In this blog, I share thoughts written by Shaun Smith, a recent University of Windsor graduate, on the differences between a university degree and a university education. It is inciteful and will likely result in some important reflections being made on the university student experience.

-Clayton Smith

Six years ago I sat in a large classroom surrounded by other recently-graduated high school students entering my program and listened to one presenter after another speak a variation of the same thing, “I wish I’d gotten involved sooner.” These presenters themselves were older students, about to leave university and go on either into the workforce or further education, and at the time, I couldn’t fully comprehend what exactly it was that they were attempting to say. One completed undergraduate degree later, when I was working with incoming high school students myself, I found myself telling them the same thing I had been told when I was in their position.

What these presenters by and large were saying as a collective was that they felt as though they had missed out on certain aspects of university life early in their time on campus. That their hesitation to reach back when the opportunities reached out had cost them in various personal, academic, and professional ways. It was only later, in their third or fourth years, did they fully take advantage of these opportunities. 

Despite the advice of the presenters, my time in university began to play out in a very similar way. I was a commuter student, whose first-year mandatory classes were organized by my faculty to be in convenient windows of time (e.g. 8:30 AM-1 PM), which meant that outside of these windows, I perceived there to be little reason why I should remain on campus. Certainly, my fellow students also felt this way, as our faculty building was virtually deserted after 3 PM every day, when the final class had ended. As a true commuter student, I went to campus for class, and left as soon as I could. That pretty accurately describes the first two years of my undergraduate, I even studied at home, or with one or two of my classmates off-campus.

Said differently, I was in the process of earning a university degree. My grades were good, and I had worked hard enough in my second year that my name showed up on the Dean’s List for the first time. By any academic measure, I was well on track to graduation.

In third-year, however, something changed. Although I had a reasonably positive and fulfilling social life (primarily off-campus), the decision was made to make more of an effort on campus as well. I had always played intramural sports, but now I found myself hanging out with the people I knew there outside of the gym or soccer pitch, which opened up an entire community to me (who wound up becoming an incredible source of social support for me during the COVID-19 pandemic). I had always done due diligence in my classes, but when a professor asked if any of us were interested in competing in a case competition at another university, this time I thought, “why not?” instead of “that’s not for me.” Instead of leaving campus when my classes were completed, I began to actively look for things to do, which resulted in me doing everything from judging academic debates to participating in mental health initiatives for faculties that were not even my own. I went to buildings on campus I never had before through electives that I found genuinely fascinating, and unlike my first two years, actually made an effort to be a part of those groups instead of dipping upon the conclusion of the class. This, for the first time, actually opened up the entire university to me as opposed to just my own department.

I could go on, but for the sake of brevity, will instead summarize by saying that this was every day. My university experience went from a primarily class-based academically grounded experience to a socially diverse and entirely unpredictable day-to-day experience with people I perhaps had just met that morning, doing activities that the previous version of myself could not have possibly seen himself participating in.

Perhaps this sounds stressful. Perhaps it seems as though my academics would suffer, that this spontaneity where I departed my home every morning having no idea how the day would play out could only create harm towards the goal that every student has when they first come to university: the degree.

The complete opposite was true.    

I became significantly happier. My grades skyrocketed. I went from being an above-average student to one of the best in my faculty. I made friends from every corner of campus, and because of the international nature of the university, every corner of the world. My professors not only learned my name, but began offering research opportunities and academic-related guidance that had always been there, but I hadn’t previously had the gumption to take advantage of. For the first time, I realized what those senior students had been trying to convey – that there is a significant difference between a university degree and a university education.

A university degree is something we all know. It’s a piece of paper that signifies that an individual has undergone an accepted curriculum and passed. But that’s all it is.

University education is something else entirely. Yes, it is everything that happens inside of the classroom, but more importantly, it’s everything that happens outside said classroom.

When I graduated from university, I had a collection of skills that I had learned there, but the vast majority of them I obtained from the education, not from the degree. The university degree taught me important skills: work ethic, consistency, specialized knowledge, and showing up. The university education taught me everything else.

When I took part in the “real world” this collection of skills proved invaluable. Interpersonal dynamics in particular have played a strong role, and the social environment of a diverse campus is the perfect place to cultivate such a skill. Of course, there are skills beyond that that has drastically improved everything from my overall adaptability in both professional and personal situations. Everything from my public speaking to my comfortability with challenging my own worldview has its root in my university education.

If this is still somewhat unclear, refer to the age-old conflict between intelligence and wisdom. If intelligence is the presence of knowledge, and wisdom is the ability to apply it, the university degree is the presence of knowledge in an individual, and the university education is the skills from which one can apply that knowledge most effectively.

Even as a student I became aware of all this. The question following my third year was how to maximize this education while I still was in the opportunity-laden university environment. For me, it resulted in my going on a student exchange to Belgium (something that I in my first-year would have been both impressed and terrified by) for my final undergraduate year. To say that it was stepping outside of my comfort zone is the understatement of the century, but it certainly maximized the university education aspect, and I look back on years three and four as the best of my life…so far.

Fast-forwarding to the current day, as I apply for positions and look to start what I hope is a long and successful professional career, I am often relying on my university education, and my prospective employers are too. No HR or management person has cared one bit what my GPA was, in fact, I’ve never been asked. However, they care very strongly about one’s ability to solve their problems, and very rarely is that solution specialized knowledge. It is instead one’s ability to problem solve complex and ever-evolving challenges and to be able to do so as part of some type of team.

My university degree prepared me only in part for that. My university education absolutely finished the job.

-Shaun Smith