Topic 16 Do More Certificates Stand for Better?

This is the very hot season for the college graduates to hunt jobs in the market. You may see a lot of graduates holding a variety of certificates indicating their versatile skills. Every college student knows that ability is important. They would like to attend various training programs and apply for different certificates so that they are more competent.

However, can attending training programs and getting more certificates improve competence? As far as I am concerned, the certificates do not really mean competence. First of all, the certificates are simply several pieces of papers proving that you have attended some training programs. Whether you are competent or not really depends upon your cleverness and experience. For example, many English majors have passed the TEM-8, an English test specific for the language students. Does that mean your English is perfect once getting such a certificate? Not exactly. The fact is you may find, more often than not, that many students speak broken English and write poor English. The reason is that they may assume that a certificate can prove their English is very good. So they stop their daily exercises and training and rest on the satisfaction of getting their certificates.

Secondly, the ability must be obtained through hard work and long practice. The students should attach more importance to obtaining the ability rather than getting the certificates. The social practices help them make the book knowledge become their own. The certificates should stimulate them to study hard and become more excellent and competent. As for the recruiting companies, they prefer the students who can put their book knowledge into daily use, which is far more practical than the certificates. Finally, the students should try to make themselves more marketable. They need to give up the unrealistic assumption and realize the true fact.

To sum up, the certificates do not really mean competence. What we need to do is integrate the certificates with the development of our competence. The two should go hand in hand to make us capable persons.