How much did a university degree help you?

I have a B.A. in a liberal arts field. I suppose that the actual content of the classes that I took didn't have much of a direct effect on the money that I make online, but learning to write well was a very good skill to learn.

And this skill is what has made me money.

Love,
Shannon

I have BS and MS in Computer Science. I am a software developer. I could have written my application (look at the signature) without proper knowlege of software development.

But I want to say that they waste too much time in University by making you take classes that you don't need. I didn't need history/music/chemistry/etc. I guess they do that so that they can make more money. But all the computer science classes...oh yes...helped big time!

Almost nil. I didn't major in marketing. Hindsight being 20/20, it probably would have been a better investment of time. I majored in business administration. What I studied may have been somewhat useful had I gone to work in the corporate world. Just maybe.

John

How much did it help walt disney's owner/ Bill gates/ Patrick Arnold....ZERO..They have no degree..


It does help, as long as it is relevant to what you are doing online.

I never went to college...because I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up.

I think college is quite silly. If there is something you want to be like a doctor, accountant, lawyer, teacher, etc. that you have to get a degree for then I say go for it. I think the system is still silly, though, that future doctors have to take a P.E. class and a future science teacher needs to take several language classes. Call it trying to graduate well-rounded kids or call it trying to earn more money, either way it seems ludicrous to ask someone to pay thousands of dollars for classes that are not targeted at their goals.

I'm all for education but I think the college system is, generally speaking, a lousy system for education. I'm not a Kiyosaki fan but one area that I agree with him is that the overwhelming purpose of college is to manufacture employees.

B.A. degree here...doesnt help at all

I have a BA(Hons) in Humanities and it didn't help me one jot - but I am glad I did it. Having said that, if I were starting out again, as a fresh-faced youngster, I would forget all about education and also forget getting a job; and instead, use the time to build an online business. You could build one, that would set you free for life, in the time it takes you to get your degree.

Will

It honestly didn't help me with anything, IM or otherwise. Quite the opposite.

I majored in Occult Science. It's worthless. Having this degree actually scares employers, so I stopped putting it on my resume about 16 years ago.

Economics to an MBA in marketing. No question.

But degrees are slowly changing...

One of my degrees is a Bachelor of e-Journalism, specifically designed for today's journos, those of us who write on-line. It covered journalism (of course), webpage markup and design, graphic design, website semiotics, keywords and seo, and marketing ourselves on-line (plus more).

So would this degree be helpful to Internet marketers? I don't think I need to answer that question...

Ta
Kristy

I have a degree in street smarts.

I grew up in a housing commission area, in and out of numerous hostels and refuges, subjected to an abusive step father surrounded by alcohol gambling, domestic voilence and at times barely enough money for food.

I dont need a degree to learn what I know. Especially dont need a peice of paper to be more motivated, driven or focused.

Certainly not bagging those with educations, just sharing my experience.

Zilch...considering i went to college for a full year before I decided to go into business for myself (at the time, i was doing damn good in forex market - but hated the hours).

Went to school for a business degree, but the instructors didn't have much business world sense. You can tell who's teaching for a paycheck and who's teaching because they love to do it because they are retiring off profits made.

Not to sound arrogant, but I have enough experinece to go to that college today and show each one of those business majors how to make real money running their own business online or off.

Not much. But I had to study some stuff which I would never have studied otherwise. So the 'help' I got was about broadening my perspectives.

Informatics... on the scale 1-10 it would be a 2, but if you include the total experience of studying at the university it would be an 8.

I wouldn't want an education that taught me any specific technologies. Instead: sales, marketing, psychology, econometrics, human behavior and other fun stuff like that

well i had just completed my masters in marketing and currently i'm a web developer i don't that this degree has contributed much to what i am doing. But it had given me a sense how to promote my websites and business. I personally think that your attitude really play vital role rather then degrees.

I have I.com degree but it does not help me.

I did a B.A in humanities and unlike some here I think it helped a huge amount. My main business model is that of a writer (mostly writing newsletters and client responses for offline companies, but some online work too) and the degree helped me a huge amount.

Skills in essay writing have been a tremendous boon in helping create articles, webcontent and the like - teaching me how to get complex points across quickly and easily. It also taught me how to research effectively. The majority of my degree was research based, I only had about 5 hours 'face time' with my lecturers a week, so I quickly had to learn the skills needed to research complex and often ill covered subjects quickly. Especially my dissertation that was based on a historical event that we have little evidence over and few historians have written about.

It taught me the importance of deadlines and planning in a way that school never did.

My degree has been invaluable in my life so far (6 years since I left uni), and thats not forgetting that those 3 years were amazing. Made great friends, did a lot of learning, drinking and skirt chasing and generally had an amazing time. Wouldn't trade my time there for the world.

i'm BSC(Hons)IT in Software Engineering holder.The knowledge i learned from university don't really help me in my working life.But at least i have some basic knowledge about IT.

This question is interesting as it can really cut both ways.

I did a BA in business and majored in marketing and finance. Interestingly enough my 1st love was finance and marketing came in only later. I discovered internet marketing while still in university. And boy was I glad, I leveraged leveraged the power of the internet to grow the investment club's (when i was president) paying membership base 9 times and also managed to hook up $100,000 in sponsorship.

Sure learning the technical aspects of IM - wordpress, seo, managing autoresponders etc had to be learnt on your own.

And while having the degree and majoring in marketing didn't help my IM business directly. I would say studying marketing in university did lay the proper fundamentals and gave me a better holistic view of the big strategic picture for IM. In fact, the IM systems and principles that the big name g.urus talk about do have their fundamental roots based in standard marketing principles. It's all just a matter of twisting and adapting them to another medium called the internet.

For example,

CRM (Customer relationship Management) = building relationships with your list

Upsells, downsells, continuity programs = understanding the life time value of a client and maximizing returns

Alvin Huang

I decided to leave school early. Not having a degree hasn't held me back at all really apart from when I wanted to work for IBM as they only take degree students onto selection.

Since I left school I have done lots of training covering a range of topics like NLP, sales and software development. I much prefer just going out and learning the actual skills I need without having to turn in reports and essays and study unecessary topics.

I have a business degree. Helped very little. Everything I know about im, I learned after college.

Psychology hons, helped to some extent when I went on to work in offline marketing.

That said, like most of the others I suspect the time would have been better spent building an online business, easy said in retrospect, but perhaps will assure younger members that a degree, whilst useful in teaching you research skills, essay writing, organisational and language comprehension skills, will only be useful in your internet marketing pursuits if you have the other necessary attributes to compliment your knowledge.

By this I mean motivation, perseverence, the ability to learn by your mistakes, focus and keep to going forward!

Bobby

I did my engineering in computer science. I don't understand the kind of syllabus Indian education system provides under engineering courses. No offense, I love my country, but one thing I would like to change here is the education system and syllabus. The degree has just managed to give me an upper edge and a stamp of an engineer. Apart from this, technically my degree has not really helped me to get through any situation. I would say that my work life is entirely different from what I used to study in college. I was so scared of holding that "Let us C" book and was not at all a programming person. I don't know a single thing beyond inheritance. Seriously. But today, I can handle my PHP scripts, HTML, CSS and understand the code well. I do template redesigning on my own for most of my sites and I do it pretty well I can say. But none of this skill I acquired or even explored within myself during college.

Since Jani chipped in, I decided to chip in some opinions too. ;-)


Here's what I learned in university:

-Networking with different kind of people (useful when you network with other marketers in offline events)

-Meeting and able to communicate with people from abroad

-How to use PowerPoint and Excel effectively (this is useful for me though since I am making videos through PowerPoint + Camtasia)


I studied economics, marketing, accounting, psychology, mass communication, computer studies and cultural english.

The only one useful for IM is psychology and maybe a little part of computer studies.

im still seventeen. and i stopped in school for almost a year now.
but i've learned a lot in the internet about graphic design.

i am not saying that im not goin back to school though.

Whatever you learn in college is to improve your knowledge but those will never related to working environment. So Degree is just for prestige i hope.

I haven't got a degree and I didn't want one.

I didn't see the point in being stuck in a 2-4 years ridged course structure when this industry (Internet/web/design/development) moves so fast.

I got a job straight out of college and in those 2-4 years that I would have been in Uni I had exposure to not just a myriad of technologies and methodologies but I also gained valuable real-world business experience and made many contacts within the industry that help me to this day.

I don't think not having a degree has ever held me back or stopped me from achieving what I want to achieve - if you want something badly enough you will do whatever is needed to fulfill that - be that studying a course for x years or rolling up your sleves and getting stuck in.

I've got degrees in Law, Criminology, Psychology, Economics and a few other bits and pieces. They helped me to work 14 hours a day, 6 days a week and wonder where my life went

Did they help with IM? Not really What they helped with I think is the ability to research, analyse and disseminate information and they helped me to get in the right mindset to persist and be determined.

Honors degree in veterinary science, and now I write exclusively pet related web content. My degree taught me nothing about business, but it taught me a heck of a lot about my niche. So, in one sense, it's been great for my IM business, but on it's own, it's not enough. I've gained the rest of my education right here in WF.

LEARN to write! Everything else can be self-taught. If I ever was going to go back it would be to master English.

I have a Degree in Biochemistry and I do not use it today. I do not regret getting it. I think that getting a degree teaches you a lot of skills besides the actual subject knowledge.

I would like to go back to college and do something related to math and computer but not to get a job, just because I love to learn.

I have a degree in Marketing Management. I would say that it gave me a good background of some of the marketing principles - like why people buy, advertising principles (e.g. single minded proposition etc), doing marketing research. but the 'specific' internet marketing techniques weren't covered at all. It's through my own learning and 'doing' that I know how to build a mailing list and market products to them, put together a sales page, write an eBook etc. However my degree did help me a lot with writing, presentation skills, organisation.

The other thing you have to remember is that internet marketing and the 'rest' of the business world is very different. I remember speaking to my lecturers about IM and on the whole they didn't really understand it fully, even those who taught marketing related subjects. I actually think internet marketers are many years ahead of their offline business counterparts. For example most business owners know about relationship building yet it seems to be mainly IMers and larger business that concentrate on it.

I'm very glad I did my degree though and wouldn't change it for the world. University is about so much more than the academic stuff!

Hi, I'm new here. College, University, whatever you want to call it, of course can help you when pursuing an internet marketing career. But, really isn't necessary as there are so many courses you can take offline as well as online without going to College. I became interested in Internet Marketing 1 year ago and it has been a fun and sometimes frustrating but mostly fun learning experience. I never went to College, I have never taken any courses. I have learned a whole lot on my own researching on the internet. I might take a course soon just to refine my skills. But I know what they're going to teach me I already know. Luckily for me I've always been a pretty decent writer even though I totally sucked at everything else - so article writing not a big problem here - and that's what I'm focusing on right now is writing articles. I'm getting a little tired of it I must admit, so I'm thinking of hiring a freelancer to write for me lol

I went to college and grad school, I have a Masters in Anthropology. I worked at a job I liked for a few years then the job phased out and I went back to school and got an accounting degree and worked for a few years at a very good rate of pay, but the stress of getting to work on time on icy winter roads and always having to be dressed up to go to work wore me down so I learned different ways of earning online. I quit my job and I've been making a steady income online, not as much as my full time job, but I'm confident my income will increase as time goes by and I learn more.
My accounting degree has helped me with the business aspect of my IM business and I am able to do my own accounting and taxes. I'm grateful for the years I spent in college and I made some wonderful friendships that I'll always have.

I have a 4 year degree in nursing (which allowed me to work as a Psychiatric nurse and Nurse Educator) and then I continued my education in Organizational Development. Although what I learned may not have been directly related in every way, I do think it has helped very much. However - I wish I had started sooner.

With that being said, I believe with effort and time, kids straight out of high school could build successful online businesses - as long as they had the right mind set and desires. It seems that this is a profession that you have to grow into. Of course, an education is always an advantage no matter what field you're in.

Degrees don't help anyone unless they want a job. The bottom line is:
* If you want to get a job, have a degree.
* If you want to keep a job or run a successful business, get an education

A degree is a piece of paper. The education is what's actually useful and whether you have the piece of paper or not won't change that.

It helped me get better season tickets for the USC Football Games!! Fight On!

I have a degree in business management, i would say it helped a little, but the formations are really focused on creating 'workers' for big companies, not small businesses owners. The reality is so different. Still some good came from it, like business process optimization... You just need to scale it down!

I have 2 masters degrees....one in computer science and one in divinity with an emphasis in preaching...my web work has been totally over preaching and my degree has taught me a ton about that particular area. however, I think that the degree has given me more confidence than anything else. I probably could have gotten to exactly where I am now by simply doing it without the degree...but I do believe it was helpful...

The computer science degree has been helpful some...but really more so to get a job to work for someone else. I think that the best reason to go to school is for networking opportunities. But as far as learning...dependeing on the school...they are teaching you as if you will continue to get a PhD rather than to actually do the job that you will be asked to do in the real world.

But then again there is something to be said for well rounded individuals. In any case, I do wish I had taken some marketing courses....

I have a degree in Economics & find that many of the classes
that I took are very helpful, especially statistics.

I didn't use much of what I learned for nearly 25 years, but
am now surprised that I'm it's actually proving to be useful
aside from having the sheep skin :-)

Willie

Even though I attended University, I am 4 classes shy of a 4 year computer science degree. The reason that I quit was that I didn't really want to get a job as a programmer (by the time I made it to 4th year) and truth be told, I didn't like the one sided nature of the teaching - "do it this way because it is the only way to do it".

For me, in retrospect, I should have maybe took something along the lines of business since we grew up talking about it at the supper table (my parents were accountants), but hindsight is 20/20.

On the plus side, the college education has helped me to have a programmer's mindset (think of how things need to be done, not necessarily the code needed to do it), but truth be told, I have had a lot more of my education from trying things out as opposed to just reading some book.

I think we are going to send our kids to college someday when they are old enough, but we'll let them decide as to whether or not getting a degree is important to them. We are going to teach our kids to be entrepreneurs, and after that they can decide if they want a degree or job - it will be interesting to see what they decide.

I dropped out of high school

Degrees are not the end all be all of life.

Someone who actually takes time to educate themselves can be just as educated as someone that holds a degree. But they have to actually educate themselves not just think 'well i could do that'. Just because you think you can do something because it looks easy means nothing and in some field, such as computers education/certification puts you in a different class of worker.

I have a BS in comp sci and a couple handfuls of certifications. Were these things something i could have learned on my own? Yes, if i were that structured of a person. Does it make me smarter than the other people sitting around me at work? in some cases yes.

However i've seen plenty of people that have a piece of paper that says they hold a degree or certification that dont know a damn thing except how to take a test to get that piece of paper.

But that doesnt mean that certs and education are useless, you get out of it what you put into it.

Gereem:

Thank you for asking a question that will help other people avoid losing tens of thousands of dollars!

The biggest benefit I got is something you do not want to hear, i.e. social experience, living on your own, networking with like minded people, etc. All that can be done w/o paying $10,000/yr for a degree.

Robert Kiyosaki has answered (at least part of) your question in his book "If You Want To Be Rich & Happy, Don't Go To School."

How much did my education help with my Internet Marketing ventures? Zero!

I majored in Fine Arts and this helped somewhat since (creating appropriate) graphic images on your landing pages can increase clickthrough rates pretty significantly. I would give it a "5" on your 1-10 scale of helpfulness.

The ideal IM course?
1. How to find "ready to buy" customers and/or find out the supply/demand balance. This, I'm learning, is critical to making sales!!, i.e. keyword research, forum research, using Google Trends, eBay pulse, etc.

2. Writing Irresistible Ads - Tip: Join Twitter and send out tweets. This will force you to write short and effective headlines (my weakness, FYI) You are limited to a 140 characters.

3. How to build an effective landing page, i.e. Catchy and Summarizing Titles, appropriate clickable images, etc. Newbies can play around with Weebly.com which allows you to build 2 sites per account. It has easy to read tutorials and best of all it's free to practice on (and test niches). If your webpage starts converting to sales you can purchase a domain name through them to give your page a more professional URL, and they'll forward all old traffic to your new URL.

4. How to "funnel" targeted prospects to your landing page(s), i.e. PPC is one efficient way but there are other free to low cost ways, i.e. off-line methods, forums, Question & Answer type sites, eBay auction, etc. CAUTION NOTE: make sure you know the sites rules so you don't get banned, e.g. auctions (yours or someone else's) have very targeted traffic so you could CAREFULLY "funnel" that to your landing page.

5. How to track your conversions. I admit this was another weakness of mine but am learning everyday. I like Statcounter.com for it's ease of use but like the capabilities of Google Analytics

I think those five areas are enough to make you money online although, as we all know, there are soooo many other ways to make a living online.


So, to answer your question again, Gereem, college did little to none for my IM venture and "If You Want To Be Rich & Happy, Don't Go To School."...Bill Gates...a college drop out. Kiyosaki...did poorly in school and has millions. So kids, if you are doing poorly in school, go read "Rich Dad Poor Dad" and you'll be making more than that "Phd" graduate...eventually

I have a BA in journalism and a clinical MSW. The masters helped in the way that my first site was built around my expertise in that field. The BA helped me become a better writer, which helps me in my IM.

I have several friends who majored in marketing in school and this really does not help them in an IM world. I am always giving them advice, which leads me to believe that if there were a "major" for what we do it would have to be an "internet marketing" major which is very different from traditional marketing.

I mastered and minored in Business Management and Marketing Emphasis, so both have helped me greatly. Obviously by running a business and also by being in sales.

Never went to college..but I think it means far less
today than it did 50 years ago...

Today, if you have drive and discipline and focus, you dont
really need a college degree

I DONT HAVE A DEGREE, BUT I DID ATTEND COLLEGE WHERE I PICKED UP MY REAL ESTATE LICENSE. SOME OF THE COURSES I TOOK LIKE MARKETING AND MACRO ECONOMICS GAVE ME A BROADER PROSPECTIVE ON BUSINESS BUT OVERALL I LEARNED HOW TO MARKETING ONLINE THROUGH AN AFFILATE BUSINESS THAT HAD OVER 20 DIFFENT METHODS TO ADVERTISE ONLINE. ONCE I FINISHED THE TRAINING COURSE I NOW HAD A STRONG KNOWLEDGE OF HOW TO MARKET ONLINE.

I majored in a field (Applied Chemistry) that was totally unrelated to what I'm doing now.

Many people asked me why I'm doing something so different to what I've learnt in uni.

I told them things change. Mindset do change. And sometimes you end up on a different path than the one you intended to. I originally wanted to be in the petrochemical field.

In any case, did my degree helped? Yes, in a way. That's down to the analytical skills being taught in my course that let me preen, analyze and improve sales copy in a way I may never have if not for it.

Jag

My degrees have helped me immensely. If anything, i've learned study patterns and how to break through sticking points in time crunch situations. Plus, there's a whole level of "education" learned in the college environment. Often times people get subjected to other cultures or ways of life that they wouldn't necessarily experience anywhere else.

I think this is difficult to compare, you never know what you would have known or practised without the uni

I considered it my " initiation fee" into the game of life... well worth the investment

I've got a degree in Business and Economics.

It's helped me in nothing at all professionally wise, even less in the ever-dynamic internet marketing world. 99% of what I studied in college about 10 years ago seems totally outdated, redundant and out-of-sync by today's standards.

If I could go back in time, I would not go to the university. Instead, I would invest those 4 years self-lecturing in the internet marketing field. It sure would have been way more productive.

BA in Poly Sci. Helped me when I was in the workplace. No help in IM. Now the EDUCATION I received while pursuing that degree has remained priceless.

I have a degree in Aerospace Engineering from London University and have ended up working as the Marketing Manager for a software company in India!

If I could go back in time to be 18 again, I would have still done a degree (albeit in computer science or marketing) because your time at university teaches you so much more than just academics. You build up networks and you really get to understand yourself, your strengths and weaknesses. Also, the friends you make at Uni are usually those that stay with you for life.

An Engineering degree also teaches you problem solving, analytical skills and accuracy, which I think helps in every day business life.

Oh, and a degree could help you if you temporarily find yourself up a creek without a paddle

I am currently studying for a BA in China International Business and it hasn't helped me at all apart from the fact it gives me 4 years to work on Internet Marketing before I will have to get a job

Degrees are really only useful in certain professions, where the depth of knowledge is required, a doctor for example, engineer. In other areas degrees can be next to useless.

For example, you can run a successful profitable, and above all credible, business without a business degree, but you couldn't design a bridge or treat a patient without one.

In my real world job, (I'm a contract engineering designer) I have worked alongside degree qualified colleagues although I have never been to university myself, without any problems.

I think where a degree isn't "useful" it does demonstrate the level of application that the holder can carry out; he or she can take the effort necessary to improve themselves and that they can gather information and effectively analyse it - at least on paper.

That's absolute rubbish. A degree isn't just a qualification for a profession, its a sign of intuitive, independent learning ability. It's a huge indication of responsibility and its well documented that graduates earn higher wages across the board than those who don't.

I'm not against people not choosing University, I think if you're the right person you can go far from whatever walk in life and in any industry. Unfortunately, however, not everyone is that person and its important to realise that early before you end up bankrupting yourself with nothing to fall back on.

It does my head in reading so much stuff about how leaving school at 16 to 'follow your dream' is classed as good advice?! It's insane, and destructive advice for all but one or two in a football stadium worth of people.

English lit. One of those useless-sounding degrees, but I have found it to be a brilliant fit for IM (articles, email marketing, presells, copywriting -- the bread and butter of IM)

As an aside, I must mention the obvious cliche: it was a life experience. Aged 18 - 21, I had the time of my life, and had the sort of experiences that are not repeatable. I would not trade in that time for Bill Gates's fortune.

My first degree was classics where I learnt Latin, Ancient Greek, Ancient History and Ancient Philosophy. It was very literature based, so I guess I improved my writing and ability to convey ideas but I wouldn't say has helped me that much. In fact I wouldn't advise spending three years doing any kind of literature based degree as it gave me no knowledge to use in the real world.

I'm doing a one year computer science course at uni now and that has been much more useful!

I do not have a college degree, and never really wanted one because even at an early age, I just couldn't see myself working a regular J.O.B. (Just Over Broke) with someone telling me what to do and how much I'm worth per week. I knew that I wanted to determine my own destiny, come what may, and I am sooooo happy that I did it MY WAY. Instead of being an employee, I became an employer of many, including a bunch of folks who had fancy degrees and didn't know squat - not even the very basics of business. There is no better feeling than being the master of your own destiny, taking a chance on yourself and also taking full responsibility for whichever way it goes. I'm sure that like many others here without a degree, with the experience that I have accumulated over the years, I could easily teach a PRACTICAL business class at a university.

My GP works at a local medical center near where I live. I asked him one day how many hours he puts in at work. He replied "Im here from about 7 in the morning til 8 or 9 at night, every day"

I often go past the medical center on my way to "enjoy my day" perhaps going for a coffee or a movie, and I see his car parked there, in the same spot, day in day out.

I want to live and enjoy my life, not be plugged into a "degree or qualification"