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Earning 1000$ per Month (Is Degree Worthless)


eeehive

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I am a Student and mostly i have seen my batch fellows and friends that they write blogs and articles about earning 1000$ per month without any experience.

For me its a bullshit !!
If you dont have a college degree and you are extremely good in Programming or any skill i think you can live a very happy life.

So is Degree worthless Now a Days ???

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I have two degrees (BA, MA, majoring in International Relations and Diplomacy, believe it or not!). I haven’t used them in the slightest bit professionally, so one could argue I wasted $40k or whatever it cost to get those two bits of paper.

However, I also learned to research, how to delegate my time and a ton of useful stuff for deciphering the limp BS that our leaders come up with, so I value my degree. I’ve had plenty of people say I wasted my money, but so what? When I was a kid one of my ambitions was to get a degree. If you want a degree that makes economic sense, train to be an engineer, doctor or some other professional, in demand job. Computer Science and Maths might be good if you want to get a pop into working with Google and their luxury salaries (~$200k p.a. in the UK for some!)

Mind you, I am trained to work for multinational companies who want to set up shop in “at risk” warzones for maximum profit. I decided not to do that, because no amount of money is worth that kind of abuse in the name of profit.

So here I am working with people to help improve their businesses and battling with the occasional idiot. It’s a relaxing lifestyle.

This isn’t really an important and/or trending topic. A better one would be the commercialization of tertiary education and the worrying trend of students as consumers–demanding they get their “grade’s worth”–that’s not even dumbing down education, that’s a trend that WILL see bits of paper devalued as employers cotton on that Little Aiden is in fact a completely thick person who coasted through on Mom and Pop’s money while threatening faculty staff with repurcussions if he didn’t get a good grade. Not to mention those who “help” them write their academic papers for profit.

Just go for a job that isn’t likely to be taken over by our robot overlords in the near future and get good at it.

Pretty simple, really. Get a degree for a professional career if that’s what you want, or go to learn about something because you want to. Don’t listen to whiny people who don’t understand your motives.

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I have a BA degree in English. I enjoyed the process of earning it. I also did a 2 year Animal Science associates program. That one mostly got me a free place to keep my horses and lots of hands-on experience. I’ve used my BA to get jobs that just required a piece of paper. The paper was the golden ticket for those even though my Major was irrelevant for all but one job. So, my degrees have been more than worth the $$$ spent to me personally.

On Fiverr it looks good I guess, but I won’t provide proof to buyers. I am “happier” because I wanted what the education gave me. The rest doesn’t matter. This subject isn’t that important overall and you don’t “need” this discussion. Everyone in this thread could be making this stuff up for all you know.

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When I was 21 I was lucky enough to land a summer/winter job in New Zealand (it was summer in the UK but winter in NZ). This was a really amazing opportunity and it coincided with my then summer break from Uni. Long story short my parents and peer group went crazy the following October when I called from NZ to say I wasn’t coming home or going back to Uni due to my NZ employer offering to sponsor a 3-year work permit for me.

That decision then led to me staying with the company for 10 years working everywhere from NZ, to Australia, Thailand, and even a few places in Europe before finishing up with them in the UK in 2012. In this case, I never finished my degree but on reflection have had a much more fulfilling, as well as in many cases successful career than almost every one of my Uni friends.

I personally have never had any regrets or found myself at a economic disadvantage for not having a degree. Also, I don’t really roll with the idea that the experience of university is just as important as a degree. In my professional career I was consistently promoted over people with a degree because a lot of the time they had no practical business/managerial experience but expected to get to the top of the company purely because of their education.

Of course, there are exceptions. But even now I have more savings, more disposable income and a better standard of living than most people I went to Uni with. In this case, I’ve felt relieved more than anything over the past few years that I’m not saddled by the same debt they are. Each to their own, though.

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@fonthaunt Excellent! I have my B.A. in Comparative Literature! I’ve always been an advocate for the humanities, and have spoken on panels as an alum regarding this very type of statement the OP is describing. In the case of my program peers, employers aren’t going to hire you because you’ve written a thesis on Romantic Poetry… but because you have the tenacity and experience to do the research, work, late nights, and effort to WRITE it-- while maintaining a life, and delivering on time. What I think the OP @eeehive is getting at is he feels that standard coursework for specific programs aren’t establishing beneficial, learnable habits that can apply to his freelance work. That’s why I’m a fan of inclusive learning, and getting people to DO things. In the end, a degree is a piece of paper. It can be symbolic of a waste of time, or evidence that you have a set of skills that you can apply to anything you set your mind to. The result is up to the individual to show they can hustle to get their job done.

sorry for the rant lol. I’m just glad we’re all experiencing a great time on the Fiverr® platform.

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Nerd 😛

I do agree with everything you’ve said, though. There’s a lot more to education than “book learning” and you do learn a lot of what I guess employers would call “soft skills”. It’s also not bad training for freelancers, as you’re pretty much responsible for your own progress.

That said, it’s not for everyone: some people will thrive in a workplace. I view both as equally valid, it’s not really a case of education vs. work. Although one pays and the other tends to leave you in debt… and that’s a real problem (see my other post) in my opinion.

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I guess it depends on what part of the world you live, but $1000 a month is barely scraping by here. Good luck raising a family with it. If it’s a lot of money in your neck of the woods, go for it.

On the other hand, everyone goes to college nowadays. A college degree isn’t worth more than a high school diploma of yesteryear, meaning you’d better get a college degree because not getting one is like not graduating from high school in the olden days. Many professions have upped their ante and require postgraduate work or even residencies now. Maybe that’s why you don’t see very good salaries for bachelor’s anymore. You’ll need at least a master’s.

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Some college degrees are worthless, specially those that are broad and don’t teach you anything useful.

A TECHNICAL degree is very useful. Someone with a degree and talent in audio production, video editing, electrician, plumber, mechanic, graphic designer, will have an easier time finding a job than someone who studied Sociology, Philosophy, Liberal Arts, Women’s Studies, and the other majors that require you to get a PhD so you can make money teaching them.

Besides, define good at programming, because that’s a very broad field and unless you’re a genius like Edward Snowden or Zuckerberg, chances are you need a degree just to get your foot in the door.

What I will tell you is that life is expensive, and the more money you make, the more things you can do. $1,000 a month isn’t enough. It helps if you have a full-time job and need extra money for luxuries or to pay bills, but unless you live in one of those third world countries where $1,000 is a lot of money, you won’t be doing well.

Think about the future. If you want to take cruises, visit the North Pole, own a dog, ride horses, go hunting, go white water rafting, go scuba diving, have kids, pay for their private lessons, pay for their braces, send them to summer camps, etc.? Then you’re going to need A LOT of money, which means you’re probably going to need a degree. If you’re studying something low-paying like art, make sure you do a double major in business. A crappy artist can become an account executive later on, but if the crappy artist only has talent for art, he is screwed.

You are young, so this is the time to develop skills and experiment, there won’t be any time left later. It’s like the military, the older you get, the less they want you and eventually you become too old to join at all. So go to college, join the Peacecorps (if you’re an American), but make sure you have something serious that will make you money for life.

And keep your Fiverr account active, you never know.

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The usefulness of a degree varies per individual. When I graduated with my Associates eons ago it was good enough according to many of my peers at the time. Of many were already engaged in their field and were just earning a degree to add to their credentials.

Its very well possible to earn that amount of money without traditional training as exemplified by many a classmate and some posts from people that generate honest income from seemingly simple tasks. Bottom line, a degree is only worthless if you make it so; i.e. not utilizing what you’ve learned to improve yourself as well as help out others.

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Finishing highschool, I went to get a degree in computer networking + security. Due to issues and maturity, I didn’t finish it.

I got really darn good at programming yet it still took me a few years to land a job. I quickly ranked up to a senior level title along with the pay relative to the company.
Times were great for me.

However, being a startup company, I found myself unemployed after just two years.
On a resume, that doesn’t mean much. I had only actually worked on a handful of projects and most of them don’t even exist anymore (yay web dev). So I had a short work history, all the same buzz word skills as the rest of the unemployed and very few job prospects as a result.

I currently now do occasional freelancing and am back pursuing my degree. Get a degree, it goes onto your resume with whatever related job experience you have. It is an upper hand in finding a job. A REAL job with REAL job security.

$1000 a month is a kings wage in some places on this little blue ball, I realize that. However it is important to think long term. If your blog’s earnings implode, can you find an income to replace that? Can you do it before you start starving? What about your SO, your kids?

I tell you what… I went from earning a cozy 2,000/m to living on handouts of 200/m (in the usa) and doing freelance work that is not worth it monetarily just to keep from starving to death.

Get your degree, it will do more good for you than bad. I honestly feel you would be hard pressed to find any degree which actually hurts your chances in finding a surviving wage.
The school debt is there, but the are not aggressive in the same way as other types of debt so long as you are actually making an honest effort to be a responsible adult about it.

Cheers.

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