Is a Certificate the Equivalent to an IT Degree?

bachelor degree vs certification

Every graduate aspires to succeed in his or her career and the basic reason for them to pursue a graduation course is to open doors to the right professional opportunities. Information technology, for the last 3-4 decades, has been growing exponentially and is one of the hottest and lucrative career paths right now. Graduation in IT is one of the most preferred academic choices of student these days.

When graduating with a degree in Information Technology, you’ll seek to gain a deep insight into the several subsets of IT and then follow specific specialization. Since IT is fast changing and a highly dynamic industry, every day new requirements and functions are created and older ones become obsolete. The academic field is unable to keep pace with these changes.

It’s because of the obsolescence of the academic literature that the graduates find their skills incompatible with the industry requirements. To resolve this issue, graduates enroll in several certification courses that help them update their knowledge and skill levels. These certifications add value to them and enable them to get the right job. They are able to acquire specific skills that give them an edge over those who have a basic graduation degree.

Graduation courses impart more basic and generalized knowledge whereas a certification course offers a more specialized and current knowledge that is in demand in the market. Due to these factors, several young individuals speculate about the efficacy of a degree. They doubt if it would not be better for them to just pursue a shorter duration certification course instead of a degree course that could take years to complete. The knowledge they gain from graduation is also not updated as frequently as it should be.

This may seem a credible argument at face value but a deeper analysis will reveal the fact that a degree is more important than it is generally presumed to be. Graduation courses are generally underestimated. Graduation must receive more respect than it is accorded. It cannot be denied that certification courses impart more practical knowledge and update the skills of the candidates; however in the rapidly changing field of IT, even these skills soon become outdated. Those with just certifications very soon find it difficult to sustain themselves.

Graduates during their courses gain more basic and foundational level knowledge, which helps them have a better conceptual understanding. It means when they pursue a certification course, they are in a better place to fully comprehend the various aspects of the certification course. They can keep learning new skills in future because what they learned during their graduation phase makes their basic knowledge strong. They are more adept at learning when pursuing certification courses.

Certification courses are complementary to graduation and are not a replacement. Graduating from an average to good institute is important and when these graduates pursue certifications, more value is added to their knowledge.