When I left my 2-year mandatory military service in 2024, I was met with 2 very different paths, and I’m sure many of you will face this crossroads at least once in your lifetime.
One path led to universities and private schools. A guided world where I pay to follow a professionally tailored programme and get systematically trained for the real world. The real world hasn’t happened yet, but this is where I can safely learn.
The other path is the real world itself. Freelancing, corporate jobs, entrepreneurship. A world filled with uncertainty, risk, and a stage where failure can occur at any turn. Stakes are high and the outcomes are very divisive.
Among the many people that I know, there seems to be an even split between the 2 choices, with each side providing thought-provoking arguments about why their choice is better.
One side will defend the choice of getting an education, arguing that it provides them with a safety net they can fall back on should things go awry. They will say that they can prepare themselves with more knowledge, so that when they enter the working world, they will be better equipped and start off on a stronger foot.
The other side will in turn defend the choice of going straight into work, arguing that real-life experience is more beneficial than what you can ever learn in a classroom. Instead of relying on simulations and rehearsal runs, the real world will provide far greater insights and motivation to push yourself to achieving better and better goals.
My Vote: Getting A Job
When it was my turn, I walked towards the path of getting a job. To me, if I wanted to get into a school, I could do it whenever. Universities do not discriminate against age anyways.
Getting a job was the hard part. Because of my limited qualifications (to this day, I am still a Diploma holder), I had to scour jobs that require little to no experience.
That was when I found Team Music Pte. Ltd., a company that plans corporate team-building workshops by challenging groups to perform songs as a rock band. Thanks to a history in music, I was able to start as a part-timer and work my way to becoming a full-time employee.
Working in an SME, I had to put on different hats, working as a Salesperson, Recruiter, Training & Development, Operations Manager, and the list goes on. However, it was because of this that I was able to absorb a lot of commercial awareness.
It gave me the confidence to eventually start my first business, a small bubble tea shop in the heart of Singapore.
It failed, of course. That is why this blog came about, but never did I lament the loss of the business, because through working on it, I gained a wealth of experience and knowledge I would not have gained if I had spent all this time reading lecture notes and doing assignments.
By planting myself in the real world, every experience is an accurate representation of how the real world reacts. I believe that the real contradiction is when students think that they can prepare for how the world treats them in a classroom.
Reasons To Get A Job
Financial Stability
One can argue that getting into a school for a certificate is a way to attain financial stability, because it gives them a higher chance to get into a higher-paying job to sustain their expenses.
Though valid, plowing through 3 to 4 years to finally get a piece of document for a better chance (yes, there is still no guarantee) for a job that you want does not provide immediate financial stability unless you do part-time work while studying, which is a whole different level of stress.
For some folks, immediate cash flow is more important than delayed profits. They may be staying on their own, and need to pay for rent and food to stay afloat.
For others, they don’t even have the funds to enter a school, and will need to build a big enough savings account to fund that route. That is why taking up a job first can both sustain their living expenses and build a solid base.
This is where true immediate financial stability comes from.
Fast-Track Transferable Skills
Theory is helpful, but you know what else is helpful? Practical.
Being able to dive into the work hands-on will provide a swift and tactile response that forces you to adapt quickly or get eaten alive.
You may think that working as a cashier is easy, but if you are an individual who has little practice in a social setting, you will find that unless you push yourself to be a little more outspoken and receptive, you will struggle when interacting with customers.
Learning to read cues, communicate with a stranger, maintain composure, recording orders on a point-of-sales system, upselling, cross-selling, and more. Can schools allow you to learn AND practise these skills?
Plus, many experiences you pick up in jobs are actually applicable to many different roles in many different industries. In our example above, the skill of being social can give you advantage in roles that require you to connect with others, such as a sales or business development role.
This will give you an advantage in the “experience” section of your resume, while those who just graduated have to rely on grades and holistics in the recruitment process.
Headstart
A certificate may not guarantee a high-paying job, but I can tell you what getting a job can guarantee you.
While others are typing away on their laptops, working on their 12th assignment, you would have most probably already ascended into a more senior position in the company. Granted, it requires hard work and continuous growth, but none of that is detrimental to your career or you.
Instead of having 3 to 4 years of your life in the books, spending the same amount of time in the working industry allows you to quickly develop skills that can continue to propagate you forward into more roles. If you can’t tell, 3 to 4 years is a lot of time, and opportunities come by. The opportunity cost of staying in a school is enormous as compared to staying in a job.
The bigger your portfolio, the more likely that the next hiring manager will start to look at experience more than your qualifications.
What Is The Point Of A Degree Then?
Looking at the length of this post by this point, you can see how passionate I am about not going to school, but you might be remissed to think that getting a degree will open no doors for you.
There is a reason why so many people still choose to pursue further education and grind for years to get a good starting point in their careers.
Mandated Qualifications and Targeted Goals
Countless jobs that people want to pursue dictate that they MUST hold some documentation that certifies their knowledge and training in that specific industry. This is especially so for sectors with an explicit need for a certain skill set.
Take doctors for example. If I were 100% correct in saying that “getting a job is better than going to school”, you would agree that we would have a less-than-stellar healthcare economy around the world, right?
Imagine if a hospital takes in a doctor because they have “extensive experience in the healthcare industry tending to the needs of patients.” I’m sure you would feel very anxious about your next appointment.
When intensive training is mandated for a certain job, then the only way companies and people can be assured that those assigned for the job can actually DO the job is to have proof that they have studied, practised, and passed the bar.
Safety Net
There is a very real fear of being stuck in a limbo where you cannot find a job because you have no qualifications. Many suffer this fate, applying to countless jobs but seeing no results in their attempts.
A certificate stating that you have completed X amount of hours learning about a targeted topic can boost the chances of you getting a job.
If a hiring manager were to choose between 2 people with no work experience, and 1 of them has a certificate related to the role they are applying for, the hiring manager will most often than not bank on the certified one.
There are definitely cases where despite having certification, one might still not get a job, and this is due to a shift in the economy.
You may have come across numerous videos on social media such as Instagram and Tiktok curated by people who sometimes have 2 or more certificates but are still unable to get called up for interviews despite having applied for over 100 companies.
This is the reality for some people, but don’t let that stop you from pursuing what you want to do.
Your Choice
When you come across the 2 paths, the choice you make is always circumstantial. Even though I think that getting a job trumps getting an education, I can understand why some people lean towards the other choice.
If you have the opportunity, I would say go for a job. The amount of experience you can potentially gain is indeed life-changing. The real world is going to kick anyone around with no exceptions, and the best way to deal with it is to learn to navigate hardships early on.
However, should you feel the need for an education, by all means go for it! There is also a plethora of knowledge that you can learn in the classroom where you cannot find anywhere else in the world.
And to those that worry about making the wrong choice, know that there is no such thing as wasted experience, because any experience will teach us something and give us a chance to grow from it. Your interests and mindset change over time, so embrace this change.
Whatever the choice you make, keep moving forward and look ahead towards the next goal.