How Can Digital Marketing Course Help College Dropouts?

Oprah, Steve Jobs, Priyanka Chopra, Aishwarya Rai, Mark Zuckerberg, and Bill Gates; these are few names which have one more something in common than Super Stardom: None of them have college degrees. Yes, you have heard it right. You will find plenty of evidence that a degree is not necessarily proof of success in this era. The degree is nothing but the certified documentation that proves we have accomplished something potential in education. However, these days people are more determined to enhance their skills instead of on paper documentation. This major factor has even encouraged top big companies to do something called Skilled Based Hiring as an alternative to hiring based on college degrees. However, higher education has always been a vital step to grasp real success and failing or dropping out of college in today’s environment sounds like something out of a horror story. It’s never an end story. Of course, it would be better to continue college, to finish your degree with flying colors, and then continue on into a career of your choice, beginning your professional goals in the best possible way. But sometimes, due to unforeseen circumstances, that is not possible, and you may end up dropping out of school or college. And for some its choice of their life. If you fall out in the same case, the first and foremost thing that you have to do is: Do not give up and explore the right path for you. You need to be obdurate and fight for your future, for your success. All you need to make the right decision and look for options those don’t stress for degrees. Being a college drop out, I understand the pain. In my early years of career, I also had a confusion related to my career like which career option could bring the best out of me, etc. After all research, I realized Digital Marketing is the only industry that doesn’t judge you with your degrees. It solely emphasized your skills, knowledge, and passion to learn something new. If you have a keen interest in social media and deep love for the internet, then this can be the ideal as well as the promising career for you for the long run. In this post, I will share how digital marketing can be your shining silver armor in your dark career. What is Digital Marketing? Where and how you can learn Digital Marketing? What can be your future prospects? And so on……..let’s read further.

But first: Who are college dropouts? Why do students drop out?

A college dropout is a person who stops going to school or college, intentionally or out of circumstances when they were previously enrolled in. Generally, dropouts can be of three types:

• The one who want to follow some other dreams like Aishwarya Rai and Priyanka Chopra. These two beauties stopped pursuing their degrees as they had a keen interest in modeling and wanted to continue the same path. They could have studied but chose to pursue some other career.   

 

• The second type of drop is the one who decides to discontinue college because can no longer benefit from the kind of education they are getting. This generally happens when one thinks that the qualities or subject they are looking for can be self-taught and they do not need college to teach them that. For example, both Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates started working on their companies while they were in college. Both were young enough to come back to school if their venture failed and born in privileged families, this allowed them the risk to fall and fail, though they didn’t need it.  

 

• The third type is someone who is forced to or somehow leave college due to unfortunate circumstances, like unavailability of money or personal problems or some, in the enthusiasm of following the trend.  This section includes Steve Jobs. Jobs faced the dilemma of choosing between discontinuing his education and impoverishing his parents. No points for guessing here, he chose the former.

 

So, What is Digital Marketing? What is Digital Marketing Course? And Why Digital Marketing?

Digital Marketing is a form of marketing which is a combination of online practices and strategies that help businesses to promote and advertise the products or services through the internet medium. It’s a set of tools and marketing practices that help to build brand reputation and create awareness. In order to gain more online traffic and customer base, digital marketing is one comes short and reliable way to stand first in the online market. As the digital marketing industry continues to grow at a rapid pace and businesses are in need of skilled digital marketer to run their businesses smoothly; even marketers are faced with new challenges and opportunities within this digital age as well. The Digital Marketing Course is an initiative designed to educate students, marketers, entrepreneurs, and professors in the area of Digital Marketing to overcome the demand of skilled marketers. Learning digital marketing is not rigid these days. However, learning through the right platform is all that matters. There are many ways and platforms to learn digital marketing. In the beginning, you can learn from YouTube videos or online available material, digital marketing books, etc. However, to learn the advanced level of digital marketing, one should always be encouraged to take offline or live sessions from reputed Digital Marketing Institutes or Training Companies to learn digital marketing rather than just surfing the internet. As it really helps to gain more in person practical knowledge than online training. One should learn the digital marketing basics under professional supervision which can be led in learning the latest digital marketing techniques which are generally used by all the digital marketing companies or agencies.

How to find the best digital marketing course/training providers especially for college dropouts?

These are the few parameters that one should look after while looking for the best digital marketing training Institute for Digital Marketing Course:

Look for the Foundation, Objective and Achievements:

Foundation, objective and achievement play a big role to decide whether the training company or institute is worth enough to give your time, money and efforts; or not. Who has laid the foundation? What are their achievements until now? How many trainees have been trained so far? How long have they been in the industry? What are their objectives for their training? Do they provide professional training? How many certifications do they provide? Do they provide extra classes when required? Do they provide placements and job assistance for getting the right job? All these questions can help you to decide what you have been looking for. It helps you to analyze how they have taken their role seriously. The digital marketing course you choose must have acknowledged as the Most Trusted Brand in the Digital Education rather than any enrolled one.

Course Duration and Training Management:

A course batch generally depends on the student’s availability which is directly proportional to course duration as well. The weekend’s batches would ask for more weeks than weekday batches. That means you can complete the same course within 2 months if you are taking weekdays batches as well as a short-term time investment rather than 4 months duration weekend course. Even though you can complete a digital marketing course in a month, but that won’t help you in the long run if you have not attempted any practical sessions and campaigns while learning. That’s why every expert recommends learning on long duration courses so that you can learn every aspect of digital marketing through various practical sessions under expert supervision and clear your doubts as well. Along with the training, management is one of the major reason behind the successful learning. An ideal trainer or training management will always try that his/her students will turn to out to be better than him/her. All the course, flexibility, and duration would give nothing if the course/institute is not blessed with the right trainer.

Job Assistance and Certifications:

Once you complete your course, you need assistance to get the right role or job for your Digital Marketing Career. It should be the foremost responsibility of any digital marketing institute to provide full assistance to students in achieving the best placement possible. There should be sessions for Interview Preparations, proper grooming sessions under expert supervision and 100% job assistance. Plus, you must be aware of how many certifications you will get after enrolling the digital marketing course. The digital marketing Institutes should provide or help you to get at least these following certifications for your better Digital Marketing Career:

• Google Adwords Certification
• Google Analytics Certification
• Shopping Advertising Certification
• Mobile Advertising Certification
• Facebook Certification
• Hubspot Academy Certification
• Bing Certifications
• Institute Certification

Opportunities for College Dropouts:

Most Top- Highly Paid Jobs without any Degree:

The demand for knowledgeable and skilled digital marketers in the online space has been on a rise across the globe. Be it USA or Singapore, Dubai or Australia, digital space has the same kind of needs and jobs. Plus this industry is not degree specific; its skill oriented. All you need to have knowledge about at least the basics and zeal to be experimental. Talking about our country – India, the skills gap due to digitalization have currently seen huge – a total of more than 180,000 jobs that with the same pace will be available in 2020, but with not enough professionals to fill each of these jobs. Therefore the demand is greater than the supply which in turn only increases everyone’s chances of being hired at good packages.

You can Choose Sector that Interests You:

Digital Marketing is a vast industry and there is a lot going on under the umbrella. You can prepare yourself for a multitude of roles in digital marketing for a wide variety of dispositions and skills. Like, you can try your hand to become content or email marketer, social media or mobile marketer, e-commerce executive, inbound marketer, an SEO or PPC executive or you can be an online PR expert. It is always great to have more to choose to make when it comes to your career.

Be a Freelancer:

A freelancer is a term generally used for a person who is the self-employed person who offers services to multiple businesses. The type of work freelancers varies from person to person specialization such as social media marketing, content writer, copywriter, graphic designer and more. Being a freelancer, you don’t need to worry about working hours; you become an independent soul and can work for multiple clients at the same time which will add up your income for sure. You can pick your own brands and companies for the same.

Be your own Boss:

One of the remarkable benefits of Digital Marketing is that you can be your own boss. As everything is getting digital, you can start your own business independently and market or advertise it on your own as per the trend. As we already know, for starting a business you don’t need to be a college pass out. All you need are the right marketing tactics and strategies. Digital Marketing is the future of marketing and learning it will make you feel more confident and one step ahead of all the other marketing strategies and tactics.

A Real College Dropout Story:

Here, I have shared a real story of one of my known college dropout – friend and colleague – Pratik Chudasama, commonly known as Digital Pratik. While having a chit-chat with him, out of curiosity I asked him few questions on “Did he regret not finishing his degree?” Read out what he said in his own words.  

About Digital Pratik: He is a 28 years old dude from Gujarat (India), 3 times, proud drop out by choice from the final year of Engineering college & a very proud owner of www.DigitalPratik.com + YouTube channel + various other online resources.

Why did you choose not to finish pursuing your college degree?

Back in 2007 I had scored 88% in Science in my 12th class and got into an Engineering college in 2007. During my college days, I was a brilliant student and used to excel with flying colors not until mid of 2009, my father got a paralysis stroke (currently in good health). Sametime, I started disliking the communication subjects in my second half of Engineering. So, I decided to took a drop and got into the Sales Profession. But, in 2010, due to family pressures, I had to go to college once again and this time as well after a couple of months, but again a drop and joined sales again. The same pressure repeated, joined college and dropped again. This time I was also learning Digital Marketing on my own without letting my family know about it. Whenever I used to get a chance to connect my laptop to an internet connection anywhere, I used to immerse myself in learning Digital Marketing (Online Marketing or Internet Marketing). Finally, in 2013, I decided not to go to college anymore. It was a tough decision indeed but worth it for me! Basically, I decided to discontinue college because I was no longer benefit from the kind of education I was getting out of my interest.

How has that decision shaped your life and career?

Ideally not having a college degree can present some roadblocks. You may miss out many opportunities to work with reputed companies or in a different country because a degree was one of the requirements for the work permit application. Also, It can cause many awkward moments in social situations as well. But to avoid being judged, I used to jump at the opportunity to bring up my digital marketing career as I always had a keen interest in the same field. For me, the decision was the best thing I could have done for myself. During my college years, random skills that I have acquired helped me to follow my own way of working and meeting positive people of the same industry. This helped me to work with amazing training companies doing a range of things from digital marketing to product development. I am no longer embarrassed and am even proud to admit I am a college dropout.

What advice would you give to those who are not sure whether they want to attend or finish college?

I would like to make it clear for everybody that I am in no way against to attend colleges and graduated through a traditional college education. I just believe to follow what your heart says. If you are not happy, then don’t force yourself. But degrees are also somewhere important. It provides a plain path and confidence to make your career. For some career paths, a degree is indispensable; for others, not so much anymore. Technology has drastically changed the world we live in and digital marketing is a complete valid example of this. Having a degree no longer gives you an automatic advantage or the same kind of security it used to be but as I have said earlier, the different industry has its own set of rules. The only advice I feel truly confident giving is: If you do decide not to pursue a college degree, you should never stop pursuing experiences, growth, and self-education as well.

Key Takeaways:

• Always believe in your dream and once you are sure what are doing is what you want to do.
• Just Do it: If you believe in it
• Figure out your passion
• Invest in your skill building
• Learn more and more
• Be experimental
• Build your own market