Eight Alternatives to College - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Martian · 05-03-2011, 05:17 PM

The article:

8 Alternatives to College | Altucher Confidential

Quote:

Originally Posted by James Altucher

When I was 19 I won some money in a chess tournament. So instead of using that money for my college tuition I decided to drop out of college and buy a car. I bought a used 1982 Honda Accord. I drove it around for a few hours since they let me drive it right out of the lot. But when I saw my girlfriend and everyone else taking their classes I got a little jealous. I returned the car and cancelled the check and entered my sophomore year of college. But I regret it now.

Whenever I suggest “don’t send your kids to college” a lot of vey smart people invariably come back with the response, “well what else should they do.” And this amazes me. I guess its really hard to figure out what people of the ages 18-23 should do during the most vibrant, healthy years of their lives when they grow from being a child to an adult.

So I figure I will help people out by coming up with a list and try to handle the critcisms that will certainly arise even before they arise. I can do this because I have a college degree. So I’ve learned how to think and engage in repartee with other intelligent people.

1) Start a business. There are many businesses a kid can start, particularly with the Internet. On another post I will list the possible types for first businesses. But if you always focus on the maxim, “buy low and sell high”, you’ll start to generate ideas.

Many people say (correctly), “well, not everyone can be an entrepreneur”. Its amazing to me, also, how many times I’ve answered this question in writing and yet people still read the exact articles and say “well not everyone can be an entrepreneur”.

First off, there’s no law against being an entrepreneur. In fact, everyone can be an entrepreneur. So what they really mean is: “not everyone can be a successful entrepreneur”. And as far as I know, there’s no law against failure either. When someone loses a tennis match or a chess game. how do they improve? They study their loss. As anyone who has mastered any field in life knows: studying your losses is infinitely more valuable than studying your wins. I failed at my first three attempts at being an entrepreneur before I finally learned how to spell it and I finally had a success (i.e. a company with profits that I was then able to sell).

Failure is a part of life. Better to learn it at 18 than at 23 or older when you’ve been coddled by ivory blankets and hypnotized into thinking success was yours for the taking. Get baptized in the river of failure as a youth so you can blossom in entrepreneurial blessings as an adult.

What do you learn when you are young and start a business (regardless of success or failure):

you learn how to come up with ideas that will be accepted by other people
you begin to build your bullshit detector (something that definitely does not happen in college)
you learn how to sell your idea
you learn how to build and execute on an idea
you meet and socialize with other people in your space. They might not all be the same age but, lets face it, thats life as an adult. You just spent 18 years with kids your age. Grow up!
you might learn how to delegate and manage people
you learn how to eat what you kill, a skill also not learned by college-goers

2) Travel the world. Here’s a basic assignment. Take $10,000 and get yourself to India. Check out a world completely different from our own. Do it for a year. You will meet other foreigners traveling. You will learn what poverty is. You will learn the value of how to stretch a dollar. You will often be in situations where you need to learn how to survive despite the odds being against you. If you’re going to throw up you might as well do it from dysentery than from drinking too much at a frat party. You will learn a little bit more about eastern religions compared with the western religions you grew up with. You will learn you aren’t the center of the universe. Knock yourself out.

3) Create art. Spend a year learning how to paint. Or how to play a musical instrument. Or write 5 novels. Learn to discipline yourself to create. Creation doesn’t happen from inspiration. It happens from perspiration, discipline, and passion. Creativity doesn’t come from from God. Its a muscle that you need to learn to build. Why not build it while your brain is still creating new neurons at a breathtaking rate than learning it when you are older (and for many people, too late).

4) Make people laugh. This is the hardest of all. Spend a year learning how to do standup-comedy in front of people. This will teach you how to write. How to communicate. How to sell yourself. How to deal with people who hate you. How to deal with the psychology of failure on a daily basis. And, of course, how to make people laugh. All of these items will help you later in life much more than Philosophy 101 will. And, by the way, you might even get paid along the way.

5) Write a book. Believe me, whatever book you write at the age of 18 is probably going to be no good. But do it anyway. Write a novel about what you are doing instead of going to college. You’ll learn how to observe people. Writing is a meditation on life. You’ll live each day, interpret it, write it. What a great education!

6) Work in a charity. Plenty of charities do not require you to have a college degree. What is going to serve you better in life: taking French LIterature 101 or spending a year delivering meals to senior citizens with Alzheimers, or curing malaria in Africa. I have an answer to this. You might have a different one. Which is why I’m listing 8 alternatives here instead of just this one. And, by the way, if you do any of these items for a year, two years, maybe ten, then maybe go to college? Why not? Its your life.

7) Master a game: What’s your favorite game? Ping pong? Chess? Poker? Learning how to master a game is incredibly hard. I’ve written before how to do it but lets start with the basics:

study the history of the game
study current experts on the game. videos, books, magazines, etc. Replay, or try to imitate in some way, the current masters of the game
Play a lot: with friends, in tournaments, at local clubs, etc.
take lessons from someone who has already mastered the game. This helps you to avoid bad habits and gets someone to immediately criticize your current skills.
Mastering a game builds discipline, lets you socialize with other people of all ages and backgrounds but who have similar passions, and helps you to develop the instincts of a killer without having to kill anyone. Nice!

8)Master a sport: Probably even better than mastering a game because its the same as all of the above but you also get in shape.

If anyone can think of any other alternatives, please list them in the comments. We only have the life we have lived. And I always sit and daydream, ‘what if..’, ‘what if..’ Its the easiest and most dangerous meditation to do: what if. Because that wish is like a wisp of smoke that can twist and turn until we disappear along with it. But as I write this post I look at these alternatives with longing and I know that when I hit “Publish” I’m going to sit here quietly while the sun goes down, wondering only about ‘what if’.

I make no secret of the fact that I never went to college and don't feel the lack of it. I took an alternative path. Some might claim that my ignorance shows through, I don't know -- regardless, I sometimes think the college cult is a bit absurd.

That's not to say college is wrong or bad. It's a training tool and, for a select few, a professinal environment. But this idea that seems to permeate our culture that young people should go to college because that's what young people should do is, I think, perhaps the single most harmful thing to come out of the western world.

Thoughts? Comments? Is this toxic, a terrible horrible disgusting attempt to subvert our youth? Should I Think Of The Children?

Discuss.

noodle · 05-03-2011, 05:36 PM

I think that in the U.S., we've become so elitist that it's hard to get a lot of places without a degree of some kind.
Sometimes and in some fields you can do okay.
But I think every single thing on this list is really awesome and important... and should be part of your life experience. I think that college doesn't work for everyone, but the ones that I've met that haven't gone, at some point have felt held back by not having a degree. Some times that feeling passes. Others are stuck 20 years later watching the younger versions of themselves fly past where they are because of a bachelor's degree they didn't get.
It depends on what you want to accomplish with your life.
I think that you should do all of them and college if you want a well-rounded life.
But then again, I would rather not have any limits... and for me, I'm a little biased, because I'm back in school to lift restrictions and open a thousand doors for myself.

filtherton · 05-03-2011, 06:11 PM

I believe in the usefulness of college. For me. Even then, I've yet to find a job in a field corresponding to my education.

That piece of paper that results from college can be invaluable because it represents a certain amount of dues paid. It can also be valuable because it demonstrates exposure to certain ideas and methods. Either of these things can be difficult to demonstrate in non-diploma ways.

I think the list is good, though likely not useful for everyone. If the costs of higher education continue to increase, people are going to increasingly be forced to make it without college. Given the amount of information available for free online, and the space available to do creative things with that information, I suspect that avoiding college won't be as much of a roadblock to career success in the future as it is at the moment.

Charlatan · 05-03-2011, 06:11 PM

I don't know how many times I have told young people who were interested in getting into film, that if they really wanted to be filmmakers they didn't need to go to film school. There are only two reasons to go to film school:

1) networking
2) to give you a degree to fall back on if all else fails

Frankly, you can get the networking done if you join a film club or collective (or even online, these days) and if you are looking for something to fall back on, you probably need to go to school in the first place. You are aren't likely all that serious about becoming a filmmaker.

The best experience a filmmaker can get towards becoming a filmmaker is making a film.

I have said the same thing to people who say they want to be writers. I have had a number of youth tell me in an interview situation that they want to be a writer, I ask them how much writing they do. The answer is almost always not the one a writer would give. If you want to be a writer, why aren't you writing ever day?

There is a lot to be said for a University education. Mine has served me well. I just don't think people should discount hands on experience. Especially when we are talking about developing a trade or a craft.

levite · 05-03-2011, 06:19 PM

I think every one of the OP suggestions is awesome, and incredibly valuable, and everyone should do one of them, or something like one of them.

But I don't think they're substitutes for college.

Look, I respect an autodidact. I am a huge autodidact. But there's always going to be things that are extremely difficult or impractical to try and teach yourself. And there's just no substitute for an intellectual and artistic environment that provides such a rich variety of possible avenues of educational exploration. There's no substitute for the opportunity to be around a bunch of people your own age, going through similar self-exploration and evolutions of interest and internal focus, bonding while you learn.

I also think it's useful that college forces you to a wide palette of learning. Most people are instinctively or inherently more verbally or more mathematically oriented, and left to our own devices, we tend to pursue those disciplines that come more easily to us. But college forces us out of our comfort zone, and does so in more interesting ways than high school does. For example, I am deeply verbal, and abysmal at math. But college forced me to take hard science classes that involved math: and I ended up learning to love physics and astronomy, even though I still suck at math. On my own, I would never have taken classes like that, and instead, I got my horizons broadened for me. And I have heard many similar stories, which convince me that I am not unique in this matter.

But I think the things listed in the OP as "alternatives" make great supplements to college, which I heartily agree does not necessarily suffice on its own to make someone a well-rounded, open-minded, creative individual.

Martian · 05-03-2011, 06:37 PM

Just to clarify my position a bit:

I don't think college is bad, and I don't know that I would recommend these activities as an "alternative to college" myself. That's how the author framed it, and I thought it made a good jumping-off point.

I didn't go to college, as noted above. I don't feel like I'm any the worse for it, but then my chosen profession often has as much or more in common with the skilled trades than with your typical 'college' job. I wouldn't want a doctor who didn't have the appropriate education, even if he read all the anatomy textbooks and practiced on mannequins and everything.

The point that I would make is that not everyone who goes to college needs to go, and that we here in North America at least have gotten into the habit of shipping our youth off to college straight out of high school just because it's the thing to do. We end up with thousands of youths who take on tens of thousands of dollars of debt, often with little tangible benefit. That's a bit fucked up.

I'd be all for a mandatory year or two off between high school and college. Give kids a bit of time to experience life, and if they still want to go let them go afterwards.

snowy · 05-03-2011, 06:48 PM

Let's see: to do what I do, you would either have to complete 30 credit hours in early childhood education, or you would have to work for the center for a year. 30 credits is faster, albeit more expensive. When I'm finished with my degree in ECDE, I will be qualified for a job that typically requires 5 years of work experience to get without a degree.

Plus, I wouldn't trade all of the things I learned about myself, about life, and about the world during the course of my first degree. They're just as important as anything tangibly academic that I learned. For instance, I learned to fail. I learned to fail big time. I also learned how to dust myself off, get back on the horse, and keep riding.

Plan9 · 05-03-2011, 08:26 PM

I think the OP is whimsically naive hopes 'n dreams stuff. Some occupations absolutely necessitate college these days.

Most white collar occupations that will pay one well enough to "live the American dream" require that Piece of Paper (TM).

College is what middle class white people do after high school. Dummies and minorities work service jobs, go to the military.

But, hell, you can't even do well as a senior enlisted member in the US military without college anymore. What does that say?

The military used to be the one solid job you could get in the US if you weren't packing the brainpower / money for college.

Really, the only reason I got out of the military was because my enlisted boss (Platoon Sergeant) told me to go to school.

Now, college itself doesn't mean anything in my profession. The ability to read, write, research and communicate do.

The Piece of Paper (TM) is seen as proof of those abilities and puts you in a separate bracket as far as promote-ability.

I wouldn't be where I am making the money I do if it wasn't for the weird combination of credentials. College was a check block.

Instead of avoiding college, I think people should embrace it and milk it for all its worth. It's a great learning experience.

There are so many different degrees, so many scholarships... you can do whatever you want for free if you look hard enough.

...

While there are jobs and people out there that didn't require college to be financially successful, they're mostly white picket fence stories.

Avoiding college in the US is like avoiding things that require credit. You can do it but you're putting a tourniquet on your possibilities.

...

Also: College in the US is so friggin' easy. I generally feel that college is the modern replacement for high school. College is where you go to learn the things you should have learned in high school but were too busy toking from a bong, hating your parents and being coddled by underpaid daycare providers (teachers) to give a damn. I was one of the typical Old Bastards in Undergrad (TM) a few years ago and this only confirmed my suspicions.

Educational achievement expectations in Amuricah are incredibly low. I think our mediocrity in this area is why we're falling behind other nations.

...

Typical Plan9 commentary:

"Taking a year off to travel the world" is such an asinine and cliche statement made by middle class white people everywhere.

Housewives and homeless people take a year off. The rest of us need to feed our faces or pump dough into our Roth IRAs.

...

My father's take on the college topic has always been:

"Okay, go to college. Now, what do you have other than college?"

Charlatan · 05-03-2011, 09:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martian

I'd be all for a mandatory year or two off between high school and college. Give kids a bit of time to experience life, and if they still want to go let them go afterwards.

It's funny, I wouldn't advise this as such. I would advise going to University for a year or two first before taking a year off. If you've never been, it can be difficult to go, especially if you take a job and start earning a little money.

I do agree, however, that life experience is a valuable thing.

Poetry · 05-03-2011, 10:07 PM

I've been blogging/occasionally ranting on a side-topic that relates.

I'm 27. I've been in college since I was 16.

I have (accidentally) two AAs and one BA, and should be entering a graduate program in the fall after finally catching up on several pre-reqs.

My original plan, when I first started, was to have my BA by the time I turned 20. Due to various drug- and alcohol-related activities, that didn't happen.

Which I'm oddly grateful for.

I ended up having a life.

College is great. I love school. I plan on continuing to attend, even after my MA.

But I go to my classes and I talk to my classmates that range in age from 18 to 50-somethings who are just now returning after sending their own kids through college and it boggles my mind how little experience the majority of them have. It shows in their work, in their thoughts, how easy or hard it is for them to process certain concepts, relate to certain ideas.

And I do think we are doing some (not all) kids a disservice by raising them in an environment where the "norm" is to work part-time (or not at all) and invest their youth in school, in learning without extracurricular experience. Yes, it creates a sort of communal bonding experience, but it also creates this average-minded mainstream with little forward motion.

I just think there needs to be more of a blending middle ground. Write a book, travel, create art, start a business-- just throw in a few classes every semester. They really do stack up.

aberkok · 05-04-2011, 04:39 AM

When I went back to school as a 30 year-old 2 years ago, I was going for one main reason: to have a bunch of deadlines imposed on me.

That is the problem I have with the alternate suggestions in the OP article, especially as suggested to a young adult (16-22 or whatever): without imposed deadlines, one has overwhelming odds against them in the area of self-motivation. Do you have any idea how little one can achieve in a year? Write 5 novels? Learn to do stand-up comedy in a year?

The author strikes me as someone who has never tried most of these things.

soma · 05-05-2011, 03:56 AM

I think college can subtract value from your life if you lack direction. My SO is in her mid twenties, still in undergrad, and has over 40k in debt. Her sister worked right out of high-school and is far more stable.

LordEden · 05-05-2011, 05:02 AM

I agree with plan9ster on this, college is required if you want to stuff your wallet with Sweaty White Man Money (tm). There are stories of people not going to college and getting ahead in life, but it doesn't happen everyday.

Is a college a waste of money? Yes, but it looks really good on your resume. In the end getting a job is easier with a college degree because you have that Piece of Paper (tm). Hiring employers like to see you passed the college test, could you put up with insane amounts of stupid bullshit for 4 years while putting yourself into debt. This says to employer, "Hey this guy/girl can stand be lectured at and be willing to deal with idiotic deadlines for years, looks like a good entry level workhorse to me."

I think the problem with college is that most people graduate and think, "Look at this Piece of Paper (tm) I have! Everyone is going to want to hire me now!"

Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhh, not so much. Have that $30k degree doesn't really do much than make you look a little better than the rest of the unwashed masses.

I think internships are the way to go, pimp yourself out to a major company (for free or minimum wage) for a year. You gain expense and networking contacts. Plus, you get to see the dirty underbelly of whatever "dream job" you wanted to work. Nothing is as glamorous as the college or your professors said it was.

I think college should be like culinary school, you have to do a 6 month to 1 year extern to get your degree. You have to be someone's bitch for a year to get that Piece of Paper (tm), that would change a lot of things for most college students. You would also be a lvl 2 grunt instead of a lvl 1 grunt, which is more desirable for most employers.

College is a necessary evil for most jobs in the world, just do it and get the shitfest over with. Screw some hot girls while you can and learn to drink as much as everyone else without puking all over the place.

ASU2003 · 05-05-2011, 05:17 AM

9. Get a job or go to trade school. Some people would be happier being electricians than electrical engineers.

9.5. Get a job and save money for college. You might work for 4-6 years (and hopefully tuition doesn't keep going up faster than you can save)

10. Join the military. See the world, get structure to your life, and be marketable to certain industries.

snowy · 05-05-2011, 06:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LordEden

I think internships are the way to go, pimp yourself out to a major company (for free or minimum wage) for a year. You gain expense and networking contacts. Plus, you get to see the dirty underbelly of whatever "dream job" you wanted to work. Nothing is as glamorous as the college or your professors said it was.

Good internships are typically only available to those currently enrolled in college, and a good internship does pay.

LordEden · 05-05-2011, 07:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by snowy

Good internships are typically only available to those currently enrolled in college, and a good internship does pay.

I was talking about doing one while in college, internships are for college, apprenticeships are for non-college students. Not all internships pay, the only ones I've heard of pay min wage for the work and why not? You are taking in an unskilled worker to teach on-the-job training. I wouldn't pay major bucks for a untrained worker in a skilled environment.

filtherton · 05-05-2011, 08:13 AM

Internship pay depends on the industry. Engineering internships pay well. Corporate law firm internships pay ridiculously well. Journalism internships? Not so much.

I've had a few internships. For each one, the hourly wage was more than I had ever made before. However, I've never been in a position where taking an unpaid internship was even an option; I've got mouths to feed.

So I guess the takeaway is: be interested in and good at things that people are willing to pay you a lot of money to do. Or find a way to convince people to pay you to do the things that you excel at or the things that interest you. Simple.

Lindy · 05-05-2011, 11:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aberkok

....The author strikes me as someone who has never tried most of these things.

I thought this as well. Altucher's book from a few years ago Trade Like Warren Buffett was equally lightweight. A free lance writer looking for a way to sell a story. Especially after I read THIS:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martian

Quoted from the original article:

2) Travel the world. Here’s a basic assignment. Take $10,000 and get yourself to India. Check out a world...

And just where is the average (or even above average) 19 year old supposed to come up with that $10,000 for his/her "basic assignment?"

Quote:

Originally Posted by Plan9

....Now, college itself doesn't mean anything in my profession. The ability to read, write, research and communicate do.

My work/profession also. But college helped me a lot with those things, especially research and communication.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Plan9

The Piece of Paper (TM) is seen as proof of those abilities and puts you in a separate bracket as far as promote-ability....
Avoiding college in the US is like avoiding things that require credit. You can do it but you're putting a tourniquet on your possibilities.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Plan9

Also: College in the US is so friggin' easy. I generally feel that college is the modern replacement for high school. College is where you go to learn the things you should have learned in high school but were too busy toking from a bong, hating your parents and being coddled by underpaid daycare providers (teachers) to give a damn. I was one of the typical Old Bastards in Undergrad (TM) a few years ago and this only confirmed my suspicions.

Educational achievement expectations in Amuricah are incredibly low. I think our mediocrity in this area is why we're falling behind other nations.

Quite true. It's common to find college grads who can't write in complete sentences, are math illiterates, ignorant of the arts, and don't understand basic economics. What did they DO for those four+ years?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Plan9

Typical Plan9 commentary:

"Taking a year off to travel the world" is such an asinine and cliche statement made by middle class white people everywhere....

Well, you can't get much more white and middle class than I am, and I agree 110% with about 90% of what Plan9 says.

Lindy

jannista · 05-05-2011, 12:18 PM

Good article but it's much harder to be an entrepreneur then it seem at first glace. Most people don't have the dedication to do it, you wont make any money for about 2 tears so it's very easy to give up frustrated in that time,. If you can push through and not procrastinate - EVER then you may successful. It also takes some smarts, not book smarts but street smarts when you can properly think of how to market yourself and no, you don't need marketing courses, just think logically.

uncle phil · 05-05-2011, 12:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lindy

Quite true. It's common to find college grads who can't write in complete sentences, are math illiterates, ignorant of the arts, and don't understand basic economics. What did they DO for those four+ years?

i see this every day - in the teaching profession, in banks, in hospitals, and among the 'retiree' community...

ASU2003 · 05-05-2011, 06:56 PM

A better challenge would be to get to India or Europe on $1,000. I bet you could do it. You would learn a lot about the world and yourself by attempting this. And you realize what is important in your life when you have to carry it everywhere and protect it.

Spacehog · 05-05-2011, 08:35 PM

I myself went to college straight out of high school. High school for me was going to class, sleeping, and making straight A's. I even once tutored my geometry class when the teacher was out sick, and that too I slept through every day. But I had the best grades in the class.

So, I graduated national honors society blah blah blah and "Went to college." I had no clue how to study, and I was so brainwashed with middle class republican, christian normalcy that I couldn't even pass world religion cause I got angry instead of absorbing the message. The one thing I got from this were my 3 best friends. 10 years later we're all still just as tight as we were back then.

Went to a trade school from here to learn graphic design. IE advertising. Collected one worthless piece of paper in a year and a half for 20 grand of debt. Wouldn't advise trade schools to anyone. It's less than an associates degree for twice the price. Certificates of completion mean nothing.

Left and "went to work." Still had no clue what I wanted to do in life. Ended up being an electrician, and was really good at it. Decided why not be an engineer instead of a wire pulling monkey. Went back to college.

This time I was older, and had life experience of deadlines, waking up like an adult and going to bed on time etc etc. Found out I really hate self absorbed people, and over half my professors saw themselves as gods of their subject matter. When I'd add something to the conversation I could see their face wash over with embarrassment if it was outside their realm of godlike knowledge. I had gotten a really good job in the mean time and decided screw it. I was only collecting debt and I had bills to pay so left and went back to work.

I work at a factory now making Bridgestone tires. It's hard work on rotating shifts for less than I'm worth and almost no room to move up. But my bills are paid, and it took till now in my late 20's (29 to be exact) to decide what I wanted from life. But everything I've learned all 3 times in school, and at every barely making it job I've had got me to that point.

So now...me and one of those 3 friends I was talking about are gonna do our own thing. I'm going to stay at the factory, and take classes at the local tech when I can (remember rotating shifts) till I have my ASE certification. My buddy is thinking of UTI in Ashboro NC which is were we'll probably open our shop eventually one day.

UTI and Wyotech I see as much the same as that design school I went to. Certificates of completion don't mean much. I want my ASE while still working, and without collecting tons of debt. At the local Community College the classes are about 110 buck a piece. I can pay for that out of pocket, avoid extra "student loans" keep my job, keep my bills paid, and in 3 years or so when I have my ASE go open my own shop with my buddy, and maybe his father in law doing whatever we want.

His father in law wants to do general maintenance, and I want to do Resto's. GM would keep the doors open, resto's and custom fabs would be what kept me waking up and going to work with a smile on my face every day.

Moral...

If I could tell my 18 year old self who had NO idea what to do for a living what to do?

Go to college, meet your 3 best friends, then drop out, go get your ASE, learn to weld, get better with fiberglass fabrication (I already could do a little of this at 18) and skip all the debt.

If anyone were thinking of trade schools...make sure you have an actual degree or a license like an ASE or welders certification etc at the end. If you get a certificate of completion for 20 grand you basically just wasted years of your life.

Sheepy · 05-06-2011, 02:33 AM

America is ranked 92 last time i checked in distribution of wealth amongst it's people and i don't think my country is great either. The variety of opportunities is still 90% reliant in the circumstances and the networks you are born/brought up into.

Me personally? I'm aiming to get this super pack degree called a PPE (politics philosophy and economics) along with working on my writing.Finish university by 24-25, make myself something from 26-30 get married have kids buy the latest video games watch the newest movies get a chocolate lab and live happily ever after. BAM. SPLASH. POW.

DaveOrion · 05-06-2011, 08:45 AM

You can get somewhere without college........

1. You must be driven, even a workaholic.

2. Start your own business.

3. Live below your means.

4.Save your money.

5.Dont get caught in the credit trap, (buying a new car, using credit cards with outrageous interest rates or variable rates) you should only finance your home if anything.

6. Avoid instant gratification, shop around, compare prices, be frugal.

7. Repeat first 6 steps.

8. Retire a millionaire by 60.

Mantus · 05-06-2011, 10:40 AM

I think most young kids don't realize that college gives so much more than a piece of paper which proves you can follow direction from A to B. Post secondary education is all about networking. College is where you'll meet your first love. It's where you'll make life long friends. It's where you'll find people that have connections and help you move up in life. College is where you'll find mentors and get your feet wet so you have some life experience to build your life on.

I wish I knew all this back in high school. Without a social network it's a hard and lonely road.

Entrepreneurship takes so much more than just work ethic. You have to find connections, business partners, mentors, clients, and people who are generally interested in the same things you are. This isn't easy. Even if you find them you have to have the social skills to connect with people you wish to keep in your life. I've been lucky enough to find the right people and build a decent support structure but I'll be honest it's been an uphill battle.

Would I got to college if I had to do it all over again? No. But I wish I knew what I was missing out on so I could have compensated properly for my lack of social resources.

~edit~

I want to add something very important. I'm sure it's been said already but worth repeating. People move up in life by meeting people above their social status. Improving one's life situation is 95% the people you meet.

So my advice would be,
If you are not sure what to do with your life: go to college. You'll never figure shit out without life experience. The friends and romantic relationships alone are worth it

If you have kids who want to skip college: it falls on your shoulders as a parent to help them out in life by providing social contacts and life experience. Chances are they'll fail and embarrass you at first but in the end they'll learn to swim.

roachboy · 05-06-2011, 11:15 AM

i think it's pretty simple. you shouldn't go to college unless and until you know why you're there. until you reach that point, you're wasting the money of whomever it is that is fronting for you and wasting your time. i don't think it's an accident that the routine story is of waking up hung over one morning sometime during the first semester of junior year with the horrifying realization that you have to major in something.

some people know at 18. most people figure it out sometime in their early 20s, a provisional narrative that orients them until the fashion another one later on. and given that there's no standard age---and no standard path---that brings folk to this point, then it makes no sense that there should be standard expectations as to college following high school straight away. or at all.

there could be non-military national service. there could be all kinds of programs to make a couple years off between high school and college a valuable and constructive time in which folk figure out, at least provisionally, what they want to explore.

but it requires making actually educating folk a priority. abandoning the security warehousing that's all too typical of high schools, getting rid of these moronic conservative standardized tests, and diverting substantial resources away from building weapons systems into trying to make people's lives better.

the problem with the article in the op is that it assumes---apparently---that the money one spends on tuition is simply laying around and can be accessed to do other things. so it leaves out the centrality of debt generation in enabling kids to get to school outside a very narrow class stratum.

insofar as the class reproduction aspect of education----i can't figure out why this even surprises anyone. back in the old days, marxists called education the system of social reproduction. and they were right. that's it's function--to reproduce the class order.

but it also provides a variety of tools with which to critique that order and that enable people to work their way out from under the loops that constitute the dominant ideologies.

and were people not able to work their way out from under those loops, the system as a whole would collapse because the ideology is geared around making itself static in order to protect itself as a stratified, unhuman, unjust society in many---but not all---respects.

so the idea of university education being part of social reproduction is a duh point. yes. obviously. but that's not **all** it is.

Mantus · 05-06-2011, 01:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

i think it's pretty simple. you shouldn't go to college unless and until you know why you're there. until you reach that point, you're wasting the money of whomever it is that is fronting for you and wasting your time. i don't think it's an accident that the routine story is of waking up hung over one morning sometime during the first semester of junior year with the horrifying realization that you have to major in something.

I disagree for two reasons. One is this:

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

the problem with the article in the op is that it assumes---apparently---that the money one spends on tuition is simply laying around and can be accessed to do other things.

The other is a simple fact that it takes experience to figure out who you are in life. Even if you waste your first year or two in college academically that is still better than working at Pizza Shack and playing World of Warcraft while waiting for the answers to come. You save thousands of dollars but lose out on years of life. I present an extreme example but also believe that the majority of people lack personal drive and resources to give themselves an equivalent experience in comparison to college.

I believe that for 95% of the population it's better to give college a try than wait around doing nothing.

Martian · 05-06-2011, 03:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mantus

The other is a simple fact that it takes experience to figure out who you are in life. Even if you waste your first year or two in college academically that is still better than working at Pizza Shack and playing World of Warcraft while waiting for the answers to come. You save thousands of dollars but lose out on years of life. I present an extreme example but also believe that the majority of people lack personal drive and resources to give themselves an equivalent experience in comparison to college.

I believe that for 95% of the population it's better to give college a try than wait around doing nothing.

I find it interesting that you assume college to be the only or even best way for young people to figure themselves out.

In my youth, I worked the crappy jobs. I worked jobs for minimum wage. From that I learned that nobody gets ahead working jobs for minimum wage. I worked blue collar jobs in construction and shipping. I learned that blue collar jobs pay fairly well, but they're frequently back-breaking, soul-crushing affairs. I started my own business. I learned that running my own business isn't for me, at least not in the field I chose. After all of that, I ended up in a job that I love making good money and with good career prospects.

Am I typical? I don't know. I don't generally think of myself as something special. A combination of my circumstances and my own unique character prevented me from following the same high school->college->career path that my peers followed. I didn't set out to learn anything or be anything or try anything -- I just decided that college wasn't in the cards for me and so I had to figure out an alternative.

Ten years after the fact, the biggest difference between most of my high school peers and I lies in debt -- they have it, I don't.

I'm not vehemently anti-college in the way that Mr. Altucher seems to be. I think there are some people who go and don't need to, or go for the wrong reason. I think the educational institution in it's current format has a habit of monetizing uncertainty. Don't know what you want to do with your life? Go to college, you'll figure it out there! After $40 000 of debt that can never be discharged short of paying it back, of course. Went to college, got a degree and now you hate your job? Just go again! After another $40k of debt, you'll be much happier.

But on the flip side, there are lots of jobs that require a lot of educating. I would never propose that lawyers or architects learn on the job -- I really want the folks who are charged with keeping me out of jail or making sure the buildings I live and work in stay standing know what they're doing. If you've known since you were 12 that you're going to be a surgeon, if that's truly all you've ever wanted and you have no doubts or questions, by all means go to college straight out of high school.

I just wonder, idly, in my fashion, if the rest of our youth could spend those 18-24 years more productively than getting drunk and trying to nail sorority chicks. Or if they're going to do that anyway, if they could do it without having to pay thousands of dollars for the privilege. Are we really convinced that this is the best possible way to teach young people about the world? Isn't it a possibility that an equally good way to learn is to actually be out in it?

Charlatan · 05-06-2011, 04:31 PM

I am all for mandatory government service for two years after University.

This could be served in any number of ways from Military (preferably non-combat roles) to Foreign service.

ASU2003 · 05-06-2011, 05:41 PM

I would start with one year after high school, why wait until they have finished university? I forgot a lot of stuff right after I was done... There are a lot of high school kids to place into volunteer or ROTC type positions. Then you have a big population of drop-outs, teen moms & dads, druggies and other less than prepared for the real world groups to deal with. If they don't want to go, do you make them do something? What about obese teens, do you send them off to boot camp for 6 months to live a forced healthy lifestyle and vastly improve their outlook on life (it should be done in junior high...)? This is one of those things a few states should do first, then we will see what happens.

Plan9 · 06-01-2011, 11:36 AM

Mmm, but K-12 is simply government-mandated daycare that gives you a masturbatory piece of paper.

College isn't really all that different. It is much more apparent now that I'm in the workforce.

CinnamonGirl · 06-01-2011, 02:10 PM

Speaking as someone who failed out/quit college the first time around, I would have benefited WAY more by spending the tuition money on travel. If I had an inkling of what my twenties would be like, I probably would've joined the military and THEN gone to college.

Ah, well. Hindsight, 20-20, all that jazz.

Marshmellofluff · 06-02-2011, 01:26 PM

While I don't necessarily agree that skipping college is a great idea, I DO agree that we should take some TIME before we go. I wanted to take a year off between high school and college, but apparently (according to my parents) only 'slackers' do that, and so I was pushed into going to a college I didn't care for, my major still undeclared as I hadn't decided what I wanted to do.

I was a straight A stuednt in high school, but the stress and unfamiliarity of college took its toll on me, and one day I just stopped going to classes, flat out. It was a low point in my life.

Now, three years later, I am re-enrolled in college, maintaining a 4.0 and happier than could be.

I think the problem is less college itself and more the 'hurryhurryhurry' attitude we all have about education.

Cynthetiq · 06-02-2011, 06:44 PM

There are many places in the world where a college degree is mandatory to even get an entry level job. The US does not hold the "make everyone go to college" card.

What is more important than what education you are getting is going to be what is the pay out after college.
Median Earnings by Major and Subject Area - Home - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Currently I'm working with lawyers and seeing graduating law students compete for jobs with Indian graduates who are willing to do the simple e-discovery work for $10/hour. There are going to be law students who will not be able to pay off their $100k student loans with the competition of global lawyers available to do grunt work common law tasks.

Personally, I didn't graduate from college. I did go to different schools for about 5 years trying to pay the least amount as possible and worked as close to full time except for the first year. Years 2-5 it was like "do I go to work or do I go to class?" I was fortunate enough to have a skill that people were willing to pay me gobs of money. I had no college debt. Skogafoss had student loans, used none of the major degree she got for any job she's held.

I did take off a year from freshman to sophomore to live in Singapore and travel South East Asia. It was the best thing I ever did. I'd do it again if I could, even now.

Cynthetiq · 06-03-2011, 04:35 AM

some evidence re: the legal job claims I'm making

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/03/bu...verse.html?hpw
Top American firms have cut hiring or moved to a lower-tier pay system for many new associates. Corporations are reducing their legal departments. Legal temp companies now pay as little as $20 a hour to board-certified lawyers for document reviews that a decade ago might have been billed at $200 an hour.

Kookookachoo · 06-16-2011, 08:48 AM

As someone who did #2 (Travel the world) I have to suggest everyone do this.

My problem was I went to college and then traveled the world—the wrong order. It was on my travels that discovered what I wanted to make my life's work. And...you guessed it, my college education helped me very little. I ended up going back to school to get advanced degrees.

Traveling is the greatest education you can get...about the world and about yourself.

05-03-2011, 06:11 PM	#4 (permalink)
Charlatan Getting it. Super Moderator Location: Lion City	I don't know how many times I have told young people who were interested in getting into film, that if they really wanted to be filmmakers they didn't need to go to film school. There are only two reasons to go to film school: 1) networking 2) to give you a degree to fall back on if all else fails Frankly, you can get the networking done if you join a film club or collective (or even online, these days) and if you are looking for something to fall back on, you probably need to go to school in the first place. You are aren't likely all that serious about becoming a filmmaker. The best experience a filmmaker can get towards becoming a filmmaker is making a film. I have said the same thing to people who say they want to be writers. I have had a number of youth tell me in an interview situation that they want to be a writer, I ask them how much writing they do. The answer is almost always not the one a writer would give. If you want to be a writer, why aren't you writing ever day? There is a lot to be said for a University education. Mine has served me well. I just don't think people should discount hands on experience. Especially when we are talking about developing a trade or a craft. __________________ "My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars." - Old Man Luedecke

05-03-2011, 06:19 PM	#5 (permalink)
levite Minion of Joss Location: The Windy City	I think every one of the OP suggestions is awesome, and incredibly valuable, and everyone should do one of them, or something like one of them. But I don't think they're substitutes for college. Look, I respect an autodidact. I am a huge autodidact. But there's always going to be things that are extremely difficult or impractical to try and teach yourself. And there's just no substitute for an intellectual and artistic environment that provides such a rich variety of possible avenues of educational exploration. There's no substitute for the opportunity to be around a bunch of people your own age, going through similar self-exploration and evolutions of interest and internal focus, bonding while you learn. I also think it's useful that college forces you to a wide palette of learning. Most people are instinctively or inherently more verbally or more mathematically oriented, and left to our own devices, we tend to pursue those disciplines that come more easily to us. But college forces us out of our comfort zone, and does so in more interesting ways than high school does. For example, I am deeply verbal, and abysmal at math. But college forced me to take hard science classes that involved math: and I ended up learning to love physics and astronomy, even though I still suck at math. On my own, I would never have taken classes like that, and instead, I got my horizons broadened for me. And I have heard many similar stories, which convince me that I am not unique in this matter. But I think the things listed in the OP as "alternatives" make great supplements to college, which I heartily agree does not necessarily suffice on its own to make someone a well-rounded, open-minded, creative individual. __________________ Dull sublunary lovers love, Whose soul is sense, cannot admit Absence, because it doth remove That thing which elemented it. (From "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne)

05-03-2011, 06:37 PM	#6 (permalink)
Martian Young Crumudgeon Location: Canada	Just to clarify my position a bit: I don't think college is bad, and I don't know that I would recommend these activities as an "alternative to college" myself. That's how the author framed it, and I thought it made a good jumping-off point. I didn't go to college, as noted above. I don't feel like I'm any the worse for it, but then my chosen profession often has as much or more in common with the skilled trades than with your typical 'college' job. I wouldn't want a doctor who didn't have the appropriate education, even if he read all the anatomy textbooks and practiced on mannequins and everything. The point that I would make is that not everyone who goes to college needs to go, and that we here in North America at least have gotten into the habit of shipping our youth off to college straight out of high school just because it's the thing to do. We end up with thousands of youths who take on tens of thousands of dollars of debt, often with little tangible benefit. That's a bit fucked up. I'd be all for a mandatory year or two off between high school and college. Give kids a bit of time to experience life, and if they still want to go let them go afterwards. __________________ I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said - Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

05-03-2011, 06:48 PM	#7 (permalink)
snowy Kick Ass Kunoichi Location: Oregon	Let's see: to do what I do, you would either have to complete 30 credit hours in early childhood education, or you would have to work for the center for a year. 30 credits is faster, albeit more expensive. When I'm finished with my degree in ECDE, I will be qualified for a job that typically requires 5 years of work experience to get without a degree. Plus, I wouldn't trade all of the things I learned about myself, about life, and about the world during the course of my first degree. They're just as important as anything tangibly academic that I learned. For instance, I learned to fail. I learned to fail big time. I also learned how to dust myself off, get back on the horse, and keep riding. __________________ If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

05-03-2011, 08:26 PM	#8 (permalink)
Plan9 I Confess a Shiver	I think the OP is whimsically naive hopes 'n dreams stuff. Some occupations absolutely necessitate college these days. Most white collar occupations that will pay one well enough to "live the American dream" require that Piece of Paper (TM). College is what middle class white people do after high school. Dummies and minorities work service jobs, go to the military. But, hell, you can't even do well as a senior enlisted member in the US military without college anymore. What does that say? The military used to be the one solid job you could get in the US if you weren't packing the brainpower / money for college. Really, the only reason I got out of the military was because my enlisted boss (Platoon Sergeant) told me to go to school. Now, college itself doesn't mean anything in my profession. The ability to read, write, research and communicate do. The Piece of Paper (TM) is seen as proof of those abilities and puts you in a separate bracket as far as promote-ability. I wouldn't be where I am making the money I do if it wasn't for the weird combination of credentials. College was a check block. Instead of avoiding college, I think people should embrace it and milk it for all its worth. It's a great learning experience. There are so many different degrees, so many scholarships... you can do whatever you want for free if you look hard enough. ... While there are jobs and people out there that didn't require college to be financially successful, they're mostly white picket fence stories. Avoiding college in the US is like avoiding things that require credit. You can do it but you're putting a tourniquet on your possibilities. ... Also: College in the US is so friggin' easy. I generally feel that college is the modern replacement for high school. College is where you go to learn the things you should have learned in high school but were too busy toking from a bong, hating your parents and being coddled by underpaid daycare providers (teachers) to give a damn. I was one of the typical Old Bastards in Undergrad (TM) a few years ago and this only confirmed my suspicions. Educational achievement expectations in Amuricah are incredibly low. I think our mediocrity in this area is why we're falling behind other nations. ... Typical Plan9 commentary: "Taking a year off to travel the world" is such an asinine and cliche statement made by middle class white people everywhere. Housewives and homeless people take a year off. The rest of us need to feed our faces or pump dough into our Roth IRAs. ... My father's take on the college topic has always been: "Okay, go to college. Now, what do you have other than college?" __________________ *Whatever you can carry.* "You should not drink... and bake." Last edited by Plan9; 05-03-2011 at 10:04 PM..

05-03-2011, 06:11 PM	#3 (permalink)
filtherton Junkie Location: In the land of ice and snow.	I believe in the usefulness of college. For me. Even then, I've yet to find a job in a field corresponding to my education. That piece of paper that results from college can be invaluable because it represents a certain amount of dues paid. It can also be valuable because it demonstrates exposure to certain ideas and methods. Either of these things can be difficult to demonstrate in non-diploma ways. I think the list is good, though likely not useful for everyone. If the costs of higher education continue to increase, people are going to increasingly be forced to make it without college. Given the amount of information available for free online, and the space available to do creative things with that information, I suspect that avoiding college won't be as much of a roadblock to career success in the future as it is at the moment.

05-03-2011, 10:07 PM	#10 (permalink)
Poetry Crazy Location: Los Angeles, CA	I've been blogging/occasionally ranting on a side-topic that relates. I'm 27. I've been in college since I was 16. I have (accidentally) two AAs and one BA, and should be entering a graduate program in the fall after finally catching up on several pre-reqs. My original plan, when I first started, was to have my BA by the time I turned 20. Due to various drug- and alcohol-related activities, that didn't happen. Which I'm oddly grateful for. I ended up having a life. College is great. I love school. I plan on continuing to attend, even after my MA. But I go to my classes and I talk to my classmates that range in age from 18 to 50-somethings who are just now returning after sending their own kids through college and it boggles my mind how little experience the majority of them have. It shows in their work, in their thoughts, how easy or hard it is for them to process certain concepts, relate to certain ideas. And I do think we are doing some (not all) kids a disservice by raising them in an environment where the "norm" is to work part-time (or not at all) and invest their youth in school, in learning without extracurricular experience. Yes, it creates a sort of communal bonding experience, but it also creates this average-minded mainstream with little forward motion. I just think there needs to be more of a blending middle ground. Write a book, travel, create art, start a business-- just throw in a few classes every semester. They really do stack up.

05-04-2011, 04:39 AM	#11 (permalink)
aberkok “Wrong is right.” Location: toronto	When I went back to school as a 30 year-old 2 years ago, I was going for one main reason: to have a bunch of deadlines imposed on me. That is the problem I have with the alternate suggestions in the OP article, especially as suggested to a young adult (16-22 or whatever): without imposed deadlines, one has overwhelming odds against them in the area of self-motivation. Do you have any idea how little one can achieve in a year? Write 5 novels? Learn to do stand-up comedy in a year? The author strikes me as someone who has never tried most of these things. __________________ !check out my new blog! http://arkanamusic.wordpress.com Warden Gentiles: "It? Perfectly innocent. But I can see how, if our roles were reversed, I might have you beaten with a pillowcase full of batteries."

05-05-2011, 03:56 AM	#12 (permalink)
soma Addict Location: USA	I think college can subtract value from your life if you lack direction. My SO is in her mid twenties, still in undergrad, and has over 40k in debt. Her sister worked right out of high-school and is far more stable. __________________ Having Girl Problems?

05-05-2011, 05:17 AM	#14 (permalink)
ASU2003 immoral minority Location: Back in Ohio	9. Get a job or go to trade school. Some people would be happier being electricians than electrical engineers. 9.5. Get a job and save money for college. You might work for 4-6 years (and hopefully tuition doesn't keep going up faster than you can save) 10. Join the military. See the world, get structure to your life, and be marketable to certain industries.

05-05-2011, 08:13 AM	#17 (permalink)
filtherton Junkie Location: In the land of ice and snow.	Internship pay depends on the industry. Engineering internships pay well. Corporate law firm internships pay ridiculously well. Journalism internships? Not so much. I've had a few internships. For each one, the hourly wage was more than I had ever made before. However, I've never been in a position where taking an unpaid internship was even an option; I've got mouths to feed. So I guess the takeaway is: be interested in and good at things that people are willing to pay you a lot of money to do. Or find a way to convince people to pay you to do the things that you excel at or the things that interest you. Simple. Last edited by filtherton; 05-05-2011 at 08:17 AM..

05-05-2011, 12:18 PM	#19 (permalink)
jannista Upright	Good article but it's much harder to be an entrepreneur then it seem at first glace. Most people don't have the dedication to do it, you wont make any money for about 2 tears so it's very easy to give up frustrated in that time,. If you can push through and not procrastinate - EVER then you may successful. It also takes some smarts, not book smarts but street smarts when you can properly think of how to market yourself and no, you don't need marketing courses, just think logically.

05-05-2011, 06:56 PM	#21 (permalink)
ASU2003 immoral minority Location: Back in Ohio	A better challenge would be to get to India or Europe on $1,000. I bet you could do it. You would learn a lot about the world and yourself by attempting this. And you realize what is important in your life when you have to carry it everywhere and protect it.

05-05-2011, 08:35 PM	#22 (permalink)
Spacehog Upright Location: North Carolina	I myself went to college straight out of high school. High school for me was going to class, sleeping, and making straight A's. I even once tutored my geometry class when the teacher was out sick, and that too I slept through every day. But I had the best grades in the class. So, I graduated national honors society blah blah blah and "Went to college." I had no clue how to study, and I was so brainwashed with middle class republican, christian normalcy that I couldn't even pass world religion cause I got angry instead of absorbing the message. The one thing I got from this were my 3 best friends. 10 years later we're all still just as tight as we were back then. Went to a trade school from here to learn graphic design. IE advertising. Collected one worthless piece of paper in a year and a half for 20 grand of debt. Wouldn't advise trade schools to anyone. It's less than an associates degree for twice the price. Certificates of completion mean nothing. Left and "went to work." Still had no clue what I wanted to do in life. Ended up being an electrician, and was really good at it. Decided why not be an engineer instead of a wire pulling monkey. Went back to college. This time I was older, and had life experience of deadlines, waking up like an adult and going to bed on time etc etc. Found out I really hate self absorbed people, and over half my professors saw themselves as gods of their subject matter. When I'd add something to the conversation I could see their face wash over with embarrassment if it was outside their realm of godlike knowledge. I had gotten a really good job in the mean time and decided screw it. I was only collecting debt and I had bills to pay so left and went back to work. I work at a factory now making Bridgestone tires. It's hard work on rotating shifts for less than I'm worth and almost no room to move up. But my bills are paid, and it took till now in my late 20's (29 to be exact) to decide what I wanted from life. But everything I've learned all 3 times in school, and at every barely making it job I've had got me to that point. So now...me and one of those 3 friends I was talking about are gonna do our own thing. I'm going to stay at the factory, and take classes at the local tech when I can (remember rotating shifts) till I have my ASE certification. My buddy is thinking of UTI in Ashboro NC which is were we'll probably open our shop eventually one day. UTI and Wyotech I see as much the same as that design school I went to. Certificates of completion don't mean much. I want my ASE while still working, and without collecting tons of debt. At the local Community College the classes are about 110 buck a piece. I can pay for that out of pocket, avoid extra "student loans" keep my job, keep my bills paid, and in 3 years or so when I have my ASE go open my own shop with my buddy, and maybe his father in law doing whatever we want. His father in law wants to do general maintenance, and I want to do Resto's. GM would keep the doors open, resto's and custom fabs would be what kept me waking up and going to work with a smile on my face every day. Moral... If I could tell my 18 year old self who had NO idea what to do for a living what to do? Go to college, meet your 3 best friends, then drop out, go get your ASE, learn to weld, get better with fiberglass fabrication (I already could do a little of this at 18) and skip all the debt. If anyone were thinking of trade schools...make sure you have an actual degree or a license like an ASE or welders certification etc at the end. If you get a certificate of completion for 20 grand you basically just wasted years of your life.

05-06-2011, 02:33 AM	#23 (permalink)
Sheepy Tilted Location: Hometown at Great Barrier Island, NZ	America is ranked 92 last time i checked in distribution of wealth amongst it's people and i don't think my country is great either. The variety of opportunities is still 90% reliant in the circumstances and the networks you are born/brought up into. Me personally? I'm aiming to get this super pack degree called a PPE (politics philosophy and economics) along with working on my writing.Finish university by 24-25, make myself something from 26-30 get married have kids buy the latest video games watch the newest movies get a chocolate lab and live happily ever after. BAM. SPLASH. POW.

05-06-2011, 08:45 AM	#24 (permalink)
DaveOrion Playing With Fire Location: Disaster Area	You can get somewhere without college........ 1. You must be driven, even a workaholic. 2. Start your own business. 3. Live below your means. 4.Save your money. 5.Dont get caught in the credit trap, (buying a new car, using credit cards with outrageous interest rates or variable rates) you should only finance your home if anything. 6. Avoid instant gratification, shop around, compare prices, be frugal. 7. Repeat first 6 steps. 8. Retire a millionaire by 60. __________________ *Syriana*...have you ever tried liquid MDMA?....Liquid MDMA? No....Arash, when you wanna do this?.....After prayer...

05-06-2011, 10:40 AM	#25 (permalink)
Mantus lascivious	I think most young kids don't realize that college gives so much more than a piece of paper which proves you can follow direction from A to B. Post secondary education is all about networking. College is where you'll meet your first love. It's where you'll make life long friends. It's where you'll find people that have connections and help you move up in life. College is where you'll find mentors and get your feet wet so you have some life experience to build your life on. I wish I knew all this back in high school. Without a social network it's a hard and lonely road. Entrepreneurship takes so much more than just work ethic. You have to find connections, business partners, mentors, clients, and people who are generally interested in the same things you are. This isn't easy. Even if you find them you have to have the social skills to connect with people you wish to keep in your life. I've been lucky enough to find the right people and build a decent support structure but I'll be honest it's been an uphill battle. Would I got to college if I had to do it all over again? No. But I wish I knew what I was missing out on so I could have compensated properly for my lack of social resources. ~edit~ I want to add something very important. I'm sure it's been said already but worth repeating. People move up in life by meeting people above their social status. Improving one's life situation is 95% the people you meet. So my advice would be, If you are not sure what to do with your life: go to college. You'll never figure shit out without life experience. The friends and romantic relationships alone are worth it If you have kids who want to skip college: it falls on your shoulders as a parent to help them out in life by providing social contacts and life experience. Chances are they'll fail and embarrass you at first but in the end they'll learn to swim. Last edited by Mantus; 05-06-2011 at 10:50 AM..

05-06-2011, 11:15 AM	#26 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	i think it's pretty simple. you shouldn't go to college unless and until you know why you're there. until you reach that point, you're wasting the money of whomever it is that is fronting for you and wasting your time. i don't think it's an accident that the routine story is of waking up hung over one morning sometime during the first semester of junior year with the horrifying realization that you have to major in something. some people know at 18. most people figure it out sometime in their early 20s, a provisional narrative that orients them until the fashion another one later on. and given that there's no standard age---and no standard path---that brings folk to this point, then it makes no sense that there should be standard expectations as to college following high school straight away. or at all. there could be non-military national service. there could be all kinds of programs to make a couple years off between high school and college a valuable and constructive time in which folk figure out, at least provisionally, what they want to explore. but it requires making actually educating folk a priority. abandoning the security warehousing that's all too typical of high schools, getting rid of these moronic conservative standardized tests, and diverting substantial resources away from building weapons systems into trying to make people's lives better. the problem with the article in the op is that it assumes---apparently---that the money one spends on tuition is simply laying around and can be accessed to do other things. so it leaves out the centrality of debt generation in enabling kids to get to school outside a very narrow class stratum. insofar as the class reproduction aspect of education----i can't figure out why this even surprises anyone. back in the old days, marxists called education the system of social reproduction. and they were right. that's it's function--to reproduce the class order. but it also provides a variety of tools with which to critique that order and that enable people to work their way out from under the loops that constitute the dominant ideologies. and were people not able to work their way out from under those loops, the system as a whole would collapse because the ideology is geared around making itself static in order to protect itself as a stratified, unhuman, unjust society in many---but not all---respects. so the idea of university education being part of social reproduction is a duh point. yes. obviously. but that's not all it is. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

05-06-2011, 04:31 PM	#29 (permalink)
Charlatan Getting it. Super Moderator Location: Lion City	I am all for mandatory government service for two years after University. This could be served in any number of ways from Military (preferably non-combat roles) to Foreign service. __________________ "My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars." - Old Man Luedecke

05-06-2011, 05:41 PM	#30 (permalink)
ASU2003 immoral minority Location: Back in Ohio	I would start with one year after high school, why wait until they have finished university? I forgot a lot of stuff right after I was done... There are a lot of high school kids to place into volunteer or ROTC type positions. Then you have a big population of drop-outs, teen moms & dads, druggies and other less than prepared for the real world groups to deal with. If they don't want to go, do you make them do something? What about obese teens, do you send them off to boot camp for 6 months to live a forced healthy lifestyle and vastly improve their outlook on life (it should be done in junior high...)? This is one of those things a few states should do first, then we will see what happens.

06-01-2011, 11:36 AM	#31 (permalink)
Plan9 I Confess a Shiver	Mmm, but K-12 is simply government-mandated daycare that gives you a masturbatory piece of paper. College isn't really all that different. It is much more apparent now that I'm in the workforce. __________________ *Whatever you can carry.* "You should not drink... and bake."

06-01-2011, 02:10 PM	#32 (permalink)
CinnamonGirl She's Actual Size Location: Central Republic of Where-in-the-Hell	Speaking as someone who failed out/quit college the first time around, I would have benefited WAY more by spending the tuition money on travel. If I had an inkling of what my twenties would be like, I probably would've joined the military and THEN gone to college. Ah, well. Hindsight, 20-20, all that jazz. __________________ "...for though she was ordinary, she possessed health, wit, courage, charm, and cheerfulness. But because she was not beautiful, no one ever seemed to notice these other qualities, which is so often the way of the world." "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

06-02-2011, 01:26 PM	#33 (permalink)
Marshmellofluff Upright	While I don't necessarily agree that skipping college is a great idea, I DO agree that we should take some TIME before we go. I wanted to take a year off between high school and college, but apparently (according to my parents) only 'slackers' do that, and so I was pushed into going to a college I didn't care for, my major still undeclared as I hadn't decided what I wanted to do. I was a straight A stuednt in high school, but the stress and unfamiliarity of college took its toll on me, and one day I just stopped going to classes, flat out. It was a low point in my life. Now, three years later, I am re-enrolled in college, maintaining a 4.0 and happier than could be. I think the problem is less college itself and more the 'hurryhurryhurry' attitude we all have about education.

06-02-2011, 06:44 PM	#34 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	There are many places in the world where a college degree is mandatory to even get an entry level job. The US does not hold the "make everyone go to college" card. What is more important than what education you are getting is going to be what is the pay out after college. Median Earnings by Major and Subject Area - Home - The Chronicle of Higher Education Currently I'm working with lawyers and seeing graduating law students compete for jobs with Indian graduates who are willing to do the simple e-discovery work for $10/hour. There are going to be law students who will not be able to pay off their $100k student loans with the competition of global lawyers available to do grunt work common law tasks. Personally, I didn't graduate from college. I did go to different schools for about 5 years trying to pay the least amount as possible and worked as close to full time except for the first year. Years 2-5 it was like "do I go to work or do I go to class?" I was fortunate enough to have a skill that people were willing to pay me gobs of money. I had no college debt. Skogafoss had student loans, used none of the major degree she got for any job she's held. I did take off a year from freshman to sophomore to live in Singapore and travel South East Asia. It was the best thing I ever did. I'd do it again if I could, even now. __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!

06-16-2011, 08:48 AM	#36 (permalink)
Kookookachoo Banned Location: Chicago	As someone who did #2 (Travel the world) I have to suggest everyone do this. My problem was I went to college and then traveled the world—the wrong order. It was on my travels that discovered what I wanted to make my life's work. And...you guessed it, my college education helped me very little. I ended up going back to school to get advanced degrees. Traveling is the greatest education you can get...about the world and about yourself.