Higher Education: Levels and Importance

Education is an important part of life, it can be considered as a stepping stone towards building a career for an individual. The basic educational steps are primary education, secondary education, and higher secondary education. These are the basic necessary levels of education to be able to get at least a government job in today’s job market. After this level comes higher education. There are various levels of higher education too such as an associate’s degree, bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, and doctoral certification.

AIMS Institutes (Acharya Institute of Management and Science) is among one of the top universities in India that provide higher education in all disciplines. They offer state of the art facilities for bachelor’s and master’s degree in technology and management. Students who want to pursue higher education are required to have at least a 10+2 or equivalent education. This is to make sure that they have some introduction to the concepts that they will be about to learn in a degree course and hence not end up feeling lost during the classes.

The most sought after degree course is the engineering Bachelor’s degree. This course is in high demand as an engineer with a good GPA and a good internship experience will be getting really good job opportunities from major companies. Bangalore is considered the Silicon Valley of India and as a result of this was the development of a lot of B.Tech Colleges in Bangalore. B.Tech colleges are the universities/colleges that offer a Bachelor’s course in subject branches related to Technology or Engineering. These colleges are resourced to generate ethical and hardworking engineers that will be concerned with developing technology and the ease of mankind’s day to day activities as a top priority.

Levels of higher education (In Detail):

There are four levels of higher education, as shown in the below table

Universities offer a variety of courses in the above-mentioned degree levels. Students can consider the career path and their goals into account while deciding which degree level they would like to complete their studies. Some Master’s and Doctoral programs do not have an upper age limit and hence students can consider applying for these programs after they gain some work experience as is the case with people taking up MBA programs.

Associate’s Degree:

An associate’s degree will open the doors to some job opportunities. Students can apply for this program if they consider entry-level jobs such as assistant positions, etc. These two-year programs provide students with the skills and training required for entry-level positions. These degrees are usually offered in community colleges and technical schools. The most common associate degrees are

• Associate of Arts
• Associate of Science
• Associate of Applied Science

Bachelor’s Degree:

This degree is considered an undergraduate degree. A lot of the population prefer applying for an undergraduate degree in the career field they are interested in. Some of the most popular undergraduate degrees are:

• B.Tech or B.E. Degrees (Bachelor of Technology or Bachelor of Engineering)
• B.Sc Degree (Bachelor of Science)
• B.Com Degree (Bachelor of Commerce)
• B.B.A. (Bachelor of Business Administration)

The usual course duration of these degrees is either three or four years. Students are required to pick a major field of study during the degree course and this will be deciding their career path. Graduates holding this degree usually get into entry-level or management-level positions depending on the career discipline and the company. Most of the graduates from the B.Tech Colleges in Bangalore are offered entry-level positions because of the saturation of engineers with a B.Tech degree in the job market in the Indian Subcontinent.

Master’s Degree:

These are graduate programs that require having a bachelor’s degree as a minimum level of qualification. This program allows students to choose a specialization in their field of interest. These programs usually take two years whereas some integrated courses will be completed in a duration of one year. If a student has to join a master’s degree program, he/she is required to have a minimum GPA score and qualify a graduate entrance examination. And usually, by the end of a master’s program, the candidate is required to submit a thesis or a project that will be criticized by the professors and lecturers of the university or college and also published in a journal of high importance in the particular community. Some common Master’s programs offered in top universities (for example AIMS Institutes) are:

• Master’s in Science (M.S)
• Master’s in Technology (M.Tech)
• Master’s in Business Administration (MBA)

Doctoral Programs:

These are considered the highest levels of degree programs that can be offered by a university or a college. Usually, admission to a doctoral degree program requires that the candidate holds a master’s degree but some universities do allow candidates to pursue a doctoral degree with just having a bachelor’s degree. Some university-level selection processes might include entrance tests and eligibility tests to ensure that the candidate is competent enough to pursue the doctoral program. Completing a doctoral program usually requires a candidate to submit a dissertation that would require several years to complete. Or it might require that a candidate be involved in a major research project. Doctoral programs for students of medicine would require them to put in clinical hours along with the dissertation or research project. Graduates of this program are qualified to work as professionals in their field of specialization or research and are going to be reputed all over the world depending on the projects that they would be involved in. Some common Doctoral programs are:

• Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
• Doctor of Medicine (M.D)
• Doctor of Science of Law (L.Sc.D)