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Why College Is a Poor Choice for a Lot of People
91–96 of 96 posts
Re: Why College Is a Poor Choice for a Lot of People
#92Most people don't know what they want to do with their lives at age 18, whether or not they think they do. The strongest argument against college is an unmanageable amount of debt, which can haunt you for decades, and I have many friends who suffer from this. The strongest argument for college is the connections you can make which will be with you for life. I know countless people who can trace their career opportuni…
For some, there's a stronger argument against college: you mentally can't abide being taught. Those people need to learn on their own, and for software development there's little reason they shouldn't.
> you mentally can't abide being taught
Frankly, this sounds a bit ridiculous...how can someone that can't be taught be employable? Using software development as an example, they need to be able to be taught things, such as why overall design decisions were made, how a particular algorithm works, coding conventions, development processes, etc. These are not "pick them up at your own pace" kinds of things, and may not even have easily accessible documentation available to do so with in the first place.
Re: Why College Is a Poor Choice for a Lot of People
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
For some, there's a stronger argument against college: you mentally can't abide being taught. Those people need to learn on their own, and for software development there's little reason they shouldn't.
> you mentally can't abide being taught Frankly, this sounds a bit ridiculous...how can someone that can't be taught be employable? Using software development as an example, they need to be able to be taught things, such as why overall design decisions were made, how a particular algorithm works, coding conventions, development processes, etc. These are not "pick them up at your own pace" kinds of things, and may not…
Work teaching is generally efficient. If you're told anything at all, that is; more often you have to ask if you can't figure it out yourself. You can say "I got it, I'll take it from here" and people are happy to hear it. School teaching is generally the opposite.
My bosses always want me to figure out how the algorithm works, while fixing it!
Re: Why College Is a Poor Choice for a Lot of People
#94I want so badly to leave college. It's very difficult to stomach the $20k it's costing my parents. I'm not having fun. I'm not making many connections. I'm not learning much in the classroom at all. I feel unchallenged, I feel bored, but the worst of it is I know I could be working harder somewhere else, and learning more in the process. I should have had the foresight to know the interest I had in highschool for pro…
The first thing to realize is that the constraints you are feeling are mere social convention, and you don't have to follow most of them. Just because your peers are smoking up and chilling out doesn't mean that you have to do the same thing. It's your life, and your choices. Other people do play into it: you're still gonna want your friends and family to be happy with you, but you don't have to be the same as everyone else for them to be happy. They would probably be happier seeing you be your best self.
The second thing to realize is that there is no shortage of work to be done in this world, merely a shortage of money and motivation to aim towards that work. If you can't find something to aim towards, you aren't exposing yourself enough yet to the real problems that need solving. College can be good for that - wait for the moments in class when a prof says "and no one knows how this works yet" or "someday someone will figure out how to do this and make a million". Then go deep on that problem. You may not solve it, but you'll develop real skills like you want to.
Thirdly, work and school are not a mutually exclusive choice. Yes, your parents will be unhappy if they think you are failing out, and may put up resistance to the idea of a job interfering with your schooling. But it sounds like you are in need of more challenge, not less, and you should be able to spin an internship, job, or project as a good career move to your parents.
You do only have one youth. You should enjoy it. But good work can leave you with just as many good memories as partying it up. Don't be a slave, but don't be a zombie either. Find someone with a similar mindset and go do something cool.
BTW, I started my first startup when I was your age, while in college. My partner dropped out of school to work on it, but I stayed in while working. It was hard. My profs would get mad at me for getting Cs when they knew I was capable of As. But I learned so much more. The Cs didn't really affect my career. Finishing my degree did, and the learning definitely did.
Re: Why College Is a Poor Choice for a Lot of People
#95Somewhat of an aside, but: If you're a self-directed learner passionate about a subject nothing about a classroom holds you back . [1] It sets a minimum pace for acquiring new information, it sets a minimum domain of concepts and to some degree it will influence the order of the first few concepts you'll have to tackle, if you concede to only tackle the subject when the class begins. I'm endlessly bemused by the repe…
But what about exams that consist almost entirely of trivia? That strategy, while effective against those who don't attend class and barely read the book, also punishes those who skip ahead. One might remember the grander concepts and ideas, but those bits of trivia will be lost.
Re: Why College Is a Poor Choice for a Lot of People
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't that sort of obsolete thinking? We don't have any skilled jobs for our current crop of college graduates. Why train more, just so they can drive busses?
> Isn't that sort of obsolete thinking? We don't have any skilled jobs for our current crop of college graduates. Why train more, just so they can drive busses? A few thoughts on that argument: Unemployment now is moderate and dropping, especially for college graduates. The lifetime income of college graduates is significantly higher than others. Also, your argument (which I realize is widespread) look only at gradua…
How many people 'dream' of spending 4 more years studying abstract/obtuse subjects? You can do lots of things; most things in fact, without studying art history.
The money angle is probably valid; the 'dreams' angle is just the opposite of that - folks like to make cabinets, or trek mountains, or write. They don't really want to study math to become an actuarial.