OPINION - A Degree Is Not The Be All and End All

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I would like to correct a notion that's common among us African people, especially Nigerian people. Going to school and having a degree...well, that's a level of education, but it's not THE education, you dig? What qualifies you as being educated is your knowledge, and enlightenment in certain fields, and ability to apply that knowledge to what you do. It's NOT necessarily about going through formal education. A lot of people went through that and still take uninformed and irrational decisions. 
   
In Nigeria today there are so many of us youths who have become layabouts, miscreants and just do nothing but constitute a nuisance because we "didn't go to school and therefore have no education". I will tell you, it should not be so. We have let the nature of things in this country give us an entirely wrong picture of what heights we can really reach, irrespective of our background and whether or not we went to school. This is where other nations appear to be ahead of us: they place more value on ideas than on a college certificate. If Nigerian society could provide avenues to put your ideas to work, rather than your "degree", we would probably be a better respected country. I am not advising you to boycott school, no. I am saying if you are unable to attain a college degree there is a way out. 
   
Now, we do not expect to sit around and wait for the government to create jobs for us, we have ideas of our own that can really fetch us some cool income. Fashion design for example: it is probably the most thriving youth idea in Nigeria. One does not require a college degree to be good at it. One just needs flair and passion for such a vocation. Another way would be to learn a trade for a year or two. It sure beats spending all that money on a college education that you can not afford. I could go on with a list of  business ideas that have produced some of Nigeria's most successful entrepreneurs: bag making, hat making, mat weaving, photography, shoe making, etc. 
     
Education is key in life. Nobody has become anything from being a stark illiterate. The absence of a formal education should not translate into the absence of any education whatsoever. Get up, get out there, get enlightened, and succeed!


Peace and Love Y'all.

Contributed By Oluwamayowa Akinyemi

(c) JuicyChitChats 2016. [Saturday 27th February]

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