I’m going to put out two seemingly incompatible statements:

1. I have a Master’s Degree in Finance
2. I am not an academic person.

It wouldn’t be wrong to say that I have had a somewhat chequered past as a student. I really didn’t like school at all. While I certainly wouldn’t say that I was stupid (I’m actual pretty comfortable with my mind), I just didn’t really get school.

This culminated in what can only be called, the lowest depths of my life. I failed many of my final exams and was therefore, rejected from all my chosen universities.

Now, I think I was pretty fortunate. With the help of my parents, I was able to try again. And in the following year, I managed to retake my exams and earn a place in university the following autumn.

College Shouldn’t Have Been Any Different

Getting into college was, above all else, a cathartic experience. It was a chance to breathe and feel normal again.  However, just like the illusion of “new year new me”, I couldn’t pretend that getting into university had swept my past under a rug.

I was still the incredibly flawed and unfocused student that I was before… I just had more time on my hands.

And believe me, I told myself all the usual lies:

“I’m gonna read all the set work”

“The library is huge, I’m gonna take advantage of all the books”

“I’m gonna go to every class”

But as I mentioned before, these were simply all lies. 

So What Changed

For the first few weeks of class, my work was made up of a simply loops: 

1. Lecture about a subject
2. Read the set chapters
3. Talk about them in class

Initially, I was somewhat seduced by this routine… after all it did feel very scholarly and classical. But soon the enthusiasm wore off and it just became another routine that I half assed.

The the first piece of coursework came by. In many ways it was unremarkable; just a 1500 word paper on British political history.

But as my tutor provided the class with guidance on how to tackle the assignment, she offered a piece of advice that has always stuck with me:

“Contribute to the field”

This seemingly docile phrase completely shifted my world view when it came to academics. Until this point, I had always taken a somewhat nihilistic view towards education.

I was one of those kids that would ask: “when’s trigonometry ever gonna help me in the real world”. When you view education through this lens, it’s easy to become disenfranchised.

But this simply little nugget of information, “contribute to the field”, was enough to unlock an entirely new perspective that was once alien to me.

Education should not be solely viewed as a prescriptive experience; one where your job is to sit there and absorb information passively. 

No.

Education and academia is about proactivity.

Your job is to add a few threads to the collective tapestry that is your chosen field. 

This is fundamentally exciting.

From that moment on, for the rest of my time at University, I knew I had a certain responsibility each time I undertook a piece of coursework. There was not such thing as a random, aimless essay. Now every piece of work I did had a purpose and belonged to a context greater that itself.

After school Special

I am no longer in formal education. My experience of college was priceless, but having completed a post graduate degree, it’s clear to me that I am finished with that world.

But it doesn’t mean that the lessons I took should be forgotten. In fact I believe them to be more important than ever before. As a young professional working to make my mark, it’s more important than ever to stand out. 

As someone in the marketing profession, it has become almost painful to see what content marketing has become: unrelenting cascades of information. That in itself isn’t bad. The problem is the lack of originality.

A quick Google search on any topic will show you dozens of results for any particular topic (often much more) and I can bet that most of the results largely regurgitate the same basic talking points. This isn’t because people are less capable of producing quality content, it’s because we’ve forgotten how in today’s world of more.

So, this is my mission, in the world of ever present noise; be heard! I plan to be heard by making my mark in the subjects that I love and becoming a thought leader.

How?

Seth Godin says, “Be remarkable”.

Michael Merlino says, “ Contribute to your field”.