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Whose Advice Would You Take?
03/11/2003

Apparently rich Canadians and poor Canadians differ on the secret to success:

The telephone survey of 1,507 adult Canadians carried out Feb. 20-26 found that 30 per cent of people who make more than $80,000 a year ranked a good work ethic as the primary key to success. University education came in a close second at 28 per cent.

But among those who earned less than $20,000 a year, 29 per cent said a university education was most important, and only 19 per cent attributed success to a good work ethic.

I'd thought that, perhaps, the rich folks were probably older, some old enough to have never gone to college, while among the under $20,000 earners would be folks who were young or impoverished enough to have not gone through the steps to secure that magical degree, yet. But look at this:

Especially troublesome, Mr. Jedwab said, is the fact that people between 25 and 44 rate a good work ethic higher than a university education as a key to success. This could mean that graduates are disillusioned with the jobs they are able to get with their degrees.

Yes, and perhaps they've realized what a joke four years of college can be — except inasmuch as it inculcates a work ethic. Many employers require a college degree because the market is such that they can. However, I'd be surprised if a significant percentage of college graduates weren't of the opinion that the degree was no more useful to the job than a driver's license (and in some cases less).

Posted by Justin Katz @ 06:59 PM EST

2 comments

Nope, my computer science degree
has been quite relevant to my
work. The key word is "been" -
this economy has made my degree
worthless.

truthteller @ 03/11/2003 09:33 PM EST

truthteller,

Well, of course trade-like degrees are of value, which is why I wrote "significant percentage." However, I know many people, even with career-centric degrees, who wound up in positions that were only tangentially related to their studies.

I can also speak from my own experience that, upon graduating, I discovered that "entry level" was well below my qualifications — so much so that, by the time I would have gotten around to using my pent-up knowledge, I could have easily learned it on the job.

Justin Katz @ 03/11/2003 10:31 PM EST