Sunday, 14 October 2012

“Education versus Experience” - Professor M.S.Rao


“Do you know the difference between education and experience? Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don't.” - Pete Seeger


People often debate the supremacy of education over experience, and vice versa. The topic generates a lot of heat as there are different schools of thought.  Before we come to conclusion, let us look at the pros and cons of education and experience in this regard.

Education gives you knowledge, skills and abilities. It opens the door to the outside world.  It builds you tons of confidence to take on several challenges head-on.  It also provides you with employment opportunities and you can earn your livelihood out of it.  On the other hand, experience gives you confidence to handle tasks effectively apart from enhancing your gut feelings.  There are people without elementary education who made it big in their lives due to their experience.  But most of them regretted not having education.  Some of them felt that they would have done better if they had education.

Presently the working executives realized the importance of higher education, and are doing various courses to support their experience in order to scale the corporate ladder quickly. Since competition is stiff the working executives find pursuing various courses is beneficial to ensure their quick career success.  

When you look at college dropouts like Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg, it is clear that they are successful as entrepreneurs. At the same time, we cannot rush to conclusion that educated people don’t succeed as entrepreneurs. Similarly, there are people who excelled without formal education. These people learned through a hard way by trial and error method and learned bitter lessons in life and succeeded finally.

If education enhances Intelligence Quotient (IQ), experience enhances Emotional Quotient (EQ). You need to blend both education and experience to excel as an effective leader. A rich experience without any education and a rich education without any experience creates imbalance among the individuals. Therefore, those who have good education must complement with experience and those who have great experience must complement with good education to achieve success in their lives.  To sum up, right and judicious blend of education and experience will take you towards your quick career success.  


“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.



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