While degrees provide a starting point, continuous learning is more important for career success and longevity. The document outlines five tips for professionals in their careers: 1) follow your passion and persevere with high quality work while developing technical skills, which is more important than the prestige of one's college degree. 2) Broaden and continuously update competencies, including those in adjacent fields. 3) Embrace and prepare for changes and disruptions in the market. 4) Build soft skills and a professional network. 5) Never compromise ethics, as reputation takes years to build but can be destroyed quickly.

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Degrees don't matter.Learning does
By
Zubin Poonawalla
Degrees are just a starting point. Learning and Education is lifelong
and your own responsibility. Tom Peters says he is self-taught though
he has degrees in engineering from Cornell and MBA from Stanford.
We tend to give degrees more important than we should.Its continuous
learning that matters.
Having a degree from a top-tier college does not automatically mean
you will have a successful career compared to others that do not. A
career is not sprint it is a marathon.
Five things you should keep in mind as a professional preparing for this
marathon:
First, follow your passion, work really hard and persevere, never
compromising on quality of your work while you hone your technical
capability. Results will happen. Passion, determination (hunger to
succeed) and learning mindset in an individual is more important than
degrees from a top-tier college.
Second, broaden your competency areas and continuously make them
relevant for the future. Specialization is good but new competencies in
adjacent areas can help enhance fungibility and help you move into
new roles.
Three, embrace change and understand new (potentially disruptive)
trends in the markets place rather than face the effects of these later.
Eg. How prepared are you for the digital revolution as it reaches
tipping point. Do not say no to opportunities just because you do not

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have all the competencies required to succeed in the new role. Building
new competencies is an intrinsic requirement of today's world.
Four, build soft skills (Communication, interpersonal, negotiation, etc.)
as well as your own professional network within and outside your
organization, etc.). This is as important as having the strong technical
capability.
Five, do not ever compromise on business ethics . It takes years for
professional to build a reputation and it can take one incident to destroy
it all.