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Should I certify and work now or go to college and work later?

If you recently graduated from high school or you plan to graduate in the next couple of years, you will be better off going to college rather than simply getting certified. There are two basic reasons for this:

 

The first reason is that the easiest time to go to college is right after you graduate from high school. Typically, many of your friends are also going to college and you will be surrounded by people your own age. Although you can pursue certification at nearly any time in your life, obtaining a degree when you get older is more difficult.

 

Second, most employers look for a combination of experience, education, and certification.  If you lack any of these three components, you’ll likely encounter roadblocks to reaching your goals later in life. By getting an associate or bachelor degree sooner rather than later, you’ll improve your chances of climbing the ladder in a company faster.

 

Many teenagers are seduced by salary surveys that proclaim a $70,000 a year average salary for MCSEs. Because the average college graduate makes significantly less than that, they figure that they’ll be better off financially if they forego college and get certified instead. Most often this does not turn out to be true. What they fail to realize about those $70,000-a-year MCSEs is that many of them also have a college diploma and

almost all of them have several years of experience.

 

Finally, college provides many benefits that simply cannot be measured in financial terms. College is a very special experience because it gives you the opportunity to interact with people from a number of different backgrounds and to be exposed to new subjects and viewpoints. The bonds that you develop with fellow college students will often last a lifetime and the connections that you make can help you later in your career.

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