Evan Carmichael says a college degree isn't required to start a business, but it helps if you lack business knowledge. He recommends finance, commerce, or economics degrees for credibility and fundamentals. Hands-on experience running a venture matters more than any classroom.
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Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael.
Welcome to another edition of Ask Evan. Today's question comes from one of my YouTube viewers who asked about getting a college degree, and he wrote in saying, what college degree do you think is essential for anyone to have when starting an enterprise, if any? So this is always a tough question. Should I go to college or not? And if you're, if you're going to get a college degree, I would probably suggest something in business, commerce, finance, just so that you understand how that world works, especially if you're coming from a different background. So if you're a scientist or someone from the arts and you've never done anything in business before, it could help you a lot to get a degree in business just to understand that world and, you know, be able to figure it out through textbooks. It's not necessarily the best learning experience, but you're going to learn a lot more than if you kind of stuck to the science and arts program about how to run a business. One thing I found really helpful about my university education— so I had a bachelor's degree from University of Toronto, I majored in finance, commerce, and economics— and the education side for running a business was not fantastic. I was already running my company at the time, and I found I learned a lot more through hands-on experience than I did from the textbooks in the class. And you'll find that in general, you'll get the best learning experience from actually hands-on training and going after what you're interested in. I don't want to suggest not going to get an education because it can also provide a great backup plan. You know, not everybody is meant to be an entrepreneur, and if it doesn't work out, you want to have something that you can fall back on and easily be able to go out and get a job. Because if you don't have a job and don't have an education, it's a lot harder to get those jobs. So it is a good backup plan, and you can also make some good connections. So you're meeting with people who might have similar mindsets to you. My first two business partners were at the same university that I was at, and we were able to form our company out of the university. So meeting, meeting them and being able to start the company was extremely helpful, and that happened through the university. So, you know, if we weren't all at the university, would it have happened? You know, maybe, maybe not, but that was a useful thing as well. So you can get connections, and if you ever end up selling to big business, a lot of the guys who are in your class are going to go get jobs, and they could be potential leads into sales that you can make with your company down the line. So I think the best experience you're going to get is the hands-on. I cut my teeth on entrepreneurship really early with my own little businesses and through programs like Junior Achievement. Where they make you start a business in elementary school. That stuff was awesome. So I still think you're going to get the most from your hands-on experience, but I don't want to say don't go to school because it's a great backup plan. If you're not from a business background, you'll be able to get some good skills that will teach you the fundamental basics about running the business, and you can also make some great connections that can help you learn more about yourself and also help you down the road as you do grow your business. Hopefully that helps. Some tough decisions for you to make. If you guys like the video, please give it a thumbs up below. It's what makes me want to do more of these for you guys. And if you have a question about this video or you have a different question about your business, feel free to leave it in the comments below and I will make a video reply for you. So thank you and we'll see you on the next episode.
