Thread: GO TO COLLEGE... A little Rant.

Originally Posted by ntapia

While you definitely have a great point, isn't life too short to be completely miserable? If someone finds college a terrible experience, I don't see anything wrong with quitting. Same goes for a job, relationship, etc...



I'd assume that the "b.s." jobs that people might be referring to are probably retail, restaurant, hospitality, etc, jobs that have non-traditional schedules. For example, I'd rather work at a restaurant at night if I need to instead of committing to a 40+ hour job (and add in 10 hours for the commute, for example), even if I'd make more money. If you work all day, starting your day at 6:30 and don't get home until 7:00 at night, it's tough to spend any time on a business. Especially if you have additional responsibilities (i.e. spouse, children).

This is just how I see it, someone else may have something to add about this.

I've worked several BS jobs -- waitressing at several different restaurant chains, dry cleaners, karaoke bar, abercrombie & fitch retail, etc, etc from 15-22. I've held a white collar job for 5 years now.

I have way more energy after finishing a shift from a white collar job vs. finishing a shift at a BS job. BS jobs are exhausing -- you are on your feet all day, carrying things, moving around all day, dealing with customer complaints, etc, etc.. and by the time i finished work i had no energy or motivation to do anything else besides rest at home for the remainder of the day.

of course everyone is different, but for me, even part time BS jobs were really tiring (physically & emotionally). with the job I have now, I think i work about 5 hours "real work" a day and spend the other 3 surfing the web, reading internet articles/forums, etc. Unlimited paid vacation is a nice perk also.. of course every white collar job is different, but if you talk to people there are definetly jobs you can find that are easier & require less effort than others.

Originally Posted by Vigilante

I wasn't sure if you were in the United States or not... but since you are... THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE to this great country.

Thanks for your appreciation. That's the real driving force behind our military, I promise. And I'm sure there are other veterans around that can attest to this.

Originally Posted by socaldude

I second that.

Speaking of service. You can join the Air Force right out of high school for four years and go to a state university full time. You get FREE housing and FREE 4 meals a day at a U.S. air base!! PLUS I think they will pay half of your tuition. So lets say its 3.5k/year times 4 years thats 14k for bachelors degree!!!!

Military marketing at its best. You can join as an officer and go to an academy such as West Point (Army), Annapolis (Navy & Marines), or Airforce and be a complete military student geared towards a degree for the military, get a bachelors degree and join as an officer, or you can join enlisted and go to school while you're in completely paid for through tuition assistance (TA) and when you get out use your GI Bill to go to school or give it to your dependant (with a lot of restrictions behind that)... Or you can go through an ROTC program and go to a public school and have your school paid for as long as you obligate a certain amount of years to the military. Of course there is extra curricular things going on with either avenue.

Fact is, you pay for college. Whether it be monetarily, or through personal sacrifice.

It should be everyone's personal, ethical, financial, and situational decision on whether or not college or entrepreneurship is right or wrong. One thing you're never guaranteed is success, either way. If you think you may need to fall back on a job in the future, check out the job market. Very rarely will "Bachelors degree in _________" not be under the requirements. I know this from experience. I have a design portfolio with 15+ fortune 500 companies under my belt utilizing other avenues such as development, etc. and I still couldn't get a call back for a job when I got out. So, I took off myself. There are still days when I wake up and just wish I had my milestones of the day layed out for me with a guaranteed [mediocre] paycheck waiting on me. A lot of them.

From an ENTREPRENEUR standpoint, college is much less necessary. NOW how many people actually spend their life as entrepreneurs? Probably less than 1%. So college and slowlane are normal for so many people. LET THEM DO IT! They make our employees!

Originally Posted by Kuz

My degree wasn't a challenge at all. I skipped most of my lectures, never turned up to class, did my coursework last minute and still scored the second highest grade (with honours) you can get for UK degree.

I was sickened by the academic process, and, to be honest, most of my contemporaries were too.

That's if you do a stupid "arts" degrees.. . people who do proper degrees like medicine, or engineering or architecture etc.. yeah, that's hard work and worth while

But fucking "philosophy" "english literature" "politics" "soccial studies", "history" bla bla bla. Absolute fucking joke.

Mine was the same way. I graduated with a 3.1 and put in very little effort. The problem is that with the group projects and attendance requirements, you could flunk pretty easy for not attending team meetings and getting a 0 on a project or skipping more than 25% of classes (automatic F at my school). I usually skipped one class shy of the maximum every semester LOL.

I took 6 years to finish my degree.

I'm in college now and let me tell you it SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Luckly my parents are paying for 75% of it so ill only be 7-8K in debt, i have a family member and a close family friend who own businesses in the IT field and they can guarantee me a job once I graduate with a computer science degree. But seriously it's a living hell!I always hated school and 90% of the stuff they teach about programming I already know or could learn it for 1/10th of the price.

However it is true that it is bloody hard to start a business with next to $0 capital and zero business experience, I spend most of my free time trying to develop a business and hope to have a successful one by the time I graduate.

Yes the experience is cool, but for someone who DID graduate from college.. it certainly isn't worth $25,000.

Originally Posted by JackEdwards

Let me tell you something. For all your wanting to be great, for all your needing to be great, for all the lies you tell yourself about how great you are.

You are probably not and odds are you are going to fail. Sorry but it is true. Business is tough, if you think School is hard, wait tell you open a business.

It is true that almost everybody is going to fail on their first go and most people are not really that great. My argument would be that your first business no matter how dismal it is could be a great learning experience. I know I learned more about business by starting one in college then I ever did in school and I learned even more when it eventually failed. There is no doubt that there are some truly gifted entrepreneurs such as yourself that can just make it happen but it seems that everybody I know that has built successful businesses have all had to face failure at least once. I would say that you would be better off learning how to make a living and building a business then going to college. Me personally I would have rather gone to college now that I am a little bit older and could have truly taken advantage of the opportunities available. Not to mention I have a much clearer picture of what I would have gone to school for. I got a degree in Finance because I didnt know what else to do and I always liked money, math, and business.

So glad to see all the people here disagreeing! I'll tell you why...

Yikes! Just posted and didn't realized I wrote a book. If you TLDR, I'll understand. Warning, true rant follows haha!

I've always been a smart kid. I graduated high school with all my "college" credit math classes and a good GPA, but for what? To get into a good college. I attended Washington State University for one year... well going to WSU was probably my FIRST problem, but it wasn't my only. There's a section of MJ's book that I literally was like screw this guy, he stole the words right out of my mouth for the book I would have written in twenty years. I still remember my first day of ECON101. Walk into class, sit down with 400 other students, and find out my teacher is a 23 year old guy who double majored in business management and finance. His exact words were "I'm going to teach you how to make a million dollars." The only problem was, for me... that I saw the hypocrisy in the fact that a 23 year old guy that had never left the WSU campus or owned a business, was going to teach me about making a multi million dollar business. 400 of us paying $35 per class to a guy who had ZERO experience. There is something SERIOUSLY wrong with that.

My second wake up call was going to ME110 for mechanical engineering. My teacher was a graduate of WSU in my degree of interest! After two years in the field, he couldn't keep a job because he was just too underqualified and couldn't do what was demanded of him. His fond memories of drinking and romping with beer-chubs, loosely moralled girls from his days at the fine WSU campus called out to him. After two more years of school, he was back at WSU teaching my class, for the first time.

For the record, MJ's example in the book is going to a "health" cooking class being taught by a fat guy, hahaha.

Wake up call #3 happened in my second calculus class. My first teacher didn't speak English. He actually taught our class of 400 in which 30 attended in Italian. True story. My second class was taught by a scruffy old guy with his shirt un-buttoned who sipped Jack Daniels during class and would randomly go on rants about his recent divorce. This reinforced wake up calls #1 and #2, but then there was my Calc TA, teachers assistant. Twice a week we would meet with this guy in a classroom with 30 other students from the 400. Only 4 or 5 of us ever showed up. It just so happens... this guy was a former mathematician at NASA, who was going around to PAC10 schools teaching Calculus for free to students. His pay came in the emotional reward of passing on his knowledge to younger people, and I will never, ever forget him. Time and time again, he could explain the most complicated problems methodically, and above the level required for the class. If class was only 45 minutes, there wasn't a problem if we stayed for an hour and a half, his time wasn't bound to his wealth equation. He was the best teacher I've ever had.

Back in my 6 x 8 frat room shared with another guy, I started to think "does anyone feel like this is a complete joke besides me? Am I completely alone? Does no one realize we are paying the wrong people to teach us!?" And that's when I found Steve Jobs 2005 commencement speech at Stanford. Validation. I recently got another dose of validation after reading MJ's book.

It's been 3 years, and I've done everything under the sun since then. Been burned, seen great success, partied harder than the college kids, and am not in debt 60k, but have 60k in the bank. I just quit a job a software engineering job at Microsoft after learning programming from books authored by THE sources on the topics. While there, I got to see countless Computer Science majors a year older than I fail and be fired, while I continually got given more responsibilities. Now I'm 22, quitting the corporate rat race that all the in debt college grads are so eager to get into for the next 30 years. Pro experience under my belt, fat paychecks saved up to finance my living expenses during startup, and nothing but freedom and love of what I do ahead.

#endrant

True knowledge and true wealth is more important than a "real education."

Originally Posted by dknise

So glad to see all the people here disagreeing! I'll tell you why...

Yikes! Just posted and didn't realized I wrote a book. If you TLDR, I'll understand. Warning, true rant follows haha!

I've always been a smart kid. I graduated high school with all my "college" credit math classes and a good GPA, but for what? To get into a good college. I attended Washington State University for one year... well going to WSU was probably my FIRST problem, but it wasn't my only. There's a section of MJ's book that I literally was like screw this guy, he stole the words right out of my mouth for the book I would have written in twenty years. I still remember my first day of ECON101. Walk into class, sit down with 400 other students, and find out my teacher is a 23 year old guy who double majored in business management and finance. His exact words were "I'm going to teach you how to make a million dollars." The only problem was, for me... that I saw the hypocrisy in the fact that a 23 year old guy that had never left the WSU campus or owned a business, was going to teach me about making a multi million dollar business. 400 of us paying $35 per class to a guy who had ZERO experience. There is something SERIOUSLY wrong with that.

My second wake up call was going to ME110 for mechanical engineering. My teacher was a graduate of WSU in my degree of interest! After two years in the field, he couldn't keep a job because he was just too underqualified and couldn't do what was demanded of him. His fond memories of drinking and romping with beer-chubs, loosely moralled girls from his days at the fine WSU campus called out to him. After two more years of school, he was back at WSU teaching my class, for the first time.

For the record, MJ's example in the book is going to a "health" cooking class being taught by a fat guy, hahaha.

Wake up call #3 happened in my second calculus class. My first teacher didn't speak English. He actually taught our class of 400 in which 30 attended in Italian. True story. My second class was taught by a scruffy old guy with his shirt un-buttoned who sipped Jack Daniels during class and would randomly go on rants about his recent divorce. This reinforced wake up calls #1 and #2, but then there was my Calc TA, teachers assistant. Twice a week we would meet with this guy in a classroom with 30 other students from the 400. Only 4 or 5 of us ever showed up. It just so happens... this guy was a former mathematician at NASA, who was going around to PAC10 schools teaching Calculus for free to students. His pay came in the emotional reward of passing on his knowledge to younger people, and I will never, ever forget him. Time and time again, he could explain the most complicated problems methodically, and above the level required for the class. If class was only 45 minutes, there wasn't a problem if we stayed for an hour and a half, his time wasn't bound to his wealth equation. He was the best teacher I've ever had.

Back in my 6 x 8 frat room shared with another guy, I started to think "does anyone feel like this is a complete joke besides me? Am I completely alone? Does no one realize we are paying the wrong people to teach us!?" And that's when I found Steve Jobs 2005 commencement speech at Stanford. Validation. I recently got another dose of validation after reading MJ's book.

It's been 3 years, and I've done everything under the sun since then. Been burned, seen great success, partied harder than the college kids, and am not in debt 60k, but have 60k in the bank. I just quit a job a software engineering job at Microsoft after learning programming from books authored by THE sources on the topics. While there, I got to see countless Computer Science majors a year older than I fail and be fired, while I continually got given more responsibilities. Now I'm 22, quitting the corporate rat race that all the in debt college grads are so eager to get into for the next 30 years. Pro experience under my belt, fat paychecks saved up to finance my living expenses during startup, and nothing but freedom and love of what I do ahead.

#endrant

True knowledge and true wealth is more important than a "real education."

Great post, taken right out of my own mind!

I just dropped out a few weeks ago and don't have the successes you had so far, but the reasoning for dropping out was the exact same for me!

Originally Posted by dknise

So glad to see all the people here disagreeing! I'll tell you why...

Yikes! Just posted and didn't realized I wrote a book. If you TLDR, I'll understand. Warning, true rant follows haha!

I've always been a smart kid. I graduated high school with all my "college" credit math classes and a good GPA, but for what? To get into a good college. I attended Washington State University for one year... well going to WSU was probably my FIRST problem, but it wasn't my only. There's a section of MJ's book that I literally was like screw this guy, he stole the words right out of my mouth for the book I would have written in twenty years. I still remember my first day of ECON101. Walk into class, sit down with 400 other students, and find out my teacher is a 23 year old guy who double majored in business management and finance. His exact words were "I'm going to teach you how to make a million dollars." The only problem was, for me... that I saw the hypocrisy in the fact that a 23 year old guy that had never left the WSU campus or owned a business, was going to teach me about making a multi million dollar business. 400 of us paying $35 per class to a guy who had ZERO experience. There is something SERIOUSLY wrong with that.

My second wake up call was going to ME110 for mechanical engineering. My teacher was a graduate of WSU in my degree of interest! After two years in the field, he couldn't keep a job because he was just too underqualified and couldn't do what was demanded of him. His fond memories of drinking and romping with beer-chubs, loosely moralled girls from his days at the fine WSU campus called out to him. After two more years of school, he was back at WSU teaching my class, for the first time.

For the record, MJ's example in the book is going to a "health" cooking class being taught by a fat guy, hahaha.

Wake up call #3 happened in my second calculus class. My first teacher didn't speak English. He actually taught our class of 400 in which 30 attended in Italian. True story. My second class was taught by a scruffy old guy with his shirt un-buttoned who sipped Jack Daniels during class and would randomly go on rants about his recent divorce. This reinforced wake up calls #1 and #2, but then there was my Calc TA, teachers assistant. Twice a week we would meet with this guy in a classroom with 30 other students from the 400. Only 4 or 5 of us ever showed up. It just so happens... this guy was a former mathematician at NASA, who was going around to PAC10 schools teaching Calculus for free to students. His pay came in the emotional reward of passing on his knowledge to younger people, and I will never, ever forget him. Time and time again, he could explain the most complicated problems methodically, and above the level required for the class. If class was only 45 minutes, there wasn't a problem if we stayed for an hour and a half, his time wasn't bound to his wealth equation. He was the best teacher I've ever had.

Back in my 6 x 8 frat room shared with another guy, I started to think "does anyone feel like this is a complete joke besides me? Am I completely alone? Does no one realize we are paying the wrong people to teach us!?" And that's when I found Steve Jobs 2005 commencement speech at Stanford. Validation. I recently got another dose of validation after reading MJ's book.

It's been 3 years, and I've done everything under the sun since then. Been burned, seen great success, partied harder than the college kids, and am not in debt 60k, but have 60k in the bank. I just quit a job a software engineering job at Microsoft after learning programming from books authored by THE sources on the topics. While there, I got to see countless Computer Science majors a year older than I fail and be fired, while I continually got given more responsibilities. Now I'm 22, quitting the corporate rat race that all the in debt college grads are so eager to get into for the next 30 years. Pro experience under my belt, fat paychecks saved up to finance my living expenses during startup, and nothing but freedom and love of what I do ahead.

#endrant

True knowledge and true wealth is more important than a "real education."

Wow. I stuck with it, but the whole time I felt like I was wasting TONS of my time and money. Totally agree.

When my cashflows permit I am going to bring on apprentices from the colleges around town one at a time. There is no cheap labor like a college student who undervalues themselves. They will drive me in my BMW 7 and assist me in managing my sales force. I will teach them how I went into business for myself before I graduated. Maybe they will actually take something from it and I will get some great cheap assistance.

More people need to realize that trading time for money sucks.

Originally Posted by theag

Great post, taken right out of my own mind!

I just dropped out a few weeks ago and don't have the successes you had so far, but the reasoning for dropping out was the exact same for me!

You are not alone. It gets pretty lonesome though when 99% of the population disagrees with you.

Originally Posted by [COLOR=#3E3E3E

Kak[/COLOR]]Wow. I stuck with it, but the whole time I felt like I was wasting TONS of my time and money. Totally agree.

When my cashflows permit I am going to bring on apprentices from the colleges around town one at a time. There is no cheap labor like a college student who undervalues themselves. They will drive me in my BMW 7 and assist me in managing my sales force. I will teach them how I went into business for myself before I graduated. Maybe they will actually take something from it and I will get some great cheap assistance.

Haha sorry for the rant, and I hope you didn't take any serious offense to what I said. I left veryyy bitter with a really bad taste in my mouth.

As far as apprentices, that's awesome. I recently contacted my high school and said "hey, any kids you got that don't want to go to college, pass them my way. I'd be glad to come in and give a presentation about the opportunities that are open to them." Hoping it will be a rewarding experience.