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smwinchester

usa

i have 25 years in the hospitality management industry. I worked my way up from the bottom, and taught myself the things i didn't know. Now, employers are looking for people with "Hospitality Management Degrees". I don't feel that I should have to go to school to learn something I already know. Any advice?

julian · Expert Joined: 20 Sep 2006 Posts: 255 Career Advice: +2/-0

I recommend you should look for a degree provider. What I mean is that you should have a short term course (or you should just apply for that course and only go to the final examination....if possible) and take your degree, because I doubt that there uis another way.
You already know what you have to know, maybe even more, so the exam should pose no problem for you. The only obstacle is if you're allowerdd to take the exam or not.
But I'm pretty sure that if you search in the right place you'll find something.

Randy

quote="smwinchester"

I don't feel that I should have to go to school to learn something I already know. Any advice?

I agree with you a bizillion per-cent!

So the following is not advice, okay? But if it was me, I'd be chomping at the bit to have an interview with someone who expressed the need for me to have that degree. And then I'd ask 'em bluntly as hell why I needed it and what it was that I could possibly have learned in the process of getting that degree that I didn't already know from my experience.

I've actually done this a few times and the reactions and responses are, to quote MasterCard, priceless! Some stutter and evade the thing, insisting that it's simply one of the "requirements." (Sidebar at this point: Folks insist you should ask questions of potential employers. True, but only if qualified to mean those certain, specific, and "acceptable" questions regarding pay, benefits, and so forth. I.E., we wouldn't want to upset a potential employer by asking anything challenging, now would we? At the same time, however, I'm supposed to be open and truthful about a two-month period of unemployment? Right. Whatever.) Others, however, will admit to what I'm going to say next.

If you dig deep enough and keep asking that question, you'll find one of the major reasons for emphasis on the degree has less to do with the actual occupation itself (as you say, there's not much you don't already know about the thing, right?), but rather more about the "liberal arts" aspect of a college degree.

I.E., the pursuit of a college degree in a specific field also carries with it varying requirements in those "liberal arts," such thing as English, writing, and so forth, those aspects of an education which are supposed to result in a more "well-rounded" person, someone with "better" "interpersonal skills."

So the judgment being passed on you--if I was a betting man--is not that you don't know your specific industry inside and out, but rather that you're not as "smart" as "they" think you should be. We've so successfully equated education with intelligence in this country for so long that the inevitable conclusion is this: Without that degree and regardless of all that experience you have, you just ain't smart enough for the job.

As if a college degree constitutes proof of intelligence.....

Very much like saying a driver's license proves you're capable and mature enough to safely operate a motor vehicle. 43,000 deaths a year proves that's not true.

And here's the catch:

If you haven't already confronted the other side of this coin, it'll go this way: Absent that degree but armed with THAT much experience? Oh, you're going to be told you're "overqualified."

Martin Luther King spoke about his dream of a country in which we wouldn't judge people by the color of their skin, but rather by the content of their character. Sorry, Dr. King, but the content of a man's character lost out to college degrees and titles.

sweet_life · Expert Joined: 20 Sep 2006 Posts: 184 Career Advice: +0/-1

I can see you people agree with the initial poster in some extent, but I for example, cannot agree entirely. I'm not saying he'she should go to college and have all courses done again, just to get the degree to certify this, but I do believe in the purpose of training. And it doesn't matter you already know how to do all kinda stuff in your domain, This domain is constantly evoluating, so rules are changing and they must be updated. To refuse any sort of "updatation" is not good.

Randy · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 5:27 pm Post subject:

quote="sweet_life"

...but I do believe in the purpose of training.

We all do, I'm certain. The disagreements, both in general discussions and real-world application, come from the source of that training. I.E., formal education v actual experience, why one employer prefers this and the other demands that, and so forth.

It leaves the job-seeker stuck in the Twilight Zone of trying to play by completely arbitrary and capricious rules which, as you say,

...are changing and they must be updated.

Which leads to the obvious conclusion:

At any given moment, and with no fair "warning," any and all of one's preparations, albeit formal education (with all those expenses!) or actual experience--at any moment it may all be for absolutely nothing because a nebulous "they" decided to "change" the rules.

Technologies change--that's a given. Those already "on the job" doing the work with "yesterday's" technologies do "learn" the new stuff simply by default, right?

So here's the rub:

Why do employers overlook current employees with actual experience of the thing in favor of someone armed only with a "formal education"? That's the ulitmate slap-in-the-face and insult. It's the same as saying you're an old dog and too stupid to learn new tricks.

The very nature of "working for a living" is the ultimate study in inherent contradictions, lies, and double-speak. It's really no more complicated than the "businessman's" version of the golden rule, the one that says "he who has the gold, rules."

It's about a "ruling class" mentality, attitude, and posture that expects and demands tthe rest of us to submit and comply with whatever "they" want us to do, whenver and however they want it done.

Some are better at this than others.

lexa10881 · Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2007 3:37 am Post subject:

Many times people who are hiring weigh that kind of experience as importantly as they would a degree. They consider the fact that you are more mature, the amount of trainging needed would be less, and that you would be reliable. They could trust you to do more than a newbie. In essence, you are "more bang for their buck." Smile

If you feel the need to get the degree, there is nothing wrong with that but it does not guarantee that you will make more or find a job easier. Also, if you are with a company that truly believes you need the paper as proof of your worthiness, they will usually offer to help with schooling to get that degree.

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