I remember an incident vividly a few years back which made a lasting impression on my mind. I had recently joined a US multinational company as a Financial Analyst. Considering my educational qualification, I was more than qualified for the position. I was a Chartered Accountant (CA) from India, had my Masters in Accountancy and was a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) from the US. My colleague, Michelle, whom I was working with had completed her Bachelors in Accounting around 1 ½ year back and this was her first job.

 

As I started working with Michelle, I soon realized that she was a very smart person. Our job as a financial analyst required us to access the financial performance of our division, find out the variances and analyze the causes for the deviation in the Company’s performance. Michelle was really good at her work. She was not only able to analyze the numbers but was able to provide an insight from a holistic business perspective. She seemed to have detailed knowledge of the business, different products, competitor performance geographical allocation and every other aspect of the business.

Now, I could understand that Michelle was a bright woman, but how could she provide insights similar to someone who had around a 10-year work experience? That definitely requires you to be in that position for 10 years — at least 6–7 years if you are smart… I soon started getting my answers. Michelle had been financially independent right after high school (12th grade). She had completed her bachelors in Accountancy by taking a small student loan and doing a part-time job. It was absolutely not that her parents could not afford to pay for her education, but her parents were firm believers that she should chalk out her path independently. Michelle was really bright and she wanted to study further, but at this point, she did not have the financial resources nor had she figured out her real area of interest. So she took up a job as a Financial Analyst in this company. During the course of this 1 ½ year, she applied for internal transfers and worked in different departments. This not only gave her a complete business exposure in order to decide where her interests were but also gave her an overall view of the company to perform her current task in a much better manner than any of her colleagues.

Through the course of my professional career, I have seen not only Michelle but a lot of other students follow this path towards their career. This also made me realize the stark contrast between the education system in India and in the west. Most of the Indian parents typically save up for their children’s education, the children complete their entire education — their bachelor’s degree, masters and often PhD before they get their first job. Often times it so happens that the work they do is completely different compared to their educational background.

All of this made me realize what Michelle was doing was such a good thing to achieve multiple objectives. When children start paying for their education, as the first and foremost thing, they learn to value money. They know that they either need to earn money for their education or take a loan. Children learn to be much more responsible at a younger age. Secondly, rather than just accumulating degrees, it is very important to understand where their passion lies. Getting a hands-on experience before getting a formal degree helps to gain a practical exposure of the field which they are aspiring to have a career in. It helps in understanding the business opportunities for that particular subject, know the current state of affairs as well as the contribution which they can make in that particular area. This is a very critical component rather than finding out later that they do not really like to work in that particular field.

As Indian parents, we feel that giving the best quality education to our children is the best thing we can do for them. But we need to realize that in this process, we are depriving them of essential life skills. If we look at all successful people in silicon valley like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, we will realize that it was not just the exposure which made them successful, but they also developed life skills such as decision making, taking ownership of the outcomes, creative thinking and rising back from failure which had made them independent from a very young age.