Formal learning versus empirical learning: which one yields better results?

Abstract

Abstract The digital revolution that we are currently experiencing is causing a lot of young people to ask themselves if formal education is still worth it. As the digital environment exponentially evolved in the last couple of years, you can now find almost any curriculum on the internet for a fraction of the price you would pay to study it in a university, or sometimes even free or charge. Furthermore, employers all over the globe are starting to put more emphasis on the experience accumulated by the individual rather than its formal studies, encouraging young people to start working early in their lives. The present paper approached this hypothesis from two different angles: the first part of the paper was focused on individuals in their early “work-life”, more precisely millennials that graduated recently, while the second part of the paper looked at the wealthiest people on the planet, the ones indicated by Forbes Top 30. Insights about how millennials with higher education see work in relation with their formal studies were obtained using a questionnaire, their overall feedback being a positive one, against all previous expectations. Also, interesting patterns emerged from the data about the Forbes Top 30 billionaires after researching their educational backgrounds. As it turns out, financial success is not necessarily correlated with formal studies, but links between high performance / innovative individuals and previous formal studies have been found.