Should You Get an Undergraduate Degree?

There are two options you can do after high school. All options have pros and cons. I will discuss them here.

1. Get an undergraduate degree

2. Do not get an undergraduate degree. What are the available options?

Why should you get an undergraduate degree?

1. Social life

Doing business cannot be separated from meeting up with people, i.e., customers, employers, employees, colleagues, suppliers, etc. Therefore, it is essential to learn how to interact with people at all levels.

• Meet up with new people to learn about how people behave, their traits, and how to respond.
  

• Learn who you can trust, not trust, and beware. Never trust bad intention people because they will forever never change.

• Improve social skills to get what you want from them or just being a likable person. Never afraid to say no.

• Learn how to convince people. In our daily life, we always need to persuade and motivate people to act on something.

• Enjoy social life. One of the keys to happiness is to have a good social life.
  

2. Mentally you are not ready to work yet

You need to enjoy your time as a young teenager and not to worry about money. I remember after my high school, I knew that mentally I was not ready to work and bear the responsibilities outside my comfort zone. I am mentally prepared to work after my three years of college ended.

I work several times as a weekend waiter and 2 – 3 months of work as a shopkeeper during my college time. I realize study is still a better way to spend my time. There will be plenty of time when you can focus on work after obtaining your undergraduate degree. The cost to get an undergraduate degree is very expensive. Do not blow it off from earning insignificant money. Focus on one thing at a time.

3. Learn about new things systematically

In university, all learning modules are systematically delivered. Few things you will pick up:

• Learn about the course of your interest and fit our objective. This is one of the most fundamental reasons to get an undergraduate degree. None of us want to study something that we do not like and have no economic future. I will discuss this in more detail in another section below.

• Learn how to do a presentation. Occasionally in business, you need to do a presentation in front of many people. You need to learn how to make effective presentation slides, deliver the presentation in a clear voice, and arouse people's interest in listening, controlling your nervous emotion, etc.

• Learn how to search for information. There are always new things that you need to learn in life. Most important is you know where to find the information more effectively and then draw a conclusion or action plan.

• Learn how to write. Every day business people write email correspondences. Occasionally you will need to write a business proposal, blog, standard operating procedure, agreement, etc.

• Learn to be disciplined and act fast. The undergraduate school has very tight classroom schedules and short notice assignment submission schedule. Likewise, in business, there are time schedule and urgency for most of the works, i.e., submitting proposals, attending meetings, reply emails, etc.

4. Make yourself more competitive

In university, you need to try to get good grades and try to be in the top 20% in your class. It is essential to do well in your undergraduate because it shows that you learn and achieve your objectives of attending an undergraduate school, which is to learn the course.

You do not need to be the best in class because there are always more intelligent and talented people than you. Besides that, you need to allocate a reasonable portion of your time to socialize, learn other interest, sport, and do your hobby.

In businesses, we are competing with many companies all the time i.e., winning over customers, recruit talents, acquire best suppliers, etc. You need to build this sense of competitiveness and urgency as part of your character.

5. An undergraduate degree is important

I might not be a good marketer, management, or investment expert. However, my degrees show to people that I am an expert in those three fields. Unless you are successful in your field, people still judge yourself based on your degrees because those are tangible things that you can show them before they know you. In business, it is crucial to quickly position yourself as an expert in your field to convince people about your capability. It allows you to present your proposition.

6. Future network

The useful by-product of attending an undergraduate school is you will have several friends who might become the future business network or friends for life. 

Why should you not get an undergraduate degree?

Wrong course. This is the only reason I can think of. You might realize that you had chosen the wrong course after you are in the middle of the course. Initially, you might believe that you are making the right decision on which course suits most for your interest and career. However, after going through some classes, then you realize it is not suitable for you.

I have seen many times people took an undergraduate degree in food scientist or computer science and then ended up being a salesperson for any type of unrelated companies. They have to relearn all the new knowledge, but they cannot progress their career path or become business owners in their chosen industry because they do not have the common business sense to build their own company.

The common reason for such a mistake is your interest and goal changes. Many people of all ages might change interest for whatever reason, i.e., boredom, follow their communities, find a new interest, give up, etc. The cost of this unfortunate situation is money, effort, and time wasted. It might not be easy to restart again with a new course because of the dilemma that you might make the same mistake again.

If you do not get an undergraduate degree, then you can take many short-term classes specific to the skills you wanted to acquire. Many reputable universities do offer this type of classes. There are many online classes as well. Although they provide a certificate of completion, it is not a recognizable degree that you can place behind your name.

In conclusion, you need to get an undergraduate degree and not make the mistake of taking the wrong course.

How to choose the right course?

Choose a broad topic course.

It is hard to be wrong if you choose a broad topic course i.e., business management. On the contrary, a specific topic course will narrow down your future path. The only problem is you will have less flexibility to change your future path if your interest and objective change.

Law school makes you a lawyer, computer science school makes you a programmer, science school makes you a researcher, architecture school makes you an architect, etc. Whereas in business management school will make you a businessman.

The good thing about being a businessman is you can always hire good lawyers, programmers, researchers, or architects whenever you need them. It is extremely rare to have lawyers, programmers, researchers, or architects to have good business acumen and entrepreneur mindset because those are not what they were taught in their class.

Business management can be divided into many specific courses, such as marketing, human resource, public relation, accounting, finance, etc. You will learn all of them at the surface level throughout the classes in business management course. You can stick with the general business management study or pick the area of your interest during your final year in undergraduate school.

What if you are very sure that you want to be a lawyer or programmer or researcher or architect after enrolling in business management school?

You need to know about the comparison of being a businessman and other career paths, which I will explain in details in another letter. Assume that you had made up your decision to be a lawyer or programmer or other specific narrow field occupation. Here are the things that you can do:

1. Complete your business management school and then work in a law firm or other specific industry of your interest

Because business management is such a broad field and all businesses are profit-oriented, there is always a position available for business management people to fit into almost any company i.e., law firm, start-up, pharmaceutical, architect, etc.

Law firms need account managers to handle their clients. Start-ups need an operation manager or fundraiser. Pharmaceutical company need sales team. Architecture company need a sales team, etc.

Once you work in their company, you can feel the environment, know about the business process and the role of each department, and then confirm your interest and objective. You might need to work at a few companies before deciding on your interest and objective. I will discuss how to choose the right industry for your first job.

2. If the required technical skill can fulfill your interest and objective, take the available short courses or an an undergraduate degree. At this point, the possibility of taking the wrong course is reduced significantly. Whatever you learn can be applied to the industry you choose.

It is not a waste of time to learn business management because as a future business owner in industries, you need to have business management skills.

Which undergraduate school you should try to enroll?

Spend some time browsing the best undergraduate business schools website and shortlist those spark your interest. The most ideal is Harvard business school and Stanford business school. The second most ideal are other Ivy league business school or Oxford university or Cambridge university.

In business, graduating from prestigious business school will help you get into the company and entry position you want. You do not want to settle in any industry or job that does not help with your future goal. You will need to jump over a few companies also to master the trade. Later on in life, a degree from a prestigious business school will help you in build a new company. This is a topic in another letter.

It is okay if you need to spend time on the application and miss out on one whole year of school time. It is also fine if you end up at a less reputable undergraduate school. Most important is you learn from the mistakes and move on.