College Was the Biggest Mistake of My Life
americandreaming.substack.com
College Was the Biggest Mistake of My Life
1–10 of 195 posts
Re: College Was the Biggest Mistake of My Life
#2It doesn’t have to be. Ideally it should be some time boxed mix of (1) finding yourself (2) once you find yourself specialize in that (3) make friends (4) get some work/research experience
Obviously that’s not for everyone. You don’t need to go to college to do any of that either. It’s a signal that you may have learnt something and may have some smarts if you went to a good school. Beyond that if you’re sharp and GSD on the job, that ultimately outweighs everything else. How you get there - doesn’t have to be via college.
Re: College Was the Biggest Mistake of My Life
#3I think the author underestimates how long he's financially hamstrung for. Yes he paid off the debt in a decade which is relatively impressive from a no degree job. But without that debt and with four extra years of work while he was in school when would he have had some sort of housing downpayment? Keeping in mind the insane acceleration of real estate prices in many markets he might find he'll never have a down payment now, but could have had one as early as 2012 if the four years of work done instead of school generated it.
Re: College Was the Biggest Mistake of My Life
#4[deleted]
Re: College Was the Biggest Mistake of My Life
#5if you read around on the internet, in various and sundry forums, there is a rising acknowledgement among people that maybe their friends who accidentally got their girlfriend pregnant in high school and then got married and started working right away were the lucky ones...
at the time it seemed as if those friends had messed up royally, but in hindsight, looking back over time and it seems as if the ones who got a girl pregnant in high school, dropped out and started working and got married often had the best outcomes...anecdotal evidence...but there is some logic behind it...
Re: College Was the Biggest Mistake of My Life
#6This resonates for many disciplines, even in engineering, I found my college course (pre-University in the UK) to be much more useful than most of what I did at University but there is a mixture of universities wanting the income; some companies who insist on degrees at least as a crude measure of ability; peer or family pressure etc.
At least when I graduated in 1998, I only had loans of around $8K, since the course back then was free to take, in the US, I can't believe the sums involved but when you see the gravy train and insecurity in some institutions, it is no wonder they rinse their students for as much as possible.
I think we are seeing more routes now into work that look more like traineeships especially in comp-sci and other technical roles.
Re: College Was the Biggest Mistake of My Life
#7Biggest mistake of my life, too, but I got off easy. I attended a community college for 2 years, then transferred to a state university, to get a 4-year Computer Science degree in 2011. Complete waste of time and money. I made no friends; I knew more about programming than most of my teachers; and it turns out I hate computer science (enjoy programming, though!). Mercifully, I was already employed in software before my first year, so I made it out without debt, but if I could do my life over again, I wouldn't have wasted that time and money in the first place.
When asked, I now tell young people not to waste their time with college. Almost no one I know works in the field which they studied in college, they're just steeped in useless debt. It's a scam.
Re: College Was the Biggest Mistake of My Life
#8I went to college in the early 90s when it was 5x cheaper, inflation -adjusted. It was the best decision of my life. No way I'd be where I am without it.
But times and technology has changed. The antique system that is education needs to be completely upended. And, in the process, be made affordable again.
Re: College Was the Biggest Mistake of My Life
#9One point of view arguing for a non-stem degree is that it teaches you to read, write and think. And there is some logic to that thought. Even if you spend 4 years just learning about, say, Sociology, you have to read up on a debate, summarize the background, have an opinion, be challenged and so forth. And you are on your way to 10k hours.
Now film school might have a component of that, or maybe it is teaching you how to launch projects and bring people together. Or perhaps it is "worthless" as the author claims. I have never been to film school so I cannot guess.
However, it seems the author's issue may be a change in curriculum: "A degree in film is absolutely worthless for obtaining work in the film industry. What matters are connections, professional experience, and the ability to raise large sums of money. Those aren’t things film school can teach you."
Perhaps the film school should add some courses on networking, fund raising and an internship at film shoots?
Re: College Was the Biggest Mistake of My Life
#10Biggest mistake of my life, too, but I got off easy. I attended a community college for 2 years, then transferred to a state university, to get a 4-year Computer Science degree in 2011. Complete waste of time and money. I made no friends; I knew more about programming than most of my teachers; and it turns out I hate computer science (enjoy programming, though!). Mercifully, I was already employed in software before…
Learn O(f(n)) notation and caches, and you're good to go. Judging by interviews, they don't teach the caches part in CS.