Profession and its Criteria

By Shy • May 5th, 2010

Every thing seems to go over changes making the world complicated. There were things not known to us, but because we were left with no answers to the questions in our minds, we then simply believe them – forced somehow to believe them. This is maybe the main reason why even though we embrace the world’s complexity, we desire to learn and improve our own understanding.

Every human being desires to go to school with the hope getting a degree in the end. From preschool to college, every human strives and do a lot of hard work just to get a diploma. It isn’t an easy job, I believe. But with a strong will and motivation anyone can get by.

For many, being educated can be a main reason for going to school. But more importantly it is for the hope and preparation as well to achieve something we all want in the future, – profession.

Webster dictionary defines profession as “an occupation or calling requiring an advance raining and expertise in some specific or specialized body of knowledge which provides service to society in that special field. In this sense, profession is contrasted with occupation, which refers generally to the nature of a person’s employment. Moreover, Profession constantly enlarges the body of knowledge it uses, and service by the use of scientific method. It entrusts the education of its practitioner to institutions of higher education. It is distinguished by the presence of specific culture, norms, and values that are common among its members.

The profession functions autonomously in the formulation of professional policy and in the control of professional activity. It attracts individuals of intellectual and personal qualities who exalt service above personal gain and who recognize their chosen profession as a life work. Furthermore, it strives to compensate its practitioners by providing freedom to act on opportunity for continuous professional growth and economic security.

Every profession has its own well defined criteria. The purpose really of these criteria’s is for the practitioner to fully grasp the meaning of each individual profession. In some sense, these criteria’s also serves as a guide for an individual profession to function in line with the criteria’s it posses.

In general, these are the criteria’s that truly defined what profession is all about, and how can we recognized the difference between a profession and an occupation.

Criteria of a Profession

A profession must satisfy an indispensable social need and must be based upon well established and socially accepted scientific principles.
It must demand adequate pre-professional and cultural training.
It must demand the possession of a body of specialized and systematized training.
It must give evidence of needed skills which the public does not possess; that is, skills which are partly inherent and partly acquired.
It must have developed a scientific technique which is the result of tested experience.
It must require the expertise of discretion and judgment as to time and manner of the performance of duty. This is in contrast to the kind of work which is subject to standardization in terms of unit performance or time element.
It must have a group of conscientiousness designed to extend scientific knowledge in technical language.
It must have sufficient self-impelling power to retain members throughout life. It must not be used as a mere stepping stone to other occupations.
It must recognize its obligations to society by insisting that its members live up to an established code of ethics.

These criteria’s may just be one of the ways to understand every profession there is. But certainly these criteria’s is equally important in deciding profession a practitioner wants to practice.

We have to remember that the term “profession” is honorific and should be carried with pride and honor.