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Don't Glorify Dropping Out

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Re: Don't Glorify Dropping Out

#71

Post by nostrademons »

enjo wrote: post #53
mquander wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's equally rare to meet someone whose undergraduate education takes them to the places that a simple undergraduate education will. I'm 23, so I have plenty of friends and coworkers who are just recently out of state schools, and the vast majority sure as hell don't remember the classic novels that they might have skimmed over the course of two weeks, three years ago. I generally can't detect that they know anything…

Which is why I intentionally used the word "exposed":) I can't really recall very many specifics from my world literature classes either. However my psychology class taught me that the exposure to those novels and their concepts informs my decision making in some small way even today.

Wait, so you believe that your world literature classes inform your decision making because your psychology class told you so?

I'm somewhat ambivalent on the question of whether my liberal arts education actually made a difference in my life, but "because I heard it in psych class" would be at the very bottom of my reasons to believe so. If you're going to hold the opinion that a liberal education teaches you how to learn and informs all your future decision-making, hold it because experiences have corroborated that, not because you read in a psych textbook that that's how it's supposed to work. Textbooks do lie, y'know. ;-)

Otherwise - well, you haven't really learned how to learn, have you? If the point of a liberal education is to make sense of the world around you and form your own opinions, and you're still regurgitating things you read in a book, that liberal arts education has failed.

Re: Don't Glorify Dropping Out

#72

Post by nostrademons »

beambot wrote: post #40
TomOfTTB wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is there's nothing you get from college that you couldn't get for free somewhere else (Internet for info and Industry gatherings for social aspects). College puts it together in a nice, easy to digest package but they vastly over charge for it. The college model is still based around a philosophy from the 1800s when they were the sole providers of information.

I have read about the "getting education for free somewhere else," but I don't understand. I have had taken classes from absolute experts in certain fields, met with them personally and picked their brains to understand their way of thinking. I welcome "continuing education" opportunities that would give me exposure to such varied academic disciplines once again. How would you purport to achieve this?

Get involved in a field that you're passionate about, and start contributing back. Experts take note of passion, because it's so rare. Most of them are continually on the lookout for up-and-coming talent that's genuinely interested in the subject.

Re: Don't Glorify Dropping Out

#73

Post by ido »

araneae wrote: post #31
enjo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: First off, I don't have a college degree. I have something like 102 hours, so I'm a year'ish short. That said, I'm always a bit wary of hiring folks who don't have (at least) a liberal arts education of some kind. I don't really care about the computer science, engineering, physics part of the degree. I care about the part of college that prepares you to learn. I care about the breadth of experience tha…

I'd be wary of hiring a college drop-out simply because college can be a filter for stick-to-it-ness. Only a very few college drop-outs do so because they can do better elsewhere; the majority do it because they've failed. And they don't believe that can get back on their feet. I came close to dropping out, but I'm really glad I didn't- because managing to come back showed me that effort really matters and that I hav…

    stick-to-it-ness
Tenacity?

Re: Don't Glorify Dropping Out

#74

Post by kirinkalia »

geebee wrote: post #50

The glorification of dropping out may be a result of sample bias - journalists don't spill as much ink about the people who dropped out of college and ended up failing. That said, some dropouts scare me more than others. For instance, dropping out of high school to be an athlete, rock star, or actor seems very risky. It all worked out for Andre Agassi, but what would he have done if he'd only been a top 2,000 tennis…

So true about journalists and agreed that not all droputs are the same. Andre Agassi was successful, yes, but he regrets never finishing his education --and he's all about kids from his charter school going to college.

Frankly, the world needs all kinds of people, and the work many people do (not just entrepreneurs) depends on the work of others. Many two-income families would be SOL if there weren't people willing to clean homes and take of children, for example.

Re: Don't Glorify Dropping Out

#75

Post by mmt »

krschultz wrote: post #38
araneae wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be wary of hiring a college drop-out simply because college can be a filter for stick-to-it-ness. Only a very few college drop-outs do so because they can do better elsewhere; the majority do it because they've failed. And they don't believe that can get back on their feet. I came close to dropping out, but I'm really glad I didn't- because managing to come back showed me that effort really matters and that I hav…

I think the questino of why you dropped out is a huge one. If you dropped out becuase you wanted to start the next big thing and fail, why didn't you go back? You can go back for the next 7 years and pick up where you left off. So if you are a college drop out, I am far more inclined to think it was because you couldn't hack it than becuase you tried to go big.

I dropped out after a year, but it wasn't to go "big," merely to go (work) at all.

The reason I never went back is simply that the cost grossly outweighed the benefit.

Strictly from a quantifiable/money perspective, the loss would have been huge. After 7 years, for example, I'd have been giving up around $85k annually in salary and spending $15k or so on tuition and books. I'm ignoring living expenses, since I expect those would have been close enough to comparable. I'd also be trading 3 additional years of industry experience in addition to the $300k for a diploma. Each of those years turned out to be worth $5k-$10k of additional salary in the short term, though it's tough to say what they've been worth in the long term.

As for the intangible benefits, that was an even easier decision, since neither the process nor the "rounding" subjects outside computer science appealed to me. These were all more difficult than high school, but in the wrong ways. That is, the was just as tedious[2], more voluminous, and no more intrinsically rewarding. Writing an essay about literature that parrots the instructor's opinion is something I already knew how to do, but making it appear as if I'm not was a college-level skill I couldn't be bothered to practice, let alone master.

Had I dropped out to do a startup, even having failed, I can't imagine undergraduate academia as being anything but stifling and insulting.

Re: Don't Glorify Dropping Out

#76

Post by apsurd »

nostrademons wrote: post #65
enjo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My bet is that her expertise in English is vast and noteworthy. I don't deify the degree, but I certainly deify the accomplishment of earning a PhD. The fact that as an English PhD she was able to even get a job, much less a high paying one certainly implies that she's an expert in her field. I'm not arguing about her pay, that's up to the market. However, the condescending tone of your post shows that you have zero…

Should all difficult accomplishments be rewarded? Or should only useful accomplishments be rewarded?

A very good question!

My answer:

A difficult accomplishment should be its own reward irrespective of the outside world.

A useful difficult accomplishment will be rewarded by the outside world.

Re: Don't Glorify Dropping Out

#77

Post by krschultz »

wazzupflow wrote: post #60
krschultz wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, I went to college for 4 years, graduated and make $75k. I could never have the job I have right now without the college. I paid nothing for college because I had a scholarship, but I'm well aware of what college loan debt looks like. My girlfriend is currently paying off about a BMW worth of college loans. I point that out becuase I drive a 6 year old car and she drives a 7 year old car. If you take out…

Funny, I dropped out of college and make the same 75k as a developer...and just the other day I was explaining to my friend (with a Masters in CS) why aliases wouldn't work with his cron job. BUT, I was lucky, I STILL had to do the work to learn my field (web dev) and I had a LOT tougher time getting here. I think the one problem I have with some graduates though (not my friend), is this idea that society OWES them a…

Well I'm not a software developer, nor did I get a degree in CS. I did have a software development job without ever having taken a computer science class and did very well with it for 3 years. I still program for fun, but I like my job better than software engineering. I turned down more money programming for what I do now.

But not all careers are like software development. That's why I said the job I have right now is not one I could have gotten without a degree.

I notice the meme "college is a waste of time and money" thrown around all the time on the internet, usually by programmers, but what I really think they mean is "a computer science degree is a waste of time and money, and I also look down on liberal arts majors".

So CS majors extrapolate "I can learn my field without college" onto "Everyone can learn their field without college", and don't realize that CS is the exception, not the rule. I took a bunch of CS classes including some grad ones and I think the only one that I learned considerably from was computer vision.

Re: Don't Glorify Dropping Out

#78

Post by wazzupflow »

krschultz wrote: post #77
wazzupflow wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, I dropped out of college and make the same 75k as a developer...and just the other day I was explaining to my friend (with a Masters in CS) why aliases wouldn't work with his cron job. BUT, I was lucky, I STILL had to do the work to learn my field (web dev) and I had a LOT tougher time getting here. I think the one problem I have with some graduates though (not my friend), is this idea that society OWES them a…

Well I'm not a software developer, nor did I get a degree in CS. I did have a software development job without ever having taken a computer science class and did very well with it for 3 years. I still program for fun, but I like my job better than software engineering. I turned down more money programming for what I do now. But not all careers are like software development. That's why I said the job I have right now…

Good point; I agree.

Re: Don't Glorify Dropping Out

#79

Post by potatolicious »

araneae wrote: post #69
joeguilmette wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm not passionate about something I have a hard time investing in it. I never was captivated by college. When they stopped paying me I left. Never looked back and never regretted it. Do what you love and the money will follow.

Do what you love and the money will follow is pretty cheap advice. Some people love watching TV all day. I also find it hard to believe that there was absolutely nothing of interest to you in college, given the pretty broad range of choices.

Not always.

Where I went to school, your two choices were:

- A stifling engineering program where your employability is excellent ("employment insurance", the article calls it). Every course is a core course, and your load is so heavy that taking anything outside of the precise realm of your degree is academic suicide (not that I didn't try... and almost got me on probation).

- A free-form degree where you have a lot of choice in courses across a diverse number of subjects and interests... none of which have the employability and cachet of the former. In other words, you're paying through the nose for something that will have basically no monetary return on investment.

As a 18 year-old not hailing from a particularly wealthy family, the choice was pretty simple. There was simply no way to justify dropping that much money on something that will have no financial benefit later.

Note: With enough weaseling and planning you can get some breadth in that engineering program, but the extreme academic load meant that you had to limit yourself to bird courses of some intellectual interest. Anything that required "real" work would've ended your shot at an engineering degree pretty quickly.

Re: Don't Glorify Dropping Out

#80

Post by nkurz »

I'm a late thirty-something college dropout, and have yet to regret leaving. I attended a fine small liberal arts school (one of those that rotates through the top three spots of the rankings) and attended for three non-consecutive years. I'd start each year with a love of learning and a sense of potential, and finish each one hating the world and most everyone in it.

I learned an awful lot there, but a lot more from the environment than the actual courses. I learned about money (I'd never really seen it before), I learned about class in America (we didn't have much of that growing up in Wisconsin), and I learned about a lot about cultural relativism (theory and practice). Given a chance, I would highly encourage anyone to attend the best institution they can possibly gain entrance to. It will be eye opening.

But actually getting a degree? Optional. It always felt to me that the certification was at odds with the education. Instead of learning anything in particular, I was being taught to juggle, and to not care too deeply about what I was keeping in the air. This is likely of great value to an employer, but as an individual I want the freedom to care deeply about the content, and never found this to be possible in even an excellent liberal arts college environment.

Financially, I'm probably doing worse than most of my peers who stuck with it. But I think this is more a factor of my personality than the lack of a degree. I left the final time to work at a computer company founded by some friends of mine (social networking advantage) and we managed to sell that successfully. The current startup is much shakier, and at this point all the savings are gone, but I'm pretty sure the lack of a degree has not been holding me back.

Anyway, I'm all for Peter Thiel. I wish something like this had been around for me. It would have been great to have the feeling there was some approved alternative to college rather than just slogging through.

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