It was at a well-known department store. He's a Regional Manager, and he happened to be inspecting the store while I was shopping there.
We barely recognized each other. It was one of those "I think I know you from somewhere" things. As it turned out, we'd been neighbors and casual friends almost 30 years ago, and then lost touch as we each went our own ways. We decided to spend a few hours at the mall's food court catching up. He had a somewhat interesting story.
Back when we were neighbors, he had been selling suits at the same department store he now works for. He had no college education, but he had a flair for retail. Eventually he worked his way through most of the store's departments and was promoted to what I take it is the highest non-management position in the store, which basically was a supervisor of all the sales people.
And that's where he stayed -- for years. The company in question requires a B.A. in order to become a "manager," and apparently never makes exceptions.
In his case, the company sincerely wanted to make him a manager because he had a knack for finding and fixing problems. But they were bound by their own policies. Managers had to have Bachelor's degrees. Period.
After some research, my friend struck a deal with what was then Regents College (now Excelsior College), which is one of New York State's accredited non-traditional colleges. After reviewing his experience, they made him a deal: They would award him a Bachelor's degree in Management if he paid the fees and obtained high enough scores on all the sections of the GRE and GMAT exams. Those would be the only requirements. Pass the tests, pay the fees, and get the degree.
My friend reviewed the offer with his employer, who said they would be more than happy not only to accept the degree, but to fund it, as well. So my friend enrolled in prep courses for both exams (paid for by his employer), sat for the exams, obtained the required scores, and received his degree -- all without spending a single day in a college classroom.
The company immediately promoted him to store manager at another store, then to district manager not long after that, and eventually to regional manager. He's also earned an MSM in the interim, also non-traditionally, although he did have to spend a bit of time in attendance at seminars for his Masters.
I've been thinking about my friend's experiences since meeting up with him. When I was young, there were relatively few jobs that actually required a college degree. It was still perfectly possible for someone with a high school diploma to start as a teller at a bank, and eventually become a loan officer or the bank manager; it was not at all unusual for someone hired to unload trucks at a retail store to eventually wind up as the store manager; and most construction managers had started as blue-collar carpenters or laborers.
Somewhere along the line, however, colleges decided to train people to do the jobs that people already were doing without the benefit of college; and somewhere further down the line, the college degrees became a requirement to do those things.
I've always considered the higher education industry to be a racket, to tell you the truth; and my friend's experience just makes me even more sure of that. Other than my English and Math courses, I look upon my years in college and grad school as a colossal waste of time and money in terms of the essential usefulness of what I learned.
I also know, however, that from time to time I've been hired over competing candidates who had better skills that I did, but who lacked the piece of imitation parchment. I've also been in positions where I supervised people who knew so much more about the job than I did that it was downright embarrassing. But I "had college."
There's no real point to this post. It's just been on my mind, probably because I've reached a point in my life that I'm seen as being reasonably successful, and younger relatives who are planning their adult lives sometimes ask my advice. I really have no idea what to tell them anymore.
In my own case, if I had to do it all over again, I would skip college. I'd take a few courses in English and math (by audit, if possible, to save money), and not bother with the rest. There are courses listed on my transcripts (most of which I aced) that I don't even remember taking, much less what they were about. I think I could have done as well without them.
But on the other hand, I know many people smarter than myself who can't catch a break and are stuck in low-wage, dead-end jobs because they didn't spend the requisite amount of time listening to windbags hawking their own textbooks, to get a piece of parchment that testifies more to their ability to tolerate four (or more years) of enforced, unthinking conformity than to anything indicative of their own abilities.
It's a conundrum, no doubt about it.
-Rich
We barely recognized each other. It was one of those "I think I know you from somewhere" things. As it turned out, we'd been neighbors and casual friends almost 30 years ago, and then lost touch as we each went our own ways. We decided to spend a few hours at the mall's food court catching up. He had a somewhat interesting story.
Back when we were neighbors, he had been selling suits at the same department store he now works for. He had no college education, but he had a flair for retail. Eventually he worked his way through most of the store's departments and was promoted to what I take it is the highest non-management position in the store, which basically was a supervisor of all the sales people.
And that's where he stayed -- for years. The company in question requires a B.A. in order to become a "manager," and apparently never makes exceptions.
In his case, the company sincerely wanted to make him a manager because he had a knack for finding and fixing problems. But they were bound by their own policies. Managers had to have Bachelor's degrees. Period.
After some research, my friend struck a deal with what was then Regents College (now Excelsior College), which is one of New York State's accredited non-traditional colleges. After reviewing his experience, they made him a deal: They would award him a Bachelor's degree in Management if he paid the fees and obtained high enough scores on all the sections of the GRE and GMAT exams. Those would be the only requirements. Pass the tests, pay the fees, and get the degree.
My friend reviewed the offer with his employer, who said they would be more than happy not only to accept the degree, but to fund it, as well. So my friend enrolled in prep courses for both exams (paid for by his employer), sat for the exams, obtained the required scores, and received his degree -- all without spending a single day in a college classroom.
The company immediately promoted him to store manager at another store, then to district manager not long after that, and eventually to regional manager. He's also earned an MSM in the interim, also non-traditionally, although he did have to spend a bit of time in attendance at seminars for his Masters.
I've been thinking about my friend's experiences since meeting up with him. When I was young, there were relatively few jobs that actually required a college degree. It was still perfectly possible for someone with a high school diploma to start as a teller at a bank, and eventually become a loan officer or the bank manager; it was not at all unusual for someone hired to unload trucks at a retail store to eventually wind up as the store manager; and most construction managers had started as blue-collar carpenters or laborers.
Somewhere along the line, however, colleges decided to train people to do the jobs that people already were doing without the benefit of college; and somewhere further down the line, the college degrees became a requirement to do those things.
I've always considered the higher education industry to be a racket, to tell you the truth; and my friend's experience just makes me even more sure of that. Other than my English and Math courses, I look upon my years in college and grad school as a colossal waste of time and money in terms of the essential usefulness of what I learned.
I also know, however, that from time to time I've been hired over competing candidates who had better skills that I did, but who lacked the piece of imitation parchment. I've also been in positions where I supervised people who knew so much more about the job than I did that it was downright embarrassing. But I "had college."
There's no real point to this post. It's just been on my mind, probably because I've reached a point in my life that I'm seen as being reasonably successful, and younger relatives who are planning their adult lives sometimes ask my advice. I really have no idea what to tell them anymore.
In my own case, if I had to do it all over again, I would skip college. I'd take a few courses in English and math (by audit, if possible, to save money), and not bother with the rest. There are courses listed on my transcripts (most of which I aced) that I don't even remember taking, much less what they were about. I think I could have done as well without them.
But on the other hand, I know many people smarter than myself who can't catch a break and are stuck in low-wage, dead-end jobs because they didn't spend the requisite amount of time listening to windbags hawking their own textbooks, to get a piece of parchment that testifies more to their ability to tolerate four (or more years) of enforced, unthinking conformity than to anything indicative of their own abilities.
It's a conundrum, no doubt about it.
-Rich
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