College for a job vs. college for learning?

[tcoker012]

What I mean by that, is that being in the military, it pays for college, my only dilemma right now, is whether or not I should go to college and learn a trade, and work on business ventures on the side, or just risk it and take business courses and jump head first into a business venture once I get out?

 

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[Knowledge Kick]

Even though curriculums are usually structured to steer your education in a certain direction, you still have room to be open because of electives. I'm sure you can find some sort of mix in classes that make you "employable" but still manage to take classes that personally interest you.

 

[The-J]

Ooh, another one of these questions!

It's different for everybody. Most people here would tell you to get a job and work your business venture part-time until you can quit and work your business full-time. It's almost always a wiser financial decision. Plus, if you work out your GI Bill benefits right, you can end up with a good amount of savings after school just from GI bill benefits.

If you want to start a business and not get a job, start your business while you're going to school. If you do it right, you could have a business that sustains your lifestyle after college.

 

[Jake]

If you want to start a business and not get a job, start your business while you're going to school. If you do it right, you could have a business that sustains your lifestyle after college.

This...

 

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[theag]

To answer to original question: People go to college to get a job (and to party), not to learn. There are exceptions, e.g. people who want to be a researcher for a career.

 

[Skys]

To answer to original question: People go to college to get a job (and to party), not to learn.

Nonsense. There are tons of people that go to college to learn. They are interested in a certain subject and they are willing to put in the hours to study. Lots of people want to become lawyers, doctors etc. Lots of people have a true interest in what they are studying.

 

[theag]

Nonsense. There are tons of people that go to college to learn. They are interested in a certain subject and they are willing to put in the hours to study. Lots of people want to become lawyers, doctors etc. Lots of people have a true interest in what they are studying.

Yea, to get a job as a lawyer or doctor. Learning is only a part of the process.

 

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[Kak]

If it's paid for, might as well have a back up plan that helps plan A. I say learn some accounting and Tax stuff. Work on your business while you are there!

This coming from a very anti college (for entrepreneurs) person who started a business while still in college.

 

[theDarkness]

The college thing is a toughie. Generally I think it's best to have some very concrete goals for what you want out of it. Feel like I saw a bunch of people rushing into it because of general ideas about it being "enriching." Those people, even when they had a lot of fun (socially college is a blast), did not seem to be making much use of their time/money.

my little tips:

- Know what you want out of it, as in specific stated goals with definite fail/succeed conditions. My two big goals heading in were to work on my chops as a writer until I'd developed a process that produced consistently excellent results, and to fall in serious long-term love. Obviously the former was much more within my control than the latter, so I spent all my free time either hacking at my stories or taking apart past great books. Though I did eventually meet my lovely fiance!


-find an advisor who takes the role seriously and who will KICK YOUR a$$. If he's not going to demand the best of you and push you to do things you fear, then find someone else! My advisor was this delightfully insane novelist who basically taught Fastlane principles without ever putting it explicitly in a business context. (To succeed as novelist you kinda have to think Fastlane in many ways, since the market's flooded with writers.) The importance of failure, respecting the process vs the event, and how it only takes that one time--that "one hit wonder"--to go from a dismal failure to overnight success. Pretty much if you weren't exerting yourself fully and failing over and over in an attempt to achieve whatever you're passionate about, then he would have nothing of you. He would stop whole classes if it became evident that someone had some dream/goal/passion that they were event-minded about rather than process-. I wouldn't be suprised if wannabe entrepeneurs ever sometimes took his class just for how great he was at teaching process and the art of creating opportunities for yourself. Really having him as an advisor probably saved me decades of wasted time trying to figure all that crap out for myself.

-Use your time there to get down pat the work habits and learning habits you'll need as an entrepeneur. MJ is great on why becoming a quick self-sufficient learner will be an advantage for you. And there's so much downtime in college that it's a great chance to learn how to sustain yourself through those crazy-long workdays where it's just you, the week's 20th bowl of instant oats, and whatever project it is you're trying to get off the ground. Or at any rate I feel like the hours I learned while getting my writing chops down have translated very well to other efforts that involve "frontloading" a lot of the work to right now in the hopes of detaching it from your time later.



But really there's no better chance to become a really great self-directed learner (so long as it's paid for). MJ is dead on when he says change makes millionaires. Being able to learn and pick up new skills rapidly is huge. When advances in tech come for example it's the difference between being one of the losers on the sidewalk bitching about how such-and-such technology has ruined the old business models, and being say the founder of Netflix, or whatever. I can see it right now in my writer buddies. The ones that have always been eager to learn are generally frothing at all the potential of the new epublishing world, while the bitchers and moaners are focused on preserving current means of generating revenue at all costs, and not on what makes the most sense for the people that pay them (readers)! One writer is focused on new ways of providing value to his readers, and the other is focused on whether he can keep on getting paid for just doing the same old, same old. I bet I know which one winds up an insurance agent in five years . . .

 

[The-J]

I like college. It's fun... except for the classes part.

What are you, like 22 or something, just finishing off your 4 years of service?

Two tips: Don't go to a for-profit school and don't go to a private school unless you can get yourself a buttload of financial aid in scholarships, grants, etc. The GI bill has a cap of what it will give and it doesn't cover a lot of the tuition that private institutions charge. Your best bet is to do community college for two years then transfer to a university. If you're serious about running a business, but then you'll have a business system up and running OR you'll have 2 years of failure under your belt. Either one is good.

 

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[johnp]

Here is my opinion - This is just an opinion, I am wrong about a lot of things and it will always be that way, no matter how educated I become.


But anyway -

1) I think that it depends on the person. For some, it's about a job. For some people it's about an education. Some people go to party. Some go for the experience as a whole. When I started, I was going for a job and actually trying to avoid my entrepreneurial mindset. Imagine that...:coco:

2) I went to college and saw issues with the entire system. The issues have transformed into my start-up. You could go for an education, a job, an experience and they may one day all blend together and turn into your fastlane start-up. Who knows....

 

[GuyJeb]

tcoker012,

College is a joke. It's a series of Tests to see how well you memorized material that you will never use in the future... You will only enjoy 20% of it. The other 80% is "meat filler" to keep the teachers and college running.

If you need to go to college to get a slow lane job until you can move to the fast lane, then pick the field of choice that will get you that job. An example is IT jobs at a state agency, they have clear job minimum requirements that even say "bachelors in IT or equivalent Units of.."

If you are going to college to "learn"... Unless the school has an amazing network of people to get to know, your better off going to the library and amazon books on your own...



BUT... since you are going on Military money.. You should look at Western Governors University (WGU Online University | Online Degree Programs, Accredited Bachelor's and Master's). It's Accredited, online school, at your own pace, pass or fail only. no grades. It is $3,000 for 6 months for as many units as you want to take. Some people completed all their school work in 6 months,.. others took 2-3 years paying $3,000 every six months.

In 10 - 20 years from now, the only Brick and Morter schools that will be left are top dollar ivy league schools. Everything else is going bankrupt right now.



But I agree with those above. you should try to work on business ventures now, during school.

 

[The-J]

Online colleges are a load of crap, whether for-profit or not.

College is about the experience first, degree second, learning third. You can get a degree anywhere, but you can't get the experience anywhere.

I'm staying in school for two reasons: 1) to get my degree and make my parents happy and 2) because I like it. Not because I can't learn things elsewhere.

Plus, if my business ventures don't provide me with a sustainable revenue, then I'm gonna need to get a job. Which is just fine, cuz I know I won't be there forever.

 

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[GuyJeb]

The-J,

I can agree with you about the experience part. But it may be possible to receive the same experience in other forms such as volunteering for a company, etc.

As for Online vs brick and mortar colleges, once you graduate, it's still just $50,000 piece of paper that gets you through Minimum qualifications if it's needed.



I may have a very skewed view.. though..

 

[Kak]

College is a lot of money to meet girls and drink. People who can't figure those out on their own are definately not going to be able to go into business on their own.

That is the dumbest reason in the world to go to college. Learn some accounting or something of you are going to go.

 

[CommonCents]

You get out of it what you put into it. Many go to college right out of HS not knowing much about the real world w/out good motivation to really put extra effort in and choose the right classes. Ideally, people should have to go out in real world after HS and work a couple years before going to college, they'd be a helluva lot more motivated to apply themselves.

I don't get the "either/or" responses that its either college then wage slave vs. starting a biz. There is plenty to learn in college that is very helpful if you pick the right school and right education track for your future (i.e. entrepreneur track with accounting/finance, business law, HR, marketing, etc...). There are more specialized entrepreneur programs around now too since I was in school at Georgia Tech years ago. I think US news and world report does lots of rankings for schools, including best bang for the buck.

If you want to be a niche specialized web guy in internet marketing, that is one thing. Plenty make a good living that way. However, If you want to prepare yourself with solid business management tools to take on a multitude of businesses for the rest of your life, it is another.

 

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[Pete799p]

College is a joke. You learn almost nothing that is actually applicable even in accounting/tax stuff. I have a degree in finance and I learned more about finance from investopedia then school. That plus swing trading options and going through the process of funding and starting businesses. I'll never forget how disappointed I was with most of the classes I was excited about like Entreprenuership, what a joke, I had to write a 20+ page business plan for a food truck business and a 5k loan because that was how you "start a business and get a loan" in college.

Only go to school for a job, if your goal is to learn get a library card and an internet connection. In fact this forum has given me more knowledge and networking connections for business then school ever could have. That being said while in school you must do as much as you can to get that job. This means internships, networking, those lame social mixers, clubs, etc. Also make sure to get a degree in something that will actually get you a job and know for sure what that job is.

As far as college vs. trades its all about what you like to do. In fact some of my most successful friends are working in the trades. In fact I wish I had gone the trades route vs. college.

If it's paid for, might as well have a back up plan that helps plan A. I say learn some accounting and Tax stuff. Work on your business while you are there!

Yes and no. The problem with this is that it is really hard to do both a business and school to the fullest. If your business is doing well you are not going to want to take that internship licking stamps for $10/hr so you can have something on your resume. In fact I stayed in college while running my business because of this very reason... I was told I needed a back up plan. Because of this I missed a few opportunities to really grow my business and I didn't take the internship opportunities available to help me land a job. I think knowing you can go to college would be the back up plan. If you want to start a business do it now because the opportunity might be gone come graduation.

 

[The-J]

College is a lot of money to meet girls and drink. People who can't figure those out on their own are definately not going to be able to go into business on their own.

That is the dumbest reason in the world to go to college. Learn some accounting or something of you are going to go.

But you meet girls and drink in a controlled environment.

I'm not saying the cost is worth it. If you can go for free, then do it. If you can go for cheap, do it. Paying more than $10,000 a year out of pocket is insanity and can't be justified in any way, really (that includes housing, mind you).

Not everyone can simply be thrust into the 'real world' and expected to thrive. College is a great transition period for the rest of us.

 

[Kak]

College is a joke. You learn almost nothing that is actually applicable even in accounting/tax stuff. I have a degree in finance and I learned more about finance from investopedia then school. That plus swing trading options and going through the process of funding and starting businesses. I'll never forget how disappointed I was with most of the classes I was excited about like Entreprenuership, what a joke, I had to write a 20+ page business plan for a food truck business and a 5k loan because that was how you "start a business and get a loan" in college.

Only go to school for a job, if your goal is to learn get a library card and an internet connection. In fact this forum has given me more knowledge and networking connections for business then school ever could have. That being said while in school you must do as much as you can to get that job. This means internships, networking, those lame social mixers, clubs, etc. Also make sure to get a degree in something that will actually get you a job and know for sure what that job is.

As far as college vs. trades its all about what you like to do. In fact some of my most successful friends are working in the trades. In fact I wish I had gone the trades route vs. college.



Yes and no. The problem with this is that it is really hard to do both a business and school to the fullest. If your business is doing well you are not going to want to take that internship licking stamps for $10/hr so you can have something on your resume. In fact I stayed in college while running my business because of this very reason... I was told I needed a back up plan. Because of this I missed a few opportunities to really grow my business and I didn't take the internship opportunities available to help me land a job. I think knowing you can go to college would be the back up plan. If you want to start a business do it now because the opportunity might be gone come graduation.

Wow, I completly agree to be honest.

 

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[Kak]

But you meet girls and drink in a controlled environment.

I'm not saying the cost is worth it. If you can go for free, then do it. If you can go for cheap, do it. Paying more than $10,000 a year out of pocket is insanity and can't be justified in any way, really (that includes housing, mind you).

Not everyone can simply be thrust into the 'real world' and expected to thrive. College is a great transition period for the rest of us.

J, those people that cant be thrust into the real world wont make good entrepreneurs.

I paid 30k per year for tuition alone. I have $4,400 (4k sub, 400 left unsub) left to pay in loans. I am tossing about a grand a month at it here at the end to prolong the positive credit reporting.

Pure utter F*cking insanity. I want to kick myself in the head for doing this.

 

[Jon Snow]

Follow your heart man... You already know what you NEED to DO

 

[Ninjakid]

If I were in your position, I would get my hands on every business book, read everything of value written by successful entrepreneurs, and start forming a plan of action to start my business. So when I got out into the world, it would be do or die, sink or swim; and I would make my business work no matter what.

So yes, I am slightly biased to forgoing college or trade school, and diving right in to business. But that's just me. Follow your heart-guts.

 

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[ZF Lee]

Wait, what?????

Going into the slowlane lobster trap for the education experience?
That would be like entering the lobster trap to learn how to get out of it or to operate one.
Fishermen don't get into lobster traps to make them. And most lobsters never get out.

Never get out, you say?
Here's why.

My elders (that nice uncle, your parents, anyone who seems experience (in the slowlane)) keep telling me to go study, get a base experience and get a good job. If I want to do my own thing, I have to go get the connections first in college or workplace.

Wrong! Already proven wrong!

MJ already said jobs provide intrisic value. In Rich Dad's Prophecy by Robert Kiyosaki,he states that we have to be our own captains. (Google it up, its free. It's rehash, but it gives some clues on why the market will crash. Actually recommends Fastlane indirectly) Captains don't master everything, but they sure hell know a lot about this and that.

I've heard some friends who boast that they will go out and do their own thing once out of college. Guess what? They turn out working for someone else....sunk into the slowlane like a goner! Becoming slaves to time and cash!

And you don't need to get connections at work or college. Nick D-Aloise somehow obtained funding from Li Kah Shing for his Summly and it wasn't from workplace or college. He was a kid. Sold it for millions.

Fastlaners will not depend on just college or work to break free. We learn no matter where we are, and thrive no matter the situation.

 

[ravenspear]

You don't need college for a job or to be an entrepreneur, but for some people it's indispensable for learning. I was one of those people.

I came from a very backward and sheltered religious family. I knew very little about the real world before I got to college. I was lucky enough to go to a hard engineering school and it completely reshaped my mind and made me a totally different person. I would not be anything close to as successful as I am today (which still has a ways to go haha) had I not gone. I easily credit it as the most positive influence of my life. It taught me critical thinking, how to learn and evaluate things, how to judge and value disparate pieces of information, how to synthesize solutions, an appreciation for scientific methods and principles, social skills, tolerance, and so many other things.

 

[hellolin]

You need to be careful here. I had the same experience as you, since you will have free money from Uncle Sam for college, you might as well use it. But choosing the wrong school or wrong major can actually put you back and make you dumber nowadays. Do some research, at least get into a major that will be in demand in the next decade or so, and be very selective in your social behaviours. Making friends of this younger generation will make you question your service sometimes, but there are tough nuts out there that shares the same thoughts as you are, they are just in hidden mode now because all the stuff that's going on right now, especially in a college campus.

Meanwhile, remember to utilise your veteran status for connections and network opportunities, the military prepared you for the real world better than any college today would, but you need knowledge and the ability to critically think, and if you take the right road in college, you can achieve both. Again, in your case, there are free money from Uncle Sam waiting so why not use it? I used federal grant, state grant and GI bill and a paid internship while I was in college so I was banking it, you can do the same for 4 year too but meanwhile you can visit this forum and do some real things on the side too.

 

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[The-J]

Understand that higher education in the USA is a BUSINESS (non-legal definition) that profits off of the US's goal (since the 80s) of becoming a haven for professional trade, tech, and academics.

Harvard and Yale (private nonprofit) are not exceptions; neither are the UC or UT schools (government funded). Higher education in the USA is a BUSINESS. It solves a problem that employers in the US have; not enough skilled labor in their field.

Do not think that college in the US serves the purpose of getting kids to 'learn what they want'. They're trying to separate the wheat from the chaff in professional trade, tech, and academics (which produces money for the school, directly or indirectly) while at the same time making money on the front end off those who go but don't need it or can't benefit from it.

This is not a conspiracy. This is a fact. Presidents of schools make millions of dollars. Where does that come from, you think?

Now, that leaves you. Why should you go to college? To learn? To prepare yourself for a skilled trade? To party?

It's your life, but college is a big decision. Don't fall into the trap of going to college for learning though. Take an online course on Coursera or Udemy, or buy a used textbook for $30. Everything taught in college is available online.

 

[hellolin]

Understand that higher education in the USA is a BUSINESS (non-legal definition) that profits off of the US's goal (since the 80s) of becoming a haven for professional trade, tech, and academics.

Harvard and Yale (private nonprofit) are not exceptions; neither are the UC or UT schools (government funded). Higher education in the USA is a BUSINESS. It solves a problem that employers in the US have; not enough skilled labor in their field.

Do not think that college in the US serves the purpose of getting kids to 'learn what they want'. They're trying to separate the wheat from the chaff in professional trade, tech, and academics (which produces money for the school, directly or indirectly) while at the same time making money on the front end off those who go but don't need it or can't benefit from it.

This is not a conspiracy. This is a fact. Presidents of schools make millions of dollars. Where does that come from, you think?

Now, that leaves you. Why should you go to college? To learn? To prepare yourself for a skilled trade? To party?

It's your life, but college is a big decision. Don't fall into the trap of going to college for learning though. Take an online course on Coursera or Udemy, or buy a used textbook for $30. Everything taught in college is available online.

I agree to most of this here, college in the US was, and always is, the biggest sorting machine available to the elites and it ensures that people who can pass it have that certain qualification that so they can enter professional life, thus separating them from the rest who can't.