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College is truly a terrifying experience.

millerad

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If you have read any of my other threads, you know that I am diligently working on my fast-lane venture. While I am working on my fast-lane venture I am also studying computer science, working to earn my bachelors degree.
Every day I hear stories from my professors about their working jobs. Some are engineers, some are programmers. All are fully slow-lane indoctrinated.
Today, I hear from my professor that he fought and clawed with all that he had, to get a job working 70+ hours a week for a major tech company when he was in his early 30s. Now he is a part time professor, part time electrical engineer.
I have never been so afraid as when this man describes his job at one of these major companies. I do not want to finish school. All I want is to get out of here and build a business that will allow me to not have to scrape and claw for a shitty job out of college.
I never want to be in that position.
 
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TonyStark

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For me, the most terrifying part about college was that I felt like I was wasting my youth sitting in a classroom.

I wasn't learning anything life-changing, and I was wasting my parents money.

"Is this all there is to life", I asked. Surely, there had to be more.
 

KrzyszWawrzyniak

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The main functions of public schools in 19th century (and these are the main reasons why they actually came into existence) were to teach future factory workers some basic spelling and writing skills and to prepare them for a work by making them sitting in a classrooms for hours and hours, days and days (just like today) so they were taught that this is going to be their life when they grow up.

Today is the same - you'll learn writing, reading, pronunciation, maths... and that's good. The problem arises when we finally learn those skills, but are still forced to go to a school, because that's what government told us to do.

Colleges are the same - the entire college education revolves around writing assessments and sitting in a classroom for hours and hours, just so you can get a degree which is absolutely worthless (unless you really need it, e.g. for promotion or to do some specific job that requires a degree).
It's just a business - people believe that they need a degree to "success", so they invest money in it and then literally waste their time in college to "get a paper". After they get a paper with a degree (which takes few years), they are already trained to be a good employee and spend numerous hours at work they do not like. Till the end of their life. Just like robots - programmed to do certain activities over and over again without having an idea what are they actually doing and what value are they providing.

That's what we're trained to follow so it should not be surprising that everyone around us talk about "going to a good college" and "getting good job". Another thing worth adding is that none of us have been taught critical thinking and open mind attitude. This is exactly why most of our friends and people we know believe in this bullshit - they've been programmed to think in a certain way.

We must focus on making our lives as good as it's possible, and then teach our children to live in the same way. We are not able to change other people's mindsets and lives, we can only change our own.
 

MJ DeMarco

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I have never been so afraid as when this man describes his job at one of these major companies. I do not want to finish school. All I want is to get out of here and build a business that will allow me to not have to scrape and claw for a shitty job out of college.
I never want to be in that position.

full
 
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AgainstAllOdds

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The main functions of public schools in 19th century (and these are the main reasons why they actually came into existence) were to teach future factory workers some basic spelling and writing skills and to prepare them for a work by making them sitting in a classrooms for hours and hours, days and days (just like today) so they were taught that this is going to be their life when they grow up.

This is a great explanation.

I spent my college years finding ways to slack off (learn the most important info, pass exams, skip all the classes where I didn't have to go, etc). I guess college was a good learning experience for real life (learning how to do things better), but it wasn't part of the program.
 

G-Man

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I spent my college years finding ways to slack off (learn the most important info, pass exams, skip all the classes where I didn't have to go, etc). I guess college was a good learning experience for real life (learning how to do things better), but it wasn't part of the program.

I did that too, but I think all it did was teach me how to put in the minimum amount of effort to get by, which ironically, is how most people approach their jobs. The sad part is that yeah, it conditions you to be an employee, but only a mediocre one. :thumbsdown:

Between the laziness and all the other unreality I learned, I'd say it took me a solid 5 years to "detox" from college.
 
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startinup

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My college experience went from optimistic to terrifying too quickly...

When I first got to college, I was trying to figure out what kind of job I would do. After settling on software developer I thought it was all figured out.

Then I studied abroad in Budapest and experienced my first real taste of freedom. When I got back, I realized that I didn't want an internship or job, I wanted to find out how to create the freedom I'd experienced.

Surrounded by all these people so committed to getting a job with a big company. I only continued because of sunk cost and familial pressure. That was when the terror hit... When I realized that I was being illogical and letting other people control me.

And that was when I decided not to give in again.

---

The real terror from college is the social pressure and normalcy of it all. The fact that so many people are pushed to go to school by everyone around them. Pushed to study for years to be doctors, lawyers, and engineers. Pushed to take on a mountain of debt as an "investment in their future".

Even if the student realizes they don't want to be on this path, they've never thought about it enough to come up with a reason to change course.
 

TonyStark

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My college experience went from optimistic to terrifying too quickly...

When I first got to college, I was trying to figure out what kind of job I would do. After settling on software developer I thought it was all figured out.

Then I studied abroad in Budapest and experienced my first real taste of freedom. When I got back, I realized that I didn't want an internship or job, I wanted to find out how to create the freedom I'd experienced.

Surrounded by all these people so committed to getting a job with a big company. I only continued because of sunk cost and familial pressure. That was when the terror hit... When I realized that I was being illogical and letting other people control me.

And that was when I decided not to give in again.

---

The real terror from college is the social pressure and normalcy of it all. The fact that so many people are pushed to go to school by everyone around them. Pushed to study for years to be doctors, lawyers, and engineers. Pushed to take on a mountain of debt as an "investment in their future".

Even if the student realizes they don't want to be on this path, they've never thought about it enough to come up with a reason to change course.
It can be scary breaking away from the herd. lol
 

AfterWind

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Whether the time you spend there is wasted or not depends only on you. A lot of the slow-lane indoctrinated people at my college also have the idea that the school should spoon feed them the knowledge they are there for. People don't pay for staying in class from Monday through Friday, some pay only for that paper and others pay for the mirage that is instant upload of knowledge with zero effort.

Alright, some of the subjects taught in college might not seem useful, but, since you're in the IT field like me, I think there's always useful knowledge that you can acquire (by yourself) that would both be useful for you in the future (ex: an online business which requires a website which requires front end dev skills and some sysop skills that might help when setting up web and mail server etc.) and help you go through college.

Learning how to learn is also important. How to manage and organize a huge knowledge base and try to make sense of all it all can be a really difficult task.

Another skill you might be able to acquire during college is teaching. Yes, teaching. No, I'm not preaching to you to become a teacher or anything like that, BUT making someone understand what you are talking about is a very important skill almost everywhere. Just pick a subject you somewhat like, learn about it as much as you can, grab a few of your colleagues that might need help and try to teach them what you've learned.

College looks like a waste of time and money (and probably is), but if you try gaining some useful skills while helping others it might look like less of a waste.

I am still a wantrepreneur that has just started working on something barely fast-lane so take all this with a grain of salt.
 
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Colton

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If you have read any of my other threads, you know that I am diligently working on my fast-lane venture. While I am working on my fast-lane venture I am also studying computer science, working to earn my bachelors degree.
Every day I hear stories from my professors about their working jobs. Some are engineers, some are programmers. All are fully slow-lane indoctrinated.
Today, I hear from my professor that he fought and clawed with all that he had, to get a job working 70+ hours a week for a major tech company when he was in his early 30s. Now he is a part time professor, part time electrical engineer.
I have never been so afraid as when this man describes his job at one of these major companies. I do not want to finish school. All I want is to get out of here and build a business that will allow me to not have to scrape and claw for a shitty job out of college.
I never want to be in that position.
Couldn't have said it better myself. I'm a college student too, by the way. I feel ya.

I'm determined not to waste my time here, though. There are lots of resources and opportunities here at university which, used properly, will help me to build my fastlane business while being a student.
 

ZF Lee

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It can be scary breaking away from the herd. lol
Being old in a wheelchair realising you never got to travel the world, watch your children grow, made an impact on society, go on romantic getaways with your significant other, all because I stuck to the herd, is more scary.

Or seeing my girl fall into believing she has to stick to 'safety' and 'accepted' norms to make it in this world....it frightens me more.

And watching my peers being more fascinated about things such as movies, dead end degrees and dating that don't change their lives....it frightens me more.

I haven't mentioned fear of and from facing people and vendors who laughed at my business offers and pitches because I was a nobody and young af, but that's another story on fear.
 

GatsbyMag

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Sitting in class right now, this hits home real hard. Thankfully only got another 3 months and unfortunately already deposited my 18 years
This is the thing that hurts. When I was younger I knew school was mostly BS but I had no idea that it was possible for a kid to start a business or master a craft.
But now I know and I advice the younger kids in family to start creating and learning whatever they want.
 
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Envision

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Id say its a good thing you were there so you can see what you don't want to become. You can become that same person as an entrepreneur as well it just looks a different way.

Statistically you have a better chance of becoming more successful in life with a degree. I genuinely don't care what you do, but it's quite obvious and you can google the data that shows people with bachelor's, MBA's, etc significantly outperform those without. You might go one and say, "well im going to go start my own company" that's fine too but here's an excerpt you may want to consider,

"One 2008 study of just over 500 tech startups found college graduates had twice the average revenue and number of employees as their counterparts who skipped college. Or, as the report put it: "Startups founded by those with only high school education significantly underperform all others."

Entrepreneurs do better with college - studies

However, to your point about them not supporting fastlane ideas another article that has backed this data up states, "In a 2013 survey by small business insurer Hiscox, 66% of small business owners around the world said that they believed their education system did not encourage individual ideas and dreams, two of the key ingredients in any recipe for entrepreneurship. That statistic is borne out by another study in which 81% of young people surveyed said they wanted to pursue entrepreneurship, but 62% weren’t offered entrepreneurship classes in college.

Education vs. Entrepreneurship: Which Path Wins?

But to just go out and write off completely the value of a GOOD college education (STEM/BUSINESS) is pretty foolish considering the odds are in your favor if you do complete it. If you spend $100,000 getting an MBA and are able to get a job making $100-150k per year you are getting a better return on your money BY FAR than if you werent to go or owned a small business.

Assuming you worked, had aid, etc you should be able to set aside some of those funds to create your start up and invest while mitigating your risk.

While this is an unpopular opinion on this forum if you went to an IVY League School, a state school and got a graduate degree etc and still had the same ambitions to create something big you'd be in a much better position with way more opportunity and resources as opposed to not.

Edit: And to those thinking well i dropped out to build my company (if it even has sales).. that's fine. But realize somewhere out there is someone building their company thats just as good/big/better than yours and they're getting their education.
 

AfterWind

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If you spend $100,000 getting an MBA and are able to get a job making $100-150k per year you are getting a better return on your money BY FAR than if you werent to go or owned a small business.
Fully ignoring what you can get out of an MBA (as it depends a lot on the college): There's also the time invested for that MBA (2 years) which you are neglecting. Sure, you will be getting a LOT more money if you stick to a job by getting an MBA, but we're talking about people that, at the most, will want to finance their business ventures for a couple years until they finally find something that works.

I think it comes down to two choices:
2 years for knowledge and, after that, higher salary but less experience with business or
2 years of executing and, after that, same salary but much better understanding of the business field.

I would pick the latter since you choose the entrepreneurial path at the beginning of the 2 years and you are fully committed to it which might create the drive that you need to build a successful business even faster than you would with bigger capital.
 

Envision

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Fully ignoring what you can get out of an MBA (as it depends a lot on the college): There's also the time invested for that MBA (2 years) which you are neglecting. Sure, you will be getting a LOT more money if you stick to a job by getting an MBA, but we're talking about people that, at the most, will want to finance their business ventures for a couple years until they finally find something that works.

I think it comes down to two choices:
2 years for knowledge and, after that, higher salary but less experience with business or
2 years of executing and, after that, same salary but much better understanding of the business field.

I would pick the latter since you choose the entrepreneurial path at the beginning of the 2 years and you are fully committed to it which might create the drive that you need to build a successful business even faster than you would with bigger capital.

Nothings stopping you from running your business and going to school.

And the odds of you making 100-150k as an entrepreneur after 2 years are slim to none.
 
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AfterWind

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Nothings stopping you from running your business and going to school.

And the odds of you making 100-150k as an entrepreneur after 2 years are slim to none.
Well, sure, if you can pay for the expenses and don't have to get a job during that time, you probably can.

And no, of course, you'll probably be making close to nothing. But, to me, it just seems like sacrificing time for money, and I wouldn't want to invest 2 more years of my time just to be able to sacrifice that time for more money.
 

luniac

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College has too much filler, bullshit electives that no one cares about. The man I am today would have dropped out the moment I had to basically take mandatory English class again in my first semester...

In the end it took 5 years of my life. Some great classes, some great teachers, lots of bullshit teachers.
I sure learned a ton and got the knowledge I came there for, but goddamn it was an inefficient use of time.

I say get rich first, then go to college and enjoy.
 

millerad

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I have already lost nearly 3 years of my life to college; and I am just pushing to get my company off the ground so that I don't waste any more of my life at this school. Learning things that I will only ever use to impress a future boss that I hope to never have. Great input everyone!
 
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Xavier X

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My take on college is: It depends on the individual.

Going to college isn't inherently bad, but if you're there with the wrong mindset, then it could be.

People who say they don't have the time are typically copping out.
College isn't exactly a walk in the park, so like any other difficult life endeavor, people will find excuses to abandon them.

Some bro tells you he has no time to attend college, but somehow finds the time to play Call of Duty for 10 hours a day.

While in college, I had a 40 - 55hr/week job. I also created/ran a business with a physical location and full time employees.
Combined with a lot of other hustling. Time is rarely the issue, what you choose to do with it is.

I was never in college to graduate and get a job. I only wanted to develop my chosen skill traditionally, and apply it non-traditionally.

I agree, college is way more expensive than it should be, and in most fields it takes longer than necessary.

If someone launches a successful business in college and chooses to dropout and zone in, I can understand.
However, dropping out only to chase fairies isn't a plan in itself.

@OP
What your professor chose to do with his degree has zero bearing on what you can/choose to do with yours.
Don't hinge your outcomes on the failures of others.
 

workinprogress

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The main functions of public schools in 19th century (and these are the main reasons why they actually came into existence) were to teach future factory workers some basic spelling and writing skills and to prepare them for a work by making them sitting in a classrooms for hours and hours, days and days (just like today) so they were taught that this is going to be their life when they grow up.

Today is the same - you'll learn writing, reading, pronunciation, maths... and that's good. The problem arises when we finally learn those skills, but are still forced to go to a school, because that's what government told us to do.

Colleges are the same - the entire college education revolves around writing assessments and sitting in a classroom for hours and hours, just so you can get a degree which is absolutely worthless (unless you really need it, e.g. for promotion or to do some specific job that requires a degree).
It's just a business - people believe that they need a degree to "success", so they invest money in it and then literally waste their time in college to "get a paper". After they get a paper with a degree (which takes few years), they are already trained to be a good employee and spend numerous hours at work they do not like. Till the end of their life. Just like robots - programmed to do certain activities over and over again without having an idea what are they actually doing and what value are they providing.

That's what we're trained to follow so it should not be surprising that everyone around us talk about "going to a good college" and "getting good job". Another thing worth adding is that none of us have been taught critical thinking and open mind attitude. This is exactly why most of our friends and people we know believe in this bullshit - they've been programmed to think in a certain way.

We must focus on making our lives as good as it's possible, and then teach our children to live in the same way. We are not able to change other people's mindsets and lives, we can only change our own.

You forgot one thing: they were training them to be factory workers AND soldiers! Yay war!!!
The First World War was only able to come to fruition after a couple decades of Prussian-based (look up more about Prussians and the origins of the US public school system, supremely interesting) classroom schooling in the western world.

—-
(Sorry to derail the thread just had something relevant to this mans comment I needed to get off my chest)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Last edited:

millerad

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My take on college is: It depends on the individual.

Going to college isn't inherently bad, but if you're there with the wrong mindset, then it could be.

People who say they don't have the time are typically copping out.
College isn't exactly a walk in the park, so like any other difficult life endeavor, people will find excuses to abandon them.

Some bro tells you he has no time to attend college, but somehow finds the time to play Call of Duty for 10 hours a day.

While in college, I had a 40 - 55hr/week job. I also created/ran a business with a physical location and full time employees.
Combined with a lot of other hustling. Time is rarely the issue, what you choose to do with it is.

I was never in college to graduate and get a job. I only wanted to develop my chosen skill traditionally, and apply it non-traditionally.

I agree, college is way more expensive than it should be, and in most fields it takes longer than necessary.

If someone launches a successful business in college and chooses to dropout and zone in, I can understand.
However, dropping out only to chase fairies isn't a plan in itself.

@OP
What your professor chose to do with his degree has zero bearing on what you can/choose to do with yours.
Don't hinge your outcomes on the failures of others.
This is the most thoughtful and respectful answer that I have gotten yet. I absolutely know that whatever business I push for in the future will be highly technical. I do have that reason to finish going to school. Not so that I can be in the trenches writing code and programming machine learning languages; but maybe so that I can without a doubt understand what these things are and how to talk to developers that I hire that are a lot smarter than me.
 

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people believe that they need a degree to "success",
The worst is that teachers teach this ideology to "future school teachers". Every day when i hear this it makes me feel like drop college out. It's not possible that people still believe in this one belief, sadly there's no way to change people's mindset from one day to other.
 

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Just gonna throw this out there: my advanced degree (and subsequent profession) allows me to have significant financial wiggle room to make mistakes. I can't say that, with the information that was available at the time, I regret going to college and grad school.

Of course, I started college pre-recession and was almost finished with grad school (and committed to the military) by the time TMF came out. If I knew at the time what many of the younger posters now know, I may have made different choices.
 
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I too studied computer science. But I never finished it though. The fancy degree is not what's important - what's important is the experience. College gave me the opportunity to be more outgoing and overcome my introverted nature. It gave me a glimpse on what it's like to live away from my parents and become independent, as well as the opportunity to prepare for it.

On the downside, a lot of what they teach is not necessarily important to an entrepreneur. Do I really need to memorize MS-DOS commands? Or learn the importance of operating systems in computers? Or how to calculate the volume of a solid of revolution? Or how to make a fancy 101-page business plan along with a projected sales graph?

Not to mention my accumulated student debt. Lucky for me, my government highly subsidizes public universities, so it's only a few thousand dollars. Still, it's something.

Also, lucky for me, my parents had been supportive of my decision to quit college. But that's only because I brought real results in the past that gave them some bragging rights. If it wasn't for that, I don't think they'll be too happy about it.

I'd recommend college if you are not 100% confident with your skills and abilities, and leave when you feel college is not for you. Otherwise, skip it.

Just my two cents.
 

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My understanding so far about school;

school=knowledge
books=wisdom

knowledge is basically data. It describes the world just like seeing a world map. You understand that there are different continent, countries, landscapes etc.

Wisdom on the other hand, tells you where you should go and where you shouldn't.

I think the main hate against school (besides debt) is the fact that everyone feels lost in it and it's true, you do feel lost. It's not there to guide you, but only there to make you understand things.
 

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