Do You Really Need Another Degree?

Episode Transcript

Kelly: [00:00:00] Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Let’s Talk About Skills, Baby podcast where we discover what skills can help you live your best life. I’m your host Kelly Ryan Bailey. This week, we have a special bonus episode for you. I recently had the honor of teaming up with Harvard University’s career advisor and best-selling author of The Unspoken Rules: Secrets to Starting Your Career Off Right, Gorick Ng, Glass Doors Learning and Development Senior Manager, Karla Tally, and Coursera’s Product Designer, Kim Albin for a Fishbowl live event titled: Do I really need another degree?

 During the live session we discussed, whether it’s worth the money to take advantage of upskilling opportunities and answered questions from the audience of over 1000 participants, we are excited to share that recorded session with you today. Hope you enjoy.

Karla: So [00:01:00] we are going to go ahead and get started. Welcome everyone to this Fishbowl Live. My name is Karla Tally. I will give a quick intro of myself in one second.

We are gathered here today to talk about, do I really need another degree? So whether you’re considering a career change or want to sharpen your industry specific skills, there are countless opportunities to up-skill and re-skill especially right now.

But before investing in your next degree or certification, we want you to listen to our amazing panelists today, ask questions of our panelists today, so that we can have a real conversation about, whether or not you need that other degree or whether or not you need that certification or whatever it might be.

So as I said, my name is Karla Tally. I am the Senior Manager for Learning and Development here at Glass Door, which I’m sure hopefully 99.9% of you know what Glass Door is. [00:02:00] So in terms of this conversation today actually, I have two degrees in two completely different fields and have changed my career three times.

So I know that I have big buy-in for our conversation today and really excited to hear from our panelists. So in that fashion, I am going to ask our panelists to go ahead and introduce themselves and I would love to know why you want it to be a part of this conversation today? So first I will kick it over to you, Kelly.

Kelly: Hey everyone. And thanks so much, Karla, such a pleasure to join you all today. My name is Kelly Ryan Bailey. I’m the Global Skills Evangelist at Emsi Burning Glass, which is a labor market analytics firm. And I’m also the founder and CEO at Skills Baby. And we have two podcasts on this wonderful topic called Let’s Talk About Skills, Baby, and Got Skills?

And the reason that I was so excited to join, as similarly to you Karla, well, I only have one [00:03:00] degree. I have a bachelor’s degree, but I have had many twists and turns along my career path. So this topic is something that I live and breathe every day.

Karla: Love it. Thank you, Kelly. Yeah, I’m sure we have lots of talking about even just off of this conversation.

So thanks so much, and Gorick, we’ll hop over to you.

Gorick: Thanks so much, Karla. And thank you all for being here today. Super special to be spending this next hour with you all my name’s Gorick Ng. I’m a career advisor at Harvard and also author of the Wall Street Journal bestselling book called The Unspoken Rules.

It’s a guide published by Harvard Business Review on how to get ahead at work and in your career based on over 500 interviews that I personally conducted with professionals across geographies, industries and job types. You can also, shameless plug, you can check it out on my website, which is gorick.com. And the reason why I’m here today and why this question that we’re going to be wrestling with together is so top of mind for me, is because I’m a graduate of an [00:04:00] MBA program at Harvard.

And if you pull aside any MBA, or you gather a bunch of MBAs together, the inevitable question that you’ll always get, and that I heard every day in my two year MBA program was, why are you here? Do you think this MBA was worth it? And would you do it again? And anytime these questions get asked, there’s always this long staring contest where everyone’s waiting for the next person to speak because no one’s quite sure.

So excited to wrestle over this topic with you.

Karla: Isn’t that the question. I’m sure there was a lot of silence, like you said. But thanks so much Gorick, happy to have you. And Kim, if you could introduce yourself.

Kim: Sure. And thanks again, everyone for being here and taking the time. Hi everyone, my name is Kim Albin and I’m a practice designer currently at Coursera and I mentor at Design Lab, which is a design bootcamp for those wanting to get in. I also make lots of content online to teach others about design and extended reality.

However, also like Kelly, there were many twists and turns before I finally landed in [00:05:00] product design.

Karla: Love it. Thanks Kim. So hopefully you all are just as excited as I am to hear from Kelly, Kim and Gorick. And so I have our first question to kick off, but so that you all know how this works in case you haven’t been on a fishbowl live yet, you can raise your hand and I will get to you as quickly as possible for you to ask a question live, or you can DM me so that our panelists don’t have to look into their DMs, but you can DM me your question as well.

So we’ll take questions at literally any time, but to get us kicked off. The million dollar question, and I am going to give this to Gorick first. So Gorick, what are your thoughts on is a graduate degree still worth it?

Gorick: This is where the staring contest begins. As is the most as is the case for most things in life. It depends. And it depends on whether you [00:06:00] need it. So when I think about graduate degrees, I think that not all graduate school degrees are created equal. So if you want to be a lawyer, you better go to law school. If you want to be a doctor, you better go to medical school, but do you really need that MBA?

Do you really need that coding bootcamp? Do you really need that PhD in political science? The way I think about it is, who do you want to impress? And what are they going to be impressed by? Beyond law school, beyond medical school, be honest select number of certification based professions, the reality is a graduate degree is optional.

Whether it requires is required by the employer that you want to impress, the hiring manager you want to impress, the clients you want to impress, is really going to be dependent upon who you’re going to want to impress. So the best thing that I would suggest that you all think about doing is finding people who have pursued a certain [00:07:00] career path that you’d like to pursue, who’ve gone to a certain graduate program that you’re interested in checking out, and contacting them.

And seeing if that graduate degree actually got them closer to where they are or if they feel like they could have gotten there without that detour. It’s really hard to say in a blanket statement whether graduate degree is worth it. It ultimately depends on your particular circumstances, and again, who you want to impress.

Karla: I love that answer and I am snapping my fingers and plus oneing it behind the scenes. But would also love to actually hear Kelly, your insight and thoughts.

Kelly: Well, it’s so funny because what Gorick just said, it’s so true.

It really does depend. And that would have been a lot of my first portion of that answer is it really just depends on where you go. I’m going to give you guys a little bit from my personal take on this and because I’ve helped so many others sort of answer the same question along the way.

Beyond the fact that [00:08:00] it depends, I think there are some other factors that we tend not to necessarily think about. Now for me, I mentioned when I did my intro that I have a bachelor’s degree. In my field and where I am in my role, most of my peers have master’s or above, and so I’m sort of this anomaly. That didn’t mean that I couldn’t have gotten here with or without, but for me, the questions that arose were in my life when I was considering, cause I’ve been in the same position where I’ve considered, do I move forward in this MBA or other sort of graduate program or not?

I did not. Unfortunately I didn’t have the time. I also had young children, and financially it just didn’t make sense at the time. So I really think that when you think about that question and going by those suggestions that Gorick made on, where you are from a professional standpoint, is it really a requirement?

The other things I would also remember to consider are, what does that look like in your [00:09:00] life? I don’t think that there is a right or wrong, and I don’t think that you couldn’t be able to do something if you want to be a professor, PhD might be the thing, but otherwise there’s so many options.

So that’s what I’ll answer to that.

Karla: I agree with that. There are so many options and I’m sure we’ll dive a little bit deeper into that during our discussion, but I actually got a question in my DM and I wanted to go ahead and pose this to Kim. Kim, maybe not on super specifics of the question. But I do think that considering your background, you might have some insight into this.

So the question is, I have a bachelor’s in CS, which I’m going to go with computer science and I’m about to complete a master’s in engineering from Cornell. Should I pursue an MBA from a top tier university considering they’re all built differently, and wanting to get into engineering product or project management, [00:10:00] curious on your thoughts around that.

Kim: Yeah. That’s a really good question. I would say similar to the house it seems, it really depends on the end goal there and a lot of times I get this question from my peers or people from the design academy than I mentor at. My biggest thing is just like, try to look at the actual skills needed in the job that you’re hoping to land.

And if you see that there is a definite need to level up, whether that’s taking a course or shadowing someone within your own job or something like that to get a better insight into seeing whether you have existing skills, that might be the first step you want to take before really investing in something.

So a lot of that backg round homework that needs to be done, definitely do that because it’s an investment and not everyone can take that choice to get the MBA. So I would try to weigh out all the pros and cons before making any type of investment like that and see whether your peers or [00:11:00] anyone else that you could potentially hear from and speak to have already an MBA or, you know, just to rule out whether you really, really need one.

Karla: That’s a great answer. And I really like how you impress upon talking to peers. I think sometimes we don’t want to ask peers or those that we work with, those kinds of like nitty-gritty and specific questions, because it can feel a little personal maybe, especially if you’re like I’m about to spend thousands of dollars or whatever it might be, but everyone has similar pros and cons lists that they make for these situations.

So I want to co-sign on the asking folks what they’ve done and what they’ve chosen as well. So this kind of goes into what we were just talking about. So Kim, I do want to throw it back to you. How do you talk to your employer about investing in your career development, whether it’s another degree or a certification, have you done that in your past experience?

Kim: Yeah. I actually have. I sort of made somewhat of a [00:12:00] career pivot and I did pretty much what I mentioned. I did some homework in seeing what the potential role, like all of the skills required, whether that’s looking through jobs on Glassdoor or anywhere else, speaking to the people involved within my organization to see what they’re currently doing and trying to shadow people.

At the time, I would say, if you do a lot of that background work, you’re more aware of how, you know, just use the same language, vocabulary and be able to pitch that to your employer, to be like, you know what, I’m really interested in jumping in on this project because of X, Y, and Z. I think that I would be an asset to the team being that I can contribute this way and such.

So that might take a little bit of time but you really want to put that together to potentially have that offer or create that offer for yourself when speaking to your employer so they can cover the cost for education. If it isn’t the case, sometimes it isn’t, it wasn’t for me actually. I knew where I stood and I [00:13:00] knew what I sort of needed to get in order to pitch my way into the position, which is eventually how I ended up making the switch.

But I was making sure to just do that legwork and shadow people and speak to my peers and know about the project that I really wanted to then switch to.

Karla: That’s awesome. And Kelly, I’d love to know if one, if you’ve had any podcast episodes that is centered around asking an employer to invest in your career development or just conversations that you’ve had as well?

Kelly: We haven’t had a podcast around that yet, but it definitely gave me a good idea. I had the same situation as Kim, where I unfortunately was not in positions where my employers were able to cover that for me, but I do agree that I think coming to whoever it may be, your boss, with some information on what you’re interested in doing and just being open and honest with them.

I always think having a bit of information helps that conversation, but I think the harder part, like you [00:14:00] described earlier, Karla, is just that open communication. Where do you want to go? Sometimes that’s a little bit scary, especially. You know, but this day and age, I want to remind everybody that we are in what is referred to as a talent marketplace, just meaning that sort of, as employees and because of the way the market is right now employers struggling to find people to fill jobs.

And also because we’ve finally opened this can of worms on, Hey, we’re emotional, we have lives outside of work and mental loads and all of the things I feel like there’s so much more options to be having these open communications. It’s just a matter of starting it.

Karla: So true. Yeah, the whether or not of starting it is usually the stickler for most folks and we lean into that and I actually, kind of backtracking, but not at the same time. So I’m getting quite a few questions in my DMS about getting an MBA and [00:15:00] Gorick, I’m going to throw this one over to you. So getting questions about whether or not to go for an MBA, if they’re as shiny or sparkly, I guess, as they used to be?

And it seemed, there was one person who had said, it seems like even consulting firms are kind of leaning away from that sparkle. And they’re looking at a JD instead. What are your thoughts? What have you seen across the industry?

Gorick: Sure thing. Yes, we’re back to the staring contest here of MBAs, blinking twice and asking themselves if it’s worth it.

When it comes to the MBA, I think about this in a few levels or layers. So the level one question is, is the MBA necessary? And that is very much up for debate. So if you want to, for example, switch from the military to consulting. There’s a tried and tested path of people taking that route. Or if you want to go from, let’s say one [00:16:00] private equity firm to another hedge fund, that’s also often a path that people pursue. Or engineers who might want to move to the business side of things.

That’s also a third path. So there are a number of tracks that people will go down and the MBA will be often a facilitator of that path. That’s not to say you can’t switch directly from, let’s say the military to consulting or to product management, but there is this pipeline of people, so to speak, who use an MBA as that launchpad.

So think of an MBA as really a bridge from point A to point B. When it comes to whether that bridge is a useful bridge, then we get into the question of, do you do a full-time MBA? Do you do a part-time MBA? Or do you do an online MBA? And there’s also a further question of which schools do you select from.

So let’s start off with the, which schools to select from question first, because this is something that you all can start searching for and doing your own market research on right [00:17:00] now. So if you have a destination in mind and I would encourage you all to have that in mind prior to going into an MBA program, is to think about what role do I want? And at what organization do I want it?

So I’m going to make this up, but let’s say you want to be a Consultant at Deloitte. Well, Deloitte will have a certain set of MBA programs that they’ll see as target schools from which to recruit. So is it Columbia Business School? Is it NYU? Is it UTAustin? Is it somewhere else? The best way to figure this piece out is to go on LinkedIn search for folks at the companies that you want to work for. Scroll all the way down to the education section and see which programs they graduated from. Past performance doesn’t equate to future results, but people who’ve come before you can tell you a lot about where the path will be smoothest for you.

The second thing to think about is, is it an online degree? Is it an executive [00:18:00] program or is it a full-time program in general? If you are, let’s say in your twenties or early thirties, and you have the time to take off to pursue the MBA full-time, that is generally seen as sort of the classic MBA, so to speak. The executive MBA tends to be one that people pursue if they want to continue working and don’t have the bandwidth to take two years off.

And then the online program, is as an option as well. But one of the things I was researching just before this discussion, was whether employers see these programs differently. And you all can also go on Google and see this, where if you search for what employers say about online MBAs, there was actually an article.

There was a research study done by mba.com back in June of 2021. And what they found was that 37% of recruiters disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement: my organization values graduates of online and in-person programs equally. So what does that [00:19:00] say? It means that not all programs are created equal, that many employers still don’t quite see online MBAs as being equivalent to the full-time program.

It’s hard to make a blanket statement about all online programs not being on par, but that’s where you need to do the research on LinkedIn. And if you find someone who’s been in your shoes before, to contact them and to have a conversation about whether they feel like it was worth it.

Karla: I am here for the finding people that are in the shoes that you might want to be in and really keeping the destination in mind.

You were saying this Gorick when you were talking, and actually I think Kelly and Kim, with the first question, were talking a lot about this as well as really like looking at who is in the seat where you are aspiring to be at, and looking at their kind of their resume, looking at their LinkedIn, all of that kind of stuff.

But this is a non-question that I told you I’ll beforehand, but I know that there are people on the line and they want to know. So when we’re thinking about the nitty gritty, more like, okay, [00:20:00] I can do either one, but it comes down to cost. Whether your company’s paying for it, whether you’re paying for it.

Does it makes sense to pay for it yourself? To pay out of pocket. Or maybe the better question is, when do you think it makes the most sense for you to pay out of pocket instead of finding a way for your company to pay for that extra degree or certificate? And I will throw away over to Kelly. You want to take it first?

Kelly: Sure. No problem. And I just want to make sure I understood the question, Karla. So you were asking, when would it make sense for you to pay for a graduate degree out of pocket? Or did you mean any education?

Karla: Let’s go with any education right now. That you’re in your career, you think it’s going to further yourself, when does it make sense for you to pay out of pocket?

Kelly: Yeah. I mean, man, I always try to find a way to make it work where you’re not absorbing that cost out of pocket. If you are of the fortunate [00:21:00] who financially it’s not going to make a difference.

Karla: The way that I hear clapping in the background, Kelly.

Kelly: Yeah. I mean, I feel like there are always ways okay guys. Like this is meaning even if your employer is not going to cover it, grants, like there’s all different possibilities and whatever’s happening locally in your area, I think those are always the things we forget. So this is something that I had to figure out when I was younger just going into my bachelor’s, but sometimes you don’t think of these things.

There are little organizations that might be local to where you live that are trying to help people with going back to school, of no matter the age anymore. And so those are the little pockets of things you might even have to lean back into like the old school newspaper, local newspaper but definitely a lot of resources online.

I always try to find a way, if at all possible.

Karla: I need sound effects that I can play when I come on this, like hand [00:22:00] clapping like, or like, yeah, girl, I agree! I greatly like that. I would love to hear from Kim or Gorick, whoever, if you would like to address paying out of pocket, if you think that that should ever be a choice or an option, or if you’re like, yeah paying out of pocket is cool if your job won’t pay for it, either one of you.

Kim: So I definitely paid out of pocket because I tried to teach myself, and I couldn’t hold myself accountable and I put myself off for about a year. And that was the deciding factor along with doing homework, comparing the costs of different programs.

And I went with one that had just like a loan availability at like 0% interest. And I was like, this is perfect. I don’t have to worry about this right now. The other thing was just like fitting it after work, because I’m wanting to make sure that I was working and doing this at the same time. It was my only option.

And I don’t regret it. It just means you’re going to have to put in more hours. [00:23:00] But had I not taken that, if I would have taken that route and paid it for myself from the very beginning I could have just removed that whole year of like, should I pay for it? Should I not pay for it?

Should I, should I pay for it? And that the whole deciding factor. And maybe other employers could pay for that education? I would definitely try to look at that option first. If not see what fits your current circumstance if that helps in this general search.

Karla: I very much agree. I have a master’s, I didn’t really need it. Hopefully, no one that I know is on here. I loved my experience and I think that it got me to where I am right now, but it would have been nice to not have to see that amount that they email me every time I have a payment due, I know how much I owe you, stop telling me.

Okay. So I am going try to invite you as a speaker, Ashley, are you on with us?

Ashley: Hi, I’m on.

Karla: Do you have a question?

Ashley: Yes. So my question is, if I’m in a position and I’m making [00:24:00] like six figures already, is it worth it to go get another degree if I only have a bachelor’s?

Karla: That is a real question. Let’s kick this over to Gorick or Kim, whoever wants to answer first, I feel like both of you all probably have a good response.

Gorick: Yeah. I can try diving in here with an answer. I guess there’s two ways to think about it. One is, what is the path of least regret for you? When we’re talking about graduate degrees, especially coming back to the idea that many, if not most graduate degrees, are optional with the exception of law, medicine and others.

If you want to have that extra degree under your belt, that’s a good reason to do it because you don’t want to look back after 20 years and feel like, oh, well, what if? Another is a more practical consideration, which is are you looking to switch industries? Are you looking to switch functions?

Are you interested in doing both? And a few anecdotes come to [00:25:00] mind, all revolving around folks who felt like they had to take a step back before they could take a step forward. So I’m thinking of a classmate of mine, for example, who was in a very similar position to you, Ashley, she was doing well in her career.

She was at the Vice Presidential level at a large consumer packaged goods company. And she ended up going back to get her MBA. And what she realized or surprised, negative surprise unfortunately, is the MBA was really just a pipeline towards entry-level associate positions at other consumer packaged goods companies.

So when she ended up showing up at these recruiting fairs, she started realizing that she was actually a bit too senior for all the positions and the recruiters almost didn’t know what to do with her. So in the summer between her first and second year of business school, she ended up taking a job that paid less than the job that she came from.

And she had to really go out of her way [00:26:00] to find a job that would be a step forward rather than a step back. That’s not to say that this will happen to you, but it does say that the MBA program, if you’re considering that one in particular, it is really a bridge to a certain set of paths. If you are interested in going down a path that is even remotely different from what they’re used to, you’ll be largely on your own to try and do what some people call the networked job search, quote unquote, which is really just a euphemism for, sorry, you’re on your own.

And so prepare to have to do that and prepare to not have the MBA program or whatever graduate program be as helpful to you just because they almost don’t know what to do with your situation.

Karla: That is such a good example that you just gave Gorick, because I do think that a lot of folks don’t fully realize that there could be that other negative piece that goes to it, not saying that that always happens like alluding to, but that could be another piece of it.

And something that you [00:27:00] all should know about me everyone, is that I have worked in the DNI space, in the L and D space for like over 10 years. And also I worked in higher education student affairs. So I brace that to say, that a lot of times, especially for BIPOC community folks, a lot of us are just now getting hip to the, or in the last couple of years to, oh, should I go back and get an MBA?

Should I, you know, what is really going to stand me apart? And kind of going along with Gorick’s example that he gave, I think sometimes it’s not the degree that you need. It’s the network space that you need or being able to utilize your spheres of influence in very different ways and figure out what other rooms that you need to be in, because it could be that you’re making good money already and you don’t need another degree to help you further.

You just need to be in different rooms to help you further. So really looking at growth and [00:28:00] development in all facets to be able to get you where you want to be is also really important. So Andrew, you have popped up, so I’m going to unmute you. What is your question?

Andrew: It was very interesting that you guys were talking about the MBA and I’m currently in the process of doing mine, I’m wrapping up. I just wanted to get kinda your opinion on the longterm ROI on that?

Just talking about my experience, I’ve been in consulting for 10 years, how to match degree previously, but felt like moving into MBA program would help accelerate my trajectory and based on looking at it I think there just like specific focuses whether it’s consulting or IB that are higher earning potential concentration.

So I just wanted to get your opinion on, if it is that you are going into that area, if you’re focused on consulting or IB, does that yield better for you from a long-term standpoint in terms of just the overall trajectory and career growth?

Karla: Any of the [00:29:00] panelists can answer this.

Kelly: Yeah. Well, I have a question back before Andrew leaves. So, Andrew, are you looking to start your own consulting or are you looking to work for one of the top consulting firms? Like a large corp.

Andrew: So a part of the reason why I made that decision, because I wanted to first work for a large firm within strategy and then long-term to start my own consulting firm.

Kelly: Well, my answer based upon data that I’ve seen and working with employers for a long time, and especially knowing the major consulting companies, right now MBA is a good choice to be getting a high close to executive and or executive position at one of those types of organizations.

If your answer had been, I’m going to start my own consulting company, my answer would have been different.

Andrew: Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Gorick: And just to add on to Kelly’s [00:30:00] point, when it comes to any of these programs, and I think Karla did a good job of teeing this up earlier, yes you’re going for the program, but you’re really going for three value propositions.

So one is the quality of what you learn. The second is the quality of the labor market signal. And the third is the quality of the alumni network. So what you learn is important, yes. But in reality, and this is maybe just one of those unspoken things about graduate education, especially as it relates to business.

And the more qualitative side of things, is that it’s about the quality of the labor market signal. It’s about who respects that brand. And to what extent might someone looking at your resume think oh, wow. If Andrew’s good enough for this program, they must be good enough for us. That plays into the quality of the alumni network, where so much of whether you’ll get into the positions that you want, will be a function of you going on to the alumni database, [00:31:00] finding someone who was in a similar extracurricular to you, or in the same small group discussion or the same section in your class, and calling them up or asking for an introduction.

So while I’d like to think that education is about what you learn, really it’s about who you know, and who’s going to respect that brand.

Karla: Again, I wish I had a snaps sound effect that I could just play in the background because I super agree with everything that you all are saying. So thank you for that question.

That was awesome. Got another question in my DMS, so really it’s just around wanting to hear you all’s thoughts on the high quality certificate programs that are now being offered by universities with a lot of brand recognition. So wondering what you all think of those? If you think this will be a trend that continues? If people should look into those, maybe even more so than you know, [00:32:00] a full-time program or an executive MBA program? What are your thoughts and all?

Kelly: I’m so happy to jump in on this.

The thing is that our world is changing. And I’ve been sort of on the side of experiencing this change from the work I’ve been doing on skills based hiring and learning for way too long. But the concept of education, it has changed so much. I would still say that, yes, the idea of certification, I just say alternative education generally speaking. That could be certifications from well-known known brands. That could be something that we call micro certifications. That could be any of the Coursera stuff. Nowadays you can learn through podcasts, right? YouTube video. There’s so many ways.

The certification, I think the biggest difference with that is that you having something that resembles a diploma ish kind of thing, right? Like you have a like, Hey, [00:33:00] I did this. Employers can see that you’ve done this thing. And right now in the labor market, there is sort of this idea of what Gorick said earlier, these signals, right.

The signal of a degree, a signal of the certification, is different than me saying, like I’ve watched 10,000 hours of YouTube videos on this subject. That might not always be the case, but I would still say that in the labor market, as it is right now today, the idea that you’ve had a thing and can say that you’ve done this thing, showing, it’s not really a piece of paper, I joke about that. It’s a digital cert now, but that does mean something.

In terms of longer term return on investment, I’m seeing that that is changing and that, that might not always be the case. And that other forms of alternative education will have just as much clout.

Karla: That’s awesome. Kim, what are your thoughts?

Kim: Yeah. So going back to something that you actually mentioned about network and everything like that. [00:34:00] For me, it goes back to your situation. Can you afford any of that? Is it realistic for you to invest in any of the fancy brands?

But also, do you have the current network to help you out with that? Because otherwise, if you don’t, you’re doing a lot of the legwork yourself and that’s something that I definitely had to do. I had to build my network alongside this affordable General Assembly certificate, but also leveraging any prior experience that I had, any of those skills.

So really going back to and looking within your current skillset, network, costs, what is likely? Because you’re going to need at least those three areas to help you out to make that switch, if you’re making a switch like that or a pivot, to help you out and be successful with those areas. So certificate, any type of alternative education.

I know a lot of people are self-teaching as well, if you can hold yourself accountable, yes. and I totally support anyone that does that. I don’t think it [00:35:00] has to be a fancy brand, but if it isn’t, you’re definitely gonna have to do more with building up your network to get your name out there and get everyone at least within your network, knowing what you’re doing.

The tough part is, is that brand of like a certificate or a degree does help to a certain extent. But at the end of the day, your network will absolutely help you go farther.

Karla: So adding onto or leaning towards the brand side of it, Gorick, I would love to know what you’re telling the students, what you’re telling your people?

How do you feel about the certificate programs? And do you have any thoughts on, between, let’s say a highly branded institution like Harvard or others?

Gorick: Sure thing. Yeah, I think I tend to be a bit of a broken record around, who do you want to impress and what are they going to be impressed by?

That’s one of the Gorickisms with my advisees. I think about this in terms of the cost benefit analysis [00:36:00] of whether this is a pursuit that you’d want to go for. What I think I’m hearing from the panelists as well is really, there’s tier one, which is you’re doing this full time and you’re doing this out of pocket.

Tier two is maybe you’re not doing this full-time and, or you’re not paying this out of pocket. And tier three, the ideal situation is it’s not interrupting your career and you’re not having to pay out of pocket. And if you happen to be in tier three, there’s really less of a sacrifice that you’re making, because not only are you not forgoing any money, but you’re also not foregoing the opportunity cost of having to pause your career, pursue this full time and forego the salary, forego the career progression.

So if you’re thinking about whether to pursue this, I would encourage you to think about, are you in tier one? Are you in tier two or are you in tier three? And the closer you are to tier three, perhaps the less of a sacrifice you’ll need to make and the more it maybe makes sense, if you have time to just go for it. A couple of [00:37:00] resources to consider as you’re making this decision, two Wall Street Journals articles, and just one data point.

So one Wall Street Journal article to check out is one that is called Financially Hobbled for Life: The Elite Masters Degrees That Don’t Pay Off. This was an article published back in July of 2021. Really gives you a good sense of how many of these top brands, I think the article focused on Columbia in particular, how really, for lack of a better description, kind of exploited their brand in a way and created all of these masters programs that don’t necessarily have a positive ROI.

The second is also a Wall Street Journal resource, this one is titled Is a Graduate Degree Worth The Debt, Check it Here. And this was published in July as well of 2021.

They’ve got a useful tool for searching for different programs and then seeing the debt to income ratio, which obviously is super important as you’re thinking about cost and opportunity cost. And then the third one is, as you think about being in that tier three category, of can someone pay for it?

[00:38:00] And can I do this without having to sacrifice my career? Is the IRS actually provides up to a $5,250 sort of tax deduction for employers that offer tuition reimbursement programs and educational assistance programs. Before you pull out that checkbook, before you pull out that bank account, go onto your HR policies and see if such a program exists.

If it doesn’t, maybe consider talking to HR to see if one could be established. The more you can offload this burden and get to a tier three versus a tier one, in your decision-making, the less of a sacrifice, and hopefully the more benefit you’ll get.

Karla: Great information love when we have folks who want to drop articles and stats and data for all of us.

 So we have 15ish minutes, little less than 15 minutes left. And so we probably have room for about two questions. So one of the questions [00:39:00] that I would love to know from all three of you, and we can start off with Kim, is how do you actively stay learning at this stage in your career or for the goals that you have in mind?

What is your thing that you do consistently, or that you try to build into your schedule when you’re clearly not working towards another degree?

Kim: Yeah. And I love this question because it’s important. For me, for the company that I’m currently at, we definitely have a sort of skills area and what each level should possess more or less. And I like to reflect upon that to see where I’m currently at and what I need to know to get ahead. But also after each project or employer, I really try to do my own self assessment. See where my current weaknesses are, and try to gauge if there’s any material that I can look into on my own time, take any courses to stay ahead.

And [00:40:00] a lot of that, I try to do daily. So as a product designer, we still do have to keep in touch with a lot of business assets and I try to get in touch with the market as often as I can. Look out for anything that’s relative. So I’ll try to do that on a daily basis. And I have sort of like a weekly and a monthly outlook on how I’m doing with my current skills and possibly what I could do to get ahead.

Karla: I appreciate that answer. Especially knowing that you take time, quote unquote, after hours. But I’m sure it’s benefiting you in so many different areas as well. Kelly, same question to you.

Kelly: Well, I want to caveat this with you guys.

I’m a serial entrepreneur that has a lot of businesses. So my thought process isn’t necessarily around climbing a corporate ladder. It’s learning whatever I need to continue to grow every day. And that for me comes in a ton of different forms. So I obviously, as you might imagine, I love podcasts and if [00:41:00] I’m interested in something I go out there and I’ll find it, whether that be podcasts, YouTube, et cetera.

I also do a lot of coaching, so I have, I joke and I say, I have a business coach, and a life coach. I also, if there is something that I feel it would be an interesting course or might be, I get pulled a lot into design thinking sessions, that’s why I say anything and everything.

And I have kids too. So oftentimes I’ll do new things with them and learn through that. So I think of learning for me as what can I do to grow every day? What can I do to help me grow ideas? And my business partner often says, he follows his curiosity. We did a podcast together, that was our last one. I actually love that concept. If there’s something that you’re curious about, there are probably a thousand different ways to follow that.

Karla: [00:42:00] Oh, I’d love that. Follow your curiosity. That’s a good life motto to go after. What about you, Gorick?

Gorick: Yeah, on my end, I can relate to both Kim and Kelly here, where I have the entrepreneurial side, as well as the corporate side and learning in both directions.

So for those who are in a larger organization as an employee, I think about staying up to date with what’s happening in your company, in your industry and the world at large. So in your company, I tried to make it a habit of mine to go to lunch and learns, to tune into town halls, to proactively ask my coworkers about what they’re doing and working on, those aren’t formal things. It’s just a way for me to figure out who’s who, who’s doing what, and what’s important to whom.

When it comes to in my industry, I try to sign up for email newsletters from my company, from my company’s competitors and from industry analysts. So going on to Google and then searching for your industry, followed by research report, and then just signing up for [00:43:00] everything.

And then finally, when it comes to staying on top of what’s going on in the world, I’ll stay on top of different news outlets, whether it’s the BBC, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Brookings, et cetera. And then to Kelly’s point around just staying up to date as an entrepreneur, I love downloading new apps and checking out the user interfaces and seeing what’s new.

I try to be a mentor to others because I often find that even though I’m the one giving advice, I end up learning just as much from the person I’m advising. And I will stay on top of podcasts, TikTok videos, YouTube videos, what have you. I’m always, always, always consuming.

Karla: I hope that everyone listening is also coming to the revelation of everything that our panelists said in terms of how they continue learning and all of that really goes with their own learning style at the same time. So I know that lots of us think like we have to get another degree or whatever it [00:44:00] might be, but if you suck at school or hate school, that’s not going to change just because you need that degree.

Like, let’s be real. So making sure that you’re taking that into account at the same time and being able to really identify how you absorb information, what really gets you excited. And all of that, not saying that, you wouldn’t be excited about a completely new degree area or something like that, but really being able to be real with yourself. Because let me tell you, when I went back for my master’s, I had been out of school for three years and I was like, oh, I love learning, but I don’t think I like it so much in this style anymore.

But it’s good for me to know now. So to make sure that we wrap a little early, since I know everyone’s been listening to us for awhile, I am going to ask our panelists our last question.

Is there anything that you didn’t get to say, or that you were thinking about in preparation for this conversation, that you really wanted folks to know that maybe we didn’t get to, or that you further [00:45:00] want to emphasize?

I know when I’m speaking, sometimes I’m like, oh, I really hope someone asked this question so I can let them know. So I know we didn’t prepare for this question, but Kelly, I feel like you might already have a response or at least you’re really good at being put on the spot.

Kelly: Thank you. I am so glad that you asked this question because we do always have that moment.

I’m sure I’ll still leave today thinking what else was I gonna say?

I’m gonna hit with the passion and where Skills Baby really has a huge focus here, which is that we often have a lot of skills that we’ve learned, through not formal education, through not formal work experience, and we sometimes forget. I often lean on the example that I am a mother, and there is a lot that I have gained in terms of skills because of children.

And I didn’t necessarily always [00:46:00] think that those equated to helping me in my professional life. But now in retrospect, I can look back and say, wow, I am more amazing at teamwork than I was before, because I’ve had the opportunity to practice this day in and day out.

There is likely something in your life, it might not be that you’re a parent, it might be something else, and you are an Olympic athlete at that thing. And we don’t necessarily feel like we can always bring that to work, but I want to let everyone know, like it’s part of you, whether it’s formal education, whether it’s formal work experience, it doesn’t matter if it comes from life experience, bring it in, talk about it, learn the language and use that to your advantage at work as well.

Karla: Thank you so much for that. Gorick, what about you?

Gorick: My comment was actually just inspired by what Kelly [00:47:00] mentioned around bringing yourself to your profession into your life. I’ve been thinking a lot about this age old debate of whether we should focus on our strengths or to patch up our weaknesses.

And my opinion towards this might change. It’s still a live shower thought conversation that I’m having with myself, but where I’ve landed today, December 8th, 2021, is yes. It’s really important to be good enough at a range of things, whether it’s basic math, literacy, public speaking, those things, but each of us is going to have a unique gift, something that we’re passionate about, something that we find to come more easily than other people.

And, I think my philosophy now is to double down on your strengths. Because if I think about if you were playing hockey or any sport, there are going to be some hockey players that will be better at defense, some will be better at offense. [00:48:00] And you could be that Jack of all trades, or you could be a defense who tries to be an offense, but ultimately your ability to stand out and to build a successful career that you have the potential to build, is not going to be based on you trying to catch up and patch up your weaknesses.

That’s going to be about you doubling down on your strengths. So as you’re thinking about this graduate program, it might be worthwhile for you to think about, Hey, are you doubling down on what you’re good at? And you’re getting further, faster in that way? Or are you merely trying to catch up? And if you’re trying to catch up, are you trying to get to the point of good enough in which case that’s useful? Or is this not even worth your time.

Karla: Love it. And let’s round out with Kim.

Kim: Yeah. I would have to agree with Kelly and Gorick here. And it really ties back to actually my personal story. But a lot of advice that I give to up and coming designers, product designers and such, if you’re naturally, [00:49:00] if you have great soft skills, that’s going to really help you in, for example, the field that I am in product design.

And maybe that’s something that you have really noticed about yourself over the years and stuff. And you don’t need to spend so much time there really, really growing that area versus some other people that don’t find out about that until they’re very much in the field. So I think self-reflection is really big here to help see where your weaknesses are and strengths are for the career that you would like or place that you would like to be in the future.

Karla: Love it and a great point to put a pin in. So I want to thank all of our panelists again today

 Hopefully you enjoy the three Ks and G hour that you just had, cause I just realized we’re all K’s and then we had G so I really enjoyed our time together and hope everyone has a really great afternoon.

Kelly: [00:50:00] Thanks for tuning in to Let’s Talk About Skills, Baby, a Growth Network Podcast production. If any part of this episode resonated with you, we would love for you to share it with a friend or colleague who might feel the same.

Feel free to reach out to me at Kelly Ryan Bailey on social, and learn more about the great events and initiatives we have coming up at skillsbaby.com.

Thanks again for spending some time with me and most importantly, have a great day.