As an undergraduate, we have to be careful about the choices we make of school. On the one hand, students want to take a course with clarity on their career prospect, if the course is going to impact their lives in a way that they can see in advance. For example, a student of Engineering sees him/her self becoming an engineer. On the other hand, it’s not likely to happen that way because the future doesn’t always work on the obvious path but that doesn’t mean that it’s not important to want to take a course with clarity on career prospect.
When you graduate from university, you walk into a different world entirely (the market place), with different jobs, without knowing which job is right for you. Maybe it’s the job in your father’s company or the job that pays the most salary. You are going to get the job for sure but you may not have the necessary skills required to grow the organization. Then you are going to realize. I don’t like this job much, you will look up and see your bosses job and yet you don’t like their jobs. Generally what most people do, is to just hang on because the next job they take might not even be worth the first and then they start to lose attraction in their career, which could have a major impact on their lives.
Having the skills of problem-solving, critical thinking and logical reasoning are important for every aspect of human lives and the market place. While the university is an important place where you can learn these valuable skills faster, the transformation of the student through these relevant skills, is the game changer in addition to your qualifications. Although the students can’t see where it’s going to take them while on campus but by keeping an open mind and thinking about things differently, they start to create a different path for themselves that will likely inform their career choices.
Once a student understands these concepts, they will be motivated to learn more. That way of thinking, of creating our own solutions, required you to have an open mind, to the things that don’t necessarily add up to the answers that make immediate sense. The likes of Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates for example that we all talked about today, even though they later dropped out of the university, one thing common about them, is that they all went to the university and pursued other interest (skills). Before he dropped out, mark Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook from his Harvard dorm. Steve Ballmer a colleague of Bill Gates finished Harvard and took over as the CEO of Microsoft for 14 years.
Let’s say you have an interest in working with these incredible companies (Google, Dangote, Microsoft etc), first, you will need to have a degree and then the required skill set to deliver the job right. So if you are sitting there wondering if learning a skill or two or pursuing other interest while in the university is overrated, then you are making an expensive mistake. Go to the university and while you are studying, start the things you dream about, put your dreams, time and energy into learning something new and commit to them at the same time.
Skyline University Nigeria (SUN) has a way of lifting people and helping them connect with their dreams because, profoundly, your dreams matter.