This is Pastor Tim’s article which appeared in the Evening Leader on Tuesday, May 13, 2025
This is the time of year when everybody is asking the graduating High School seniors what they are going to do after graduation. We all have heard these kids who have rehearsed answers to that question because they have to answer it so often. I am going to this school and I am going to major in some field. It sounds the same and we have heard it so much that we know the cadence of the answer.
There are a lot of factors that go into choosing what to study in college, but the funny part of this is that the only factors that any of us consider when we hear a kid go through the rehearsed answer are how much job security is there and how much does it pay? Are these the only relevant criteria to choosing the correct course of study? Is security and pay more important than finding a way to enjoy your life through the work that you choose?
I know that everyone believes that college is the end all be all of everything, but I can assure you it is not. I have a Bachelor and a Master’s degree and by far the most valuable thing I learned from all of that study is I learned how to learn.
Those schools pumped an incredible amount of information into my head and it has taken me the 2 ½ decades since I got that first college degree to realize that most of what they taught me has little to no application in the real world.
But the great skill I have today is if I want to know something, I know how to study, research, and where to look to find the answer. The most important skill I honed in my studies was the ability to figure things out, which is something I absolutely did not know how to do when I crossed the stage and got that first college degree. But after the time I spent in college, I was armed with the ability and the tools to go find out what I needed to know.
The reason this worked is because when I went for that first degree, I went into a field I loved. I love studying and learning about the Bible and through College and Seminary, I have a full arsenal of tools to continue studying and learning. Every week, I learn something about the passage I am writing a sermon about because I am still studying and learning.
I fully admit that when I graduated, I believed I knew everything I needed to know. Now I know how wrong I was because I am still learning and I am nowhere near knowing it all. I am learning from my own studies, from my interactions with people who know much more than I do about their area of expertise, and by failing often enough that I am more well versed in what does not work than what actually does. All of that started with me going to college and learning the tools needed to learn. It is my prayer that God grants me more decades full of success and failure so that I can continue to learn.
This past week, CNBC released their list of the 10 worst-paying college majors. Religious studies is on the list, which is what both of my degrees are. They posted what the average person with those degrees make when they are 45 and I am behind that average. That means of the worst paying degrees on earth, I am below the curve.
And I don’t care. I did not get that degree to get rich. I got it because God asked me to serve Him in this specific way and it is my privilege to do so. Going to college for me has turned me into a lifelong learner. I have committed myself to doing this job as long as I am learning because as soon as I stop learning anything is the moment my effectiveness will significantly drop off.
No matter if you are going to college, trade school, or if you are entering the workforce, go into it with the desire to begin learning and then never quit. Wake up in the morning looking to learn something to make you more effective at what you do. A diploma or a promotion is not an indication you have arrived, it is simply a step along the way and a sign of progress.
There is no better career you could ever have than one that you have a deep hunger to learn more about. A hunger that drives you every day to learn something more.