I was talking with a friend at work yesterday when I realized that my college education wasn’t exactly necessary for my job. While there were certainly benefits (for example, I can write coherently), I feel as if much of my college education and the learning that went into my diploma and development is being wasted on mindless emails and mindless tasks.

I started wondering – how much of my college education is withering away at the back of my brain? Why doesn’t my job (which would only consider people with a BA or BS) use more of the critical thinking and skills I learned back on campus? How… necessary… is a college education for many jobs out there? Even upper level jobs – if you’ve been at a job long enough, surely you’re learning the skills to keep moving up, just as you graduate to the next level each year in high school and even college and begin taking higher level classes.

What do you guys think? Are college educations going to waste sometimes? How often? If we don’t use the critical thinking and skill sets we learn all the time, how necessary is college in the first place?

Don’t get me wrong – I am a full supporter of higher education and I think everyone should have the opportunity to go to college/university. Instead of thinking that just because most jobs don’t use that education, people shouldn’t bother with it, I actually think the reverse. Our jobs should use it somehow. How do we work through this catch that they don’t? Is the bachelor degree becoming less valuable as more and more people have it? Should it be cheaper because of that?

I want to hear your thoughts. I want to hear your college and “after graduation” stories. Sometime I’ll share mine as well – but for now, let me hear it!