Most know that earning a college degree can have many benefits, the most widely touted being increased job opportunities and higher salaries over your lifetime. However, earning a college degree doesn’t just benefit you financially—it can also benefit your confidence. Below are just 5 ways that a college degree builds confidence.

You Learn Valuable Life Skills

When you approach your college education with a disciplined mindset and a desire to learn and grow from your experience both academically and personally, you start to pick up important critical thinking and problem-solving skills that will benefit you even after you have received your degree. This is because higher education requires appropriately managing your time between your studies, work, and your social life, networking with classmates and professors, meeting deadlines, and problem-solving when difficulties arise. When you hone these critical life skills, you can feel more confident as you leave college and enter the workforce.

It Refines Your Communication Skills

The college experience includes many different modes of communication. These include both written and oral between you and your professors, classmates, administration, and of course, through homework assignments.
The end goal of these communications, particularly in the classroom setting and between you and your professor, is to teach you how to communicate your ideas clearly, concisely, and professionally. Effective communication becomes especially important if you are pursuing an online program such as the increasingly popular online Master degree programs, as you lack face-to-face interactions. When you know that you are an effective and professional communicator, you can feel more confident in yourself as well as your job prospects.

It Builds Self-Confidence

Even more specifically, getting a college degree can improve your confidence in yourself. This is because not only did you succeed in getting into your chosen degree program while others were rejected, you also succeeded. Earning a college degree takes years of effort, discipline, hard work, and frequently making sacrifices. When you earn your degree, then, you prove to yourself that you have what it takes to set your mind on a task and see it through to the end, no matter how long it takes. When you have that sort of self-confidence, you can feel confident about any program you decide to take on.

You Gain Constructive Feedback

Another aspect of communication is receiving constructive feedback from your professors and tutors. While at first you may not enjoy getting feedback, especially if you find out that you did an assignment wrong, keep in mind that feedback is meant to help you improve. When you learn to accept feedback as a learning experience, you can grow more confident in your ability to improve yourself. Gracefully accepting feedback also makes you more desirable to future employers.

It Opens Doors

Lastly, a college degree helps to build confidence because you know it opens doors for you. Not only do you learn important skills that will aid you in the workforce, you also have the unique opportunity to meet and network with professionals who already work in your field. Their advice and personal recommendations can ultimately open you up to opportunities that you might not otherwise have known existed. Having had this experience you can feel more confident about yourself and your future.

As you can see, a college degree can you build confidence in a number of ways. It helps you develop important skills such as problem-solving and delegation as well as professional communication, it helps you feel more self-confident and learn to accept feedback, and it opens up doors. In the end, this confidence will positively impact every area of your life.