Millions of students across the country enroll at colleges and universities each year. You might feel social pressure to get a degree, especially if your friends have one and you don’t. But before launching in, you should have your own answer for the question, “why should I get a degree?”
University degrees can open up opportunities for you that you wouldn’t otherwise have. Without a degree, on the other hand, it can be difficult or impossible to break into such fields as finance, medicine, business, criminal justice, and other up and coming career fields. In addition, if you have any plan of eventually getting a Master’s degree, you’ll have to get an undergraduate degree (i.e., a Bachelor’s Degree). And if you want to be a physician’s assistant, a legal assistant, or a teacher, you may not need a Master’s Degree, but you may need some kind of credential after earning your bachelor’s degree.
Outside of strictly “professional” reasons for getting a degree, individuals with college degrees typically have a bigger circle of positive relationships in their lives. Plus, when exposed to different points of view, we tend to be more tolerant with others and more open to all possibilities in the future.
Another reason to go get a degree is entirely financial. Graduates of colleges and universities tend to earn more money than their high-school educated counterparts. Equally reassuring is that high school graduates are twice as likely to be unemployed compared to college graduates.
Find some time to reflect on your future. Be aware that if you get locked in to a career that doesn’t require a college degree, your opportunities for future growth, personally and financially, will be limited. It’s not easy to go back to school if you’re already “fixed” in a career. If you’re already in a career, but you want a degree, an attractive option would be to earn a college degree online. In that case, you can keep your current job while earning your college degree. When asked why graduates decided to earn college degrees, the majority of them simply said, “I wanted more options, more control over the direction of my future.” If that sounds like you, request information about the numerous options available to you.