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Some people believe that getting a university degree will improve their career prospects while others insist that work experience and interpersonal skills are more important than university education. In my opinion, experience is certainly important but it is not as important as a degree.

Experience and soft skills⊕ certainly matter. In many industries employers will only hire people who have previous work experience in the same sector. By hiring experienced employers, they can eliminate the costs involved in training new employees. Soft skills⊕ are also important now. Gone are the days when employees could finish tasks on their own. Now they require team effort. Also in this age of globalization businesses operate from multiple locations from across the globe. In this scenario an employee requires good interpersonal skills to communicate with a customer or a client living in another part of the globe.

However, experience and soft skills alone will not help much. Jobs have become more complicated these days and it is not possible to perform them without adequate knowledge and training. For example, a person cannot practice as a doctor or an advocate without getting a degree in medicine or law. Most jobs that offer good salaries actually belong to this category. Only a candidate who has spent five or six years at university can apply for them. Experience is something that an individual gains after getting hired. It will definitely improve their chances of getting a promotion or raise. However, in order to get hired, the first thing they need is a university degree. What’s more, nowadays, universities impart much more than theoretical knowledge. They conduct workshops to give students hands-on experience⊕. University education also provides students an opportunity to interact with others and improve their communication skills.

In conclusion, experience is certainly important and in some sectors it is indispensable. However, in my opinion, experience alone will not help a person. In fact, in this age where most jobs require specialist knowledge, most employers would not even bother to hire someone who lacks a university degree.