A professional is usually designated as someone who obtained a tertiary or university degree.
A professional is someone who practices a profession (a job or job that requires formal and specialized knowledge). To become a professional, a person must complete studies (generally tertiary or university) and have a diploma or title that guarantees the knowledge acquired and the suitability to practice the profession.
For example: "Marta's grandson is a professional, I think he works as a lawyer in a law firm," "I'm going to pay for your studies so that you can become a professional, but in exchange I expect dedication and commitment from you," "The patient is in the hands of the best professionals: everything will turn out as we expect .
Beyond the title
The professional qualification is not only linked to knowledge or the qualifying title, but can also refer to commitment, ethics and excellence in the development of work or other activities. This is a relative use and lacks precision, since it does not require specific knowledge of the profession to which it refers.
Let's look at some example sentences: "Juan is a true professional who makes the company proud" , "The house turned out very nice: it looks like it was painted by a professional" , "My son Martín draws like a professional even though he is only ten years old" .
A lawyer is a professional who has a license to carry out his or her work.
Self-taught professional
Self-taught people often manage to break the barriers established by society about what the requirements are to become a professional . Although this phenomenon does not occur in all areas (it does not occur, for example, in medicine), many of those who make the decision to study on their own, without going to training centers such as faculties, conservatories or professorships, They get jobs for which a degree or diploma is usually required.
Without a doubt, the Internet plays a fundamental role in these cases, since it offers a wide variety of study tools, such as text and video tutorials , free encyclopedias and specialized sources of information, and forums to make inquiries and enrich yourself with knowledge. experience of other self-taught people. Furthermore, for those who want to train in a subject related to computing (such as programming, graphic design or audiovisual editing) there are many open source programs to base learning on practice.
It is worth mentioning that in most cases a degree is still necessary to be admitted by certain companies , so the path of independent training is not always ideal. On the other hand, if one aims to set up their own company, the freedom provided by not being linked to a formal study is very compatible, since it allows knowledge to be ration according to the needs and availability of each moment.
Economic remuneration vs. hobby
The adjective professional also refers to the activity that is carried out as a profession (in the sense that it implies financial remuneration ), and not as a hobby or pastime. This difference can be clearly seen in the case of sports . A man who plays soccer every week is not a soccer player or a professional player , since he only does it recreationally. On the other hand, someone who plays every week for money is a professional in this sport.
In this sense, even an individual with little knowledge and no skills worth highlighting can be considered a professional in a given area, while someone who dedicates long hours a day to the same field, with brilliant results and making important discoveries, but without a working relationship with a company, a mere hobbyist. This contradicts the weight that, as mentioned in previous paragraphs, the same adjective has when used to highlight a person's skill in a specific discipline .