Present Career, Career Interest, and the Value of a College Education

Present Career, Career Interest, and the Value of a College Education

The Value of a College Education in present day can be invaluable to your career goals. Today’s employers look for personnel that can bring a lot more to the company or the table per say. In the past all you required was a high school diploma and some experience and that would suffice for some employers. Moreover and an Associate Degree was all that you needed to climb the corporate ladder.

In 1997 when I first joined the Navy it was well known that just having a General Education Diploma or GED would be more than enough to go “Full Speed Ahead” ("The U.S. Navy", 1997) in the Navy. At that point in my life that was all I had and I was not able to get any further in my education since I was working two jobs just to be able to meet all my financial and personal commitments. In the first 5 years of my career in the Navy I started as a Fireman and quickly advanced to the rate of Machinist Mate 1st Class or MM1. At this point having a college education did not play a big role in advancing or getting paid any more or less. In the fore coming years there was talk about having to have a Bachelors Degree if a Chief wanted to advance to Senior Chief, but still there was no real reason to get a degree since the Navy retracted the requirement for a degree. In the ten years that I spent as an MM1 I was assigned to many different roles and some you would think that some type of college education would be a prerequisite but there was none. I was the Leading Petty Officer (LPO) of a Steam Propulsion plant, the equivalent of a civilian Power Plant Manager that requires an Engineering Degree, the second position that I held was the Engineering Department LPO or in the civilian sector the equivalent would be a departmental manager. I also had an instructor position for two years that requires at a minimum of an Instructor or Facilitator Certification. All of my previous positions have required one type of certification or degree to some extent, but it was never required.

As I stated before, when I initially joined the Navy there was no real requirement for a degree or even a certification to be a manager or instructor. As the years progressed, the Navy’s top ranking people started to shift their thinking and encouraged everyone to get a minimum of an Associate Degree. Now it has become more common to see a 1st Class with a Bachelors degree, a Chief with a minimum of a Bachelor and the higher the pay-grade the higher the degree they posses. In 2009 it became a requirement that Chiefs and senior enlisted have a degree. Beginning in fiscal year 2011, an associate's degree or equivalent that is rating-relevant will be a prerequisite for advancement to senior chief petty officer for active and reserve personnel ("E-8 associate degree," 2005). In the current