Flexherbal:
I prefer experience over degree.

Same here. Experience builds stuff, paper is still paper anyday, I learned the hard way most Nigerians won't know how useless their paper is until they go for interview in an experience oriented society.

I believe we are import dependent today because of our heavy dependence on certificate, Nonesense.

Studentcosmos:
I totally agree. Read this post on why firstclass doesn't matter and u will understand better www.studentcosmos.com/5-0-reasons-a-first-class-honour-doesnt-guarantee-you-success-in-future/ Experience is Key

am certain Lower and Third class graduates make up such articles to console themselves.

First class doesn't guarantee success, but certainly increases one's chances.

Experience to replace university degrees? Only a Nigerian would suggest that. In Nigeria where a Buhari is taken as better presidential material than PhD holders in Law, Politics, Business Management, Sciences, etc. Yet Buhari has followers after two years of ruling Nigeria into recession and near -famine.

Both are important. You can't do the work of a doctor, lawyer, Accountant, pilot, etc with out a degree in that field. For you to be employed you must have a fundamental knowledge through the degree to show that you can work on that field of yours then your employer can make you better by giving you adequate training to get the work done better. They will only build on the fundamental knowledge.

Op has no idea what he is talking about.

You cannot get a job in western nations without a degree. That is why Nigerian immigrants often have to get fresh degrees before they can get work abroad.

Like Nigerians everywhere, he lionizes learning by rote. The roadside mechanics he is celebrating are the reason why cars designed by engineers to last 10years are scrap in two years.

All you hear from technicians is this is how we have been doing it. They have no idea of the principle behind it.

Yes we do have a problem in this country, with our outdated curriculums, and lecturers who focus on texts without real world application.

But that does not justify such pedestrian thinking.

SAY NO TO WACK RAP SONGS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2iHfqNVxB8&itct=CBYQpDAYASITCIDX_fWl9NECFVImfgodAJcBolIUYnJhbmggcGF1bCBmdWNrIGZha2U%3D&client=mv-google&gl=NG&hl=en

d problem is dt we missed the whole definition from the start. education and school are two different things all together. that u went to school doesn't make u an educated person. an average Nigerian graduate can vibrate queens English all day but at end of it all ; how did it change the price of garri in the market? our professors mks do thing worse, it hurts me to say that Nigeria only produce grammar-ridden-professors without a practical approach to problems. d problem with us Nigerian graduates is dt we all passed through school and pretend to be educated, nice T-shirt and well published shoe no be education ooo! that's why an average Nigerian youth won't hesitate to brag about his university qualifications at any slaytest provocation. If degrees are clateria for intelligence, why does unemployment rate keep increasing. To cut the story short, learning another man's culture doesn't guarantee that you are educated.

budusky05:


It's not about cars, but do we have professionals from that field, were do most engineers end up or wish to end up? Oil serving field.
Why I say that is a problem is this whatever contribution you make in that field goes to the owners of the firm.

Less I forget virtually all the engineers employed in ma coy can't tell the difference in spanner/screwdriver sizes, that gets me thinking what do they really study at the university

Jeez. what an ignorant comment. Engineers are not trained to differentiate between a spanner or screwdriver. That is the job of technicians.
Engineers are innovators, problem solvers, project managers, designers, e.t.c
They were trained to think and solve complex engineering problems and not differentiating between tools(simplest forms of machines).
Modern cars, bridges, rockets, skyscappers, transformers, refineries, oil rigs, e.t.c are the brain works of engineers and not technicians.

One can't have experience/ be seasoned in his line of profession without being educated. Therefore, this is a matter of informal educated person (an experienced person without a degree) vs a formally educated person ( a degree holder without some cogent experience/understanding of his profession).

Foremost, one big advantage of degree over experience - especially in a country like ours - is that it helps to gloss one's ignorance. It helps the ignorant fellow to appear polished especially when such a person managed to master the nation's lingua franca. Lol.

On a more serious note, from my personal experience, experience which automatically qualified as aptitude do make one that possesses it to understand a subject better while a degree without a cogent experience will at best enable you to know a subject but without understanding it. So, this makes the latter an articulate incompetent. Understanding is superior to knowing. . . Just as knowledge is superior to information.

Actually, I understand that most people don't know the true meaning of education. Being a non degree holder doesn't automatically make one an illiterate. Knowledge can be acquired through either formal or informal ways.

Personally, I'll choose an informally educated seasoned applicant over a formally educated non /little experienced and non understanding applicant any day.

sholay2011:
Your argument is very narrow-minded.

counter it with facts. Thank you!!!!

SetrakusRa:


am certain Lower and Third class graduates make up such articles to console themselves.

First class doesn't guarantee success, but certainly increases one's chances.

you never can tell. Even a first class graduate could put up that write up. What is the usefulness of a first class honour when you cannot apply it in reality. A lot of firstclass out there are unproductive. Just the title first class keeps them moving. I agree with you that it increases one's chance but it doesn't mean first class students should just relax and believe everything will workout like magic.

ariesbull:



Experience is the best teacher not degree


Hi, go and read about story of Hamilton Naki, a gardener turned self-taught surgeon who became a key assistant to pioneering heart surgeon Dr Christiaan Barnard in his organ transplant programme.



Then read about



Vivien Theodore Thomas (August 29, 1910 – November 26, 1985)[1] was an African-American surgical technician who developed the procedures used to treat blue baby syndrome in the 1940s. He was the assistant to surgeon Alfred Blalock in Blalock's experimental animal laboratory at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and later at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. He served as supervisor of the surgical laboratories at Johns Hopkins for 35 years. In 1976 Hopkins awarded him an honorary doctorate and named him an instructor of surgery for the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.[2] Without any education past high school, Thomas rose above poverty and racism to become a cardiac surgery pioneer and a teacher of operative techniques to many of the country's most prominent surgeons.

I will show you thousands of doctors with degrees that have done wonderful things.

kinibigdeal:


CONCLUSIONS

If you think a degree holder is better than a person with experience but no degree, then i say, bring a PhD holder in mechanical engineer (if any) and a road side mechanics for a presentation. The PhD holder may prevail with 'Smart terms and Linguistics' but the road side mechanic will thrill the audience with 'practical methodologies'.

From your conclusion alone, with your jargon and very poor communication skill, one is not surprised that you may prefer learning and getting experience from the roadsides to formal school education.

Marching all of us in wan Nijeriyaaa to accept that Western-Education-is-Haram is through gradual and subtle propaganda of falsehood like this your own.

only those in the engineering sector can do that! more experience needed. you can now imagine Edward Snowden AND how he became a top CIA official. he dropped out of high school

ariesbull:


But most of the inventors don't even have PhD or didn't even attend University

Most attend but drop out to focus on their ideas. But these same guys would employ grads from the best universities in the world to help grow or build their dreams.
Check out the qualifications of staffs of microsoft, apple, facebook, tesla, google, Siemens, Ford, Hyundai , Shell e.t.c They compete for top grads from the best schools in the world.
They would look at your paper qualification first (primary preriquisite) before anything else.

To begin,

The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.

I've no science qualification,
But I hope to round off a biochemistry book in few months time.

You don't know what those without P/Q's do privately to match up with the professional requirements of their jobs (experience).

But I know;
Check your dictionary;
It's,
Rigorous SELF-EDUCATION.

kinibigdeal:
How many mechanical engineer graduate in nigeria today can successfully assemble or fixed a simple fault in a car? If a mechanical engineer degree holder cannot fix a simple fault in a car, i think such fellow should be sent back to technical colleges for training. Have you ever wondered how a man with PhD in mechanics will be visiting a roadside mechanic at the slightest fault? Do you mean all they know is to assemble?

sir am sowie oooo.. I cant understand you.. is mechanical engineering all about fixing cars alone?.. and who told you they can't.. look at that guy from automedics.. am not sure any roadside mechanic is as good as that guy... please stop this your thought about being a mechanical engineer of being able to fix car alone.. roadside mechanics can't work on all this new cars.. that require machine to detect their faults.. and again have read countless numbers of articles both here and other websites about people lamenting on the level of damage road side mechanics done on their cars




what about the design and construction aspect of cars and other machineries.. now look at that designer for ford (stand to be corrected) .. if I didn't get the name of the company correctly

Studentcosmos:
you never can tell. Even a first class graduate could put up that write up. What is the usefulness of a first class honour when you cannot apply it in reality. A lot of firstclass out there are unproductive. Just the title first class keeps them moving. I agree with you that it increases one's chance but it doesn't mean first class students should just relax and believe everything will workout like magic.

i find it hard to believe one who works hard to achieve First Class Honours in a University would "just relax and believe everything will workout like magic".

I mean, such person would have learnt atleast a thing or two about the paths to take towards a successful career.

Except half-baked, copy/paste, la cram la pour FC graduates, legitimate First class students are ALMOST guaranteed success, if not, they're on the right path.

You can't miss the logic in this submission. Get experience!

ariesbull:


From Steve Jobs to eistein to even Zuckerberg or even the Ford


90% of world inventors aren't even PhD holders

.

You lied about Albert Einstein. Do research on Google. Dr. Otto Diesel, the pioneer of diesel engine/cycle was a Dr and an Engineer

numericalguy:



Big fat lie.

How come the degree holders earn several times more than the so-called experience guys.

Is not a lie. Yeah you can't claim experience in medicine over degree but in most jobs here experience is more appreciated than degree here those with degree are always advice to get experience by doing voluntary job first so that it can boost their cv even though one has experience they still have qualifications like in house training professional courses etc. Example is in health and safety sector here nebosh is the only recognised qualification and any health abd safety adviser must have level 3 nebosh qualification. Imagine bsc holder here without nebosh qualification will be lucky to get a job as health and safety adviser unless he is working towards it but someone with experience and nebosh qualification will easily get a job that's my point. Lawyers need degree doctors need degrees but jobs like accounting if you've your ACCA or Management with CIMA or Hr with CIPD couple with experience you stand more chance than a degree holder without experience have a great weekend

"The rich man is not God" is just a consolation for the poor man.
Even though your post sounds valid but not in the right context.
Don't underestimate the power of a degree.
An experienced road side mechanic or what have you, without a degree, can only solve a particular problem due to repeated encounter with that particular problem. What happens when he faces a new task he's not familiar with?
University degrees are meant to broaden our mind to find "several means" to tackle a particular problem without being limited to a single solution and not from a narrow point of view as someone who doesn't have the training.
Why do you think several tests are conducted in a hospital before prescribing a drug or medication unlike a patent medicine store who "dishes out" drugs based on experience? A trained doctor unlike a quack medicine seller knows that a single solution doesn't solve all problems and thus want to be sure unlike the other who will believe everyone has the same body response to issues.
Finally, I suggest op gets a degree and stop being myopic, if he hasn't already, and stop discouraging people. Those who have the chance to attend schools after years of quack experience will do well to tell you how profitable and inspiring it is to be properly trained, assessed and awarded a DEGREE.

ukeme200:
I couldn't agree less with you, especially your conclusion. We place emphasis on paper qualification rather than hands on experience.

and that,s why most of the oil companies employ expertriate with hand,s on experience,and pay them,more than you with paper qualification,i,concur with the poster brov

What about a medical practitioner with a degree and a medical practitioner without a degree but experience.... You go let am carry out surgery on you?

Op..i think the main reason why oil and gas firms are strict towards employment is because any little damage or mistake that is made especially at downstream sector, will cost them millions of dollars. They feel employing degree holders with good grade will make the company avoid such cost.

budusky05:


It's not about cars, but do we have professionals from that field, were do most engineers end up or wish to end up? Oil serving field.
Why I say that is a problem is this whatever contribution you make in that field goes to the owners of the firm.

Less I forget virtually all the engineers employed in ma coy can't tell the difference in spanner/screwdriver sizes, that gets me thinking what do they really study at the university

there are lots of skilled automobile engineers in Nigeria. the best platform our industry gives them is repairs/supervision, hardly ever anything extra.
To the later blame our educational system/corruption... many engineers also know those tools. one bad egg doesn't spoil the rest in the basket.

Jman06:
I totally disagree that 'experience' should be prioritized over degree. Going by your analogy about mechanical engineer with PhD and road side mechanic, the two can't be compared for any reason. The job of a roadside mechanic is to loose and change faulty parts of a car, while a mechanical engineer is trained to design and assemble cars and other machines from scratch. Most mechanical engineers can do the work of the roadside mechanic if they want to,the thing is that many of them consider it demeaning due to the way the job is done here in Nigeria.

Nigerians have the problem of poor reasoning and that is why somebody will come up with a biased opinion such as this post and the many will just swallow it hook, line and sinker without finding out the fact.

Before i went to pharmacy school, i used to hear some people say that the patent medicine vendors know drugs more than pharmacists. However, before going to pharm school, i sold drugs and so i know that the drug dealers know nothing about drugs. NOTHING!

bro the poster is on point,here in nigeria can we get mechanical eng that can design and assemble,our govt did not make them available,we depend on paper work,some time,s it make the degree worthless ,no much practical, but nt same in the western world

SetrakusRa:


i find it hard to believe one who works hard to achieve First Class Honours in a University would "just relax and believe everything will workout like magic".

I mean, such person would have learnt atleast a thing or two about the paths to take towards a successful career.

Except half-baked, copy/paste, la cram la pour FC graduates, legitimate First class students are ALMOST guaranteed success, if not, they're on the right path.

that is my point. We have the legitimate first classers and the others. But a pity, we are having more of the others these days and it's really sad.

Experience not degree is d best teacher. Degree does not convert to food on ur table but what u can do with ur hands.

This notion is applicable in the maritime sector too...

I have worked with a lot of Chief Engineers with forged Certificate of Competency, but I bet you these guys know the job very well, Imagine a person without a degree handling 12,000KW complicated Marine diesel engines and other auxiliary machinery.

I have also seen lot of Masters onboard ships hiding from NIMASA Surveyor because of their forged certificate of Competency.

That why I love the maritime sector, your degree (M.sc, PhD) doesn't count if you do not have a working experience.

An SSCE holder can become a Captain or Chief Engineer onboard (Seen a lot of them) a ship if you go through the legitimate way of obtaining your certificate of competency..

Even when I went for my Eligibility to process my Certificate of Competency course at NIMASA, KiriKiri Office, the least Qualification needed from me was my National Diploma since I passed through Cadetship and more emphasis was on my discharge booklet since it carries record of my sea experience onboard a ship

Work Experience is Key....

God does not bless degrees but the work of your hand.