Derek Smith last week raised several important issues regarding young Bermudians' education and career planning.

Some students choose degrees based on their universities' course curricula without considering whether they will be able to pursue a career in that area in Bermuda, he said.

Then they return home, "brimming with confidence", only to have their hopes deflated.

Corporate recruiter Louisa Freisenbruch, in the same Royal Gazette story, added another key point: "A lot of companies are also starting to look at what university their applicants attended because the fact is more people are taking degrees now than ever before."

Both are right, but the debate needs to be widened, as well.

Degrees in everything from nuclear physics to mining engineering would clearly have little value in Bermuda. Any Bermudian who undertook professional training in these kinds of fields would have to do so in the knowledge that they would have few opportunities at home.

But there are dozens of subjects that Bermudians could study, especially in the liberal arts, that would not necessarily rule them out of careers in Bermuda.

That's because the skills that are taught in these areas encourage critical thinking, which should be essential to any kind of career, regardless of what it is.

And it is worth remembering that many people entering the workforce today will not only hold different jobs through their working lives, but could well change careers more than once as well.

To be sure, if people specialised in 19th Century Russian history, it is unlikely that they would be able to apply what they have learned in every day life in Bermuda.

But they would be able to apply how they learned it all the time. The ability to separate the wheat from the chaff and to decide what is really important is a skill that cannot easily be learned once a person is in the workplace, no matter how good their technical skills are.

Indeed, many university graduates must, regardless of what their degree is in, go on to attain professional qualifications beyond what is taught in university. That is true of accounting, insurance, law, commerce and so on.

What is of more importance is not what subject a person has a degree in, but where they gained their degree. This is especially true of US universities and colleges. There's a world of difference between a Harvard and, for example, a college that has an open admissions policy.

It does not mean that a person going to a third- or fourth-ranked college cannot get a good degree, but their chances are much diminished.

Nor is this an argument for expensive private colleges over state universities. There are poor private colleges and first-class state institutions.

But too often, young students choose to go to a college because friends or relatives are there or went there, instead of aspiring to a more demanding institution. And their job opportunities will be diminished as a result of a choice made more for social reasons than for academic ones.

So will Bermuda's general atmosphere. The university years are the best time to stretch the mind and to study and to be enriched by a wide range of subjects. Returning graduates can enrich the community through their overall knowledge and curiosity.

That's why guidance counsellors and the Bermuda College need to encourage students to really consider their choices carefully and to make sure that students make the right choices.