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Every summer there is much debate when exam results are published about whether exams are not as hard as they used to be or whether more complex ways of evaluating students’ work in this day and age makes getting good results more achievable. The argument will no doubt take place again this year and in years to come, but personally I’m not particularly interested what the truth of the matter is. What I do find irritating is that even for an individual who has been working for twenty-five years or longer an initial assessment of a job applicant’s talents will still include their education, when their achievements since leaving school or college may well far exceed what exams they passed. <br><br>Equally, being able to learn one subject in great detail in order to achieve actually mean that you will be an ideal employee or that you have the common sense or day to day skills necessary to start in a new job and do it well. I have colleagues who are brilliant at the subject they studied at university, but perform abysmally in other parts of their lives. <br><br>As far as I am concerned, it is necessary to strike a balance between the two – qualifications and experience. I didn’t get great exam results at college, for several reasons, but I have always wanted to carry on learning. It is a fact that the more you know, the more you want to investigate, as everything you learn leads you to find out about other things. I know so much more about countless things now than I ever used to and I will continue to have an interest in, research and find out about anything at all that I believe I should know about. It renders any social situation so easy to deal with if you have a little understanding of a variety of different subjects because that you can always express an interest in what is being discussed and can participate in the conversation. <br><br>But on the plus side, not having very good exam results meant that when I came to getting a job I started out doing the most basic tasks. And what a brilliant way to set out in a new job! You get to learn about the job from the roots up, picking up many useful skills as you go along. Always questioning things and learning from the answers gives you a comprehensive understanding of how the business operates and being promoted through the ranks means you get respect from your colleagues that you cannot put a price on. You don’t just turn up as a manager and throw your weight around. Instead you can sympathise with what your people have to do each day because you’ve done those things yourself in the past. <br><br>Naturally I understand that some careers require proper serious studying and training – I wouldn’t be keen to encourage my dentist or my <a href=”http://www.lasereyesearch.co.uk/” target=’_blank’>Laser eye</a> surgeon to be relying only on O Level Biology before they began fixing my teeth or performing Laser eye surgery to correct my eyesight. And I don’t think I’d want someone fixing my car engine or carrying out repairs to the faulty Laser eye beam in my CD player if they hadn’t trained to become a mechanic or an engineer. But there are many jobs which don’t need such specialised training and if that is the case surely an employer should be considering the applicant’s experience just as much as exam results from decades ago. <br><br>In hindsight, I would definitely opt to be what I am rather than what I could have been, though it surely has taken many years to reach that conclusion. I feel pity for those people who assume that their education is over when they leave school and whose lives then revolve around lowest common denominator television programmes and hardly anything else, because they can’t find any reason to wonder about anything that might tax their minds. (Yes, such people do exist – I’ve worked with some of them!)<br><br>I’m pleased about the fact that I can be involved in discussions about numerous things – from Beethoven to indie music, football to cycling, hip replacements to <a href=”http://www.lasereyesearch.co.uk/” target=’_blank’>Laser eye surgery</a>, Shakespeare to Douglas Adams, Romans to Hanoverians. I may not be an expert, but I will be able to contribute to the conversation. <br><br>So, to sum up, I don’t think that anyone should simply be judged on their academic talents. To do that is to disregard the vast amount of knowledge that we can all take an interest in every day of our lives. <br><br>
