Degree matters?

          Well, being an  Indian you are always drilled down the importance of education. Atleast in my generation, we didnot have reality shows where we danced and sang, it was all about marks! You would have thought with so many alternate careers where people are successful, it wouldn't matter about the degree.But the Smriti Irani case of 12th pass has started a debate on importance of education.People compared with ex PM that even with a Phd he couldn't get anything done.Let's atleast give her a chance !!Then started the rounds of famous people who dropped out of completing their degrees(ofcourse , nobody considered that dropping out of Harvard and Princeton is not same as Ignou).Now, i am not telling degree matters or doesn't matter.Education is always going to remain something important, anywhere in the world unless you are a famous painter :).
        Today our society is driven by a pretentious lifestyle.Parents constantly run around to get their child admitted to the most famous school.Then later ofcourse a good college matters.But does it really matter about the best location/building/cool uniform?No, my father always said its about value system rather than the most expensive school.I agree with him here, a bad mannered child in the best school is of no use.Anyways, i am now diverting from the topic and going in preachy mode again!
       I have met some people who leave an impact on your life despite being not really educated.One is a punctual cab driver who considered his job as god.Another is honest housekeeping staffer who returned my gold ring found in washroom.A random person who donated bone marrow to unknown child.There are people all around us who make a difference without really having any so called degrees!Maybe we need to give Smrithi a chance?
      I have many friends from Andhra where a culture of "value for degree" is prevalent in arranged marriage.My colleague was setting himself up in the matrimonial mart.It was taking a long time despite his good paying job in an IT company.The reason as per him was that , he just had a B.sc and not a B.tech.Now he was doing a correspondence M.sc in Maths , the reason being just to increase his saleability in marriage mart.It was unusual thing as his M.sc won't add anything to his job etc..I knew a girl who did a double MA in something, she was much sought after , but i also remember her inability to spell the place she came from, in English!And one supposed MA was in English!Makes one wonder the usefulness of these degrees...Did she buy them?
    I know for sure that degree might be this building block of career or personality, but you cannot define a person based on that degree.One friend of mine met a guy for coffee after her mom asked to meet him.He was from IIM, but had such bad manners that he got his coffee and didnot even ask the girl and paid for his coffee( you can't mumble women empowerment here, its plain bad manners, my male readers will still want to debate on this) .Anyways, education matters or doesn't matter is not debatable as it will always remain important.Its just that people without degrees are not some morons, they infact might have a fresh approach to solve a problem.
    In the west where there is less divide of white and blue collar jobs, a degree mightnot define someone, but still does matter.I think in case of Smrithi, we have to give her a chance as seems like a fighter and will lead a team of probably these so called degree holders.I would like to end by saying that degree matters, but doesn't define a person.A person cannot be judged by his degree.