where I ultimately want to be?