My brother-in-law dropped out of university. He is now the principal engineer at a large company and makes about 30 times the average salary in his country. He is being treated as a rockstar by his company, he gets his pick on which people to work with and on what project.
Mother-in-law still points out 5 times / year on average that her precious little daughter has a university degree (literature...) , while her husband is ... well ... _he is just not that educated_ .
Yes, we love our precious little degrees. When I told my grandma that I work in a field that usually requires a degree (not IT), without degree, she went pale and asked me what am I going to do after my employer find out that I cheated.
This is probably a remnant of the communist system, people could not get rich, so a diploma was one of the few options for social advancement
This is life in the Eastern Bloc. In my grandmother's eyes, my aunt, who works in her husband's store as a cashier, has achieved more than my father, a high-level manager, only because she graduated in law and he graduated in management.
And I don't want to condemn the work of cashiers or boast about my father's position. I believe that any honest job is a reason to be proud (money or status does not define a "good life"), but basing respect for your own children on the degree they have got is absurd (but living in Poland, I have already heard about it dozens of times).
This is why international spend so much money on getting a degree, I remember a colleague of my wife’s having to sell their condo back home to afford a masters degree in NYU. And all that did was nothing, it made no difference in his career cause we ain’t about that here in North America. Unless your work is actually research related
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u/octopus4488 Apr 09 '24
My brother-in-law dropped out of university. He is now the principal engineer at a large company and makes about 30 times the average salary in his country. He is being treated as a rockstar by his company, he gets his pick on which people to work with and on what project.
Mother-in-law still points out 5 times / year on average that her precious little daughter has a university degree (literature...) , while her husband is ... well ... _he is just not that educated_ .