The older generation used to believe that higher education is the key to success and better pay. While that is still true, there have been many examples of individuals getting paid well despite only having a high school education – leading many to question: is furthering your studies still important?
The hiring poster for Gigi Coffee recently went viral on Twitter for showing the potential salary of a barista. According to the poster, a full-time barista at Gigi Coffee can earn up to RM3,300 with additional perks and benefits like medical and leave benefits and EPF, SOCSO and EIS contributions. As the job’s minimum requirement is an SPM certification, many began to compare the full-time barista role to someone who furthered their education.
One tweet from @/druglordfxdl writes, “The salary for someone with only SPM education is RM3,300. Even the starting salary for engineers is RM2,500. And you wonder why students don’t want to further their education.”. Based on a follow-up tweet, the Twitter user’s intention for the tweet was to ridicule the get-rich-quick mindset of the younger generation – but netizens still argued that it was wrong to take the information from the poster as-is.
Many pointed out that the barista role offers up to RM3,300 and is not the basic salary, meaning the employee would have to work more hours to achieve that pay level. Some – even the original tweet poster – lament that the poster may be misleading or purposely written to attract young people who only focus on the RM3,300 figure. Many netizens agree that higher education is still crucial, equating it to a long-term investment. As the tweet singled out engineers, some also noted that those in the field earn more as they gain more experience, as opposed to having a cap on their salary.
Of course, there is no shame in not furthering your education, whether out of choice or due to circumstances – but it’s assuring to hear that many netizens still understand the importance of higher education.
Source: Twitter
