If someone tells u.......?

Question

If someone told you
"just because you have a degree, it doesn't mean you know any better?" how would you interpret that and how would you handle this situation.

Details:

Let's say you just got hired and your manager who never went to college therefore never got a degree tells you the above

Answer 1

Sounds like you thought you knew all the answers in a whatever situation you were in and your superior was trying to help you understand that you needed to back off. With or without a degree, your manager got to that position with some amount of intelligence and you are the subordinate. Get over it.

Answer 2

Hmm.. it sounds to me like the manager has some kind of inferiority -- maybe undeserved -- about not having a degree.

It's not clear what the context is where he's saying this, so I'll just offer some general suggestions:

If you're making a lot of references to your college or education, perhaps try framing your repsonses in a different way. Instead of "I had a professor once who said ...." try "I've read that ...." Or instead of "I learned all about that my junior year," try simply "I'm familiar with that theory."

However, if your manager is constantly just throwing that out, without even unconscious prodding from you, then you have two courses of action.

You can talk to your manager and tell him that his comments may you uncomfortable; that you don't feel you're giving off a better-than-you attitude, and that you just want to contribute to your office. Be the bigger person and ask if there's anything specific that you've done or can change to fix the problem.

If you're not comfortable with talking directly to your manager, perhaps try speaking with your Human Resources representative. They may be able to help diffuse the situation.

Answer 3

Well a couple of things are going on, one is that this person is rather insecure and is reminding you of "your place" in the heirarchy of the company or department.

Second is that rarely when you enter the workplace does much of the didactic learning that you experienced in college actually apply to your day to day work activities, it really is a lot of "OJT" or learning what to do by being shown and actually doing it.

What WILL be helpful is for you to be humble and not try and lord it over the other person just because they have not completed a degree. Many, many persons who do not hold degrees are very much more intelligent, and competent than those that do.

Answer 4

Sounds like he is resentful of people with more education than he has. What he could mean, is there are two kinds of knowledge, that learned from a book, and that learned from the school of personal experience. Both groups dislike the other, and think that their experiences are the better ones
Neither realize that the more of each they have the more knowledge they can have. Both are good and necessary to be a well educated person.
Just give him the respect his position asks for, and defer to his judgment, when possible.And do not go around bragging about your education, it will make things worse.
He may think you are, or will be, after his job, and might succeed, since you have more education.

Answer 5

First of all, if this is coming from a collegue or a co worker, I would simply explain that true, someone with a degree does not necessarily know more than someone without. It just means that I am someone who had a plan, and I knew how to work my plan and I didn't give up before I reached my goal so EAT IT. Now if it was a boos, I would begin to look for another job because I would never want to work for someone who did not respect my accomplishments and were not openly jealous of them or just downright ignorant.

Answer 6

It all depends on the situation. If the matter under discussion is in respect of the area covered by your degree, then you most probably do know better. I would say so. I would tell them that I am not saying what I think is true, but what I know is true since I have spent a considerable amount of time studying it. It is however NEVER wise to make enemies, so try to soften it by saying: IF you know from practice that I am wrong, please show me the right way to do it etc.

a VERY wise ex-collegue of mine always said to me: IT IS NOT ALWAYS WISE TO BE RIGHT, BUT IT IS ALWAYS RIGHT TO BE WISE.

Answer 7

You can say "Its not the degree,but the the initiative of getting the degree proves that, and I got good grades throughout. Now this certainly proves that I know better".

Answer 8

It means that all the schooling you have doesn't necessarily make you smart in the way of (life) experience. Some situations can't be taught in school, and it was probably your bosses way of telling you he has more experience in whatever it was and knows better how to handle it. If my boss said that to me in a spiteful way I would be kinda mad, but let it go. If he was joking around I might say something back to him.

Answer 9

The manager is, I believe, referring to real world experiences in your particular field. Going to college shows you are "trainable", for lack of a better term, but does not prove that you know exactly what to do in a specific setting. I believe he/she was trying to say, "you need to learn more about our business". He/she could have been more tactful with their statement. I would not worry too much about it. You know what you are dealing with now. :)