Career Skills (A tad bit disappointed)

Being skilled at a thing doesn't require having a degree or making money from that thing irl. If someone watched piano tutorials and diligently studied and practiced piano all day, they too could master it, even if they never played to anyone but themselves. Autodidactism is a thing. Some people do activities as a hobby. There are amazing home cooks. Having a skill or hobby shouldn't be dependent on the desire to profit from it. Some people pursue things for the sake of joy, not money or a piece of paper. You could paint with berry juice and rose petal extract isolated in a log cabin in the woods for 50 years and become an amazing painter, probably even more creative than traditionally educated ones because you'd have to come up with your own ideas and innovative ways of doing things. I play on long lifespan and a lot of my sims have hobby skills along side their regular careers. Who says my social media mogul sim can't also be great at floral arranging on the side for fun? Just to make them as gifts and decorations, not to sell or post pics of online?
Idk. I get what you're saying and I don't mean to be rude. I really hate conflict, so I am sorry if this comes off as mean in any way. I am just a huge proponent for non traditional education, and idk, just, this topic tends to hit home for me and cause me to be reactionary more than I usually am. ??

Also, not trying to be rude either I'll just say....

How things work in real life is completely irrelevant to the fact that I would like to experience a bit more balance to the skills' system in a video game.

However, on the topic you mentioned.... a trained professional will likely most often be more educated than the majority of those who learn on their own in their free time. Simply because the trained professional can't (by school practices) limit themselves to the education of just the topic they are wanting to work in.

(for me) To study business administration in University.... I had to have on my list of studies extra courses called electives. I chose History, Spanish, and Sociology. Though someone at home may be able to learn economics better than the graduate, or speak Spanish better than the graduate (justifying your point), they will need to study longer than that to achieve the equivelent of any MBA graduate. Just economics, or just Spanish, won't cut it.

To add another example. As a musician (guitar) I can go to youtube and find far too many amazing players who can very easily make me feel like I should just quit playing..... despite my over 30 years experience at fooling around with guitars.....

...... However, as a musician, i'm not limited to just guitar playing. I have spent decades learning the 9 elements of music (Melody, Harmony, Rhythm, Form, Counterpart, Tone Color, Density, Dynamics, and Texture), and read up a bit on Sound Acoustics, and Musicology. Many youtubers may be able to play the guitar better than me, but they still have a lot of studying to do before I get truly worried.

That being said, still, I wouldn't assume to be arrogant enough to walk up to a professionally trained student of the arts, thinking I could hold my own.... as i'm sure I'd be soon embarrassed by their advanced training.

Just saying.

Back to the topic at hand, I wish there was more balance in the sims 4 skill system so lazy sims couldn't achieve the same level skills as trained sims working in those career fields.

I think it might be nice if sims outside of careers gained skills at a slower rate, but I like how it's a bit of a silly game and that my sims can be skilled without being forced to monetize their talents through a career. I don't think they're lazy. They're independently wealthy, don't need salaries, and like pursuing their interests independent of a job.

I like the idea of being able to build skills without the need to monetize every little detail of the game too. Being able to have my sims stay at home (not work) and just roam the worlds collecting stuff and fishing.... that's interesting game play too.

I am just pointing out that if you decide to go the career route for a particular play-through, that it can be a bit disappointing (at least to me) that your sim won't earn any educational prestige over other sims......

..... despite having my sim work their career skills to the highest, while also taking the time to earn a university degree to enter that career. I still can't consider my sim a professional or expert in their chosen educational direction. A expert compared to which other sim? My sim could have achieved all of that skill while skipping the job market experience, and snubbing their nose at professional training from university.

When playing the sims, we almost must take the money factor out of the equation.... especially when my sim made 6,000 simoleans from to doing just 2 masterpiece paintings. If I was just wanting my sim's play-through to be about riches.... i'd just put an easel in the corner and ignore the rest of the game. Money-wise, we don't even need the rest of the game. Just paint pictures.

For me, building the skills, going through the university thing, working on the career responsibilities, etc. isn't about the money factor. It's about wanting some kind of educational experience and reward over my other sims in the household who apparently can achieve the same level of skills without the experience of career building, or professional training.

Maybe the game needs a guild system .... allowing sims to earn guild perk points if they have a degree for their chosen career.

I get what your saying OP. It might be fun to have a way to differentiate our sims skills based on if they've had some kind of higher education rather than have everyone learn them at the same rate regardless. Just some added realism. Otherwise what is the point? (Other than starting a career at a higher level than others I guess.) Not to say a sims can't naturally be good at a skill with just some practice on their own. Especially if they have the traits for it. It's just always bothered me that a sim can gain a skill just by doing something once. I liked the fact that you had to work at it a little in previous games. I like my sims to have separate skill sets unique to them, not just everyone having all the same skills because they started playing chess for a second while I wasn't paying attention or started cooking instead of grabbing leftovers when they were hungry.
Edit: Spelling

I wouldn't want them capped at level 5 if they are self-taught or capped at all for that matter. I play many, many sims that don't pursue careers and many that don't go to college also. It would put a damper on my game play if this was made standard.
Perhaps in the future there could be challenge levels or options for how people enjoy playing. I wouldn't think it would happen in this iteration but who knows? I understand there is a lack for certain types of players when it comes to things like this, but taking away gameplay that others enjoy currently isn't the answer.

I dont see skills or hobbies being tied to a profession. You can be just as skilled or more than a person who is in a career of that interest. Plenty of well-skilled people w/o a career or secular education in it.

big disagree because fishing chef could still be hidden secret master chef and having job doesnt mean you are good at it

+ i like my sims to have boring jobs and awesome hobbies and id hate to give them all fancy jobs just to skill them up

like for example one might work as business man but be absolutely awesome at singing

or perhaps theres a gardener who is really great at chess

its not like everyone chooses job based on skill set even in real life

I love that we have cheats, so if I want someone to have no skill at something, I can make it so.

Skilling my sims is a huge part of my game. I love working on skills, time spent when I'm NOT, is in my opinion wasteful. If a sim is low on fun, he better be doing something useful to get that need up, not just play a game on his phone or PC. I wouldn't like to have to switch jobs (or even GET my sims a job) just to work on spesific skills. I'd like it even less if I had to run my sims through University for the skills too.

I understand what you mean, I totally get it. Still absolutely hope this will never happen, though.