by David Brown

Created on: December 25, 2008

Higher education is definitely nice to have, yet, this author is finding it personally hard to believe that higher education is the answer to our prayers of getting on the fast track in our career, especially in today's society and economic times. It is appearing that the ability to get the higher education, even a Bachelor's Degree, is not going to be that easy for those wanting to go to college. This author would like to give a couple of personal experiences and then attempt to answer the question that experience is the step in the right direction to a fast track to a successful career.

First, this author received a Bachelor Degree in Political Science and Public Administration from a highly respectable university, The American University in Washington, D.C. in 1986. He had plenty of interviews with government agencies as well as members of Congress and all of this went for naught. Nothing ever happened. What did happen is that this author worked numerous temporary jobs in areas that were reflected through his degree, but these jobs appeared to end and go nowhere. This author believes that there are only a couple of career moves that can be made with such a degree such as advancing his education by attending law school or becoming a teacher. These career moves were sought and it was discovered that they were directions he did not want to continue to go after. So, this author entered in to two other areas: one was owning his own business for several years and two committing himself to becoming a paralegal. Both of these areas were somewhat successful, but a few years later, this author found that both lead to nowhere as well.

Second, which corresponds somewhat with the first is that this author found within the last few years that becoming a successful paralegal would be to receive his paralegal certificate and/or diploma. He felt he had done his research and decided that while he was working in a managerial position outside of the legal field, he would pursue his dream of becoming that successful paralegal. He did take a 10 month course on-line from a respectable on-line paralegal school. Unfortunately, after he finished the course with a very high score, he has been unable to land a paralegal job. He networked and he sent out hundreds of resumes. Only a few interviews were obtained in a three year period with the inability to land a job in the legal industry in any capacity.

With such information relayed in the first two paragraphs, this author believes that in the long run, experience is what is going to get him personally on the fast track to success. He has found that his education, which he feels was more than adequate, has gotten him absolutely nowhere in his career to this point. Recently, he has come to the conclusion that it is not really what you know, but who you know that will land you the job that will get you on the fast track in your career. This has been the case for this author. If education and experience does not land you the job that you are looking for, then it is possible, especially in today's society, to go into business for yourself after finding a perfect niche to provide society.

To conclude, experience is probably the best thing that we can have today to get us ahead in our career. I do not want to say that getting a good or even great education is not important, but again, it is seeming that experience is what will get us where we want to go in life.

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