College is a Waste of Time

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Winnow
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College is a Waste of Time

Post by Winnow »

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/06/03/s ... 1&iref=NS1
Editor's note: Dale J. Stephens is a 19-year-old entrepreneur leading UnCollege, a social movement supporting self-directed higher education and building RadMatter, a platform to demonstrate talent. He is among the first recipients of the Thiel Fellowship, an initiative by venture capitalist and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel that gives 20 entrepreneurs under 20 years old $100,000 to fund their projects.



(CNN) -- I have been awarded a golden ticket to the heart of Silicon Valley: the Thiel Fellowship. The catch? For two years, I cannot be enrolled as a full-time student at an academic institution. For me, that's not an issue; I believe higher education is broken.

I left college two months ago because it rewards conformity rather than independence, competition rather than collaboration, regurgitation rather than learning and theory rather than application. Our creativity, innovation and curiosity are schooled out of us.

Failure is punished instead of seen as a learning opportunity. We think of college as a stepping-stone to success rather than a means to gain knowledge. College fails to empower us with the skills necessary to become productive members of today's global entrepreneurial economy.

College is expensive. The College Board Policy Center found that the cost of public university tuition is about 3.6 times higher today than it was 30 years ago, adjusted for inflation. In the book "Academically Adrift," sociology professors Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa say that 36% of college graduates showed no improvement in critical thinking, complex reasoning or writing after four years of college. Student loan debt in the United States, unforgivable in the case of bankruptcy, outpaced credit card debt in 2010 and will top $1 trillion in 2011.
Is college worth it?

Fortunately there are productive alternatives to college. Becoming the next Mark Zuckerberg or mastering the phrase "Would you like fries with that?" are not the only options.

The success of people who never completed or attended college makes us question whether what we need to learn is taught in school. Learning by doing -- in life, not classrooms -- is the best way to turn constant iteration into true innovation. We can be productive members of society without submitting to academic or corporate institutions. We are the disruptive generation creating the "free agent economy" built by entrepreneurs, creatives, consultants and small businesses envisioned by Daniel Pink in his book, "A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future."

Opinion: Why liberal arts matter

We must encourage young people to consider paths outside college. That's why I'm leading UnCollege: a social movement empowering individuals to take their education beyond the classroom. Imagine if millions of my peers copying their professors' words verbatim started problem-solving in the real world. Imagine if we started our own companies, our own projects and our own organizations. Imagine if we went back to learning as practiced in French salons, gathering to discuss, challenge and support each other in improving the human condition.

A major function of college is to signal to potential employers that one is qualified to work. The Internet is replacing this signaling function. Employers are recruiting on LinkedIn, Facebook, StackOverflow and Behance. People are hiring on Twitter, selling their skills on Google, and creating personal portfolios to showcase their talent. Because we can document our accomplishments, and have them socially validated with tools such as LinkedIn Recommendations, we can turn experiences into opportunity. As more and more people graduate from college, employers are unable to discriminate among job seekers based on a college degree and can instead hire employees based on their talents.

Of course, some people want a formal education. I do not think everyone should leave college, but I challenge my peers to consider the opportunity cost of going to class. If you want to be a doctor, going to medical school is a wise choice. I do not recommend keeping cadavers in your garage. On the other hand, what else could you do during your next 50-minute class? How many e-mails could you answer? How many lines of code could you write?

Some might argue that college dropouts will sit in their parents' basements playing Halo 2, doing Jell-O shots and smoking pot. These are valid but irrelevant concerns, for the people who indulge in drugs and alcohol do so before, during and after college. It's not a question of authorities; it's a question of priorities. We who take our education outside and beyond the classroom understand how actions build a better world. We will change the world regardless of the letters after our names.
For the most part, a college education today is pathetic. It's a monstrous money pit. You pay way too much and learn too little getting that piece of paper. On top of that, some people flat out lose their grip when they go to college and start fighting for the lamest causes until they finish up school and then, thankfully, busy themselves instead on paying their loans off.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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I agree wholeheartedly. College to me was a giant time and money sink where I learned almost nothing to help me in my career. I have mentioned before that I dropped out of college with only 1 more class needed for my degree, which I failed on purpose. It was frustrating having an obvious bigot teaching a class called Human Communication. I'm glad that I worked and paid my way through instead of getting loans because I see now the multitude of people who have to pay their loans back but cannot find jobs in the fields they studied. The bottom line remains that I am a successful hard working man and my career has nothing to do with my time spent in college classrooms. Even at that time I did not care about the piece of paper that would validate my education. My major was philosophy and philosophical thought is what I took away, and although I am grateful for that, I did not need a university for that knowledge.

If I had to do it all over again, I would skip college entirely.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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Assuming you're smart enough to take classes that advance whatever your goal in life might be, I see college as a shortcut. How to write, English, etc.. what most see as time wasters are pretty valuable in most fields. Advanced math is almost mandatory for anything technical, assuming you want to pursue it at higher levels.

Grunts of many sorts, including code monkeys are a dime a dozen and no, you don't need a degree for that. Your competition in India or Poland will have one though. If you want be the one driving the train having a degree can make that happen sooner.

Almost everyplace requires a degree or experience to even get a foot in the door past HR, no degree, no chance.

I don't have a degree, have enough credits to get one once I pay my "liberal arts dues" someplace, never bothered to do so.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

Post by Vetiria »

There's software to do any kind of math you need. I had to take two classes in strength of materials at UofI. It was all calculus and differential equations based. What do you do in the real world? You draw the solid model and the computer does all that math for you.

The only thing I got out of college was that piece of paper that got me my job.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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Vetiria wrote:There's software to do any kind of math you need.
Not defending "how" we educate, I'd agree it's maybe 75% waste in some cases for performing task_a.

Some of the former soviet systems produced brilliant guys, but the education was sometimes so closely focused to make them useless outside of a small specialty area.

In security and RF performance optimization the sharpest guys I know have Masters+ in statistics, physics, etc.. I'd been working in IT related areas for maybe 10 years before I ever met anyone with a directly related degree.

For the part of you post I quoted - I work in an R&D\Tools creation group, the problems we're usually asked to solved generally use existing libraries, the knowledge to modify and implement to do something new takes math\logic skills that you don't just "pick up along the way".

Someone has to create the toys others use to create further value, the company\country that does that the best & most creatively, wins.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

Post by Boogahz »

Aabidano wrote:Some of the former soviet systems produced brilliant guys, but the education was sometimes so closely focused to make them useless outside of a small specialty area.
I had a friend in college that was here on an exchange program. His degrees were insane, but they were all focused on the work he performed in East German nuclear plants until shortly after reunification. No real "training" outside of particular plants. I still have a copy of his resume at the time, but it is buried in a closet. I can't remember why the heck I had a copy to begin with, hehe.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

Post by Vetiria »

Aabidano wrote:Someone has to create the toys others use to create further value, the company\country that does that the best & most creatively, wins.
Definitely agree with you on that, and there are certain things you need to know how to do before you can use the software, like statistics. I just think our higher education system is too focused on theory and not enough on real world applications, at least as far as engineering degrees go.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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I have a management degree from one of the best public universities in the country. I went through the honors program. I have no fucking idea how to manage people. I learned how to read balance sheets, do statistical analysis, balance budgets, but not a single minute was spent teaching how to supervise, empathize, inspire, discipline, or lead.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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masteen wrote:I have a management degree from one of the best public universities in the country. I went through the honors program. I have no fucking idea how to manage people. I learned how to read balance sheets, do statistical analysis, balance budgets, but not a single minute was spent teaching how to supervise, empathize, inspire, discipline, or lead.
We got a new bungee-boss (vp level) a while back, he wasn't a newb, he'd been out and about in the industry for ~12 years. Five minutes into he first time he spoke to us I knew he was an MBA, he would screw things up for a while and then bounce out with his parachute. Leaving us to clean up, again. Guess what happened?

You've got to be willing to sell what the customer wants, not always what you want to sell them.

There's nothing wrong with a management degree, gives you the basics for running a business. The problem comes in when you've got someone from a big name program that's assumed to be an expert, and proceeds to trash your long term business for short term gain (rinse & repeat), just as he was taught to as that's what makes the (US) market happy.

Have I mentioned I'm glad I don't work for a US owned company?

You learn to manage people in part by imitation, the rest you pick up by managing people. I ran some fairly large operations in the military at various times. Basically you just "grab 'hold of your man parts and jump" as someone said (Bulevine?). I don't have the theoretical side, wish I did.
Vetiria wrote:I just think our higher education system is too focused on theory and not enough on real world applications, at least as far as engineering degrees go.
An apprentice- or journeyman-like program as I've heard the Germans have would be good.

Something internship-ish could foot the bill too I suppose.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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I have a great internship as a Jr. Network Engineer at a financial company. It's awesome - I get paid, my team is great, I've gotten to travel some, I get swag all the time... The best part is that I get to learn on real equipment, and from some of the best minds in the industry. If things continue at this pace, I will be (gladly) working here for a long time to come.

Oh yeah, I don't have a degree. I did something similar to Xyun - left college once I knew it was pointless.

If I had known then what I know now... I would have 5 certs by now and no thought of ever going to college.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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Leonaerd wrote:I have a great internship as a Jr. Network Engineer at a financial company. It's awesome - I get paid, my team is great, I've gotten to travel some, I get swag all the time... The best part is that I get to learn on real equipment, and from some of the best minds in the industry. If things continue at this pace, I will be (gladly) working here for a long time to come.

Oh yeah, I don't have a degree. I did something similar to Xyun - left college once I knew it was pointless.

If I had known then what I know now... I would have 5 certs by now and no thought of ever going to college.

That is a helluva opportunity, considering it is likely very difficult to find a shop that would take on an intern at an engineering level (at least in technology). I bailed college due to money...ended up taking a part time job building servers, running 50-pair and ISDN lines, as well as general network setup--switches to PCs and all in between. It was a great stepping stone to where I am today (as a 13-year DBA).

So, college can be worthwhile, sure! It really depends on what you are studying, and if you get lucky enough to find meaningful employment after school is over. At least in technology, folks want experience, savvy and the ability to perform at the highest level under pressure. A good interview can help out a ton, but I can't recall ever hiring someone due to having or not having a degree! Same goes for certs (to a certain degree).
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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Taking the first stab at my CCNA today. Wish me luck!
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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I learned how to manage and lead in Everquest and WoW! I'm not shitting you. The time I spent running Ixtlan in both games really helped me learn how to organize and deal with lots of people simultaneously. During that time I also ran an illegal poker game at my house which taught me most of what I know about poker. I combined the two and now I am a supervisor of a poker room with over a hundred employees. My shifts consist of 50+ employees and 300+ customers on any given day. Fuck college.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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Being in CT taught me that I could be a great politician. Lie, cheat, steal, and steamroll to the top! I could still use some oil cronies though.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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College is a great place to get laid.

I have a degree in History (ancient to medival) and have minors in Computers, Philosophy, Psych, and Communications. I'm a computer guy by trade now. All the other classes I took taught me more about how to deal with situations. I suppose my main goal for college was to find a wife. Mission accomplished.

Granted I had a lot of money in grants as well as loans so my 7 years(yes 7 and I am not a doctor) wasn't as expensive for me as it would be for someone else. I totally miss being in college though. Life long friendships are created there.

All that said, my daughter is going to a tech school!
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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Kilmoll the Sexy wrote:Being in CT taught me that I could be a great politician. Lie, cheat, steal, and steamroll to the top! I could still use some oil cronies though.

Too true! :P
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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Maybe that's my problem... I graduated too quickly. I should have changed majors more.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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I agree. All the general courses you have to take for a particular degree are generally a waste of time and money. Especially money.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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I will agree on that. While I enjoyed Golf I and Softball I (mostly because I met hot dumb girls), I agree that there are a lot of fucking time waste classes, many of which exist to allow jocks to pass as "student-athletes." I could go off on a side rant about how stupid it is that no major NCAA institutions offer a sports management track geared not for business majors, but the jocks themselves.

But I do think that college should still entail the basics of the "classical" education. Everyone should take some introductory psychology, sociology, finance, philosophy, logic, biology, language, and/or writing at the collegiate level. We should not strive to produce automatons.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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skipping college is for pussies. skip high school.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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Kilmoll the Sexy wrote:Being in CT taught me that I could be a great politician. Lie, cheat, steal, and steamroll to the top! I could still use some oil cronies though.
Fuck that made me laugh :lol:
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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masteen wrote:I could go off on a side rant about how stupid it is that no major NCAA institutions offer a sports management track geared not for business majors, but the jocks themselves.
Separate-ish topic - Or that the grad rate for "student-athletes" is dismal. Schools make literally billions off them, many punting 75% out the door after 4 years with no degree or future prospects.

Yes it's the dumb-ass students' fault in the end, quite slimy on the schools' part as well as they know, profit and do nothing about it.

Of the couple percent that manage to go pro after 4 years, most don't last a season.

Kid I grew up with, now a janitor at the high school in my hometown did 4 years college, no degree and played half a season for the Broncos. He gets paid pretty well as a janitor 20 years in, it's a rich town. One of our managers in St. Paul played a season for the Eagles and washed out, he's got an EE and does pretty well.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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Are you saying that there is only a 25% grad rate among student athletes? Where the heck do you get that number? That is closer to the number that do NOT graduate, which is still lower than non-athlete grad rates. Grad rates for NCAA student-athletes have been higher than non-NCAA student-athletes AND general student bodies for years.

Here is just one of many articless available:
http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/pub ... s+measured

Student-athletes have their academic performance measured regularly throughout the year to qualify for team activities, including games. For some, this is just the extra push they may need to ensure that they do graduate.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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Boogahz wrote:Are you saying that there is only a 25% grad rate among student athletes? Where the heck do you get that number? That is closer to the number that do NOT graduate, which is still lower than non-athlete grad rates. Grad rates for NCAA student-athletes have been higher than non-NCAA student-athletes AND general student bodies for years.

Here is just one of many articless available:
http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/pub ... s+measured

Student-athletes have their academic performance measured regularly throughout the year to qualify for team activities, including games. For some, this is just the extra push they may need to ensure that they do graduate.
Heard it on the radio a few weeks ago, I was recalling a specific school fom the looks of it. Still pretty dismal.
Among the No. 1 seeds, Duke has a 92 percent graduation success rate, followed by Kansas (73 percent), Syracuse (55 percent) and Kentucky (31 percent).

A dozen teams graduated less than 40 percent of their players. At the bottom of the list is the University of Maryland, which only graduated 8 percent of its student players. The next lowest was California with a 20 percent graduation rate.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/campus ... er_gr.html

Reading elsewhere the way the NCAA counts, as long as a student "leaves in good standing" they count it as a win which skews the count.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

Post by Boogahz »

"leaves in good standing" typically is someone that transferred to another institution. It isn't that it counts as a win, but it is that they end up not being counted by some division 2 schools at ALL.

Either way, the schools are getting a higher percentage of student-athletes to graduate than non student-athletes.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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Boogahz wrote:"leaves in good standing" typically is someone that transferred to another institution. It isn't that it counts as a win, but it is that they end up not being counted by some division 2 schools at ALL.

Either way, the schools are getting a higher percentage of student-athletes to graduate than non student-athletes.
If we assume that's correct, the next question becomes is it really some sports based motivational factor or the universities themselves that account for them graduating.

There *are* sports people that are top 10% in intelligence as well, but the great majority of them sound like they'd have trouble arguing successfully against a smart 5th grader.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

Post by Boogahz »

Both! There are obviously institutions that don't have staff that take care of student athletes, but the added focus on having to remain eligible is an added incentive for people who want to participate in team activities.

I had to tutor one of my teammates in math. He would talk about how little his high school cared about whether or not he graduated in NYC. He ended up only being able to go into the junior college system to get to an academic level good enough to play d1 ball. My coach in high school was all over us and our grades, and our juco coach followed our progress even more. He ended up getting his associates and moving on to....Wyoming I think.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

Post by Tyek »

I went to school as an Athlete, got hurt, worked during the offseason and preseason and was taking a business management and marketing degree. I got the opportunity to get a professional job about my junior year, got married had a kid and was doing so well at work they asked me to go to Vegas 3 days a week. I never graduated. I do know that the courses they taught were geared towards retail companies like Proctor and Gamble, Walmart, etc...which is funny because many of the sales and marketing jobs out there are actually company to company sales, not consumer sales. I hope they have changed that process because little to nothing I learned was applicable to my current job. I also found it funny that my Freshmen year I was developing these detailed amazing marketing plans. My sophomore year I was a marketing manager for a industry paper and I remember listening to the other marketing plans and thinking..."how big is their budget, I might have 1 or 2k to spend."

Do not get me wrong, my wife went back to school at about 30 and became an RN, she also says she was a better student. Her first run in college, where we met, she was boy crazy and wanting to party. At 30 she wanted to study and learn, and she now makes a great living. I just realize looking back that college would have added little to my income or success. I make a 6 figure income, am well respected and get job offers all the time. I do wish I would have taken electrical engineering instead which is far more appropriate to what I do. The kids we have hired recently scare me, very intelligent and lazy as hell.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

Post by Winnow »

Tyek wrote:Do not get me wrong, my wife went back to school at about 30 and became an RN, she also says she was a better student. Her first run in college, where we met, she was boy crazy and wanting to party. At 30 she wanted to study and learn, and she now makes a great living. I just realize looking back that college would have added little to my income or success. I make a 6 figure income, am well respected and get job offers all the time.

Now that I agree with. Most people aren't ready for college at 17/18. I entered college at 17 and was not ready to make a career decision. I had no idea what I wanted to do. I checked the list for average starting pay for degrees coming out of college and picked the highest one but really had no idea what I wanted beside beer.

I had a hell of a great time in college but I also think it would have been better to take 4 or 5 years off and work/travel or something until more of a focus was established. I lead the traditional college (party) lifestyle but I think that's becoming less and less common these days which gives even less of a reason to go to college early for "the experience"

Unless you know what you want to do and are focused, I'd say starting college around your mid 20's or later is a good idea. Those prime years are fleeting. There's plenty of time in your 30's and 40's to get tied down with responsibility. (I know, I know...some people had no parents and were fucked by priests as kids. I'm addressing people that come from semi normal families in this scenario)
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

Post by Leonaerd »

Completely agree. Nobody tells you that taking a few years off isn't the end of the world.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

Post by masteen »

What sucks is that for those of us who weren't trust fund babbys, scholarship offers require immediate enrollment. Which means there's a lot of additional pressure not to leave that money on the table to "fuck off for a year" as my mom so lovingly put it.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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Leonaerd wrote:Completely agree. Nobody tells you that taking a few years off isn't the end of the world.
Compulsory military service would fit the bill!

Those I know who took a few years off after HS didn't get back into it until their late 20s, if ever. Likely for the best really. As Masteen says, not a viable option for folks w\ scholarships.

Falls back to the "what would you tell a 16 year old you, that you'd be able to hear?" topic.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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Aabidano wrote:Falls back to the "what would you tell a 16 year old you, that you'd be able to hear?" topic.
I'd say "You don't know who you will be 5 years from now."
and "stay the hell away from student loans."
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

Post by masteen »

Aabidano wrote:Falls back to the "what would you tell a 16 year old you, that you'd be able to hear?" topic.
Tell Mom to blow it out her ass. Take the savings from the job you've been working since you were 13 and go see Europe for a few years. You will never have that chance again.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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Youth is wasted on the young. Of course I don't think my body could survive today what I did to it then. Not to mention how uptight the US has become since, lots of things you get jailed for today were no big deal in the 70s & early 80s.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

Post by Winnow »

Aabidano wrote:Youth is wasted on the young. Of course I don't think my body could survive today what I did to it then. Not to mention how uptight the US has become since, lots of things you get jailed for today were no big deal in the 70s & early 80s.
Agreed. I look back at what i did in the 80's and early 90s and have no idea how I managed it.

I think I posted this somewhere but I remember my parents leaving military bases in the 70's. The Military Police had cones set up. If you could drive through the obstacle course without knocking any cones down, you could drive off the base, if you did knock them over, the military police would have you park your car and they would drive you home...and that was it. Things are a little bit different today!
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

Post by *~*stragi*~* »

cadalano wrote:skipping college is for pussies. skip high school.
Mountain View was for pussies.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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Winnow wrote:The Military Police had cones set up. If you could drive through the obstacle course without knocking any cones down, you could drive off the base, if you did knock them over, the military police would have you park your car and they would drive you home...and that was it.
After they blew up the Marine barracks in Lebanon they put a set of 4-5 4'x4'x4' concrete dice at all the gates where I was, had to dodge them to get on or off base. Was tough sober if you had a full size vehicle.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

Post by Asheran Mojomaster »

I hate school. I am only going because I have a dream to do genetic engineering research. I started in Chemical Engineering and did that for 3 1\2 years before I realized it was nothing I wanted out of my life. I'm only able to go part time at the moment because I started a business with some friends and I have a 2 1\2 year old.

But honestly, I have no degree and I am making around $150,000 a year at the moment, and if the current trend continues that will be closer to $250,000 by the end of this year. School is pointless unless you have a specific goal that requires a degree.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

Post by Winnow »

No degree:

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Alfred Taubman

Position: Founder, Taubman Centers
Market Cap: $3.3 billion

Alfred Taubman, the founder and former chief executive of Taubman Centers , began his career in retail at age 11 at a Sims department store, where he continued to work through high school. After Taubman graduated, he attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor for less than a year, when he was called to military service during World War II. After his service was complete, Taubman returned to the University of Michigan to study art and architecture. Soon after, he proposed to his college sweetheart and transferred to night school.

Instead of finishing college and receiving a degree, Taubman saw opportunity in the real estate business. According to his book, “Threshold Resistance,” Taubman recognized the immense expansion of the middle class after the war and decided to cash in by starting Taubman Centers, a realty company.

Over a period of about 50 years, Taubman continued to expand his company and took the company public in 1992.
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Richard Schultz

Position: Founder/Former CEO, Best Buy
Market Cap: $10.1 billion

Richard Schultz, the former CEO and founder of Best Buy , started working as a paperboy at age 11 and had a series of jobs throughout high school. He had planned to go to the University of St. Thomas, but military service in the Minnesota Air National Guard stopped him from fulfilling his college-bound dream.

After his service in the military, Schultz worked for his father selling electronic components. A few years later, he founded his own company, The Sound of Music , which sold audio components, sheet music, records, tapes, and instruments.

In the 1980s, Schultz realized that a small business was not going to survive in a widely evolving industry, so he changed the name of his company to Best Buy and expanded his product line. Schultz felt that consumers would be drawn to his stores if they could see the products they were buying on shelves, instead of keeping them in the back room. This technique helped create a new experience for shoppers.

Although Schultz relinquished his duties as CEO, he still serves as chairman of the board for Best Buy. Shultz may not have attended the College of St. Thomas, but he was awarded with an honorary doctorate of law degree.
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Ralph Lauren

Position: CEO, Polo Ralph Lauren
Market Cap: $11.9 billion

Ralph Lauren, the chief executive of Polo Ralph Lauren , established his company in 1967 as a line of men’s ties and developed the company into a global fashion empire. Lauren’s successful clothing line came from his unique, classic style that went against conventional fashion of the time.

According to the Ralph Lauren website, Lauren said, “I never went to fashion school—I was a young guy who had some style. I never imagined Polo would become what it is. I just followed my instincts.”

With only a high school diploma in hand, Lauren followed his instincts. His decision to ditch college and focus on running his business lead to a series of breakthroughs in the fashion world, including the first shop-within-a-shop designer boutique for men in Bloomingdale’s department store in 1969. Lauren continued to build his empire, expanding it to include women and children’s fashion, fragrances, and home furnishings.

Today, Polo Ralph Lauren is one of the most successful fashion companies in the world.
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Richard Branson

Position: CEO, Virgin Group
Company Worth: $18 billion
Virgin Media Market Cap: $8.1 billion

Forget graduating from college, this chief executive didn’t even finish high school. Richard Branson, the current CEO of Virgin Group , dropped out of high school at age 16 to start Student Magazine . Four years later, Branson founded Virgin Group as a mail-order retailer. He opened his first record shop in London and two years later built Virgin’s first recording studio. In 1977, Branson signed his first big name group, the Sex Pistols, and continued to sign popular artists such as the Rolling Stones and Culture Club.

In 1984, Branson developed Virgin Atlantic and the brand began to grow. Today, Virgin Group provides mobile, broadband, TV, radio, finance, health, tourism, leisure, and travel services.
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Micky Arison

Position: CEO, Carnival
Market Cap: $19.6 billion

Instead of spending four years in college, this chief executive spent time working his way up the chain of command at Carnival .

Micky Arison, the CEO of Carnival, started in the sales department and was promoted to reservations manager in 1974. He was later promoted to vice president of passenger traffic and just three years later he was named president of the company.

Arison helped acquire Holland America Line, Windstar Cruises and Westours, allowing Carnival to become one of the leading cruise lines in the industry.

In 1987, he was appointed chairman of the board and in 2003 he reached the highest position in the company as CEO.

Arison showed that it’s possible to work your way from an entry-level position to CEO without a college degree.
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Michael Dell

Position: Founder/CEO, Dell
Market Cap: $30 billion

Most 19 year olds would spend a thousand dollars on a spring break weekend, or a put it toward buying a new car, but Michael Dell spent his $1,000 founding Dell .

The founder and CEO of Dell expanded his company with the idea that “technology is about enabling human potential.” In 1992, he became the youngest chief executive to earn a ranking on Fortune magazine’s "Fortune 500" list. His staff also grew from a one-man operation to 100,000 employees in just eight years.

Today, the company provides information-technology services for global corporations, governments, health care providers, small and medium businesses, education institutions, and home computing users.

Dell is not the only company this CEO has had a hand in creating. Dell founded MSD Capital in 1998 and a year later launched the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, a philanthropic organization for global issues.
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Mark Zuckerberg

Position: Founder/CEO, Facebook
Company Value: $100 billion (Recent estimate)

Although Facebook isn’t publicly traded, we can’t leave this chief executive out of a successful college-dropout list—besides you are probably on his site everyday.

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, showed an early interest in computers. As a child, he created early communication tools and games from his bedroom. In high school, he created an MP3 program and soon received offers from AOL and Microsoft , which he ignored.

After being accepted at Harvard University, Zuckerberg built a program called Facemash, which showed pictures of students and allowed their peers to vote on who was more attractive.

Eventually, word of Zuckerberg’s talent spread and fellow Harvard students Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss asked him to work on an idea for a social networking site called Harvard Connection. Zuckerberg decided to drop out of the project soon after and began work on a different social networking site, which he originally named TheFacebook.com. (The Winklevoss brothers later sued Zuckerberg , claiming he stole their idea.)

Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard before graduating to put all of his focus on the social networking site, which could be worth as much as $100 billion if Zuckerberg ever takes the company public.
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Paul Allen

Position: Co-Founder, Microsoft
Market Cap: $226.2 billion

Paul Allen, who co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates, his childhood friend, is another chief executive who never got a college degree.

According to Allen’s memoir, “Idea Man,” Allen was inspired to write a coding language when he saw the Altair 8800 computer on the cover of a Popular Electronics magazine. Allen knew Gates and he both had the skills to code a programming language for the Altair and after convincing his friend to collaborate, the pair ushered in a new technological era.

Today, Allen has a multibillion-dollar investment portfolio, which includes multiple technology and media companies, along with a major real estate redevelopment in Seattle.

Allen also owns the Seattle Seahawks football team, the Portland Trail Blazers basketball team, and is part of the primary ownership group for the soccer team Seattle Sounders Football Club.

Allen has given away more than $1 billion toward his philanthropic efforts and has said he plans to leave the majority of his estate to charities.
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Bill Gates

Position: Co-Founder/Chairman, Microsoft
Market Cap: $226.2 billion

College dropouts such as Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz are not the only successful business founders who attended, and then left, Harvard University.

Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft , enrolled at Harvard as a freshman in 1973. Gates, who lived down the hall from Microsoft’s current chief executive, Steve Ballmer, created BASIC, a programming language for the first microcomputer, during his first year of college.

Gates dropped out of Harvard in his junior year to concentrate all his efforts on a company he called Micro-soft with his childhood friend Paul Allen.

As if founding Microsoft wasn’t enough, Gates went on to found Corbis , one of the world largest resources of visual information. He also earned a seat on the board of directors for Berkshire Hathaway , an investment company engaged in diverse business activity.

Today, Gates serves as Microsoft's chairman and as an advisor on key development projects.
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Steve Jobs

Position: Founder/CEO, Apple
Market Cap: $362.4 billion

As a young boy, this college dropout showed an early interest in computers.

When he was 12, Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple , called Bill Hewlett, co-founder of Hewlett Packard , after finding his number in the phonebook. When Hewlett answered, Jobs said, “Hi I’m Steve Jobs. I’m twelve years old and I’m a student in high school. I want to make a frequency counter. I was wondering if you had any spare parts I can have?”

Hewlett gave Jobs the spare parts and hired him that summer to work on the assembly line at his company. During this time, Jobs formed a friendship with Stephen Wozniak, a soon-to-be dropout from the University of California at Berkley.

Jobs enrolled at Reed College after high school, but he later dropped out. He connected once again with Wozniak and the pair quit their jobs to start production on a computer in Jobs’ garage.

There are different versions of how the pair came up with the name for Apple. The best-known story comes from Jobs summer spent working on an apple orchard and his love for the fruit. The bite in the side of the apple is said to be a play on the computer term “byte.”

In a biography, Jobs said he was worth more than $1 million when he was 23, $10 million when he was 24, and $100 million when he was 25.

Apple went from a garage-based operation to a multibillion-dollar, worldwide corporation, and it all started with two college dropouts tinkering in a garage.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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For every "no degree" person who makes it there's probably 100 (or more) with degrees.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

Post by Winnow »

Aslanna wrote:For every "no degree" person who makes it there's probably 100 (or more) with degrees.
The point is that you don't have to be a clone. Willpower, focus, and some luck can get you what you want. It's not going to help you in a company that requires degrees. Companies need to start basing their promotions off performance, not paper degrees.

The biggest obstacle I see is early education. Our schools don't teach innovation or encourage learning beyond the spoon fed boring shit you get in school. For many people, it's not until much later in life that they figure things out and understand what they want. This is also just for business. You need proper education for many professions...medical, science, etc.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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College would be a huge waste of time if you refused to learn anything, ever.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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kyoukan wrote:College would be a huge waste of time if you refused to learn anything, ever.
WTF someone hacked Kyoukan's account!!
I tell it like a true mackadelic.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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Both college and grad school were critical to my career and have been paid back tenfold in terms of salary and opportunity.

To each their own I guess.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

Post by Winnow »

Avestan wrote:Both college and grad school were critical to my career and have been paid back tenfold in terms of salary and opportunity.

To each their own I guess.
It would have been elevenfold payback if you didn't attend college...actually Infinitefold since you wouldn't have paid anything to begin with!

What area did you receive your degrees in? business or "other"?
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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Undergrad: Computer Science
Grad: MBA

so sort of both.

There is no payback on something you don't do. If I did not go to school, I would make X - this is the base case.

I am stating that I am making X + a lot because I did go to school.

Let's say that I spent $200k on 6 years of school - I would state to you that I would be making at least $100k per year in salary less than I am today if I did not attend school. Pretty easy to justify that expense in my book.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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Aslanna wrote:For every "no degree" person who makes it there's probably 100 (or more) with degrees.
There's one person besides myself in my group who doesn't have a degree, most have masters, many have doctorates, couple have multi-masters or doctorates. One guy has a sign that says "Rocket Scientist" on his wall, he's not joking.

I've been asked, I really have no idea how someone could intentionally end up in a group like I'm in without an advanced degree.

On MBAs: :)
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

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The point is that it is not the rule - it is the exception to the rule.

Look - I know successful people without degrees and sometimes they are the very best in their fields at what they do, but usually they are handcuffed to the company that took the chance on them so they are seriously limited in terms of career mobility. As a result, they get screwed when it is salary negotiation time.

I know that at our company, you do not get an interview without a college degree unless you are applying into operations or creative. Marketing / engineering / product / finance are 100% closed to external candidates without a college degree. Those are the best paying jobs.

It is simply not worth the effort for hiring managers to take a chance on someone without a degree. It is the old adage that "no one ever got fired for choosing IBM". If you hire someone with good education and it does not work out, you always can say "he / she looked great on paper!". If you hire a bad person with no degree, your manager is going to wonder what the hell you were thinking.
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Re: College is a Waste of Time

Post by Avestan »

on MBA's:

As with anything else, there are good ones and bad ones. I never hire fresh MBA's (less than 3 years out) because they have usually forgotten how to work AND they think they know the answers to everything - that is an awful combination and I remember when it was me :)

A good MBA can seriously help a business and can be capable of thinking far more strategically than most workers with strict domain knowledge. There are people without MBA's who are capable of that just like there are people without CS degrees who are great coders, but both are extremely difficult to find.


ps. For those who site Zuckerberg, Gates, etc - you are talking about people who dropped out because they already knew the material. Those two were both are Harvard. . .it is less than genuine to hold them up as peers for any of us. Once you get into a Harvard, etc - you already have your rubber stamp.
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