Academic v/s Professional

Since childhood we are intimidated by our parents to study hard to facilitate a good career, but does the academic education actually facilitate in good career? If so then how come it did not worked with some great and successful personalities in the world.

• Bill Gates, the godfather of computers, one of the richest personalities in the world was actually Harvard college drop out.

• Although he had no degree, Andrew Jackson was the sixth president of US, the senate and an army official.

• Mary Kay Ash founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics choose to drop out of the college to build a really good career as a women entrepreneur.

• Michael Dell, the CEO of Dell computers and laptops actually opted out of the schools at the age of 19.

• Henry Ford founder of assembly line car manufacturing and owner of Ford Motor Company parted off with education in his high school.

Well the list is too long to finish, but it indicates only one thing that education is not the only criteria to achieve the goals in your life. All the personalities who have achieved a status in the society had one thing in common, other than hard work, it is passion. It was Passion that enabled Bill Gates to open up the Windows of computers for us. It was passion that brought Andrew Jackson first to military and then to politics. It was passion through which Mary could put forth high quality cosmetics for the people. It was passion that that facilitated Michael to open up new brand new series of laptops and computers for us. It was due to passion that Henry could initiate the assembly line car manufacturing for the people.

But does that mean that passion is the only keyword required for success. Well not actually, passion should always be backed with knowledge and knowledge is acquired either through coaching or experience. Coaching can also be called academic while experience can also be called professional. Academic is more or less chosen by everyone however really maverick people like those on our list choose professional experience.  But that doesn’t mean that those with academic experience are inferior to those with professional experience or vice-versa.

• Byron Pitt, award winning journalist from CBS news is a graduate from Ohio Wesleyan University.

• Henry Paulson the 76^th secretary of treasure and the runner up of the Person of the year award by Time magazine (2008) is an MBA from Harvard Business School.

• Neville Shute Norway aka Neville Shute the famous novel writer was actually an aeronautical engineer and pilot by profession.

• Mike Rowe anchor of the show Dirty Jobs and famous opera singer, actor is a graduate from Towson University.

• Sheila Fraser auditor general of Quebec is actually a Chartered Accountant.

Passion, experience and hard work are the three milestones in a journey towards success. Be it through academic or professional, coaching or experience, the roads may differ but the destination is the same, success. However success never comes to you unless you really want to embrace it. It is said successful people are crazy, well the statement is true; successful people are crazy at achieving those things that make them successful. But is name, fame or money their actual destination?  Well I don’t think so.

Bill Gates never aimed for fame nor did Byron aimed at the Emmy award, according to me they always aimed to get the best results at their work and this automatically resulted in overwhelming success and recognition by the people.

Thus if you have the potential to give your best, success automatically follows you.