The universities is our new factories Written by Kim Hartman

Soon no one will care about which degrees you can style your CV with. Why should anyone care, when there are a dozen applicants that have the exact same degree as you? Soon no one will care if you know how to follow Kotlers marketing models or make a classic SWOT analysis. Why should anyone care, when there are a dozen of applicants that have the exact same competence? This is the time when people create their future without the need of a formal degree in their backpack. Failing is progress When something gets standardized it becomes less desirable, no matter if you are titled M.sc or factory worker. The difference from the industrial age is that our times factory workers are having a much bigger opportunity to niche themselves in the crowd of blue suits. Where the old factory worker needed the money to survive, the new needs the money for buying nice stuff. When the need has moved from the lower steps in Maslow´s need hierarchy, it is much less risky to go your own way. If you fail you don’t have to starve, just buy a little bit less costly shoes. Fail a couple of times for the price of a couple of pairs of shoes, and you´ll soon have built up knowledge that will be able to give you even more costly shoes in the future. Grades are just paper We are living in a world where you can learn practically anything for free. It is not economic reasons that stops us but motivational. In theory you could learn about nuclear physics on your own if you dedicated your lazy ass enough. But you probably won’t. Why? There seem to be a fixation about having your competence on paper. Sometimes it seems to be more important what other people think that you know than what you actually know. This fixation has created an uncertainty for those who are bragging about their grades. Even if you have your knowledge confirmed on a paper it doesn’t prove that you actually know what you´re talking about. If you learn something on your own, you may not get it on paper. But will it really be wasted time if you´re the only one that are aware of your competence? It is up you to make other people aware of what you can. Not by saying that you know how to do. Not even by showing a certificate where someone else says that you know how to do.

You are what you do What you need to do is showing what you know by the way you are. Your actions are communicating your competence in a way that makes you stand out from others with the same competence on a paper, even if your actions aren’t visible to everyone. If your actions are true, their reputation will spread and make your communication honest. Since people will hear about your competence from other sources than yourself, it will seem a lot more trustful than if it had come directly from you. And that will be more powerful than having a mass produced degree that puts an already created stamp on you. If you´re a branded cow, you will be treated as one. If you´re aiming to become the purple cow you will be the star of the show.