What does your professional degree teach you?

“What is the most important thing your engineering degree has taught you?” – is the question I have come across more than a few times. Earlier I used to be asked this question and now I have also gotten into the habit of asking the same question to others.

Something that I always say is that I am a computer engineer by education and, now, an entrepreneur by profession. Note that by an entrepreneur, I mean that I am not limiting myself to a software business. I think the primary thing my engineering degree has taught me is to be able to analyze things. And this is a skill that is relevant to almost all the businesses and not just limited to software. So I really am surprised when people are surprised to see an engineer taking up a business which has nothing to do with software. After all, the role of a smart entrepreneur is not to do everything themself – but to find smart people who can be responsible for the appropriate divisions. In the light of all this – it makes perfect sense to take up a business which makes the most sense to the person – financially, for work-satisfaction and otherwise.

And one such case of an engineer doing a non-IT business is demonstrated by one of my close buddy – Animesh. He has just started his blog at MSN spaces and I look forward to reading his experiences running a retail business.

So, if you haven’t thought about it seriously, it is a time to think “what have you learnt the most from your professional degree?”