Importance of High School Diploma or College Degree to Be Successful - Scholarship Essay Example

Do We Need a High School Diploma or College Degree to Be Successful Today? Why or Why Not? by I must say that success is a very ive concept and much would depend on how one understands it. Though it may seem that we decide for ourselves how we define this phenomenon, it is still dependent on the surrounding and culture. For an Indian boy and an American girl of the same age being successful can mean completely different things. In the Eastern culture living one`s life decently and reaching spiritual harmony, having your family healthy and wealthy, and being respected by the members of commune is success. For people of Western culture being successful often means being wealthy first of all (having a big house and two cars), being in happy stable relationships, and probably being famous (How People Define Success 2009). However, basic values that are equally praised around the world are probably very similar: health, happiness, spiritual harmony, and money though their positions in the list of desirable things will vary. Most respondents cannot say that money is extremely important for achieving success but still imagining happy life without them is useless. I guess the concept of success must also change with age for most people on the Earth: sexual attractiveness means everything in twenty and is worth nothing compared to the wellbeing of the family in fifty. So we have cleared up what success means basically, and in this paper I am going to examine whether success can be related to a high school or college diploma or not and to what extent. A high school diploma can probably be regarded as a compulsory qualification for any person though such view on this document is very narrow and it can be shocking that a lot children in the world do not have opportunity to receive one. Nevertheless, a high school diploma is mostly perceived as a pass to adulthood: only after reaching this goal society usually accepts a person as capable of taking decisions and responsibility for these decisions. A high school diploma signifies that a young man or a young woman is ready to leave his parents` home, have relationships, and start working (Farrington 2014). Thus, a high school diploma is literally a symbol of transition from childhood to adulthood in most countries of the world though for some African countries this qualification can be substituted with savage rituals. For those who choose whether there is a need in a high school diploma or not the following benefits can serve as decisive arguments: basic social and learning skills, better career opportunities, the possibility of higher education, and financial benefit as a result (Thompson 2012). It is obvious that we acquire basic reading, writing, and calculating skills in school. But what is more important is that school trains pupils how to be attentive, how to deal with various people, and how to manage personal time. These skills seem secondary but they are as important as basic science skills. High school gives a person understanding of how a society must work and teaches him/her that it is necessary to do one`s best to achieve good results. A high school diploma serves as the guarantee to better career opportunities and financial independence eventually. According to the statistics of American Bureau of Labor people without a high school diploma earn around $150 less weekly than high school graduates. Moreover, analyzing career opportunities for high school graduates it becomes clear that they mostly take menial jobs which are paid less. Moreover, the percent of unemployed among people without basic secondary education is much higher than among college graduates (Thompson 2012). As it was mentioned earlier success in life is mostly connected to spiritual balance, happy family, and financial security. Taking into account the limit of opportunities provided to high school dropouts combined with inadequate social acceptance it is possible to make a conclusion that a high school diploma is crucially needed. Though, there is a number of articles on the Internet which describe how people become billionaires without this qualification. Giang picked up just ten successful people among which there are film directors, hair dressers, and business men who dropped school before graduation. Richard Branson, Quentin Tarantino, Vidal Sassoon, David Carp all were forced to quit school to help their parents in most cases and all became adepts in their professions (2013). So for those people who can set themselves goals to become someone (an architect, a fashion designer, a movie star) and are able to work hard for achieving this goal a high school diploma is not necessary at all. Moreover, according to Farrington in modern Western society university degree is now can be regarded as a high school diploma because only after graduating from college people start thinking of leading their adult life. So comparing these diplomas it becomes obvious that college degree is more promising but is impossible to receive it without a high school qualification (2013) And what about college degree, does it help people feel successful? College degree is a desirable thing all over the world and most parents dream of their children receiving a diploma in law or medicine. College degree is another sign of transition but transition to a higher level of society so to say. And despite numerous claims of absurdity of college education it is still worth something in most developed countries. The perks of receiving degree are obvious: unique and stable profession in which one can master his skills during life, financial stability, happy years spent in campus. So even the simplest statistics allows comparing how different annual income of people with different degree is. According to the United Kingdom Office of the National Statistics, the average annual income of non-graduates can be equal to £19,000 at the age of 32 while an average annual income of graduates can reach £35,000 at the age of 38. The crucial difference between college graduates and non-graduates is that the income of first will most likely increase with age and experience while non-graduates will be left on the same payment level throughout life or even will be paid less with age. It is not surprising taking into account most common professions that graduates and non-graduates have. Most often college graduates have professions related to finance, marketing, and human recourses spheres in the United Kingdom while non-graduates tend to be working as plumbers, carpenters, and electricians (Graduates in the UK Labour 2013). So the difference in the income of the manual workers and intellectual workers is obvious and justified. For sure all of us would like to be treated by the doctor who received college degree which means that he spent seven or more years of his life studying. As well as building a house most of us would trust to an experienced architect who was taught by the best professors in high school and did not spend long nights practicing. As they say time is money, and is absolutely true in terms of higher education. One more point that suggests advantageous position of graduates is the unemployment rate. For non-graduates it is more difficult to find a stable job and they are prone to change professions often (unless they want work as carpenters all their life and practice theses skills). They can apply for the positions which do not presuppose some specific skills most often (shop assistants, receptionists, and waiters) and among which the turnover rate is extremely high. While for such specialists like engineers, doctors or teachers changing profession is not common because this would require a lot of additional time and these people regard their jobs as vocation mostly (Graduates in the UK Labour 2013). Thus, job stability is one of the most important benefits of those who follow their career path after college graduation. And in the world where financial crisis is common, job stability can guarantee family stability. It is also noteworthy that college graduates are prone to be more satisfied with their jobs than non-graduates, and it is no wonder since first choose what they want to do rather than accept what they can do to earn money. People with college diplomas usually work in the spheres that are interesting to them that is why they can easily dedicate as much time to their professions as possible. Lawyers, scientists, journalists have the profession in which they can accumulate experience and develop throughout life. And since most time in life we spent at work, the job that you love is one of the most reliable factors of success (The benefits of earning a college degree 2013). The feedback that specialists with higher diploma receive from society is also important: in any country of the world at any century people show respect to teachers and doctors who choose to dedicate their lives to others. Financial stability that is provided by the positions to the college graduates also presupposes better health insurance and wider possibilities of treatment that is why such aspect of success in life as health is also more accessible to those who have diplomas (Adams 2013). However, making diploma equal to the success in life is too superficial. Why? Because it is supposed that in college students have time and possibility to find their true selves but this method seems to be extremely time-consuming and what is more important expensive. There are a number of college graduates who realize they want to be cooks, designers or housewives after receiving a degree. And if compare to those who dropped out college or did not go there because they knew in advance what they wanted to become college graduates lose in one important parameter: experience. All in all for those who have experience all doors are open with or without a degree (Birman 2013). Again there are hundreds if not thousands of truly successful people in the world who either dropped out of college or even did not think of going there at all. These people are completely self-made. At some point of their lives they realized what they wanted to do and understood that listening to boring lectures would only take their time and started acting. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Marc Zuckerberg are probably the brightest (the richest) examples of millionaires who are completely satisfied with their professional and personal lives (Nisen & Giang 2013). But there are thousands of others like Sean Connery, John Rockefeller, Henry Ford receiving their fame in different spheres. The only thing that unites these people is that they worked even harder compared to college graduates and did not wait anybody to come and give them something for free, even a diploma. All people want to feel successful in their lives, and it is especially important for older who start analyzing their years and trying to understand whether they achieved something. But success in life can depend on numerous factors and it is necessary to take them all in consideration before giving final verdict. Different cultures may shape people`s understanding of success in different ways but still such things as happiness, health, satisfaction at work, social respect, and financial stability are most often connected to success. It seems that no diploma can guarantee achieving all these things in life. But nevertheless those who managed to get a high school diploma as well as college degree have more chances to feel successful in life. They will have more financial stability, will be involved in the activity they love, and will receive positive feedback from society. Satisfaction at work will influence positively family life so any education is in general very inspiring and needed. Moreover, people with higher education will know more methods of making their life interesting and worth living. However, there are thousands of examples of people who made themselves and became truly successful without any qualification. So it is hard work and knowledge of personal goals combined with ability to do one`s best to achieve them are probably the most reliable characteristics of a successful person. Bibliography Adams, S 2013 It still pays to get a college degree, Forbes. Retrieved from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/01/10/it-still-pays-to-get-a-college-degree/ Berman, J 2013 A high school diploma is pretty much useless these days, The Huffington Post. Retrieved from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/27/value-college-degree_n_5399573.html Farrington, R 2014, ‘A college degree is the new high school diploma’, Forbes. Retrieved from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertfarrington/2014/09/29/a-college-degree-is-the-new-high-school-diploma/ Giang, V 2013, ‘10 wildly successful people who dropped out of high school’, Business Insider. Retrieved from: http://www.businessinsider.com/successful-people-who-dropped-out-of-high-school-2013-5?op=1#ixzz3SkyAaZxI Global Q&A ‘How do people define ‘success’ in your culture?, The Epoch Time, 2009. Retrieved from: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/world/define-success-culture-global-q-and-a-26837.html Graduates in the UK Labor Market, Office for National Statistics, 2013. Retrieved from: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171776_337841.pdf Nisen, R & Giang, V 2013, ‘These 19 insanely successful college dropouts prove you dont need a degree’, Business Insider. Retrieved from: http://www.businessinsider.com/most-successful-college-droputs-2013-9?op=1 Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/most-successful-college-droputs-2013-9?op=1#ixzz3SpirGvY8 The benefits of earning a college degree, College Atlas, 2012. Retrieved from: http://www.collegeatlas.org/earn-a-college-degree.html Thompson, V 2012 Do you really need a high school diploma?, Global Post. Retrieved from: http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/really-need-high-school-diploma-9291.html Read More