Shades from the past

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26 del 1 de 2012

We, very frequently, see rests from the past all around us, from big impressive statues to the fallen idols, to old buildings from long ago dead cultures.

But there are things from the past we cannot see or touch, that's the heritage from other times, and we have to be very careful with them, because even though they can help us learn from errors or successes, they can also be a ballast for evolution.

There are many of them and each one would take an entire article ten times bigger than this one to properly discuss it.

The most known heritage are old business models, specially those related to non-tangible products, which have been getting quite popular lately. There are many more but there is one that I'd like to discuss here, and it is Academic Titles.

I know many people will disagree with this, specially those with a large amount of them or those whose jobs are based on them, but I think they are something from the past we should get rid of.

I don't exactly know where they come from, if it's from the old medieval "Lord" and "Sir" titles or from the fact that everyone wants to brag about what they've achieved, but one thing is for sure, they are definitely not needed for jobs. You can have a grade, two post-grades and three masters and still fit worse for an specific job that someone without any titles but with many knowledge and experience. The only difference is that you have the titles that prove you should know something, but they don't prove many other things such as how you got all that knowledge, if you had external help or difficulties in the way, if it was easy or hard for you, and even more important, how are you able to acquire more knowledge.

Also, aside from skills and knowledge there are many other factors that are as important as these for certain positions, and these cannot be measured with titles.

But times are changing, and companies are evolving in the way they interview candidates and the way they measure their attributes. There are still a lot of companies asking for a whole load of titles but that will eventually change, and this heritage will disappear.

And I wonder, what will happen to prestigious universities who base this prestige in their titles?, will they evolve or try to fight against it?

Take a look at this interesting article: http://www.hackeducation.com/2012/01/23/stanford-ai-professor-thrun-leaves-university-to-start-udacity-an-online-learning-startup/