Short post today, folks, I’ve got a busy day ahead of me.
I happened upon this site while checking www.reddit.com before I started work. It’s an article written by a career-consultant Marty Nemko and it gives a clear and concise argument against kids automatically assuming they need to go to college. I’ve been feeling this way for a while, but as usual can’t get the words out as well as most people.
Here it is: “America’s Most Overrated Product: The Bachelor’s Degree”
I especially like the part at the end when he lists a number of successful people who didn’t get a Bachelor’s Degree: Maya Angelou, David Ben-Gurion, Richard Branson, Coco Chanel, Walter Cronkite, Michael Dell, Walt Disney, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Bill Gates, Alex Haley, Ernest Hemingway, Wolfgang Puck, John D. Rockefeller Sr., Ted Turner, Frank Lloyd Wright, and nine U.S. presidents, from Washington to Truman.
Just some food for thought.
Stay sharp,
tim
Tags: Bachelor's Degree, college, Marty Nemko, reddit.com
October 21, 2008 at 8:15 pm |
i can only speak in reference to some of these people, namely Bill Gates, he came from a pretty strong family atmosphere, he was an eccentric genius and skipped some grades, was enrolled in harvard when he started his microsoft venture and then he dropped out.
what i’m getting at is the dude was an exception and he had already acquired the success skills that college normally gears people for, prior to going!
hmm maybe i should refute your point after i read the article. my bad…
October 21, 2008 at 8:24 pm |
hmm ok, so i get the point that he’s refuting the idea that college is the logical next step for adolescents in this day and age.
He was right that college is a place for kids that show signs or interests in specified fields, and shouldn’t be somewhere someone who doesn’t have goals in mind to head off into.
I agreed that colleges are corporate institutions and virtually all undergrads are seen as walking moneybags.
But at the same time, there is much to be said for the benefits of college, even if you go in for the wrong reasons (expecting an animal house atmosphere) College at the very least gives the individual a sense that a vast store of knowledge exists, and that it comes down to personal discipline if you successfully exploit it.
I understand that not all people prioritize the availability of knowledge, but at the same time I feel its something that as a human civilization the acquisition of knowledge is something we should encourage others to do.
And again all the people he cited that didn’t go to college were unique in their own way, and had a certain level of self confidence that ideally college process/environment is supposed to instill in you.
hmm i guess i’ll end with that. I know we talked about this b4 tim, and that i really enjoyed my time in college, and that you had said if you were given the right circumstance you would too.
October 22, 2008 at 10:59 am |
While I did hone my critical writing and thinking skills in college, I still am the first to say what a waste of money and paper my degree is (see the bridge in Satellites).
Our society has odd value systems in a lot of ways. I never saw going to college as necessary for EVERYONE the way that the current academic and social environment in America makes you think it is. You go through the K-12 regiment, and undergrad experience, thinking that you need to get a degree…ANY degree…just so that you won’t be a failure.
Well, you’re not a failure. In fact, I cite myself as a bigger failure than those who dropped out of college, because I just got some degree I didn’t plan on using just to get it. That’s like buying instant lotto tickets only to throw them out without even scratching them: a wasted opportunity.
But everyone wants to be well-off and a high-end functioning member of society, so we buy our precious college degree lotto tickets and hope for the best.
Well, a piece of paper isn’t going to make you successful: PASSION is going to make you successful.
Once you know what you’re passionate about, go towards that field if you want to succeed. Maybe that’s within the college institution, but maybe it’s not. And if you’re not sure what you’re passionate about yet, well, you can start at any time at all. You can be 52 and go back to college, so there’s not this mad rush like all of society makes you think there is.
Dropping out is not synonymous with giving up; instead, it’s more like taking time to just sit back, live a little, and think about your next step. This is life, after all, and I’d rather spend it enjoying the porch than continuously running towards an unclear destination.
Kudos on the find/post, Tim!