04/09/2013
Credentials - A thing of the Past!
The mantra in today's society is that you need a college degree to succeed in the 21st century. To get a university degree currently requires taking their courses from their instructors. But what if you want to take individual courses from the best scholars in each area of study? In other words, using the music industry venacular, what if you wanted to create your own CD with #1 hits from multiple singers rather than purchase the standard CD with one good song and 15 average songs from one artist. I can study Philosopy from Michael Sandel at Harvard, Artificial Intelligence from Stanford, Intellectual Property from Harvard Law School, Innovation from Dr. Owens at Vanderbilt and Creativity from the staff at Penn State. I typically get that deer in the headlight look when I speak to fellow faculty about credentials. Although I have attended six onsite colleges in the U.S. and have a Masters degree, I tell them flat out I don't want a Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford or any other elite college degree. That is too limiting! I want a Global Degree. Of course you can imagine the reaction among fellow faculty.
But the issue I have with following a prescribed college path to a degree is that I am limited to just the local faculty, some good / some not so good. Why, in today's world of global collaboration, would I limit myself to such a tiny source of knowledge. I want to learn from the best teachers in the world. I'm taking this course from Penn State because it looks very interesting and my passion is 21st Century Creativity. Today, I can seek out and learn from the greatest teachers in the world and fashion my own education based on my passion. I am not limited by time, space, cost or someone else's idea of what I should learn.
I recognize that not everyone will understand this new concept but imagine two people interviewing for a job.
Candidate #1
"I received my degree from Normal University with a 4.0 GPA, worked in teams with my classmates, belonged to various student groups and will give you 100%."
Candidate #2
“ I’m a student of the 21st Century. I recognized early on that learning was my responsibility and not something to be delivered. Therefore I learned how to acquire, manage and share information. I learned how to capture current events, triangulate the truth from sources around the globe, used gap analysis to connect the dots and discover hidden trends. My education comes from the leading scholars around the world including universities like Stanford, Harvard, Yale, London School of Economics, MIT, University of Edinburgh in Scotland and Vanderbilt’s Graduate School of Business among others.
I’m driven to learn and a self-starter with the initiative to design, organize, collaborate and attain a global education without the traditional burden of student loans. Here is the link to my Digital Portfolio and Results Letters.
Is that what you are looking for?”
