Comments on: My Dirty Little College Secret

By: Antonios Ghassan

Antonios Ghassan — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 07:09:00 +0000

I loved what you did, proving that, things could be achieved in life without the decorated statement, hanged over your head, on a wall or in front of you on a desk, showing to people that you are a person that deserves listening to because you have a degree.
You had a chance to have people that believed in you and backed you up, and this is the core of the
of life.

By: Mollie Nothnagel

Mollie Nothnagel — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 17:36:00 +0000

I love hearing stories like this. It’s a great reminder that who we are and what we can do as professionals doesn’t directly correlate to degrees we may or may not have. I’ve known people who are in their dream careers and don’t have what some would consider to be the proper credentials. And I’ve known others who have degrees and certificates galore, but who couldn’t find a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight.

When looking at career paths, few things happen in a straight line – especially great things. All roads will lead to something great as long as you’re willing to work to get there.

By: Beth Karawan Craig

Beth Karawan Craig — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 17:10:00 +0000

I can totally relate. I was an elementary education major in college, but there were no teaching jobs available when I graduated. So I too did the bartending/administrative assistant thing. The AA job gave me health insurance and paid my bills; the bartending job was so I could have a little extra spending money. Both were a means to an end, but I worked hard at both as if they would actually get me somewhere better on my career path.

But I was lucky enough to know someone who worked at a market research supplier that was starting a good, old-fashioned training program. Taking people like me with no background and no skills and training them from the bottom up. How quaint, right? While I may have HATED it for the first 6 months, in the end it was the best thing that ever happened to me. And it set me on the path for where I am today.

When I switched to client side and eventually ended up at Kraft, during my initial interview I was told that only people at my level who also had their MBAs earned the salary I was requesting. My comeback, in the nicest way possible of course, was that my experience spoke for itself. While they were in school LEARNING how to do the job, I was actually DOING the job. I got the job and salary

The other thing that gave me the confidence to forge ahead without the “right” degree was watching my parents. Neither had a college degree, and while it was always a struggle, they both did so many different things to get by. My dad was a cab driver, did construction, managed warehouse logistics and sold men’s clothing; my mom was a secretary, a travel agent, sold fine jewelry and ultimately managed a cattle leasing operation. Talk about diverse careers, right? They were both the perfect of examples that you can do anything you want to do, not what people tell you you should do.