Degree doesn't make you educated in reality. Yes, they make a person appear as if he/she is qualified, but reality can be different. A person, even having bunch of degrees, can have a very rigid personality that doesn't make him set a good impression on others. Organizations CAN reject you even after seeing impressive grades on your transcripts. People can neglect your advices because your words not impressive and do not serve any purpose.
All is because there are some loop holes, not in your degree, not because you went to a wrong college or university, but because even after completing your education, your caliber level doesn't match what your qualification says. Your personality isn't groomed the way it should be.
Following are the characteristics of such people, who have degrees, yet people call them educated illiterate.
Mediocre thinking means a very ordinary quality of thoughts, neither good nor bad, just adequate. Whenever an idea is needed, the most common idea or very apparent advice is given. Mediocre minds are destined to achieve mediocre results, after all results come from our quality of thinking. Poor quality means poor results. What is the purpose of wasting 18 years in education if you can not come up with 'above average' solutions?
Logical reasoning is a process. A process of using rational and systemic steps to arrive at a conclusion. You see your friend passing by you in his car and not stopping his car to say you a hello, and you start assuming that he is rude, he is arrogant etc., you give these logical reasons to his action, however it is possible that he didn't even see you at first place, or he was too focused on drive that he didn't look around.
You came from a certain background, a village, a less developed area etc. Or you were brought up in a society where people aren't educated. Where people are too much into showing off their stuff, too much into 'home politics' etc. In the process of education, you must unlearn many things that you learned unconsciously. In short, your 'thinking' doesn't change, and you think like people living around you.
Words are magical and different words convey a very different gesture. What the word 'aap' convey is very different than what the word 'tum' convey. Your choice of words can completely change a situation. You must have read 7C's of communication, yeah, those 7C's that we all crammed in our Bachelors; those are essence of effective communication. Quality of your thoughts and quality of your communication would have a great impact on your personal as well as professional relationships. If 18 years of education have not teach you this, people at some point would categorize you as 'educated illiterate'.
And whenever they deal with others, they just care about their priorities, their own personal benefits, and do not care or communicate the benefit for others in a certain deal. Your priorities definitely matter, and you must be your priority, but it shouldn't make you be careless about the interests of others. Education doesn't make anyone selfish in routine life matters, if those long 18 years taught you this, you wasted your money, time and effort and in schools, colleges and universities.
It’s alright if you believe in classifying people into castes, it’s a cultural thing here in Pakistan, but if you are biased towards certain castes or ethnicity, and approve and disapprove choices on the basis of caste, then one can argue on which institutes you joined to pursue your education, so that they could stop their kids from going there.
One is expected to support national interest, rather than supporting a political party that they think would bring benefits to their family businesses. Change and National Prosperity is not a trademark of PPP, PTI, PMLN or MQM, everyone would make big promises, everyone would say why they are best and only change-ambassadors, all you should do is use your educated mind and vote for a party that works best in national interest. If someone vote on proxy or make his cast prominent, or if someone vote because their family business would get benefit, or if someone sell their vote, then definitely his education should be questioned.
An educated person must not think, feel and behave like an uneducated person. Education is meant to make you a better person, an improved version of yourself, and if you are going to behave like illustrates when you are in society, then you are no better than those illustrates.
Academic books might not tell you the whole story, you need to read reference books as well. This world now has millions of books published, there are thousands of books on self-improvement, self-help and millions of other topics. These books can polish your thoughts, your skills and personality if you give them a read. What is the benefit of your skill to read if you are not going to read something that can play a very positive role in your life? Illustrates can not read, but you can, so you should.
Kiran javed hussain
Department of mass communication
University of Karachi