Three Doors to Work: Jobs, Qualifications and Experience

1Before you read

1. Name five jobs that people in your family or village do. Which of them needed a certificate, a diploma or a degree?
2. Which do you think an employer values more: what you have studied or what you have done? Give one reason.
3. Has anyone ever laughed at a career you were interested in? How did you answer?

2Reading: Three Doors to Work

A report for a school magazine. The school, the speakers and their stories are imagined.

1 Every year, S3 students at our school face a choice that feels enormous: which door to walk through after the national examination. To help us, the Careers Club invited three former students back for an afternoon in the main hall. None of them is famous. All of them are employed, and each of them came through a different door.

2 The first speaker, Uwase Diane, is a solar technician. She has been installing solar home systems in villages in the Eastern Province for four years. "In S3 my marks in physics were good, but not brilliant," she told us. "My parents expected me to continue to A-level. I chose a TVET school instead, and I studied electrical installation for three years." After leaving with her certificate, she spent six months as an apprentice to an experienced electrician, carrying ladders, checking his wiring and asking endless questions. "The certificate proved that I knew the theory. The apprenticeship taught me to work safely on a real roof, in real wind, with a customer watching."

3 Next came Dr Mugisha Patrick, a veterinarian who works for a dairy cooperative. His route was the longest: A-level with biology and chemistry, then a degree in veterinary medicine at university. Before he was allowed to treat animals on his own, he completed an internship at a district veterinary office, where he learned to vaccinate cattle and to explain a diagnosis to a worried farmer in plain words. "Farmers do not care how many examinations I have passed," he said. "They care whether their cow gives milk tomorrow. A degree makes you qualified. Only experience makes you trusted."

4 The third speaker, Umutoni Grace, made the audience laugh before she made them think. She started work as a waitress during the long holiday after S6, "mainly because I wanted a phone," she admitted. The manager noticed that she was punctual, polite and patient with difficult guests, and after a year he offered her a post at the reception desk. Since then she has earned a diploma in hospitality management, studying in the evenings and at weekends, and today she supervises a team of six receptionists. "I didn't plan my career," she said. "I built it, one shift at a time."

5 During the questions, a student asked which matters more, qualifications or experience. The three speakers disagreed, politely. Diane argued that a recognised qualification is what gets you an interview. Patrick insisted that in his profession nobody may practise without one. Grace pointed out that employers also look at attitude: "A certificate shows what you have studied. Your references show what kind of person you are." In the end they agreed on one thing: the two work together. Qualifications get an application read; experience and character get the applicant hired.

6 Their last piece of advice was about respect. Diane remembered classmates who laughed at her for "choosing to climb roofs". Patrick remembered relatives who called a vet "a doctor who failed". Grace's uncle told her that hotel work was not a real career. "Every one of those people was wrong," Diane said, "but they were not bad people. They simply did not understand the job." So before you judge a friend's choice, find out what the work really involves. And before you make your own, talk to someone who already does it.

3Three routes, side by side

The report tells three stories one after another. Drawing them side by side shows what they share: every route mixes study with time spent doing the job under someone more experienced.

4Comprehension

Answer in full sentences. Questions 1 to 5 ask what the text says; 6 to 8 ask what it means; 9 asks what you think.

1. Who invited the three speakers, and why? (paragraph 1)
2. How long has Diane been working as a solar technician?
3. What did Diane learn during her apprenticeship that her certificate did not teach her?
4. Where did Patrick do his internship, and what two things did he learn there?
5. Why did Grace first take a job as a waitress?
6. Explain in your own words: "A degree makes you qualified. Only experience makes you trusted." (paragraph 3)
7. What does Grace mean by "I built it, one shift at a time"?
8. Diane says the people who laughed at her "were not bad people". What point is she making about them?
9. Which speaker's view on qualifications and experience do you agree with most? Give a reason from your own experience.

Show answersHide answers

1. The school's Careers Club invited them, to help S3 students choose what to do after the national examination.
2. For four years.
3. She learned to work safely on a real roof, in the wind, with a customer watching: practical skill, not theory.
4. At a district veterinary office. He learned to vaccinate cattle and to explain a diagnosis to a farmer in plain words.
5. Mainly because she wanted to buy a phone.
6. A degree is the official proof that you have the knowledge for the job, but people only trust you once you have shown, through practice, that you can do the work well.
7. She did not follow a plan; she advanced step by step through her daily work and good attitude, from waitress to receptionist to supervisor.
8. They were not unkind or wicked; they lacked information about the job. Their mistake came from not understanding the work, which is why she says to find out about a job before judging it.
9. Open answer. A good answer names a speaker, states the view and supports it with a reason or example.

5Vocabulary: job titles and qualifications