If after college people still ask this kind of question, then our education especially higher education has failed us. After college, you should always try to implement your skills in the real world, yes by working. There's no point to be an expert in your school and getting trolled in the real world. From my experience, the sooner you get your hands dirty, the faster your progression in the real world. Also, it's easier to get employed if you have lesser education since the "overqualified" problem is real. Employers will be hesitant to accept highly educated people since (1) they usually demand higher salaries and (2) still have no practical skills. In other words, garbage
It didn't disappoint. It is what it is, only the dynamics of changing the world has changed.
Now I will explain, from my point of view, what the problem is. In a very simple example.
I received my first higher education, from 1990 to 1995. Real time systems software engineer. The theory was taught, at that time - from the 2nd to the 5th year of the institute. To be honest, at that time, the development of the market and technologies more or less coincided with the OBJECTIVITY of the knowledge provided. Taking into account a small lag associated with objective reasons, teachers themselves need to update their knowledge, prepare training materials, prepare the material and technical base, ...
Now, approximately from 2000-2005, the development of, at least technologies, has gained such speed that the above scheme, with the classical construction of training, began to stupidly lag behind, and strongly, noticeably and with an increase in the lag .... In the west, this process is organized a little differently (I did an internship and training in the USA, I know from personal experience). There is mentoring, there is involvement of external specialists, there is a strong connection between high-tech companies, market leaders, and educational institutions (this is a separate issue). Therefore, apart from the countries that occupy the leading positions in adaptive higher education or "upskilling", the gap is becoming more and more felt in the rest. The gap between reality and knowledge. You came to an institution to study, you come out not stupid, but ... your knowledge is 50% no longer relevant and not in demand ... Yes, there is such a problem. But who wants to learn and gain knowledge, will find how and where!