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If you can go back in time, would you still go to college?

Pilot35

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Hi,

A few questions for college grads. If you have a chance to go back in time, would you still go to college, or skip it? Did going to college helped you in business and real life?

Was college really the best days of your life like everyone said it is, or was it just a waste of time and money which could be put into better use?
 
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Ecom man

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Hi,

A few questions for college grads. If you have a chance to go back in time, would you still go to college, or skip it? Did going to college helped you in business and real life?

Was college really the best days of your life like everyone said it is, or was it just a waste of time and money which could be put into better use?
I went to college and graduated in 4 years. I have not used my degree in the slightest in my business. 2 great things came out of collage for me. I found and married the love of my life and I learned to put in the work required to get things done. I worked full time in collage and took a full load of classes. If you are going to go to collage, fail your classes and be partying all the time then it is a waste of time and money. If you choose to apply yourself and use it as a growing process to go from a teen to a man then it is well worth it IMO. Majoring in something useful might be a good idea as well.
 

AgainstAllOdds

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Hi,

A few questions for college grads. If you have a chance to go back in time, would you still go to college, or skip it? Did going to college helped you in business and real life?

Was college really the best days of your life like everyone said it is, or was it just a waste of time and money which could be put into better use?

Went to college and would still go if I went back in time. However, I went on a full-ride so my experience was not based on money.

In college I met a lot of kids doing interesting things, learned how to actually interact with people, and found a few mentors.

The biggest value in college is not the education (unless you do STEM - computer science, etc.), but joining clubs, tapping into you professor's network, taking workshops, making friends, and having fun. College in a sense makes you ready for society - because whether you want to admit it or not, college students are representative of future decision makers. You want to learn how to befriend them, what drives them, and get a better understanding of how "managers", "purchasing agents", etc. got into the position that they are.

However, I'd only hold this opinion if you go to a top school. If you go to a community college, then it's probably not worth it.


AND F*ck NO! College is not the best days of your life. If you take control of your life, instead of being a victim of circumstance, then there's absolutely no reason that it should be. The reason a lot of people say that college was the best days of their lives is because they had everything handed to them:
  • Freedom (which they won't have once they graduate college and accept their 9-5 fate)
  • Girls (all concentrated in the same area)
  • Ease (most people aren't ready to pay bills and have actual responsibility)
  • Etc.
Think about it. Average person graduates college. Gets a shit job they hate. Work 9-5, five days per week. With a commute. Struggle to pay off student loans. Get fat. Meet a girl in the same boat. Get married. Buy a house. Have kids. Force themselves to continue working the job they hate to pay for the mortgage, kids, and loans. Continue grinding until age 65 when they're free.

That's why people think college is the best years of their lives. Because they never take control. They never take advantage of all the awesome shit after college - like having money...having actual freedom.

For example, in the next year I'm flying to at least 10 different countries. Going to a muay thai training camp in a remote Thai village and getting trained by professionals. Getting with hotter and smarter girls than I could have in college because I'm more interesting and have money. Wake up when I want to wake up, party when I want, and travel when I want because I'm my own boss. Eat at the best restaurants because it won't affect my money tree. Live the life that I wanted to live in college.

These are only a couple examples.

College is great, but being in the fastlane or even semi-fastlane is better.
 

Veloce Grey

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No. But at the time it seemed the best of what I thought were very limited options.

Eventually you learn enough and realise your options aren't/weren't so limited.
 
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MJ DeMarco

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Yes, but your question is somewhat tricky -- it means going back to the late 80's and returning to college -- with an 80's educational agenda, and 80's economy, and an 80's culture.

Would I go to college in today's economic, political, and business climate?

Hell no.
 

Raoul Duke

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I never went to college. If I did want to go to college. I would go back and complete all 12 grades in two-week intervals to prove that I am competent enough to manage college.


Just remember... O'doyle Rules!!
 

Ubermensch

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I dropped out of college.

If I had a chance to do it over, I'd do it exactly the same.

If the path is to running a business, what's the point of college?

College is great if you have specialized knowledge that you need to acquire.

Lots of kids my age that went to college - and even got advanced degrees - are just now starting to earn six-figure incomes (and that's not all of them, by far).

I've made six-figures in a week; you can't learn how to do that in any textbook, and no $70,000 a year professor can teach you how to do it.
 
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MoreVolume

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Yes. It's the only way that I acquired the knowledge, experiences and contacts that lead me to creating my business.
 

YoungPadawan

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If I had to go back in time, I would not have gone to college. I would have instead worked on getting an IT A+ certification for about $600 and 2 months of studying.

From there, I would start applying for jobs and I could get a $11-$16 an hour job. After that, I would purchase an INSIDERS's subscription on the forum and absorb all the awesome content.

From there, I would start a business and go on to live my dreams - having grapes fed to me by models while lying on a beach in Tahiti.

Ah, if only I could go back in time...
 
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UncleIroh

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If you want to live the "college life" just move to a college town and party at night and work your business during the day. No need to get in debt with majors that you can easily learn by googling.

With that being said, if you want to be a doctor, lawyer, etc, go to college
 
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Do you want to be a doctor? Study medicine.

Do you want to be a teacher? Study education.

Do you want to be financially free? Study value creation.
 

Ubermensch

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Do you want to be a doctor? Study medicine.

Do you want to be a teacher? Study education.

Do you want to be financially free? Study value creation.

Not finishing college allowed me to spend time studying value creation. This is time and energy that I would have otherwise spent in the classroom, listening to lectures, etc.

The lessons learned "on the street," (aka in the boardroom, at the coffee shop meeting with a client, on a conference call with the decision maker, all the way to the point when you're on the phone checking for deposits... or checking the mail for a check in the mail), offer not empty wards on meaningless paper (diplomas, degrees, etc). Much better, the "pieces of paper" earned by the lessons learned at the school of hard knocks is money. Fitting, that we receive value - monetary (financial compensation) and moral (the satisfaction of productivity) - as our graduating prize for learning how to create value.

How does that go again @Andy Black ? Money is evidence that you have provided value to your fellow man, correct?

 

Andy Black

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Not finishing college allowed me to spend time studying value creation. This is time and energy that I would have otherwise spent in the classroom, listening to lectures, etc.

The lessons learned "on the street," (aka in the boardroom, at the coffee shop meeting with a client, on a conference call with the decision maker, all the way to the point when you're on the phone checking for deposits... or checking the mail for a check in the mail), offer not empty wards on meaningless paper (diplomas, degrees, etc). Much better, the "pieces of paper" earned by the lessons learned at the school of hard knocks is money. Fitting, that we receive value - monetary (financial compensation) and moral (the satisfaction of productivity) - as our graduating prize for learning how to create value.

How does that go again @Andy Black ? Money is evidence that you have provided value to your fellow man, correct?
"Money is proof you helped your fellow man." (MJ DeMarco)
 
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Lex DeVille

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When the government stopped paying me to go to college, I quit going. 5 classes left, but no time for fake school and no need to finish. There's nothing to learn in 5 classes that I can't or won't learn faster beyond. A degree won't help me close sales.

Mainly I B.S.d college. Students don't take it seriously. Instructors don't take it seriously. The material comes from some outsourced 3rd party company. Google is way faster and has less hoops to jump through for quick info.

Personally, I hated college. In-person courses were filled with morons going nowhere. Online courses were filled with people searching for an easy degree so they could get that "high-paying" job. Most of my instructors were self-entitled douches with fancy letters behind their name.

If I could go back in time, would I still attend? Sure... I got paid and it afforded me time to learn business. Over 120 courses completed and no student loans...pretty good. I'd never get a loan for college.
 

G-Man

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  1. I can't go back in time.
  2. You're not me.
  3. You won't go to the same school I went to.
  4. You'll face different life and world circumstances than I did.
The key isn't what I would do if I could go back in time, which, I can't. Ask yourself what you want, how you plan to get there, and think through the circumstances you're looking at. Obviously, the decision to go to school might be greatly affected by whether it's free or expensive, whether you want to study medicine or entrepreneurship, and so on and so on.....

Also, if you do go, at least take advantage of it for all it's worth. Don't be the dipshit that skips class to chase girls or play video games,... which may or may not be what I did, at least in part because it was free. One of the classes I actually attended was economics. Still remember at least one thing my professor said: "There are 2 immutable laws in the universe. 1 is that nothing is free. The other is that anything people think is free inevitably goes to waste."
 

ApparentHorizon

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If you need to some direction in your life, college isn't the worst place to start.

You'll be surrounded by people who are in learning mode...where an atmosphere of discovery permeates the campus. (At least in STEM)

However, we want to be careful here. Better solutions exist than going 50k into debt to "find yourself."

Personally, college was the best 2 years of my life (never finished), but not for the default answer:
  • It was the final straw, realizing how full of garbage everyone was, teachers, counselors and admin. It was suffocating, if that is supposed to be the transition into the "real world."
  • It was an opportunity to take risk free actions. Sales packets, meetings, presentations...with local suppliers...powered by new connections from clubs and events.
If you look at it like the biggest networking party in the world, then you'll be unstoppable.
 
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Andy Black

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I can't go back in time. I'll answer it differently though.

When my three sons are college age then I'd like them to go, so long as they wanted to and it didn't come with a big debt.

I'd make sure they had some cop on by then and hopefully aren't doing it to "get a job" when they come out.

I'd want them to have fun, learn to get on with lots of different people, engage in sport regularly, engage in decent learnings (they won't be doing Maths degrees like daddy), all whilst earning money on the side maybe on projects with me.
 

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Society is in so much denial. Face it. The economy changes and society changes. Nothing is static. Everything is in constant evolution.

College is stuck in 1979. And nobody wants to admit it despite the enormous evidence that it doesn't work anymore.

I went to college but never found a job in my field. Had to wash cars and work with a$$hole managers. Anger and fear drove me to Entrepreneurship.

Learn everything you can about technology. Save lots of money. Don't have any payments of any sort(if possible).

Step by step you build your knowledge and become a hot shot. But you have to think for yourself. No one can think for you. There is no book or secret or guru out there that will "do it for you". You have to become the barrier to entry itself.

Once you learn how to think like a producer opportunities arise very easily and are easily spotted.
 
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