Opinion | Forget degrees - the university experience is what matters

There is a common and tenacious misconception that employers care about university degrees. This idea seems to be especially prevalent in Hong Kong.

But it is largely balderdash, and the time has come to set the record straight as new students are just settling into their first month at university and need to know how their degrees are likely to be viewed by prospective employers.

Don't get me wrong, going to university is a definite plus but the courses students follow are rarely the biggest issue when it comes to getting a job.

I know this because as an employer I am not much bothered by what job candidates have studied, I am far more interested in how their learning experience shaped their ways of thinking.

Meanwhile, when I was an employee I cannot think of a single occasion when an employer asked me about my university course; aside from one misguided moment when I applied to work for an international bureaucracy.

There are, of course some professions, such as law and medicine, which require specific qualifications offered by universities. Moreover some subjects, like engineering, also fulfil certain job requirements but academic courses tend not to be vocation specific.