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Steve Jobs In Praise of Dropping Out
atlacatl writes "Wired reports on Steve Jobs giving a graduation speech: 'Jobs, 50, said he attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon but dropped out after only eight months because it was too expensive for his working-class family. He said his real education started when he "dropped in" on whatever classes interested him -- including calligraphy.' The irony: that most students were graduating. I wouldn't invite him for a high school graduation. Imagine all the 'hard' work teachers, parents and guidance counselors put into brainwashing every kid that he/she must go to University." (Jobs was speaking to the graduates at Stanford University.)
Ug... Job's touting dropping out will undoubtedly start a flurry of "ask.slashdot" questions similar to: Thanks, Steve.
...but a lot more drop out because they are stupid.
Beep beep.
On the most part education does guarantee a well paying job and success in life. People like Jobs are freaks (haha)
He also dropped acid in his younger days. That a good thing too??
Sounds like good advice to me!
Which leads me to believe I should've dropped out at age 7 for the most success.
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Jobs founded Apple when he was 21, not 30.
This really reminds me of this article
...and it worked for him AND Gates dropped out of Harvard and it worked for him, doesn't mean that it OK for everyone to drop out.
In general University/College is a GOOD thing. However, some people's paths take them elsewhere.
--Mike
Universities are filled with people who are there just because someone felt they had to go to university. If a speech like this makes them question what it is that's really important about a university education, then that's probably more thought-provoking than half the shit they actually DID have to study at university.
Granted, it'd be better as an address to freshmen than the graduating class, but there's still nothing wrong with it.
To anybody who thinks it's stupid for Jobs to play down the importance of a university education, I ask this: what is being done to demonstrate the importance of a university education? Other than talking about the importance of a piece of paper, that is.
Students might want to consider there own abilities and motivation for success before eagerly taking such advice.
Life, don't talk to me about life.
I don't think people at stanford need 'brainwashed' into thinking that they should get an education.
I don't think the point of his speech was that dropping out is cool. It was that hard work and determination are what you need to be successful.
Say what you want about Jobs, he's a gifted businessman who knows how to sell. He had the right product in the 70's at the absolute best time.
Your mileage, of course, will vary :).
www.lonseidman.com
School teaches to the lowest common denominator, and rewards conventional and predictable thinking. School is hell for brilliant people, that's why most they can't hack it. But man, if you want to work for others, there's no better place to go then school.
Imagine all the 'hard' work teachers, parents and guidance counselors put into brainwashing every kid that he/she must go to University.
Every kid must go to the University, period. Seriously.
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. - Yogi Berra
The good news is that you got a world class education at one of the world's most prestigious universities! The bad news is that you have to average $170,000 of total home income over the next 30 years before you can afford a house in the Bay Area! Now, get to work...
Take me for example. I dropped out because I am stupid.
Seriously, this is too much. 'hard' work teachers? brainwashing? Do the editors see any responsibility to edit this crap out?
This place has fallen so low, submitters and editors are trolling their own readers. Really, really sad.
Richard Feynman is mildly famous for having said that "I love to think and I don't want to screw
up the machine," electing to go with sensory deprivation instead of drugs to get a hallucinogenic experience going.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I don't think Jobs is speaking for or against getting a university degree, but that he's saying to live life how you want to, and not to live by others' values.
I went to a friend's funeral on the weekend. He was 26, and died of Leukaemia. Old saying - live like you'll die tomorrow, but plan as though you'll live forever.
Basically, for the debt you incur you can buy a house in a red State.
Seastead this.
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Ah, thank you. I couldn't have expressed that half as elegantly. Bravo, sir.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Sweet... everyone should drop out NOW! That way, out of everyone who dropped out, there will be one Steve Jobs, one Bill Gates, and the rest are unemployed. Whereas for me, I'll be one of very few people to graduate, get a degree and actually not count on luck to go through life. Way to go Steve... Way to go!
He cheated his friend and partner Steve Wozniak out of money before the early days of Apple.
And when Wozniak set up his own company in 1986, Jobs threatened Wozniak's suppliers against doing business with Wozniak.
Just because Jobs did something in his past doesn't mean that is a good path to follow.
Larry Ellison (Oracle CEO) gave at Yale University to the Graduating class of 2000. What follows is a transcript of the speech delivered by Ellison at Yale University last month:
... you're very upset. That's understandable. So let me stroke your egos for a moment by pointing out, quite sincerely, that your diplomas were not attained in vain. Most of you, I imagine, have spent four to five years here, and in many ways what you've learned and endured will serve you well in the years ahead. You've established good work habits. You've established a network of people that will help you down the road. And you've established what will be lifelong relationships with the word "therapy." All that of is good. For in truth, you will need that network. You will need those strong work habits.
... you're really very upset. That's understandable.
"Graduates of Yale University, I apologize if you have endured this type of prologue before, but I want you to do something for me. Please, take a good look around you. Look at the classmate on your left. Look at the classmate on your right. Now, consider this: five years from now, 10 years from now, even 30 thirty years from now, odds are the person on your left is going to be a loser. The person on your right, meanwhile, will also be a loser. And you, in the middle? What can you expect? Loser. Loserhood. Loser Cum Laude.
In fact, as I look out before me today, I don't see a thousand hopes for a bright tomorrow. I don't see a thousand future leaders in a thousand industries. I see a thousand losers. You're upset. That's understandable.
After all, how can I, Lawrence "Larry" Ellison, college dropout, have the audacity to spout such heresy to the graduating class of one of the nation's most prestigious institutions? I'll tell you why. Because I, Lawrence "Larry" Ellison, second richest man on the planet, am a college dropout, and you are not. Because Bill Gates, richest man on the planet-for now anyway-is a college dropout, and you are not. Because Paul Allen, the third richest man on the planet, dropped out of college, and you did not. And for good measure, because Michael Dell, No. 9 on the list and moving up fast, is a college dropout, and you, yet again, are not.
Hmm
You will need that therapy. You will need them because you didn't drop out, and so you will never be among the richest people in the world. Oh sure, you may, perhaps, work your way up to #10 or #11, like Steve Ballmer. But then,I don't have to tell you who he really works for, do I?
And for the record, he dropped out of grad school. Bit of a late bloomer.
Finally, I realize that many of you, and hopefully by now most of you,are wondering, "Is there anything I can do? Is there any hope for me at all?" Actually, no. It's too late. You've absorbed too much, think you know too much. You're not 19 anymore. You have a built-in cap, and I'm not referring to the mortarboards on your heads.
Hmm
So perhaps this would be a good time to bring up the silver lining. Not for you, Class of '00. You are a write-off, so I'll let you slink off to your pathetic $200,000-a-year jobs, where your checks will be signed by former classmates who dropped out two years ago.
Instead, I want to give hope to any underclassmen here today. I say to you, and I can't stress this enough:
LEAVE. Pack your things and your ideas and don't come back. Drop out. Start up. For I can tell you that a cap and gown will keep you down just as surely as these security guards dragging me off this stage are keeping me dow..."
(At this point The Oracle CEO was ushered off stage.)
Of course, your post completely ignores the real issue: That they shouldn't have gone to college in the first place.
The US has gotten so fixated on sending kids to college that we've lost sight of the reasons why we wanted them there in the first place. As a result, the quality of education has been declining, while the amount of debt our kids pile up before ever starting a job has been rising. And how many of those kids use their college degrees to do amazing things like sell real estate or become plumbers. i.e. What did that degree buy them other than a wad of debt?
That's not to say that education is a bad thing. But people always get the best bang out of an education when they know they want it. Sending them to school before they know what they want to know only devalues it for everyone. Teach your kids to wait until they're ready. Then they can be sure that they really want to take on a college education.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
put into brainwashing every kid that he/she must go to University
I'm not going to say that University is for everyone, but, at 18, you really do need some direction in your life. Most kids don't have this on their own. University is the right place for them. University helps you to find out who you want to be (a good one), and prepares you for the world.
Plenty of people do well without it, but it's hardly a bad message for kids to say "Go to School."
A much worse message for kids is "you should do this with your life." Why attack University? There are programs out there telling people "go into math and science," which are much more harmful. Think of how many artists have been killed off because they've had it pounded into their heads since their youth that art is am impractical career.
Both cases mentioned Jobs and Gates started their own businesses, if you are looking to be employed by someone, don't drop out.
college degrees, especially these days, are a guarantee of nothing other than having a piece of paper. for many people and many fields the real learning is accomplished by doing rather than absorbing theory.
i dropped out, and luckily i have done very well for myself. but if asked by younger people who are still in the system, i certainly wouldn't RECOMMEND people leave school unless they already had a very clear plan of their future.
the educational system is geared towards very specific professions at the exclusion of many viable, valuable professions that don't require their teaching. i don't believe it's done out of any malice but rather just a lack of information.
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I remember hearing this story on the radio many years ago and have forgotten who told it but he was very very successful in business.
The guy had lost a job plucking chickens because he did not have grade 10. He never did get an education but he did start a multi million dollar business. At a party someone said to him: "Look what you've done without an education. Imagine what you could have done with one." His reply was something like: "I'd still be back plucking chickens."
Education trains you to be a good employee. If you want to be the boss, work on starting a business. You may fail a few times but many of my friends have found one thing that really worked. We have a local self-made factory owner who regrets having sent his children to university. He strongly believes that they should have learned a trade like him (he started out as a machinist).
I never finished college and it has yet to hurt me professionally, financially or emotionally (partly I didn't have the money, mostly I didn't really find it useful for my goals to bother coming up w/ the money - and I went to a good 4 year east coast school with an extremely good comp sci program).
If you're talented, smart, and *most importantly* not lazy, not having a degree doesn't matter in the big scheme of things. With those assets you're more than capable of working around and moving beyond the confines of the traditional 'system' most people end up dealing in (IMO, because they aren't talented enough, smart enough or lack the work ethic to do anything to change things).
Degrees are nice and they do make joining the higher class system (white collar?) easier, but IMO, a lot of people also use degrees as a crutch for rationalizing avoiding the need to do anything meaningful.
If you're talented, smart and actually enjoy hardwork, the world is your oyster. Persuing a degree may even be a distraction from you obtaining your purpose and potential.
$.02
as posted a while back here, 'underground history of american education' is a great read. it hits some points dealing with education and its role... on jobs...
High school was like that for me. Going to college---even state school---was like night and day. Suddenly, the kids who sullenly made it a pain in the ass to be there vanished. I got to learn from people who were really and truly competent; I had the time to take courses that just seemed cool at the time, that probably wouldn't be useful in any future job, but I took them because I wanted to learn about something.
Yes, there were a few fools and charlatans teaching, but I dealt with it; I got to work with some of the cleverest, brightest folks I know.
For me---who'd never known there were other geeks out there---it was a transformative experience.
Clearly, your mileage may vary. But what you get out of school is, at the very least, proportional to what you put into it. Blaming The Man for not hacking it in school is pretty damn weak.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Micheal Dell and Rush Limbaugh are not college graduates either. Yet, both of them are very successful. This sort of trend among tells me a few things....
1. Education does not teach passion.
2. Those who have passion lead, not follow.
Life is not for the lazy.
Why do Apple's job listings require four year college degrees then?
Steve Jobs is full of hot air.
Imagine all the 'hard' work teachers, parents and guidance counselors put into brainwashing every kid that he/she must go to University."
So what are they going to do? Refuse to accept their diplomas? It's graduation. Pretty much the only people there are graduates, parents, and teachers.
Nice, but it's an urban legend.
Trolling is a art,
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/ellison.htm
Telling people to do that is like telling little kids to drop out of school to become NBA stars... for 99.99% of people, college is a good thing. He got lucky, and suggests more kids do it? Is he gonna bail all their asses out when 99% of them are working in a fucking fast food restaurant for the rest of their miserable lives? What a shortsighted, obnoxious, dick.
As a parent, even though I think my kids are wonderful, I have to acknowledge they are not that far above average - and a University degree they will get, because a resume without it will be filtered out on the first round by any reasonable employer.
Considering the irony of Job's speech. Not everyone can drop out and hit it big. A few will hit it, while the rest of us straight-laced students will toil for the lucky few. Trade-offs? We have fixed income albeit not rich. They can't make it big without us toiling for them. Chances are you won't risked you fixed income - mostly.
Bravo to Jobs for speaking the truth. Universities, American ones anyway, are largely a waste of time. They're commercial enterprises above all, and for that reason they inflate grades to keep students in place and corrupt research in order to attract grants.
I took a four-year degree from a reputable American school and thought it largely a waste of time. I had some worthwhile experiences, but the good parts could have fit into two or three semesters. It was basically a rip-off, and everything I do professionally today is the result of self-education and experience.
When my daughter grows up, I will propose to her that she read and travel (rigorously) instead of taking a formal degree.
It wasn't that they dropped out because they were stupid. It was because they had plans of other things to do when they did, such as start a business empire. If you drop out for silly reasons, thats bad.
I dropped out of further education because I had an opportunity to run a business and I found the experience much more rewarding. I'd say those two had similar ideas.... except their businesses are much much larger.
What did that degree buy them other than a wad of debt?
For me it bought me a far greater salary then any of my friends who did not graduate college.
Stupid is relative. When you consider all attributes of reality...
Anyway, school is a system of education, it is thought to be an effective one, at least in particular areas of what you call learning. There are many many many so called smart people that either never went to college, went late, or took a few decades. You are obviously stupid when it comes to reality about the role of the university institution. But that is ok, no one is perfect and neither are educational institutions.
Question everything.
Here.
I don't want to read
"...use their college degrees to do amazing things like sell real estate..."
Which really just goes to prove that having a college education is no match for the earning power of price fixing.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
To recap, more accurately: Steve said that he dropped out of college because it was too expensive, and it was the best thing that happened to him. He said that his "real education" didn't start until he took up classes again with a greater appreciation for their value in his life. He took calligraphy classes when peers were telling him that calligraphy had no relevance to career, but he gained a greater appreciation for elegance in ordinary things (sound familiar?). Etc.
This is not an anti-education message. In fact, it is a message strongly in favor of a liberal-arts education. In Steve's original college career, he was going through the motions -- going to college because that was the thing to do. When he started learning again, he was doing it out of a personal desire to learn, and with more genuine motivations. And he was taking classes to improve himself and his outlook, not just to get nuts-and-bolts information that would advance his career. Steve's saying that you have to invest yourself in learning and appreciate its value where you might not expect it.
Those of you who are oversimplifying this into a "street smarts" vs. "book smarts" thing have watched too much of The Apprentice. This was a speech about the personal value of learning and the importance of an open mind and broad perspective.
I dropped out of College as well and I'm in my mid-thirties right now.
Without any degree, I managed to earn six figure base salaries (last one being around $160k/year not including bonuses, stock options, 4-week vacation).
Yes, it did close some doors for me. I assume that some recruiters never bothered contacting me or never saw my resume because of automatic filtering based on education requirements.
In my experience, it isn't graduation status but the actual college/university that seemed to matter most in terms of programmer/engineer productivity. I've worked with many dozens of coders in my career but for some reasons, graduates of MIT and Carnegie Mellon were the ones that were tolerable while all others should've stayed away from computers (I'm sure graduates of schools like Berkeley or Cal Tech would've done well too but I worked primarily around NYC/Philly/Boston).
The point is that graduation status shouldn't be the only criteria when hiring someone. There are always exceptions.
But as a dropout, I find it somewhat strange that I have my own biases. I favor graduates of MIT and CMU over non-graduates or graduates of other schools when all other things like professional experience are equal. And a dropout would generally have a tougher time convincing me they are worth the risk--but I never refuse to hire someone based solely on graduation status.
Don't let anyone tell you that dropouts can't bill at $400/hour or earn six figure salaries or manage several PHDs that have a decade more of work experience. You get paid what you truly believe you deserve and not a penny more (for long).
I work for myself now after leaving a horrendous company and will never ever work for any company which I don't own. I'm on track to make around $20 million this year and I plan on donating substantial sums (indirectly) to open source projects including FreeBSD, NetBSD, Ruby, Subversion, and Mozilla.
Don't let the bastards grind you down...
btw, anyone else here feel the urge to slap those students dressed as iPods?
One of these days I'm moving to Theory - everything works there
I failed 9th grade, then dropped out and got my GED. It took 3 years but I taught myself enough to land my first job as a SysAdmin with a very decent salary for my experience and age.
I plan on going to some college classes eventually but I don't plan on going right away; my current interests are in IT, and since I know security, system administration, and programming I think I have a diverse enough background to keep myself afloat if my current career falls apart (there's really so many different careers to be had in IT you could never do it all).
Many people tell me college teaches you valuable social lessons. Like what, scrounging for change to buy another box of Ramen and cramming for 48 hours just to pass some stupid test you'll never need in real life?
High school is just a big waste though. Nobody should go through 4 years of that hell. All parents should let their kids get GEDs (and if your parents won't let you, DON'T FUCKING LET UP! KEEP AT IT UNTIL THEY'RE CONVINCED, OR FAIL A GRADE AND GIVE THEM ULTIMATUMS. PREPARE YOURSELF FOR A BEATING OR TWO THOUGH)
I think its about the open learning atmosphere, as much as classes and tests. People who have at least gone to some college have more than a transcript.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
If you really want to think "out of the box" there is no better way than tripping. At some point, you will realize you have become the box, and that's when the real learning begins...
That's no longer true. Housing is far more expensive (San Francisco has 13,000 homeless people), well-paying jobs are no longer easy to get, welfare is almost nonexistent, and the organizations that supported hippiedom in the 1960s are long gone.
Drop out now, and your future is McDonalds.
I suggest you drop the assumption that an education should result in gainful employment. The world needs well-rounded educated, open-minded, critical thinkers even if their university major didn't lead to employment in the same area. A plumber with a Ph.D.? So be it. A truck driver with a couple of undergrad degrees? Sure. The world is a better place for it, because we -need- plumbers and truck drivers and we -need- educated, broadminded people that aren't simply narrow-minded specialists.
On a similar note, Jon Stweart gave a commencement speech at his alma mater -- funny to point out that he was offended by the honarary doctorate they gave him.
But, of course, in the typical Jon Stewart fashion, it's also funny as hell. A good read.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Teach your kids to wait until they're ready.
If you want your kids to be poor. If you don't go to university immediately after high school, you most likely never will.
Who wouldn't drop out of Reed College!?
Portland State University is way less and right next to it -- that's where I go.
I'm not stupid....Your stupid
But as a dropout, I find it somewhat strange that I have my own biases. I favor graduates of MIT and CMU over non-graduates or graduates of other schools when all other things like professional experience are equal. And a dropout would generally have a tougher time convincing me they are worth the risk--but I never refuse to hire someone based solely on graduation status.
So basically you admit you are a hypocrite. You managed to find success in dropping out of college but you do not want to give others the same chance as those who went to some big cheese college? And why do you bias towards the name of the school instead of the person himself? I've seen lots of talented people come out of small name schools. I've also seen lots of dunces come out of MIT, Harvard, and Stanford. Getting into a big name school is largely tied to income and socio-economic status.
Basically what you are saying is analogous to this:
"I will hire anyone of any color, but I prefer whites. Someone who is black of hispanic will have a harder time proving to me that they are worth the risk becuase I had to deal with a few of them before and had a bad experience."
I left music school after 5 semesters to go full time with a band. It wasn't uncommon there, since the freshman class numbered 1500 and there were usually about 150 to 200 graduates, mostly music education majors who needed the sheepskin.
Two years later, I was driving a cab. I did that until I saved enough money to build a small recording studio, which I ran while playing in another band and doing live sound on the side. By the mid-'90s, I had a gig as a 3D animator and graphic artist, skills that had previously been hobbies for me. That led to a partnership in a media services company that also did software development. We sold out before the bubble burst.
Right now, I'm vice president of a company that does system administration on a contract basis. Small company in a small market, but profitable nonetheless.
Not having a degree pretty much precludes working for a large corporation, but I've never wanted to work for a big company. I do regret not getting a liberal arts education, and it's something I'd like to pursue soon, even though I'm in my forties. I'm looking to retire in about five years anyway, so I'll have the time.
To make it without a degree, it helps to be in a field that doesn't require one (like the arts), to be willing to do menial jobs now and then (like driving and dispatching taxis), and to be able to teach yourself the skills you need (technical, entrepreneurial, etc.). I can't stress the last one enough: without the support of a company behind you, sending you to training seminars and paying your way, you have to be your own teacher.
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
As Timothy Leary said, "Tune in, Turn on, Drop out".
It seems to have worked for him. Maybe that's how he got the idea for all those fruity iMacs.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Exactly. Todays acid is absolute crap. I took a hit recently, and it was maybe 1/8 as powerful has taking an 8th of good shrooms. Its because they busted pickard a few years back.
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
Excellent post, however jbplou's response is quite telling; an undergraduate degreee is the "high school diploma" of our parents generation; its used by corporations to judge your pay. In that sense, having a BA in basketweaving is a profound step above not having a degree at all in terms of salary.
Considering my BS was in EE can you guess what got me my first job out of college? Thats right; some perl coding I did in a part time job while in school! My knowledge of semiconductors has completely atrophied. However, I've gone on to get my MS in CS and the A's came with only a bit of hard work because I was motivated.
That being said, I did learn something of great import while in undergrad. After getting mediocre grades throughout I somehow matured a little bit and taught myself how to learn. This was the most important thing I got out of undergrad. I understand that this anecdotal, but if that is the only lesson some one learns after 4 years of higher education than its worth all the debt they took on.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
well argued. i'm convinced.
My girlfriend (the smarter one of the two of us) was there.
Jobs didn't go on about dropping out of school to tell people that its the right thing to do. He was driving at that we should do what we enjoy because life is too short to live someone else's dream. It just so happened that he mentioned dropping out of school in the course of explaining his life story.
This article apparently explains it a lot better.
Personally (although every time I post in a thread related to education, I get moderated into oblivion), tell the kids to stay in school unless they know damn well what they want to do,and not because they're frustrated with it. That degree can be a fallback, and you can always go back to school if the need arises.
...was that he knew Steve Wozniak. Without Woz, Jobs would probably be just a sales account rep somewhere.
Jobs most definitely cruised to fame and fortune of Woz's coattails.
As a former administrator/tech who was laid off after the .com crash, I have been unable to find IT work due to the lack of a college degree.
I make 7/hr stocking shelves right now and I am hoping I can get back in after that magical piece of paper.
http://saveie6.com/
It must be Monday, because here's yet another Slashdot look at me, I'm a drop-out who isn't on welfare "IT success story" from someone who's essentially just a lazy-ass bum but fancies himself the source of great pearls of wisdom and life lessons to be cast before the undeserving swine. Let me guess.... Do you have tats and piercings, too, and refuse to conform to the dress code of "the man's" workplace? (sorry, I was confusing you with the hundreds of your rebel-without-a-clue soulmates who posted on that thread earlier today)
Sorry dude, but the number of folks I've met in my long IT career who truly succeeded without a college education is probably less than 1%. For beating the odds, you get a cookie and a pffffft from me.
I started at Reed just as the Macintosh came out. Steve Jobs donated a bunch to Reed.
My experience at Reed was very eye opening, but mostly in a very bad way. A hard working student from the sticks, I had a very difficult time coming to grips with the lifestyles of the east coast kids and the professors there. Drugs everywhere. Students sleeping with teachers. A certain type of faux socialist snobbishness which left me outcast being from "nowhere".
The one thing that saved me were the computers in every nook and crany. Steve Jobs saves the day.
I taught myself how to program and eventually left Reed without a degree to go on to a very successful software career.
Dropping out of that hell-hole was the best thing that I ever did.
> far greater salary
Ah the true measure of happiness!
I doubt that Jobs dropped out because of financial pressure -- I suspect i had more to do with the rigor and conservativism of Reed's curriculum. The place is socially very liberal, but the pedagogy is extremely old-fashioned, and was even more so in the 1970s. At the time, Reed's drop-out rate was near 70%.
Reed now costs over $40k/yr all-in, but most of the students there have family incomes below $60k/yr.
I'm not casting stones -- I dropped out of Reed too, but not for financial reasons. Most people give financial reasons when they really mean something else.
Thanks for pointing that out.
:)
I was about to blast the arguements to bits because it's based on a logical fallacy: Most people aren't Bill Gates, nor do they know Bill Gates. That blows the whole arguement out of the water.
It's been a long time.
He said his real education started when he "dropped in" on whatever classes interested him -- including calligraphy.
So Steve went to college, he just didn't pursue a specific degree. You still need an education, whether through college classes or learning out in the field; you just don't need the piece of paper.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
note that he was not telling this to Stanford dropouts, but to Stanford *graduates*.
Sorry Steve you are not going to live down what Scully did to your young ass.
While I respect jobs, and certainly different modes of learning work for different people, I think that as a role model, he should be more careful about saying such things.
(It could be argued that occasionally "dropping in" to classes is how I went through University, somewhat successfully, but that's another story.)
Anyhow, dropping out and learning on your own may work for some people, with the right thirst for knowledge, insatiable curiousity, and maybe even some financial means behind them (mom & dad supporting them longer while they find themselves or get a biz off the ground); but for many average people, it's a ticket to a lifetime working the gas pumps.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Jobs sponged off of Reed...
He was a guy who attended a few classes and lied about his standing to hang around.
Either he wanted an education (without credit-hours) or, he had no better place to be.
Woz did it better when he obtained his degree....took a business prof down for trying to tell him how Apple made the Fortune 500 - and got it wrong. Woz matriculated under an assumed name...
However, Jobs may yet hand Bill Gates a pink slip....OSX heading foe WINTEL - a stable, newbie-friendly, OS that could run Windoze as a task...
Jobs corporate ju jitsu - Bill just hasn't noticed that his company is dead yet.
No shit, you're posting here on Slashdot aren't you? Oh wait ...
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Anyone have a copy of the speech?
...whether they are prepared for it or not.
College isn't just about the degree and the career. College is about a way of critically evaluating the world around you.
Of course, you get out of it what you put into it, but I'm willing to bet that most everyone who dropped out of college after the first year will wish, within the following ten years, that they had stuck with it.
I don't know if I would want to be one of the ten richest people in the world. I've learned alot in college, and I don't think I've lost that much creativity, which I still value more.
Regardless, I wouldn't consider Jobs, Ellison, Gates, or anyone else who didn't get a degree, a good judge of what a degree can do. Being one of the ten lucky bastards whose businesses just happened to succeed, they might have a slightly biased opinion. Even basing your opinion upon history and the way things worked out for the dozen or so richest people in the world now, dropping out of college seems like sacrificing alot of security for a long-shot chance at "uber-wealth." Statistically, I would guess, anyways (don't hold me to that).
I've seen people I consider at least one of each of harder working, more intelligent, or more creative, all fail, time and time again, with or without a degree.
Anyhow, it seems like every graduation speaker has to be controversial these days. Part of the formula.
At my graduation at NC State two years back, Phil Donahue rambled on about police treatment of minorities, unjust wars, anything but achievement, success, becoming a better person or motivation for the future. Not that anything he said was that incorrect, but it was, as the slashdot calls it, 'Offtopic'.
My sister's two graduations included a ESPN sports show host at UNC-CH a couple years ago who didn't talk about anything but his wife and daughter, and this year from Wake Forrest, Arnold Palmer (who dropped out, also).
If the only reason you're going to classes (or college at all) is to get the degree, you're going to end up a failure on some level. But if you're going there to learn and you'd go to classes even if you wouldn't get credit for them... that's a completely different situation.
Bottom line: Jobs succeeded because he went to college classes for the right reason, not the wrong reason.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Imagine all the 'hard' work teachers, parents and guidance counselors put into brainwashing every kid that he/she must go to University."
Give me a break. And all the brainwashing our parents to do tell us that attending school is a good idea (even the draconian approach of legally requiring it!!!) And the brainwashing that bathing regularly and dental hygiene are good ideas. Imagine!
Honestly, encouraging kids to gets as much education as they can, can hardly be seen as a mind control technique, by anyone but the tinfoil hat crowd.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
I would think that given the current political and economic climate of the US, more people would be telling everyone to get educated.
Just because your particular classes didn't "do it" for you is no excuse to abondon the system. If your school isn't serving your needs, make them!
How do we expect to have an educated, informed populace if we tell everyone it's better to educate yourself? How many people are going to actually put the effort foward to critically examine their own philosphies if we abandon required classes?
People with religious upbringings need to learn about the atrocities committed in the name of religion. People who are scientifically minded need to learn about the scientific justifications which were used for things like genocide. There is much more to education than that which is interesting or economically usefull.
I'm glad Steve Jobs enjoyed his Calligraphy class, but he's an exceptional person. It's going to take more than personal initiative and nice handwriting for your average person, even your average brilliant person.
I was thinking it was more an explanation of this.
If you're that weak, it wasn't meant to be.
(/me went to college three years after high school. You'd be suprised how motivating a shit job at minimum wage is.)
It's been a long time.
Money may not buy happiness, but I'll sure do my damndest to rent it for awhile.
uni is a total waste of bloody money. the quality of graduates is far below par, they certainly aren't turning out anything useful on a whole. your much better off doing a trade
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
It's just easier to get a job if you do.
-illumina+us "I put on my robe and wizard hat..."
People with college degrees are the mandarins of our age, they will be used to run the empire, both in the public and private sector. There they will slave away at soulcrushing jobs.
College is just a way to find those people that can deal with intense boredom.
And yet, Kerry was financially successful years before he met his current wife, dumbshit.
My question is, does Stanford have any recourse for sending their grads off with mixed messages??
If he ever calls Stanford back can the school just blow Jobs off? Or can they hand Jobs less money for his speech?
I'm sick of hearing dell/gates/jobs all dropped out and are rolling in the cash. Yeah, but their products are still flaky.
Jobs, open your eyes and take a look at Google. They almost have a PhD and it shows. I'm not saying that they learned everything, but I bet they were inspired and motivated in college.
Nobody in college is telling you 'not to study outside of your courses' and you can easily as much as you want.
Conform, of course.
I think a lot more would drop out because they are lazy, or because they get a job and find working is more interesting or challenging (and makes them money, which can be exchanged for goods and services and beer).
Its been eleven years since I started doing my degree - and I'm still doing it. Hopefully only another semester to go. I started uni with no idea about what the hell it was or what I wanted to do. My first semester I ended up doing seven subjects, which was too much, especially because Doom had just came out and I spent all my time at the labs playing that instead.
After the first semester, I was already over uni. I'd started doing biology, and decided I didn't like it. 2nd semester, I did four subjects from various disciplines and didn't hate it as much, but the next year I got a job. Did that for 10 months, went back to uni for 6 months, then get a much more interesting job. Since then I've been on and off doing it part time.
I have always enjoyed working more than studying. I've been lucky enough to get some cool jobs (eg, working in a games company) so it was hands down more interesting than uni - I'd learn more in a week at work about software design, computer networking, business, etc, than I would in a semester at uni.
Business is tough, and not every situation is win-win. What's more important to you -- winning, or being a nice guy? Are you prepared to make such choices?
Truly a class act.
if yo look at colleges liek Columbia (rampant anti-semitism), Colorado (Ward Churchill), Haravrd ($50 million diversity crap), the all too obvious grade inflation, and the entire curriculum hijacked by the far left (everything is -studies now), the simple truth is that a college education isn't what it used to be. in fact, parents are spending 10's of thousand to have their children indoctrinated not educated. businesses are on to the game.
take for example history. a revolutionary american course is turned into women, indians, and the environment during the 1770's. war, yeah, but it was betweeen rapacious, sexist, hegemonic white males. the only losers were the aforementioned groups.
in a faculty meeting this past year, my principal showed us the resutls of a survey from businesses. the things they wanted most in high school (and college) grads are: reading, writing, self motivation, reliability, etc. college grads are spoiled little bitches. they expect a high paying, little effort job. they don't want to work, they don't want to pay their dues. you sysadmins who cut your teeth for years before you got you're first real job probably see tons of CS shit for brains come by and think they konw it all 'cause they have a fancy piece of paper.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Just to throw some numbers out there most hits of acid these days contain about 100ug of LSD whereas back in the 60s it was more like 500ug. That should give you an idea of the difference.
-py
Yeah, most people are happy just earning salary day in day out. Working for superiors, incurring debts, justifying their life with the magic words "job satisfaction". It's ok, because people don't mind getting stuck in their rat race, at least it gives them a sense of purpose.
(speaking as a college drop out, business owner who didn't know he would do when he quit college.)
Maybe I'm straight and square and boring, but frankly, I like my surgeons with lots and lots of formal training. Oh, and the people who design airplanes, I feel better if they actually had some quality controlled education. Did I mention nuclear scientists?
Don't you just love these billionaires from the dawn of the computer age, pretending that these kind of revolutions come along all the time? Don't they seem to notice that since the Gates & Jobs show, we haven't seen another generation get rich this way? Yes, they were the right people it the right places at the right time, and, yes, they worked their buts off. But they're wrong to assume that those chances are there for everybody, always. The dawn of the personal computer age was a once-in-a-century thing, not a regular phenomenon that every year's high-school drop-outs can hope to hitch on to.
Talk about a disservice to parents everywhere. Did anybody bother to check if his kids are going to college?
Like him or hate him, he's got the balls to stand up there and tell the honest uncolored truth to a bunch of kids who's parents paid a fortune for their education.
But he ain't coming back next year.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
He is a success story. He made a lot of money and is world famous.
Looking back on his life, there will be certain items that he deems to be "important".
Looking back on anyone's life will also yield certain "important" choices or events or whatever. Those are items that shaped your life.
But that does not mean that someone else can imitate those choices and get a similar life. As you noted, some drop out because they're smart, but more drop out because they aren't. It isn't the dropping out.
And I don't believe that Steve's "experience" with cheap college life and calligraphy would mean much if not for a certain Steve Wozniak.
I spent $30K and got myself a thorough linguistics degree. I studied at least a little of ten languages while in college and spent my summers in foreign countries.
Then I graduated and pursued my real hobby of IT. Funny isn't it, how the real you can creep out in the strangest of ways.
My (formal) education gave me perspective and a flavor to my life that will always follow me, but it's silly to think that a person's major will have much at all to do with their career. You will either end up doing what you love, or a third of every day of your life will be irrelevant.
World Changing - News for Humans, Stuff about our planet
A quick search of Apple's Employment portal yields the following: Apple requires at least a BS for their technical positions.
So Job's message is "I'm smart, was in the right place at the right time, and made a shitload of money. The rest of you, good luck and get a degree if you want to come work at Apple."
Thanks Buddy!
Hate to put it this way, but I work in IT with no degree. I started out with college, but soon got bored with the idea. I had a friend who had a good job in IT already. He got my foot in the door. Sure my pay started out cruddy, but once they saw my true knowledge, they began paying me what degreed people make. And as far as cruddy pay goes, around here IT jobs are so few and far between that most people who graduate with their BS in CS (or MIS) end up working as simple $10/hour PC techs for a year or two anyway.
Now I am about to make a job switch. The place that I've gotten hired on to felt so confident in me that they're paying me well above what people with Masters degrees are making in the same position.
I know, I know... I'm 1 in a 1000000, but it worked out okay. Sure when I was making crappy pay I wished I had stuck with college, but now who cares.
What is being done to demonstrate the importance of a university education?
I take it you haven't been to Monster.com hotjobs.com carrerbuilder.com or looked at your local paper's Classified section lately?
If I could re-live my early 20's I would have never attended college. College can teach you a lot, but the streets and the rest of the world can teach you even more.
..there will be several million whose only form of public speaking opportunities will involve the phrase "would you like fries with that?"..
Globalization is forcing us to be a "Just in Time" (JIT) economy. Any activity that becauses well-defined and standardized tends to move to lower-wage countries. For good or bad, the US specializes in change. Thus, we need a JIT education system to match.
Let employer demand determine what courses are taken. Rather than a degree (or maybe in addition to), change education into mini-degrees or certificates in special topics.
This may also be less expensive because students on a tight budget are not forced to take Ancient Basket Art. I am not necessarily saying that Basket Art is not a good thing to learn, but a budget is a budget. Maybe a person can get the basic job first and then take Basket Art for a more advanced "General Education II Certification" or what-not.
Table-ized A.I.
Been reading kiyosaki huh?
Wanker.
of 2 kids that are approaching the end of their high school years, I'm trying to push them into understanding that it's education that's important, not where it comes from.
Formal (e.g. college/university) and informal (e.g. on the job, reading books) training are both fine; the real problem is if you decide to settle comfortably into a job as e.g. supermarket checkout chick and stop trying to learn any more because "you don't have to". Once you've made that jump, you're pretty well hosed:
- once you've stopped being educated, it's extremely tough to start again (all sorts of conflicting demands on your time and money start to appear)
- once you're earning, words of horror such as "rent/board", "sharing household costs", etc. start to appear. No more free ride, my babies!
They've already got some peers who've made the jump into the workforce as (in their frame of reference) highly-paid shop assistants - "highly paid" translates to "can buy things without either begging from relatives or waiting for birthdays" or "can get car tyres with tread remaining".
All I've asked is that, before they decide to the same step themselves, talk to a few people who've been doing that sort of work for a few years to find out what it's really like.
I guess it is only natural that a very successful person should advise others to do exactly what they did. I am thinking not just of this speech but, for instance, of several essays of Paul Graham that received much attention here. They always ignore the fact that a lot of their success depends on external factors and sheer chance, and their experience is hardly typical of everyone who made the same decisions they did at the same point in life.
Maybe dropping out of college and having cancer were transformative experiences for Steve Jobs. That doesn't mean that everyone who does those things is going to receive the same benefits he does. In fact it is beyond doubt that statistically, people who drop out of college make less money and have fewer career options than those who don't, and many people who contract cancer die of it.
I am a few credits away from finishing my undergraduate degree right now. If I dropped out now I would lose almost all of the equity I have invested in that education, and I can think of nothing that I would gain in its place. The crushing of the will, destruction of my creative spirit, that is done already, it would not matter if I dropped out two years ago or followed things through to the end. What value an action like dropping out has depends entirely on one's particular circumstances. I hope that if I am ever a billionaire, I will still have the critical sense to tell anyone who asks me, as I would now, to do things completely differently than I did.
"(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
To all the kids who took out $150,000 in student loans so they could afford to go to Stanford, and then graduated to hear Steve Jobs say "Dropping out of college was the best thing I ever did..." allow me to be the first to say (in my best Nelson voice)
HA HA!
welcome to the real world, suckers. The only college whose graduates I respect less than Stanford is Princeton. Maybe Steve Jobs will hire you, but I certainly won't.
Humpty Dumpty was pushed.
that most students were graduating. I wouldn't invite him for a high school graduation. Imagine all the 'hard' work teachers, parents and guidance counselors put into brainwashing every kid that he/she must go to University.
... let's go futher.
Let's ban anyone from talking about Steve Jobs,
because the story of his success will undue the
"brainwashing" of education.
So, let's understand your concerns. Is there a danger that, during their graduation ceremonies at Standford University (where most graduates are almost guaranteed a life of six-digit incomes), the anecdote of one successful drop-out will cause a revolt, and the students will refuse their diplomas? Is that why you would not want him to speak at a graduation ceremony? Is the "brainwashing" that tenuous--that one single speaker can persuade students to reject their 4+ years of education in under 20 minutes?
All I can gather from your comment is that inviting Jobs to speak is dangerous, because he might convince people to drop out. If that's not completely absurd, then perhaps we should ban him from all public speaking. (After all, if his story would inspire revolt among graduating students, imagine what it would do for those with less to lose.) No,
Unlike you, I don't view Jobs a threat to education (in fact, his company has been a better friend to educators than most other technology companies). I don't resent the work of educators, or suspect their motives. There's nothing sinsiter in their efforts to encourage students to attend college. Just as there's nothing more than illogical drivel in your attempt at humor.
All I want to know is: when your job gets outsourced because you can't use the word "irony" correctly, will you look back with anger at those who urged you to study harder? You pathetic moron.
Dumbass.
Who could forget William Henry Gates III and his little run-in with Harvard to start a little company geekily named Microsoft...Ha! look where it has lead him to now.
/sacasam
He could be so much more! He could be so much like...us!
NOW he tells us!
R(k)
I'm willing to bet that most everyone who dropped out of college after the first year will wish, within the following ten years, that they had stuck with it.
It took me about 25 years to finally feel like I was ready to finish college. My only regret is that now I'm a 45-year-old college student. If only I could put this brain back in that 20-year-old body.
I love that donkey. Hell, I love everybody.
Nor is Bill Gates the richest man on the planet.
-1 (Troll) is antihammer
Not much more to say than just subject header. If our culture dictates that the only reason to go to university is to get a job, it's only going to devalue education as a whole, and in a few years it'll be some other useless metric used to determine who gets a job.
Of course the issue is grayer than that, but there's nothing philosophically wrong with Steve's point. And, last I checked, Steve Jobs didn't have to go to Monter.com et al to make his eventual fortune.
If the late Jef Raskin had anything to do with it, they would; he recalls lobbying for versatile bitmapped displays and not hard-wired fixed width character generators, against Jobs and Wozniak.
Sadly Jef is no longer with us to defend the account, but he left a detailed history, The Mac and Me:
Later in the essay, Raskin notes that Jobs was eventually persuaded to green-light the Apple II's "high res" mode. Only Steve himself knows if an enthusiasm for calligraphy influenced the decision... but even had he not, proportional fonts were already being designed into the expensive research workstations of the day, where the hardware budget was orders of magnitude greater than an Apple II's.you had me at #!
It is quite disappointing to see Jobs pulling a Larry Ellison and telling kids to drop out.
... if you disagree with them, at least do it politely ... and if you are not able to politely disagree then don't do the damn graduation speech to begin with! He can very easily make his point about the uselessness of a college degree without ruining a graduation ceremony; he could, for example, write an article about it.
... But when he is giving advice to young kids that respect him he should try to silence his enourmous ego and try to figure out the advice which would be best for the kids rather than telling them to follow precisely in his footsteps like some preacher with a messiah complex.
First of all it is the rudest thing you can say at a graduation speech. All these kids worked hard and paid good money to graduate
Now I am sure Steve had a tough time being poor and all, and had to overcome a lot of things
Jobs should look at the data and realize that he is a statistical oddity. Most people that do not graduate college do not do nearly as well as the ones that do. It is great that Jobs was able to overcome the hurdle of a lack of a college degree, but guess what - it is a hurdle and it is stupid to encourage kids to add that hurdle to their lives when they do not need to.
It is very nice of Jobs to tell kids that life is too short to do things that you do not enjoy, but guess what -- that usually has nothing to do with wuitting college. Most intelligent kids usually find something in college that intersts them, and the ones that are unhappy there are usually so because they stuck to a wrong major and not because they had to graduate. I mean I am sure Jobs would have loved a couple of more years to study caligraphy and art.
Oh no!!! Not hard work!!! Things should just be given to us. These successful people just love hard work - they love nothing more than working 16 - 18 hour days! As opposed to us oppressed underclass who just dont love work in the same way. Its not fair, so we should be paid the same amount as them.
So if someone is prepared to work hard you put it in the same category as someone with rich parents? Yes, work ethic is only granted to the priveleged few, all the rest of us poor mortals should just be paid by the government because we do not want to work.
I left college after 2 years because I was bored to tears. Joined the Marines. Went back to college 6 years later *highly* motivated and enjoyed the heck out of learning - took CS classes for fun. My fellow undergrads, mostly straight from High School, hated their classes and hated me - I was the jerk who didn't listen to them whine about how hard their schedules were, or how much different classes sucked. My experience - most of them were too immature to appreciate the opportunity they had, and they had insufficient life experience to know that they should feel passionate about anything at all, let alone learning. Long story short - if you are burning up to go to school, go. If you aren't, be honest with yourself and do 'something else' until you figure out what you want to study. Don't let $ keep you back either - I worked my way through school. It is possible, but difficult - and I wouldn't have it any other way. Whatever you do, light your own ass on fire to get something worthwhile done - no one will teach you that. Hard work is it's own best reward.
I am referring to physical good looks. The "Economist", a while back, reported on a study which indicated that height is important and seems to be correlated with financial success. So, too is good looks.
A good example is Pamela Anderson. She has little acting talent, but she managed to latch onto television role after television role.
Contrast her with Meryl Streep. Streep is less attractive but worked very hard to achieve what she accomplished.
Jobs, like Pamela Anderson, is blessed with good looks and a winning personality. Most of us have probably worked with people with such physical endowments. People with them have a much easier time in life than people without them.
Not surprisingly, the average height of a CEO is above the average American height. So is Jobs' height. Before he tells people how they should mimic him, he should first ask the people around him to forgive him for his arrogance.
When you realize that your education, in a structured setting or otherwise, is something that you have to take your own responsibilty for.
Mod parent up. He's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Higher education is about learning what you know you want to learn. If you don't have a desire to be there, then you shouldn't. :-)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Good advise can be found here
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
...Steve Jobs most likely wouldn't have hired John Scully (who kicked SJ out of Apple) and the computing world would have been a whole another story.
Then again if those same hits of acid was found in Bill Gates car when he was arrested, it's quite possible there wouldn't have been a Windows after all.
Such is fate.
http://homepage.mac.com/hogfish/PhotoAlbum2.html
and here I was all this time thinkin it was those four years I spend sleeping till noon with new beautiful woman every few weeks. Oh yeah, and going to class every once in a while... Too bad I'm done with that now and I'm in the real world... Now I wake up with a beautiful woman at 7. Life suckx.. But at least I live in FL where the girl/guy ratio is enough that even a CS major like myself has his pick of beautiful women. And now I have a job so I can actually pay for the alcohol I drink instead of Visaing it.... Oh welll.. Those good ol' days are over...
...are all there are. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell...
The same goes with people who actually graduated and went on to get ten Ph.D.'s. Almost all success stories.
But that's because the failures have no voice.
In the end, it's not the college, it's the college experience. It's the soul-searching and path-finding that college allows. Some people find their paths early, and drop out. Some stick to the very end, just to get a piece of paper. Some people don't find it at all, until they're several years out of college and living a life of miserable hopelessness. Some people don't look for it, and never find it. They are the ones who have no voice.
Good article, and it's time to nitpick it
Let's assume that we take the advice of this sage. And, in this "perfect" world we have created, everyone always has.
Oops, now there are no medical doctors. Well there goes Ellison's friend, Steve Jobs (due to cancer), but it's cool, he dropped out and got rich.
Speaking of Ellison, I'm sure that he's never used post-secondary graduate labour. So, I'm sure it would have been as easy and cheap (cheap because of high supply) to get talented people if everyone dropped out of university.
I could continue with this, but I think the point is clear. The world needs people to study at universities.
Furthermore, on average, what class of people is more successful, those with an education or those without? Even if we include a couple of lucky people who were at the right place at the right time.
Next he'll be telling us to commit suicide until we get reincarnated and have rich parents.
And I should probably note that some of us want knowledge for the sake of having that knowledge. But hey, the average person on slashdot is only interested in science and technology for the money, right?
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
I wish I had mod points so I could label this correctly. Insightful? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
First of all, guarantee you that a college degree is not a good thing for 99.99% of those that even attain one. NO way is it that close to 100% who ever use their degree to a large amount of success. My friend with an economics degree is workin at a bank makin' ~12/hr. I don't have a degree and work as a electronics tech and make twice that.
Or how about a friend of my parents I knew as a kid who has a marine biology degree but works in HR for an amusement park. I could go on about countless other people I know and have met briefly.
-1 flaming asshole is what this really deserved.
No sig for you!!
That being said, I did learn something of great import while in undergrad. After getting mediocre grades throughout I somehow matured a little bit and taught myself how to learn. This was the most important thing I got out of undergrad.
:-)
The part about this that I find so frustrating is that it's such an expensive lesson for kids. I was a home schooler myself, and my mother constantly emphasized that what we learned was less important than learning *how* to learn. While I'm sure that many would take that to mean that she didn't teach us, nothing could be farther from the truth. Rather, I *wanted* to learn many subjects because I had practical uses for them outside of the classroom.
Do you have any idea how cool it is to look at a Trig book and think, "Oh, the raycasting engines I can make with this baby..."
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I was at the graduation ceremony so I was fortunate to hear the entire speech. And from what I'm reading in this thread, many of you missed the point.
First of all, Jobs never encouraged the students to drop out of school. The reason why he even mentioned that he dropped out was because he was telling the audience his life story and the lessons he learned in life. The point of his speech was to tell the students to follow their dreams and not spend their life "living someone else's dream" because life is short. He also mentioned that his dropping into that calligraphy class is the reason why we have the different font option on our computers today. If he hadn't gone to those classes and made the choices that he made, who knows how computers would be like today.
He also said that being fired from Apple was one of the best things that happened to him. I don't see people on this thread dissecting this comment.
Hypocritical fuktoads
Bill
bamph
This is an important messege because all too often people go to high school and college with the sole intent to get a peice of paper. They do not wish to learn. They do not wish to take advantage of the experiences that are very often given to them at little or no expense. Many of these people then expect a job to be given to them on the sole basis that they were able to cheat their way through school. All they have to show for it is a piece of paper, and coping mechanisms that might be useful if you wish to cheat people out their money, say working for a major investment firm, but not for creating wealth.
So, I fully support anyone who tells kids that going to school for a sheet of paper is a waste of time. My father always said as much, and always went to school to learn, never just for documentation. Too much time in college is wasted on the students that do not care about the content. They just want to get out and make a lot of money.
As an aside, I have often thought the greatest thing about the advent of the 'proffesional masters' program is that it allows some people a legitimate method to buy a diploma, thereby benifiting those who wish to learn by subsidizing their education and limiting the contact with those that just want to play.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I never went to college, and I make a nice fat 6 figure income. After a certain amount of real on the job experience who gives a flying frack where you went to college if you can get the job done.
-AC
Jobs did well because of the people around him. Same with Gates. It's easy to lose sight of that fact.
---
Slow Down Cowboy!
Slashdot requires you to wait 2 minutes between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment.
It's been 8 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
Chances are, Taco dropped out, and is now demonstration the results of that decision.
Geez... Jobs' speech wasn't so much about the value of dropping out of college. He spoke on the value of life-long learning. Ya know, when "higher education" isn't limited to only four years of college.
Universities are catching on to this stuff. Why do you think there are so many certificate programs and eclectic continuing education courses out there?
It's only a matter of time before four years of "college" becomes college a la carte within a PK-16 system...
However, I think a LOT of people are missing the REAL point of University and obtaining a 4 year degree. Sure, your degree shows that (ideally) you are knowledgeable in your field of study, but that isn't even that important.
The most important thing (IMHO) about obtaining a 4 year degree is that it shows the people who will be giving you money to do what you want to do (be it your boss, the people giving you grants, etc.) that you can apply yourself to something and not give up on it for at least 4 years.
Now, for some of you this may not be that important because you are being your own boss, or your boss perhaps trusts your ability to commit long-term.
However, it is a good metric. It simply shows that you have the discipline to do it for 4 years, and that is a valuable thing for many employers.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
Stanford, Stanford, hm.... Google...
So Jobs was giving the commencement address at a university whose computer science building was endowed by Bill Gates
Ok, trying to get kids to finish high-school is brainwashing, and the teacher's hard work must be put in sarcastic quotes??
That is ridiculous even by slashdot standards, doesn't anyone screen this shit?
(/me went to college three years after high school. You'd be suprised how motivating a shit job at minimum wage is.)
What refreshing honesty!
It is worth noting that when Jobs dropped out was a fairly unique time. If you were good with computers, you pretty much didn't need a degree. I knew people who dropped out of college, talked themselves into a computer job, and are now well-paid computer professionals. By the time a degree started to matter, they were so experienced that nobody really cared that they didn't have one.
It's probably still true that if you can jump into a high-tech job at a startup company without finishing your degree, you may end up doing better financially than if you stayed in college, because you get an earlier start at building your career. But such opportunities aren't nearly as abundant now.
Amen to that. After 5 years out of school, working crap jobs with little hope of promotion, I'm absolutely dying to go to school.
Karma: Dyn-o-mite!(mostly affected by Jimmy Walker reading your comments)
The irony: that most students were graduating.
Oh, so that's what they do at graduation, where one might give a graduation speech. So clear it is now...
The space unintentionally left unblank.
For every success story you hear, the other 99,999 are never told. For every genius who dropped out of school to become CEO of an multi-national corporation, there are thousands of other geniuses who wound up broke and unhappy.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
I'm from Ontario but I always thought they were used interchangeably to describe the same thing. But from talking to relatives that are state side, it sounded like the big prestigious schools referred to themselves as Universities while the smaller time ones were Colleges.
Whereas in Canada, Ontario particularly, a college was a place to learn a skill after high school while University is supposed to be a place of "higher learning" and not of skills for the workforce.
Which leads me to a gripe.
Seems like more and more, our colleges (in Ontario, Canada) teach skills to prep a person for jobs that are hands on and specific. Might as well be an appreticeship.
Universities OTOH, have gone from furthering the cause of higher learning to pumping out cubicle jockeys. A BA in general arts and sciences is pretty much a high school diploma that'll get your foot into the door.
Other than propagating the cycle, what value is there in promoting University over the trades? How many white collar cubicle jockeys can society sustain?
Neither did Jobs say: "Do what I did" (That would be too late, since they already graduated.) nor didn't he talk in all bright colors about life. In fact he focussed on how death and failure can be seen as forces that can boost your performance.
So following his line of thought your McDonalds-would-be-NBA-Player should accept his lesson and don't wait to get rescued, but get up and change his world. This is not about becoming a millionaiore or about the American Dream, but about motivation and personal growth.
But, with the responsibilities of an adult, can you now AFFORD to go to school?
I went through 6 years of college right after high school, and now I'd like to go back and take a degree in another subject...but it's hard to find the time and the money.
Twenties Retirement
OTOH (the other hand to the sarcasm), there are people like me who just aren't cut out to be the entreprenurial(sp?) type. I suck at the things like deadlines, management, looking impressive, and those things that make shining entrepreneurial successes shining successes. I'm not sad or angry about this, because (albeit probably because of my inability) this is not what I want to do.
By trade, inclination, and love, I am a (starting) graphic designer. I don't want to be a business-owning graphic designer, but I also don't want to work somewhere awful or be the company bitch, which is why the boost in skills that college brought me helped.
Basically, I want to sit around and pump out artful, useful, and effective pieces of graphic communication, and an employee-style job, in my opinion, is an acceptable tradeoff to allow me to do this, while not having to deal with running the whole show with its struggles and liabilities. This allows me to have a stress-free(r) life, in which I can pursue other leisurely interests, perhaps even entreprenurial, which will not affect the "bread on my table" if I should either fail to or not wish to sustain profit.
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
It's probably too late for you. It's probably too late for me (but I'm giving a whack at it). What Jobs is probably refering to is that when you are at a college age, you can take risks, and still recover. You can still royally screw up your financials, but you still have your family and the rest of your life to look forward to. After college, people are in debt. Then they get into the rat race of debt-paycheck-work, and most likely, never get out.
Take this a step back. How were you raised? Were you raised with the college is the safe thing to do mentality, or were you raised with give life all you got and try make yourself a successful person before you are 30? Were you chided for using your backyard lemons without permission to sell lemonade out front for $50c/glass, or did your dad go and buy you 10 lbs more from the local farmer? Was it so bad that you got a C in English, but nobody cared that you could write a program to do your math homework in 5 minutes?
My point being is that a lot of a person's make-up for success starts at home. Perhaps we won't as succesfull as we'd like to be this life, but we can give our children the edge that they need.
The fact is that most people will have to go to college to obtain a successful career. I would imagine that the dropouts who become billionaires would average out to be a statistical fluke.
We live in a different world today than 100 years ago when the elite sent their sons and daughters off to college. Back then, those going to college didn't have to make a living. They already had all the money they needed. They went for pure academic reasons. Your argument is that these circumstances still apply today. They don't.
Today you have a wide middle class instead of just the poor and the rich. Today regular people can go to college. Today regular people can gain successful careers from an otherwise poor upbringing. But today most people must go to college to obtain the standard of living desired.
Sure kids should also want to learn new things and expand their mind. It is still an academic institution, after all. But you cannot discount the fact that the reason parents push their children into going to college is that they need it to survive. And, perhaps, to make sure they don't live in their basement for the rest of their natural born lives. Of yesteryear it may have been normal for children to live their whole lives in the ye ole log cabin.
Things change.
People don't drop out because they're stupid -- being stupid is no barrier to academic success. If there is any one trait to be singled out as a cause of dropping out, it is surely neither intelligence nor stupidity but disobedience.
Those two know how to spot subservient stooges.
He won the lottery. Speaking as someone that DID do things the hard way, I can assure everyone that it is most definitely NOT the way to go.
If you want to live a marginal life (like the homeless are marginal), then taking the road less traveled is for you. If you can stand a life that degrades your physical health, your sanity, your quality of life (and your chances of ever acheiving a decent level of it), and even your life and limb, then go for it man! Be prepared for the statistic ceratinty, virtually, that you will FAIL IT miserably, though.
My advice: don't listen to the marginal losers living in the figurative or literal gutter that want to try to drag you down to their level. 'Doing it your way' isn't cool (it is fucking scary, and I don't mean thrilling), and it is a fast short cut to failure and poverty. Maybe 3% make it, the rest end-up slinging burgers at McDicks, in a mental hospital, living with their parents, or on the street.
If you are reading this, know you have been warned.
I am typing this on a 12" PowerBook. I love OS X. I bought my first Mac in 1988 and had an Apple ][ before that. I gave it up for Linux for many years but when they dumped the freeze prone old OS, I came back. But even this is too much. Can there be anything *else* worth posting than something about Jobs' speech at Stanford? For crap's sake already.
I've thought long and hard about this since graduating from college. I've seen a lot of people do some extraordinary things. The person who runs the division I work in (with about 15,000 people) never went to college, and I'm not sure he graduated from high school. He does happen to be a genius and I suspect he would have went to college if it wasn't for the fact he was successful by the age of 18.
If I interviewed two people for a job I'd always choose the one who had ambition, creativity and a great work ethic. College degrees and intelligence would be secondary. There is a place for that, but with good leadership you can get an ambitious person to do amazing things.
The other factor that counts is common sense. Understanding the requirements of a job and relating to customers is very important. In a sense, everyone works for customers - our bosses are customers of sorts.
For anyone still in school, don't get wrapped up in your GPA but don't drop out of college either.
----- obSig
might actually be the best place to try it, but I understood your point.
------ no thanks... I've quit
Education,indoctrination and filtration And yes it is recursive!
Forbes would disagree with you:
1. William Gates III
2. Warren Buffett
3. Lakshmi Mittal
4. Carlos Slim Helu
5. Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud
6. Ingvar Kamprad
7. Paul Allen
8. Karl Albrecht
9. Lawrence Ellison
10. S Robson Walton
While I'm glad the Jobs did well for himself this blurb that is running the press wires really is deceptive in many ways. Sure, you can be successful as a drop out but Jobs' being a drop out is what made him a success. Sure, he claims it motivated him by putting him in a bad possition but Joe Sixpack Jr. isn't going to make it without guidance. To the smart asses in 10th grade who are reading that Jobs dropped out and did well for himself it's sending a bad message. While everyone may have the capacity to achieve greatness not many will because the type of attitude and work ethic it takes to gain greatness doesn't normally go hand in hand with the common drop outs attitude. Not that I think this is going to be the deal maker for kids with that type of attitude anyway.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Colleges are now beer halls.
Many people told me in high school that a college degree is the road to success in life, and I have no doubt that it is. But after going to college for five years I have found that my friends who went straight into the workforce or learned a trade at a community college are now the ones who own houses, cars, and generally have much more money than I do.
On the other hand, my degree allows me to pursue the same quality of life they enjoy, but at a job which will be intellectually challenging and personally rewarding. I just have to wait a bit longer for the tangible benefits.
That said, I don't think it's appropriate to drop out of high school. College, sure, if you find something else you want to do. But for pete's sake, you really should have a high school diploma.
http://www.walkingtaco.com
I know a lot of people who its helped, and a lot of people who it has harmed. What we should be doing is promoting an environment for learning, and showing how important it is for some people to go to higher education. The first thing I was really taught at my University was in my lower division writing courses where we were analyzing essays about how much college is a waste of money. The scary thing: the teacher agreed. A lot of people were taken back by this, and didn't really think much of it. They were of course, already at the "institution", they didn't want to hear that they were blowing money. A lot of the kids in that class really missed the point: that you should be at the University for yourself. Don't go because your parents tell you to, don't go because you think it'll raise your average salary by another 5 grand, don't go because your grand-daddy couldn't. GO BECAUSE YOU WANT TO AND YOU THINK YOU CAN TAKE SOMETHING AWAY FROM IT! Getting in and telling students, at nearly any educational level the truth is the only way that they can really start taking things that they are taught seriously. I mean frankly, if I were in charge of speaker scheduling I would be happy to invite this style of speaker to talk so that students can get a much needed reality check.
Steve keeping it real! Dropping out is for WINNERS!!! Go Steve :P
Fuck I dropped out and now I am sitting on my ass at a dead end job posting on slashdot. THE DREAM HAS BECOME REAL!
"The most dangerous creation of any society is that man who has nothing to lose." - James Baldwin, American author
Tune in, turn on, drop out.
When the likes of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were making wakes, the PC industry was still a baby and there were enough chances for everyone. Can a college drop-out still become a Steve Jobs in today's world? I bet you got to really really good at what you do to get that kind of opportunities.
Let UPS throw cardboard at me for 3. Never found a class room so welcoming.
Hmmm, perusing Apple's job openings, there are not many of them that say "college optional" I wonder if Steve Jobs' company would hire a college drop out???
http://www.apple.com/jobs/index_div.html
People don't drop out of college because they're stupid. If you're there, you can almost always handle it. It's just a matter of how motivated you are, as well as external factors (such as those involving finances, love, etc.). You might think that smarter people need less motivation, and therefore it's other people who drop out, but that's a fallacy. Smarter people may need a different form of motivation, but they definitely need motivation. Those who lack motivation are the ones to drop out, regardless of brain power.
"Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world." -Archimedes
Steve was trying to say that success comes from taking risks.
Oh, I guess that's not quite the same thing...
I did it. It's not easy. The single biggest factor in my success so far is that my wife totally supports the decision.
After five years of working in industry, I decided I'd had enough and needed more options than 1) code monkey; 2) leader of code monkeys; or 3) getting lucky and being made the CTO by a friend - which is basically all you get with a BS in CS.
We had to sell the house, move to on-campus housing, and take a drastic pay cut. I did get to work as a contractor for my former employer, which was very nice. The hardest part was figuring out how to live on a third of what I was making before. We're still digging a bit into our savings, but that's what it's for, and I should be able to finish my PhD with some money left over.
My advice: save, save, save, and win your spouse over to the idea. Don't be afraid to pack up and leave, because you leave a lot of responsibilities behind you.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
The thing that strikes me the most in reading all of the replies to this post is the bitter grapes in evidence from those who trudged through 4+ years of higher education. It seems very much like saying "How dare you say the emperor has no clothes!"
Education is not a one-size fits all solution. Some people like school and feel like higher education is the best thing that ever happened to them. On the other hand, some would much rather get out of the classroom and go do something else.
I was one of the latter. Two years in as a Poli Sci major (I knew it was useless even then), I dropped out and got a job. Not because school was too tough, but because it wasn't teaching me what I wanted. The job I left for was to be a network administrator at a govt. agency I'd been summer interning at. Now this was 1990, so remember, the only computer-related courses offered at most universities were completely focused on programming. I didn't want to program, I wanted to be root! So off I went, and that has led to two or three other careers.
All that said, I had the following conversation with a mentor at my office whom I occassionally consult when looking for advice:
Me: So, I'm thinking of going back and taking some classes
Mentor: Why not go and get your degree?
Me: Because I don't see the point in getting a piece of paper that doesn't really say anything about me other than that I can warm my ass in the chairs of various classrooms for a certain amount of time. I'd much rather just go to learn the things I'd like to learn.
Mentor: Well, it's true, a degree doesn't really denote anything about what you've learned or what you can, but you should still get it.
Me: Why?
Mentor: Because every future employer out there is always going to be secretly (or not so secretly) pissed at you because you bucked the system and didn't "serve your time."
Me: [Sigh]
. . . and so at this point, it has become a matter of honor to refuse to join the endless sheep chewing their way through America's universities in search of, not knowledge, but a little piece of paper that says they're a good sheep.
Every kid must go to the University, period. Seriously.
This fear ridden viewpoint is ridiculously prevalent, to the point of dogmatism. Has this been proven to you experentially somehow that you speak so arrogantly, with no room for exception?
Just in tech, look:
Bill Gates (hrmm...richest individual on earth)
The Woz
Larry Ellison
Paul Allen
Steve Jobs
Smart, dedicated people will be successful no matter what.
Sheep who think they must go to college in order to be successful have materialist and self-conscious hangups that may prevent them from excelling.
I think you place too much weight on what others think of you. You think statistics and objects are what get you over in the interview process. With unintelligent executives, perhaps. It is a materialist point of view, that if you get an expensive education, as an asset you "own," it will prevent you from failure, and rocket you above all other candidates. There is a ceiling for how far you can go with that attitude, and it is in the six figures, generally. AKA, middle management. The sheep leading the other sheep. By the tone of your post, it sounds like you would be very satisfied as a "head" sheep.
At an average of $125,000 for the complete "education" package, it is irresponsible and ignorant to not mention to a young person that the spending of such sums is worthy of very careful review. And that endebting yourself at a young age, or depleting a trust fund, may not be as wise exploring other oppurtunities, especially those which enable you to EARN as opposed to SPEND. This is dependent on the individual, and is what is left out of your simplistic, dogmatic statement.
As an executive, I have hired non graduates over graduates before. Why?
They were obviously smarter and more qualified than the graduates, as evidenced in the interviews.
No piece of paper can make you smarter than you are in real life, on a personal level. Fools hide behind their credentials, and all truly bright people judge individuals based on their personal experience with them.
If you said that statement in an interview, I would place you at the bottom of the pile, and write "cowardly dogmatist" on your application, under notes. With such an uninspired and scared attitude, I would not consider you a candidate for any mildly interesting position.
-.jk.
People who succeed inspite of dropping out of school are those who maybe never really needed formalized learning in the first place. There have always been individuals who learn better on their own and will succeed in the same manner. They're incredibly intelligent but to top it off they're also incredibly self motivated. Those are few and far in between. What people often forget to mention is that in addition to their talents, these people are also very intense people. I've met a few of these people before. They weren't at the same level as Gates and Jobs but a Ph.D. when you're 22 or publishing a major conference paper before you graduated are impressive nonetheless. Most people like to offset their talent by claiming or portraying these people as somehow socially inept or otherwise very weak in other aspects. That was never the case for those who I knew. What I did noticed that they were really into what they did and never wasted anytime. They knew what they wanted and they went after it with a drive that will tire out most people. But they're very rare.
I've known a lot of very intelligent people but not all of them had the drive or the passion. Unfortunately, many children growing up, especially the intelligent ones, forget the other ingredient needed and assumes their natural talent will bring them success. They neglect school and somehow expect their talents to just kick in and solve all their problems when they need it. Memorization shouldn't be the only part of education but knowing things in advance will save you a lot of time from having to solve them again, probably in a worse way. So, for the rest of us, schooling and formal education are useful. There's no doubt that Jobs is an incredible person, very rare among people. His path to success will no doubt be different and inaccessible to the majority of students.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
100ug? If you are really lucky maybe. Erowid has it at around 50-80 on average. I think that 60s number might be a bit high too though. I think it was around 350ug.
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
And how many of those kids use their college degrees to do amazing things like sell real estate or become plumbers
If I remember correctly.. wasn't it something like.. 80% of students who do earn a degree don't even get a job in the field that their degree is related to?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I find it refreshing that slashdot has such a diverse collection of readers.
They are so up-to-the-minute that it is actually uncanny, (and scary).Although, after reading the 7th post and beyond,it get's boring.
If you go to the next "news" headline, you will also notice this fact.
modding me up as "informative" may be a good thing also.
Of course,as always, I've posted this in plain old text,as I am not a user of gates garbage.
Maybe the fact that Steve Jobs was attending a private school had something to do with the fact that his family couldn't afford it?
Dropping out of school makes sense if you have some sort of vision, but it better be a damn good vision. The fact remains that 99% of successful people went to college. Look at the Google founders. Both graduated college and are now rich as f**k.
Granted, neither of thim finished their Ph.D's =P
And no matter how motivated you are, dropping out won't provide you with the knowledge you need for many scientific- try being a lawyer, biomedical engineer, doctor, geneticist, or organic chemist without a college degree.
There's quite a hoopla about Steve's comments. I don't really see it as a "drop out, college is useless" comment that everyone (even the headline) makes it out to be.
More importantly, we need to look deeper into what he said and why he said it. For some people, college probably is a waste of time. If he had stayed in college (pressure from family, etc), maybe Apple never would have come to be. Maybe he would have lost all motivation or thinking differently and would have graduated with his degree and got a job as an accountant or programmer somewhere. For Steve, his personality conflicted with the structured ways of university learning. For others, it could be the kiss of death to not get that college degree. Some people need need the schooling to mature a bit. I'm glad he dropped out, scraped for food, and was willing to do whatever it took to survive and to take his "beleaguered company" back.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
I was there at the stanford stadium. I found his speech serious and very insightful. People just picks the ironic part of his speech. His main advice is to follow the passion. I talked about his speech here .
A few months ago, I got the strongest, most visual "acid" I have ever taken - at four hits, tripped balls for a good 10 hours. I don't think it was LSD though, me and a few freinds were speculating that it might have been DMA sold as acid.
But yeah, most acid I've gotten in the last few years has been crap. Shrooms are happier anyhow.
kaens.blogspot.com
thanks.
I am sure others could put together a better argument, but as someone who has really enjoyed my college education I'll throw out some ideas.
...) complement a CS degree nicely. Getting such a diverse education is harder at a worksite.
People who might benefit by going to a university:
1) Anyone who doesn't know what they want to do:
Before I started college I had never heard of Linguistics. Because there were no other courses available, I took a Linguistics course my first quarter, and immediately loved it. I'll be graduating with bachelors in both Linguistics and Computer Science soon. Without going to a university (one large enough to offer Linguistics, at that), it would have been very difficult to stumble upon that passion. This broader background will help me to do the natural language processing research I am (now) interested in. Similarly, backgrounds in many fields (e.g. Biology, Physics, Geology,
2) People who like variety:
Depending on who you work for, the variety of the type of work you do will vary. By design, the courseload in a undergraduate CS program is varied, including architecture, ethics, algorithms, automata theory, and of course, programming. I've programmed in Scheme, Prolog, C, C++, C# over the past four years on projects including a networked filesystem, a unix shell, a raytracer, a scheme interpreter, and device device drivers in NetBSD and WinXP. All of these projects were great fun.
3) People who like to challenge themselves:
Anywhere you go, smart people will be able to find ways to challenge themselves. At a university, you have the advantage of a knowledgeable faculty who have plenty of pet projects they'd love to let you loose on. I've also found it very easy to get faculty to supervise research projects of my choosing. It's a great environment for getting a lot done, if you are self-motivated and hardworking. And there is something "pure" and refreshing about doing work without commercial motives - many great projects were birthed and/or nurtured in an academic environment.
I was reluctant to go to college, under the same opinion that if you are smart enough, you don't need it (plus I was just lazy). However, I've found that the university environment is ideal for smart people: lots of challenges, lots of variety. Anyone with the intelligence, curiousity and passion to succeed on ther own would thrive in a good program. Sure, college is expensive. But, again, if you are that intelligent and motivated, you can get scholarships, assistantships, and grants.
I am extremely grateful that I decided to go to college, it has been a great experience and worth every cent.
If we start buying CDs then the terrorists have already won.
And it was a different time..
...
Actually, my experience was a lot like yours.. I was doing well until around two years ago, but I'm struggling again now..
I don't think my experience is that atypical.. The powers that be are getting their revenge on those Internet geeks for screwing up their plans for global domination..
Seriously. The Internet changed everything, and they want to make us pay..
In the 70s (and I met Steve then, when I was in high school, and he was selling his computer kit to 'telephone enthusiasts') and like us, he was in the right place at the right time.. with the right product...
But its all changed..
These days, millions of Americans who are forced to drop out of (or who never attend) college because of money find it really hard to get decent jobs (read - jobs with health insurance and retirement benefits) nomatter how skilled they are...
The US is now more economically stratified than western european countries, including the uk, canada and australia/new zealand
we need open source education.. some kind of accredited open internet university for people who cant afford the rich kids colleges.. or who don't want to go into debt for 20 years
Why cant the open source community get behind an open source college?
Its an idea whose time has come..
or better yet, get a copy of the speech...
As someone who was actually there to hear it - he didn't say everyone should drop out of college. Far from it - instead, he said it was exactly what HE needed at the time. He didn't do it because he was being an irresponsible dick, he did it because his tuition costs were overwhelming his parents' resources and he didn't want to do that to them.
He wasn't attempting to invalidate the degrees of the people he was speaking to - instead he was using a very personal story to explain the idea that people should go through life with confidence rather than be afraid of what can happen...
I've seen four or five commencement speeches over the last few years and in all honesty, this one was the best by far. It was heartfelt, had important things to say and alternated between being funny and quite touching. Jobs obviously put a lot of thought into the speech and really took it seriously.
Certainly this is true for computer science. I mean, how much training do you really need to be a computer janitor?
The problem with this kind of elitist rhetoric it that it is completely contrary to reality.
College is not so hard that only smart people can get through. College coursework is comprised primarily of mindless busywork and meaningless bullshit. Only a small portion of what is taught is relevant to most students. Moreover 4-year curriculums try to teach theory to many students who only want practical job skills.
In the end, many decide that the degree is not worth their time, since they either already know everything they need, or can learn it better at a 2-year technical college where they will actually have a job waiting for them when they get out of college. And that way they won't end up tens of thousands of dollars in debt.
Teachers in primary education really need stop pushing college to students. College is the right choice for some students, not most. Moreover, colleges need to stop selling their program to parents, and start selling them to students. Most of the college drop-outs I know were pressured into college by their parents who would not accept anything less. Attending college is a decision that should be made by the student.
I was there with the parents, and the summary mischaracterizes his commencement address. Steve's point was that the passion you pursue matters more than the feasibility of the pursuit. The message was essentially "don't be afraid to take risks."
The speech was very personal and consequently a little offbeat. The guy talked earnestly about life-changing moments: dropping out, getting fired, and being diagnosed with cancer. He may have stressed mortality to an uncommon degree and hinted that diplomas were not invaluable, but the overall message was very positive and remarkably sincere.
Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago. -Bernard Berenson
Actually, Wozniak returned to the University of California at Berkely under an assumed name, "Rocky Clark", and received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and computer science around 1987 (see http://www.woz.org/wozscape/wozbio.html).
Kind of ironic that Jobs was giving the speech at Berkeley's "football rival" across the Bay. What were they thinking when they invited him? http://www.epinions.com/content_73675148932
If only I could put this brain back in that 20-year-old body.
Perhaps with some fava beans and a nice chianti?
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Where's the Sultan of Brunei and HRH?
thank you for elegantly cutting thru all the BS in this thread
The real lesson should be that you don't need a college degree to be successful ..... but it helps. Stories like this spur people on to believe things like "School is for suckers, I'm going to go make it on my own". For every Steve Jobs, there's a million people who end up working menial jobs at a pathetic salary because they didn't persue their education. Getting an education and getting a good job isn't going to make you a millionare, but more likely than not it'll keep you from being destitue.
College degrees today are quickly becoming what high school degrees were 40 years ago. Advancement in your job is linked to how much education you've gotten. Whether you know more or not is irrelevant, but having degrees count. I have a friend who is a Lt in the Air Force. He's been telling me how a masters degree is quickly becoming a requirement in order to advance into the higher ranks in his department (He's not in R&D or a repair unit or anything like that either). Another example, a few years back another friend of mine was working a summer job for the county doing road maintainence (AKA, scooping up roadkill). Since he wasn't a total screwball like the other full-timers, he got along well with his supervisor. They were discussing my friend's future at some point. My friend wanted to (and did) go to music school, but the supervisor said that if he wanted, after graduation from college, he could recommend him for a supervisor's job working for the county. When my friend asked how a degree in Music Education would be useful working for the county, the supervisor said the degree itself didn't matter, just that you had it. His own degree was in agracultural sciences. So for most mainstream people, a college degree is the best course of action. Maybe you don't have to go into your major's field, but overall you'll be better of having it.
i hear they want lots of people without any degrees
Yeah, but in the 60s you could have gotten that with one, maybe two hits. Shrooms don't feel as clean a high to me. I feel more clouded on shrooms.
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
The world in general calls too much attention on a College degree as mandatory for living and getting a good job. Often a degree is simply a piece of paper that gives you a pass to the future and no longer an actual good education. Trade schools and Associate/Tech Degree colleges are often as good if not better than a 4 year university. Esspecially if you know what you want to go into field wise. Employers are beginning to recognize this and for that I'm glad.
College is a good thing for the most part but is certainly not for everyone and certainly should NOT be mandatory.
Aren't you allowed to attend (but not receive credits for) pretty much any government-funded university?
Assume I was drunk when I posted this.
Because a few people had the right drive and knowledge at the right time doesn't mean everyone can do it. In the real world, a college degree means either getting a job or not getting a job. You can't be a licensed professional in most fields without a degree. If you want to be an engineer, you can have all the insight and experience in the world, but no licensing board will administer the FE and PE exams without a college degree, that's a fact. Sure it might be possible to become a quick millionaire if you do an internet startup. You could think of something that no one's thought of before, or make a significant improvement on an existing idea, but that's rare. Taking chances isn't bad, but take chances that make sense. Just dropping out of school and selling software online might make you a few bucks, but come on, take a reality check. "Oh but Bill Gates did it and he's the richest man in the world!" Yeah, but look at all the other people who dropped out of school and failed. With a degree at the very worst you'll make probably $35k+ if you chose to study something worthwhile. That degree in Russian lit., yeah, probably not so much. I went to school, grad school too, I'll be a millionaire well before I'm 40 because I chose a profession that pays pretty decently. So will I be a loser because I went to college? Sure will, but I'll be a loser with a Porsche, big house, and a trophy wife. Life sure sucks for me with my Ph.D on the wall.
I would almost argue that intelligence can be a hinderance in a college setting. For someone such as myself who is pretty intelligent, I found high school to be easy and I graduated with a 3.5 GPA and never studied once. Contrast that to my college career where I am fighting to keep my head above water becauuse i never developed the skills that are necessary at this level: studying, proper note taking, etc.
I was quoted out of context in my autobiography...
Only follow his advice if you are good friends with a very smart person that knows how to build really innovative things.
Then start a company based on his work and ride it as far as it will go.
When I was a sophomore in college (early 1990's) my best friend tried to get me to drop out with him. He was going to join a new computer company and do fabulous things. Three years later, he's making $75k in a great job with a new car and I'm living in a one-room apartment underneath a convenience store in West Virginia with leaky gas heat, cracked windows, and furniture made out of FedEx boxes duct-taped together.
At least, that's how it started.
Move forward another five years, and I'm the one living in the penthouse in the big city making twice what he makes, and he's stuck in a dead-end job in a cubicle farm pushing paper for middle managers.
The moral of the story, as far as I'm concerned, is that while dropping out can give you a head start in certain circumstances, it doesn't help you in the long run, especially when you need certain degrees and experience to get promotions or move into better positions in different companies. Dropping out looks good at first, but in the words of Marge Simpson, "Slow and steady wins the race."
World's tallest building rises in the desert
I thought this movie was pretty inaccurate, but based on this, I don't know anymore.
The issue of working your way through college is confused greatly when the type of college in question is ommitted. In state colleges, or at least in the ones near my home town and the ones near my college,
In private colleges or the Ivy league types (not just those colleges but colleges of that type) a 'work my way through' attitude will result in taking part time classes for years (and years and years and years)
I moved to Europe, traveled the world for almost 10 years, and then went back to school. Got a 4.0 for several years, taking tough courses about subjects that I really wanted to understand. Then bailed out again and got a job in computing- and have done that ever since.
A few years ago I got my own consulting gig at $120 per hour, and made 1/4 mil per year for the first time in my life.
I think Jobs and I agree on these points: success comes to those who are smart and motivated. Jobs and I are motivated by love of what we do. We knew enough to find out what we love, and had the courage to follow our hearts: all the way to success and good money. Notice: those are not the same. The money came because I was lucky enough to enjoy a field that is in demand. Success also comes to self-fulfilled but poor artists.
You want money? Go to college, get degrees, get well paid work.
You want success? Find out what you love, do it well, and wholeheartedly
drop out, tune in, turn on...
Ah yes. That old story plays well, especially told by one of the few deservedly-lucky. Job's message is one of condolence to those who will never be as lucky as he, not a guide to those yearning for nouveau riche power status. The iPod-clad psychophants on the sidelines will be the first of the new crop of worker bees thinking some of his coolness will rub off on them.
I bet Jobs ate it up.
TT
Honestly, Steve is my hero, and this is why. The guy didn't have a product, great technical understand, business skills, personal or social skills. And if he was a visionary, then what was his vision? No, Steve Jobs made his money as a philosopher. He had the philosophy that every computer should be simple enough for the average human to use, and it should be beautiful. Of all the things Steve has fucked up over the years, this one philosophy has remained, and he has carried Apple on this alone.
Education, along with religion, are a form of brainwash & control, to build a productive work-force society.
I taught myself (almost) everything I know (for work at least), and am doing far better than most kids I know who graduated college.
I never even graduated high school either, that's the one that always pisses people off.
Public Education System for K-12 in Los Angeles is a JOKE! (it was to me at least).
I would have graduated class of 95', but unfortunatly in those days, computers were crap, and the only thing that interested me at the time, was being able to sequence my midi gear (sync'ed w/ all my old analog gear =), using atari+cubase.
My Education Fund: $50/mo for DSL + 1x $800 PC
Years Spent Writting Open Source Code (while contracting as a programmer for various web design companies): 5 years
Current Job Title: Programmer Analyst
Annual Income: $65k/year (which is still barely enough to get by on, as a single bachelor geek/pimp etc.)
My aunt graduated w/ a PHD in Health Care Administration 4 years ago, and she had always treated me like shit because I never went to school.
Needless to say, she still has yet to get a job in the Health Care industry, and is making 1/2 of what I make annually, but for the 1st time, she can't say shit about me not graduating.
Now I'm no Steve Jobs, and I'm not knocking an education being handed to kids from decent-to-well.off families, but if you can't afford an education, and you are truly driven, you can find a way to succeed.
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
The Sultan has a high income, but not so much wealth. HRH has less in the way of personal wealth than you might imagine.
aside from the zen of it, it would have done to simply point out that "you're" is a contraction and "your" is a possesive.
No need to be hostile.
He's an old fart, and he still looks like he's barely 40!
there is also someone named Gates.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
I have been running my own (small - c.10 employees) software development company for a number of years and accidentally discovered that I had gotten into the policy of never recruiting graduates. Much preferred to get guys with 3-5 years experience working who were in the process of doing distance learning/night time degrees.
:-)
Always preferred developers who had made the mistakes and gained the experience on somebody else's payroll. Also found that employees committed to take on the challenge of holding down a job while doing a degree had a level of commitment and drive often lacking in "complacent" know-it-all graduates.
I have also found that many highly qualified "academically speaking" people (e.g. MBA/PhD or two degrees) are better at coming up with sophisticated arguments why things can not be done than simply putting the head down and accomplishing the mission.
YMMV
The funny thing is, that financial aid at Reed is among the best in the country, last I heard. They have enough alumni support to cover most student's tuitions nearly in full and unlike Harvard and the rest of the ivy league, Reed actually does pay students way in many cases. Maybe times have changed, but from what I know of Reed I don't think Steve would have had to drop out for financial reasons. Unless he somehoe made himself ineligable for aid.
I know what you mean. In fact, I'm in the exact same situation. I left college cause I wasn't motivated. But since joining the military I've found a new motivation to excel in everything I do. Also since joining the military I've become very impatient with people who tell me about their "hard times." So I'm looking forward getting back into school once I'm out, and I'm looking forward to kicking ass.
It's known that geniuses, by their nature, simply do not fit in. I wonder how someone like Einstein would do in today's invironment.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
In the last season of Apprentice, high school grads were set up against college grads. In one episode both team had to run a motel. Guess which team won by throwing a pool party?
Lesson: If you are a slacker, stay in school.
..happy ending
I paid college fees and provided generous study leave from work. Everybody was encouraged to get an academic/professional qualification. Every one graduated (with distinction) while working with my company.
Actually, half of the people who were on the Macintosh engineering team didn't have engineering degrees. Maybe it has changed recently, but I would suspect that regardless of what the website says there are still a lot of people who don't have engineering degrees. My source here is The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki.
"don't go because you think it'll raise your average salary by another 5 grand, ... GO BECAUSE YOU WANT TO AND YOU THINK YOU CAN TAKE SOMETHING AWAY FROM IT!"
Um... I think taking another 5 grand (make that 50 grand in my case) is "taking something away from it". YMMV
TT
"Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school." -Albert Einstein
"The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education." -Albert Einstein
"I never let my schooling get in the way of my education." -Mark Twain
Unfortunately, because of the war on drugs, it's difficult to get good data on what LSD does. We really don't understand currently how it works on the mind.
Go look up books written by Dr. Jonathan Ott and go check out Erowid for a mind-expanding experience, without doing the drug itself.
Also, I should note that many, if not most, of our most influential people in almost every niche of America's history did drugs of some sort or another, or supported them. For example, Thomas Jefferson grew marijuana and had a whole spiel about it's beneficial properties, from how it could make nearly-dead land arable again, to the benefits of hemp oils and fibers. Jimi Hendrix, as well as many other popular musical artists, wrote some of their best (and notably most influential) music either while they were on drugs, thinking about drugs, recalling experiences with drugs, etc.
Okay, sorry. I know that went offtopic.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I expect so.
Most of the people with college degrees I interview don't know crap, and most of them aren't resourceful enough to wade their way though problems.
While the degreeless persons usually have a good bunch of experience (which might not be conventional) and are usually more mature.
Why should students go and spend their money when they don't know what they want to be. University isn't a direction to help. It's a money pit. Wandering aimlessly through useless courses as you pay for them is a bad idea. There is no hurry to jump in to university straight out of school. Hell, technical colleges are starting to have a better job hiring rate after graduation than most university courses do. Even the 'prestige' ones such as engineering.
Seriously, kids are lead too easily into things they don't understand. Take me for instance. I got suckered. Go into engineer, do computers, big market, lots of money, you're good at math. What a load of shit. Tables turned. Underpaid, overworked, jobs are going overseas or you have to have experience no company will give you an oppurtunity to get. Too much time and money to train someone these days. Well, back to school to become an teacher. And this is my choice.
ogg
Black cat, searing pain, flames...? I must be in Heaven! - Homer Simpson
...a degree is something that will come in handy if you forget to by toilet paper. Skills pay the bills.
As someone who was there, he was not directly encouraging people to drop out. It was a huge "follow your heart" theme, which may include dropping out if you don't feel you're in the right place--living someone else's dream for you rather than living your own. He said that he didn't feel right spending his parents' life savings on an education when he still didn't know what he wanted to study. He emphasized that what he did was right for him, not implying it was right for others. I don't consider this nearly as controversial as the Slashdot blurb makes it sound.
char *mySig;
Even Google, though, with its IQ test PR stunt, requires formalities above capabilities. Probably only Walmart does it right: huge computer applications, data collected on every employee, and data-mining techniques to find out what means what and what means nothing. Unfortunately it seems they're just trying to predict obedience rather than talent.
Almost every job, I have ever had, has required a degree. The only times this became an issue was when HR was involved prior to the job offer. Solution: avoid HR like the plague. This has caused some difficulty over my career, but somehow has lead to some incredibly satisfying jobs. It seems that the employers who would insist on a degree, no mattter what, weren't the kind of places I wanted to work in anyway.
Somewhere along the line, some have forgotten what school is all about, teaching you to learn. If you have mastered that skill, school becomes an option, not a requirement.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
From iCon, the account is that the total sum was $1000, of which Jobs told Woz he had been paid $700 and thus Woz's take was $350.
:-)
Also according to the same book, Woz found out only a year later, well before Apple had even taken off. So he let it pass.
That's what the book said anyway, I would imagine the figure had been looked over a few times. Jobs banned the publisher from all Apple stores so it must be at least a little accurate...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Parent is a hoax:
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/ellison.htm
Way to grasp the punchline.
Hm, perhaps what you actually meant to say is this:
Thank you. I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation.
Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months but then stayed around as a drop-in for another eighteen months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife, except that when I popped out, they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking, "We've got an unexpected baby boy. Do you want him?" They said, "Of course." My biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college.
This was the start in my life. And seventeen years later, I did go to college, but I naïvely chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and no idea of how college was going to help me figure it out, and here I was, spending all the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out, I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms. I returned Coke bottles for the five-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example.
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer was beautifully hand-calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans-serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me, and we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts, and since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.
If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class and personals computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.
Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later. Again, you can't connect th
Those who can, do. Those who can't, write technology blogs.
Oh boy, it's time for another
I'm a dropkick dumbshit nerd who fucked up school because I am stupid and lazy. Instead of accepting responsibility for failings and current Techdesk Monkey(TM) job, I will deny the very notion of an average, and consider myself, as most people to, do be above average or even genius. Thus the fault lies with the curriculum, and not me. Now, back to jerking off in my mom's basement and meeting up with my 30 year old D&D playing friends
threads.
For every drop-out success like Steve Jobs, there are probably thousands that would miserably fail.
Although schooling is not a pre-requisite of success and rising above everyone else, in my opinion, an education is nice to have when you're slowly sinking below.
Need a color? Try 100 random colors
Personally, I've tried school a number of times, and although each time it was easy to get top grades at first, in a matter of months I found myself consumed by the emptiness of the exercise. I had no time to read books, no self-direction in my studies, no motivation to acquire the depth of understanding I would demand from myself if the grades were not there. I burn out and drop out... then feel the need for approval and go back for more. Finally though I've mustered up the self-esteem to stay out for good.
I dropped out and helped start a non-profit. There have been many times I have wished I had stayed in school with my friends and certainty in my life.
I've been burnt out for a couple months now because I don't believe in our software anymore.
Would I do it all over again? Maybe not if you ask today. There are good times and bad times.
It hasn't been bad enough for me to take my remaining college savings and quit my job. I'm fortunate enough to be able to easily live for months on no income or go back to college. If I were more impulsive I would have done it by now.
Gotta love a billionaire who is not ashamed of his working-class background. To even add to that, he's an adopted child of an immigrant father; his dad was an Egyptian Arab and his mother an American, though he was adopted by the Jobs family. His sister, Mona Simpson (Mona is an Egyptian name) is an author and she wrote a novel called "The Lost Father", about her search for their dad who had disappeared in their childhood.
Hmm... the top 10 maybe dropouts - the top 100 even. But if you look at the top 1000, 10 000, 100 000?? 1000 000?
Maximise your chances of being successful, rather than of being the richest person in the world.
Besides, money isn't everything.
Those who haven't already, should read the recent NY Times series on class in America. Love it or hate it, class still exists and will affect your life.
In one of the articles in the series, it made abundantly clear the long-term and significant financial benefits of a college education. Furthermore, the class benefits of a college education will also affect your lifestyle, health, and your family's future.
Sure, there are lots of counter-examples in both directions. And I think there are lot of terrible inequities in this country. But before you decide to "break the rules", you should at least know what they are.
God I've been saying this for a long time!!
I went to college, becuase that's what I was sopposed to do, I even graduaded...it didn't teach me nothing. Look see, I still mispel words and have terible grammer and use runon sentances as well as double negetives and other things like that but on the brite side I am in det a a few score thousand dollers Yay college!
On a serious note: I did graduate and now I can't find work. I've got 300 dollars a month in student loans that I need to pay back and the bank is completely unsympathetic (image that).
This message was brought to you by H1B visas, unsympathetic student loan companies, and the number -$40,000
s/stupid/lazy/
Pretty Pictures!
And if Jobs didn't know Woz he'd be flipping burgers now, with a badge reading, "Steven Jobs, Manager".
I blame the ridiculous emphasis we seem to put on earning large amounts of money. We're all taught that the more money you have, the happier you are. And since people with degrees can earn more money, going to college is essential if you are to be happy.
A big topic in Australia at the moment is the 'skills shortage' which was produced partially because everyone seems to be going to university to become doctors, lawyers and acoountants and we don't have enough people who can actually do something anymore.
:wq
what is going on?
I know I don't trust Apple and don't buy their geer, no matter how nice people tell me it is. Maybe I am not a big dent in Job's bank account but don't forget they went from a market leadership position in PCs to what, less than 3% today?
The late 1970s home computer user could choose from either a an S-100 based system or an Apple II. The Apple was far more humane and sold very well for its time.
Every since the introduction of the IBM PC in the early 1980s, Apple has offered too little for too much. Sort of like BMW or Mercedes. You pay a huge price premium in return for minimal perks and often times, added restrictions. I could have paid more money for a BMW, but then I would be limited to just one dealership / shop in town. If I need parts for my Honda, there are three places I can go. If I need parts for my Chevy, there are about six places I can go.
Frankly, I don't trust ***ANY*** business.
I do have a PowerBook, I bought it two years ago when Apple first started shipping the 15" Aluminum PowerBook G4. It had an excellent performance/features to price ratio at the time and I'm very happy with it. Just about every other computer I have is a cheap PC running a free OS. I don't trust any company to treat me right, support me, or even be in business tomorrow. I'm careful, but not paranoid.Apple doesn't scare me, neither does Abit or Asus, but none of those make me feel warm and fuzzy either.
Its really brilliant that people can actually go out and make speaches like that. I know from my own experience I lived my life didnt goto uni until I was in my mid 20s. working full time and studying takes its toll but at least im studying something that I love. Many uni students never actually work in the fields they have studied in for many years. Working first gives you an idea of what you may enjoy more. It also makes you mature up more etc.
Jobs want to call the original mac "Bicycle". Tell me that wasn't acid-induced.
Looks like it's okay for him to be a dropout, but not anyone who works for him.
Free Hans!
Shouldn't he give this speech during freshman orientation?
I also coudn't tollerate people whining about how its tough for them to have some much homework that they cannot party as much as they want or that daddy didn't buy them a car for their birthday. Too bad many kids are not taught to appreciate what they have - I learned the hard way and I am not sure there is an easy way though.
Requirements include:
* BS or MS in Computer Science or equivalent (PhD a plus).
For all the people saying "sure, that's what it used to be like, but it's not now" - I got a job at Google a year ago. I've dropped out of college twice and high school once. The highest diploma I have is a middle school diploma.
You know what? The instant you say "Well, they won't hire me, I don't have the checkboxes" you've just shot yourself in the foot. Don't pay any attention to that. Work up a good resume (open-source experience would probably help - I competed a lot in www.topcoder.com, and I know a lot of people who've gotten into Google the same way, many not even close to the top ten) and send it in. Follow up. Learn how to get connections.
The listed requirements are usually surprisingly unimportant. They don't want to know if you have a series of checkboxes. They want to know if you can code.
(And yes, there are places that just care about the checkboxes. Yes, not graduating will make things *harder*. But not impossible - and I wouldn't want to work at any of those places anyway.)
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
Its all about building the tool/skillsets you need to achieve what you want. If you want to be employed in some capacity then by and large you need to demonstrate the potential to perform that role. Qualifications are only a proxy to being able to do something that can get your foot in the door. The key thing about them is that they are a +transferable+ educational currency in a way that possibly more valuable industry experience is not.
Almost everyone where I work (a small financial company) has a postgraduate degree and most have PhDs. Its almost true to say you need a phd to get an interview for certain roles in this industry.
If you're going to forge your own path a la Jobs & Gates you don't need those qualifications as they perform no function in themselves. They may have value if you learnt something useful along the way, and this is where Job's caligraphy comes in. But maybe he just enjoyed it and thats what the game is really about.
So apply for CEO!
It's not like that. A lot of companies say 'degree required', but in reality it might not be so. You just got to have a courage to apply that job even if you don't have a degree.
Kernel guru Jordan Hubbard (Apple's Darwin project manager) does not have a college degree either.
I dropped out after about 8 months. I've done great in my career as a software programmer, and I make about 30 to 50% of what my fellow engineers make -- and I'm about 30 to 50% smarter than they are. :) Get your degree!
And some people don't have Woz for a friend.
Maybe Steve Jobs could have fun and learn lots from sitting in on classes, but over here (South Africa) that is increasingly difficult to do. The university where I used to work (UWC) is surrounded by an electric fence for 'security reasons' and has card based access control. Its easier (most of the time) to get into classes at my old university (UCT), but the library is still impossible to enter (even for browsing) without a valid student card. And a friend of mine who teaches at the University of Guelph in Canada was told years ago that she could be fired for knowingly teaching a non-paid-up student in her class.
The same thing is happening in other countries too.
The British government is keen on increasing the number of graduates, but not on providing more money to universities - so guess what is happening to quality?
I know the same thing is happening in at least some of South Asia.
I think the root cause is that people regard education as a means to getting a job, not as an end in itself, so what matters is the certificate, not what you leant.
I dropped out myself, unfortunately I am not a billionaire! I do now have two post grad degrees, and I am still happy to study more about what interest me.
It was a graduation speech, but -- get this! -- the REAL IRONY was that most students were GRADUATING!!
Alanis Morissette has a lot to answer for.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
hmmmm testing testing please ignore
"If I had never dropped out I might never have dropped in on that calligraphy," Jobs said.
Jobs also recounted founding Apple in his parent's basement and his tough times after being forced out of the company he founded when he was only 30.
All is well. I am right on track to greatness.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
I wrote about this recently, you might be interested in the *why* dropouts are so succesfull, and what you have to do to become one of them (succesfull that is, I assume everybody knows how dropping out of school works :) )
Link is here
Actually, I dropped out of high school and then college (in my senior year, actually). I did not because I couldn't cut it -- but because I felt done with it. I was published twice as an undergrad and now work for a software R&D lab and still speak at academic conferences. Most assume I have a PhD.
I think this is a fairly common phenomenon with those that tend to excel -- they needn't drop out, but when they're ready to move on, they're ready to move on. Rather than stick around for that last semester or seven they push ahead to The Next Big Thing, despite what society and their moms suggest. While I'm hardly a fanboy of any of them -- along with Steve, Bill Gates and Larry Ellison dropped out.
As for the acid, well, again, I can turn to both personal experience and history. Why is it assumed to be a "bad" thing? Too many "Say no to drugs!" mantras as a 9 year old? Sure, it does goofy things with your head for a bit, but that's just as often inspiring as scary. Again, it's no coincidence that many, many of our societies most creative minds are fond of the general class of substances. Aldous Huxley, personally my favorite author and certainly one of the most respected English writers of the 20th century, was a notable apologist for LSD. I'd go out on a limb and guess that a good half of the notable folks in shaping our society have at some point used something harder than say, marijuana.
Oscar Wilde, Intentions [#3]: The critic as artist.
First published in 1890, reprinted in Richard Ellmann, ed., The Artist as Critic: Critical writings of Oscar Wilde. New York: Random House, 1968, p. 349.
I spent a couple of years working in HR in a large organisation in the UK which, while not actually in the tech sector, employed a lot of techie staff both to provide the organisation's infrastructure and also to be involved in a number of policy projects. At the time I worked in HR, we were basically hiring at a phenomenal rate.
Most of our posts, with a few exceptions, were advertised on the basis of "degree or experience", where experience could mean either formal employment, or engagement through a voluntary activity (including, but not limited to contributions to open source projects). However, as the pay we were offering tended not to be great, the vast majority of our applicants were under 25. Broadly speaking, the attitude we came to adopt was "we hate graduates, but we REALLY hate non-graduates".
You see, while you get the occasional person who drops out of university and goes on to be a multi-billionaire, the vast majority of people who drop out just sink into an on-going cycle of low-paid, dead end jobs. Dropping out says a lot about you, and you can be sure that potential employers are going to know this. Among other things, it can imply a lack of committment to your goals, an inability to work in an unstructured environment, a lack of self-discipline and, of course, plain old lack of intellect. Of course, this is unfair to a lot of people who drop out for other reasons, but you can still be sure that most employers are going to have this in the back of their mind, at the very least. Graduates, particularly graduates applying from their good job and especially graduates with degrees from good universities or postgraduate qualifications, do tend (on a very broad level) to be unjustifiably arrogant and superior. However, employers know that this usually gets knocked out of them pretty quickly and hope they'll be left with a decent employee at the end of it. The drop-out is a far riskier prospect.
A degree is not a passport to riches; I don't honestly think it ever was. However, if you use your degree intelligently, then what it does do is effectively ensure that you will be able to maintain a reasonably comfortable way of life. It takes a lot of the risk out of the process. Dropping out of university in the hope that you'll go on to be a billionaire entrepreneur is like dropping out of high-school in the hope you'll be a professional footballer. Sure, it works for one or two, but in most cases, it's a spectacularly bad idea.
Did you apply for the job anyway? If I was in your situation, I'd apply anyway even if I didn't have a degree. I got nothing to lose.
It's what Steve would've done. Hell, Steve would probably march right up to the CEO and start talking , and an hour later he'd have a job.
Apparently you have not read well into Steve's speech. The essence of it? Timing and Positioning. The keynote of his speech could be to look for this situation in our lives. You will excel in anything once you get into the zone of realization. The results are what we see on the surface. If Steve really believed in what he is speaking in (literally) then he is one lucky guy with a good 'karma'. Otherwise he would have a good laugh at his awe-struck audience, but which I believed he won't do that. Most likely he's just as amazed we you are at his own success that he felt compelled to share it with you. His task is to speak forth his experience. Your task is to decipher the essence of it. The prize doesn't come free. So wherever you are, even if you have not heard of Job's speech, you do not missed out anything of real significance. Just the lessons in your life is enough to guide you. Our race to hit it right is only overshadowed by our own mortality. But it is mere shadow.
Yeah, I'm in the same boat now. I dropped out of high school, fucked around for a while, worked in the computer industry, and eventually decided I wanted to take a few classes again. Once I went back (when I was ready), I realized how interesting school can be.
Now I'm a math major and hope to go on to get a PhD... not because I want to "do something" with my degree (I like programming, so I'll just keep doing that) but because leaning is fun.
Dropping out was really a great thing for me, really. I had fun and crazy times rather than sitting in school wishing I was having fun and crazy times. Now I'm older (and know how to manage the somewhat-less-crazy fun around a schedule better) and can be in school and enjoy it.
Amen to that and an interesting story! I teach in college and lot of students don't realise the opportunities they get. Also, some of them give up (=do not intend to take exams) but _still_ attend lab sessions, being bored to death, annoying me and others, instead of standing up for themselves and deciding whether or not they want to get the degree. If yes: go for it. If no: go and do something else.
Reed is one of the toughest schools in the U.S. I went to Reed, my brother when to Princeton. We took similar courses - mine were much tougher.
When I was at Reed, about 10-15 years after Jobs left, the average freshman had SATs around 1250-1300 and an IQ around 150. Within 3 semesters 50% had left. Some left temporarily because of $, but most left because of grades and stress.
According to a friend of mine working in the registrar's office, Jobs left because he couldn't cut it. His grades were poor...
Job may mention money, buyt it that may be more of a fig leaf. Money issues may have made things more difficult, but good students can get scholarships and loans.
Besides, although Reed tutition may be high, living expenses in Portland are very low.
If you are will to be a "scrounger" you can eat for free.
During the 70s and 80s it was cheaper to study at Reed than
some "low-cost" public schools in California - living expenses!)
On a final note -
If you know much about Reed student culture,
and have read much about Jobs, you can see
that he wouldn't be the person he his today
w/o his time at Reed. If he'd managed to
stick it out who knows what he might have become. (a mental patient?)
No. For every person that didn't get a degree and became rich, there are a thousand others that spent their lives in low paying menial jobs. Without a degree you are almost certainly going to be saying "Would you like fries with that?" for the rest of your life. You will be nothing. A nobody. That's if you can even get the burger flipping job. Here in the UK far too many people live on the dole all of their lives, parasites that are a burden to the rest of society.
> I, Lawrence "Larry" Ellison, second richest man on the planet,
Be honest - that's "Richest Loser", isn't it?
Steve Jobs is right when he mentions that doing what your university teachers tell you in most cases isn't the best thing to get a really good education.
It is however often the best way to get decent grades and a secure job.
And some (if not most) people rather have a secure life than a great education - and I don't blame them at all.
But then again, there can't be enough guys like Steve Jobs, or am I wrong?
I notice that Jobs now talks about getting "free food offered by Hare Krishnas" as if that were the full extent of his involvement with the sect.
In fact, Jobs dropped out of college to join the Krishnas, then traveled to India as a member of the sect, of which he was a committed member for a brief period of time (as alluded to in "Pirates of Silicon Valley" which has a scene where Jobs is chanting in a Krishna worship service). If you travel to the Krishna temple in Vrindaban, India, there are still a few people who remember his tiime there, and can point him out in old photos.
For somebody whose company's slogan is "Think Different", Jobs seems oddly embarrassed by the degree to which he has indeed thought different earlier in his life.
Having a degree is no guarantee of success. Of course, most people can't even define success. Honestly, the vast majority of "degreed" people I know are dumber than door nails. My guess is that that "piece of paper" is the only reason that they've gotten as far as they have in this life. So, I can see how it may be a necessity for THEM.
Karma Schmarma
Do the next best thing - put your dick into a 20-year-old body.
I dropped out of college after 8 months, and never went to university, I run a successful IT support company and over the past few years have had staff, offices and so on. I now work from home by myself as I enjoy it more, i'm earning a good amount and haven't run up huge debts like I would have at university. I have to work long hours, but I get more flexibility overall - if I don't have a meeting then I can take some time off to spend doing what I want to do.
:)
If I was at university i'd be graduating about now with huge debts.
BUT, I was always an awful student, never handed in any work (although i excelled in exams so scrapped by). Anyone who thinks dropping out is the easy route is wrong. You have to work just as hard, if not harder and be very self motivated. But it can be done as proven by many top businessmen and women, but it doesn't always work out, look at a lot of other people who have dropped out.
I may decide to go to university one day, but it'll be when i'm ready and know exactly what I want to get out of it, not going just because people expect me to go to university at after college to earn a degree in something I may never use afterwards.
I know many of my friends who go to university enjoy it hugely and have lined up excellent jobs for when they graduate.
I'm not saying university is wrong, just that it's not right for everyone.
Just my opinion
I have seen his code. Gates was *not* a pretty good programmer. GOTO in BASIC should *not* be implemented as an O(n) operation, where "n" is the real line number. Even if you implement BASIC in 16KiB (which is not that little in 6502 assembler) GOTO should be an O(1) operation.
Learn the minimum of what they will teach you, but don't become indoctrinated. On the side, learn everything you want to. Because you're not necessarily working in the pre-existing paradigm, you'll ask lots of wonderful questions that either haven't been asked, or have been deemed unworthy to ask. (You'll also ask a lot of stupid ones)
You'll also get your piece of paper worth > $XXXXX
It annoys me because my 2:1 chemical engineering degree (1990) was almost full-time hours and it was HARD. These days employers expect every graduate to have a 2:1 and even then half of them need watering.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
which profession did you choose?
Look at the old Time Magazine from about 20 years ago, when he made the cover. Jobs WAS a very handsome guy before. In fact, once you consider the OTHER tech moguls, he had no competition at all!
Go to Ann Arbor, MI
you can get served by a PHD in Philosiphy at Mc Donalds.
your toilet there was cleaned by a Masters in Political Science.
And the trash will be picked up by a person with 4 advanced degrees, 2 of which are Phd.
College means nothing, it's what you do with yourself that has meaning.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Just get around the normal job application process.
1. start your own company
2. develop an absolutely amazing product
3. get bought out by Apple
Shouldn't be a problem for you, I guess.
Obviously you might find you are too great and successful and prefer step 3b: buy Apple
Why pay tuition when most larger universities are so impersonal they won't notice another person in the room? Today, we have the MIT on-line class notes.
Oddly, it could work for the exceptional person because there are some opportunities to test for credit and a few accredited universities that will accept tests. One university in particular offered as many concentrations as a person could get through "passing" the GRE Subject Tests.
And there are a few major distance universities around the world. Cranking up the motivation to read from home is probably harder than dropping into lectures.
Since this track is more-or-less a test of the exceptional person, it's a little irresponsible as a general recommendation of course.
Remember that a degree is not everything. Life has a whole lot more to offer and having a degree doesn't make you anything more special as a person.
:(
Of course I've got easy talking.. last year I flunked highschool, so while all my friends go to college I still got to stick here.
If you want your kids to be poor. If you don't go to university immediately after high school, you most likely never will.
Everyone told me that after high school, so I went straight to university, despite knowing very well I wasn't ready for it at all, making it the biggest mistake I've ever made. I failed out within the first year, spending plenty of money and gaining plently of debt. Oh, and the really ironic thing is that I turned down a job to go that was actually better than any job I've had since. So I would have been richer if I hadn't gone to school right away.
Also, I'm back in school now. As the sibling poster said, minimum wage jobs are a great motivator for going back to school.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
While there is some overlap between college and education, it's always been true and always will be that some people can get an education without college, and others can't get an education with unlimited college coursework.
While there is a statistical minority of people who drop out of college and learn more on through self teaching, the reality is:
1-these people will always be a small minority
2-they will be held up as an example by the intellectually lazy and by egotistical poseurs who want to be accorded respect they never have and never can earn on their own
3-most people who -can- learn on their own do just fine in a college environment
I think the 'leet-speak' wannabe sysadmin example indicates one of the key points. People who -can- walk the walk don't need to baffle with bullshit. Anytime anyone tries that kind of thing, it's usually safe to assume he's all talk. If he's not, he'll rise to the challenge and prove himself.
It's a bit like tossing the kid in the water to teach him to swim; just because it sometimes works doesn't make it the best method.
I'm suprised he didn't advocate doodling through class and maybe starting up your own internet cartoon as well.
Paul
..it is ok to drop out, so long as you keep learning. Jobs caveated his statement by noting that yes, he did drop out, but he still attended classes that he found interesting. Sort of dropping in from time to time.
One class was calligraphy, which he said at the time didn't look like it would have much of impact on his life back then. But then he pointed out this class, part of his continued learning experience, was responsible for the emphasis on fonts in the early Macs, one of the things setting it apart from other machines in the early 1980s.
In or out of college, I think his message was you never stop learning.
Jobs, 50, said he attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon but dropped out after only eight months because it was too expensive for his working-class family. He said his real education started when he "dropped in" on whatever classes interested him -- including calligraphy.'
.. with the goal of education. And at the same time he was able to help out his family financially.
The facts are that a large number of students leave college due to family finance problems.
Many poor, uneducated kids end up on the streets, in jail, or working at the local department store for 40 years.
Steve Jobs managed to attend classes that grasped his interest
Wouldn't it be great if more kids were able to do that? Jobs wasn't a drain, and he had to sacrifice his college education for his family.
Most college kids are a major drain on their family. I know I was.
I question the value of paying $40,000+ for a degree, I say get all the work experiance you can, real experiance seems more valuable than what was read out of a book and regurgitated on a test.
tons of us who have degrees wind up with ordinary jobs and mostly manage to keep them and make a living...I don't doubt that the exercise of getting a degree is A kind of, preparation for working but its clear as hell there is something missing. Often at great expense and sacrifice by our parents, we get a college education but what did we learn? How to get by in a white collar, service oriented economy? Where did we learn to be enterprising, daring, creative, intensely focused and visionary?
Whatever Mr. Jobs says, the lesson of his career in light of his education is that "education" is not yet giving us all that it might. And perhaps also that whatever education is missing must, for now, be supplied by other experience and the character of the student.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
The thing I find interesting... I've seen developer and engineer job posts for both Microsoft and Apple that list degrees as a requirement for employment.
I realize that "requirements" aren't always strickly followed, but it is interesting to note that two company's that are both run by college dropouts both seam to perfer graduates for employment.
I don't know why Jobs said what he did, but I don't think it was derogatory or anything.
Most likely he was talking to a large bunch of smart and educated young people and telling them that today was the first day of the rest of their life, i.e. getting an expensive education is not the end. Some people do not have the same level of education as they do, yet can be successful and smart too. Doubtlessly in the audience there were people who graduated because their parents had money.
At a college like Standford with the degree also comes the network of peers. It would be a mistake to think that because suddently they are part of a high-level clique they are more intelligent and deserving than others. They still have to go to work and achieve something on their own to deserve any significant accolade.
In Europe we have some prestigious schools too. At one of them the president was a military man, and always made some speech at graduation. He was fond of telling his graduating students that (1) there are stupid people everywhere and (2) the more educated they are, the more dangerous they are.
My own university president was fond of quoting movies. There is a classic French movie called "a taxi for Tobruk", a war movie with great dialog, where a couple of people are in a jeep who breaks down in the desert. The two people are a grunt and an officer. The officer decides to stay near the jeep and wait, while the grunt decides to walk and find help. The officer tells him he'll soon die, but the grunt replies "un con qui marche va toujours plus loin qu'un intellectuel assis".
An idiot who walks always goes further than a seated intellectual.
Perhaps this is not very different from the Jobs attitude.
Cheers.
Well...it often is. I know someone who has a Masters in Art from one of the finest schools and now is the assistant manager of a Boston Market. And this is about as good as it gets.
Sure, some can make it with a Masters in Art and even do well. But art isn't supposed to be practical. Granted, art is needed in business every day, but often that's a certain kind of art.
The fact is things that are meaningful and beautiful aren't always profitable.
Imagine all the 'hard' work teachers, parents and guidance counselors put into brainwashing every kid that he/she must go to University."
Jobs should keep his mouth shut. Its not reasonable (normal, or frankly, directly dependant on his single person) that Apple is what it is today. Serendipity. Timing. *OTHER* People (ahem) for instance.
Jobs is not the mesiah. He is not the ubermensch. He is not a guru visionary.
It is a fluke that he was able to overcome the barriers setup by the plutocracy and end up leading apple (and filthy rich). It is not wise or practical for him to give such advice.
What would be better? For millions to fail and end up hungry or for them to put in their time, hard work and dedication to end up better selves.
This "it worked for me and Im great -- its the way to go" conceit is sickening. And the poster should shake of his sycophant leanings and realize that the world should not be lead by egos but by considered and learned.
Im not overly educated myself -- nor am i prostrate in deference to those i consider better credentialed -- but I realize that simply "dropping out" is just that. To drop out. And unless your goals are humble (which, frankly, I would *ALSO* agree are worthy) then dont plan to become Steve Jobs by dropping out. Not that Im suggesting Steve Jobs is some kind of role model. He's obviously not. He sounds like a unmitigated egotist.
Lighting doesnt strike twice. Mr. Job's ego cannot will it so.
I don't see "college dropout" on any of Apple's open job listings. It seems they want college diplomas for their programmers. Hmm, maybe he should drop in on an english class and look up the word "hypocrite". I wonder how many "college dropout" lawyers apple has on staff or how many of their programmers are really college dropouts. Like Larry Ellison's speech, the only thing this proves is that you don't have to be educated to run a successful company, meaning success is really the draw of the dice (which maglomaniacs confuse with their personal "different" views).
I'd disagree, most people drop out not because school is difficult but because it's the first time they're away from home and they've never learned to control themselves without supervision... not stupid, just immature. Personally i stopped attending college after the 7th or 8th computer teacher who I had to teach about computers.
Shadus
I think you are missing a point. College for the sake of college is meaningless. But I can't think of any individual with a PhD that would say their PhD was meaningless. Education and job can be linked together but not always. I have a degree in marine structure design but I went and got my master's, and a job, in information security. I have no regret about my undergraduate degree because it was interesting. Education at a collegiate level should be about what interests the individual, not something that you are going to say "I study X therefore I get a job in Y." Options are important. Yes a master's and PhD are significant time (and money) investments but that just shows an individuals dedication to bettering his or her mind. College should be thought of as part of what you do with yourself, not something seperate.
I remember when I got my piece of paper that said I was smart. I got it from Tennessee Tech, the worst school in the south east. I had a professor who hated me and got me fired and had two years of research destroied. I was also fired my freshman year for stealing 3,000 free newspapers.
And in the end my roommate Coleman got a job in Alabama, without finishing his degree, paying a large sum of money. I got my degree and get a smaller sum of money. Coleman however, wishes he had the piece of paper.
So why am I in graduate school now? Because I want to be able to teach Computer Science. That's what I've always wanted to do. However I'm really not learning anything horibly new I couldn't learn on my own. The piece of paper simply shows I've met some ambigious standard.
However, it is a standard, and there is a guy in my current IT department who is a total dumbass who didn't even go to a 2 year college. When it comes to the hiring process, for a beginnger with no experience, that degree means a lot.
And there is a lot about "Computer Science" I would have never learned on my own. There is a lot of theory that you simply can't pick up in the real world and yes, the theory does help you a better programmer.
-Sumit
...but a lot more drop out because they are stupid.
We're looking at you, you smarmy turtleneck-wearing bozo!
"and a trophy wife"
Wow... you win at life, sir. I wonder how your "trophy wife" would feel about you referring to her as such. Since you described her like that I can only assume that it is (or will be) a loveless marriage, doomed to end in failure. While you are working your ass off at your fancy PhD job, your wife will be fucking the gardener.
And that was a pathetic article...
All bow to the freakin' Stevo... blah blah.. worship the product not the maker....
... has been made better by a college education .... leaders are born. (Cliche=yes)
He also said that he furthers his education every day and reads a lot on the net.
lso of note during this event:
Several students asked Jobs to hire them
An environmental group flew a plane overhead protesting Apple's lack of an iPod recycling program
I guess the environmental group didn't get the message that Apple has an iPod recycling program. I also would assume that these protestors don't know that planes are fueled by fossil fuels. DOH!
It was extremist, disruptive, uncalled for (at this venue) and possibly unauthorized as I think college events were placed on a no fly list after 9/11 without authorization from the state. I have a private pilot's license and know this to be true for my home state of South Carolina - California law may be different.
A real education only comes through talent, responsibility, and willingness to be be the best person you can be.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
I think one of the questions that I find myself asking with these articles frequently is not about education being useful, but rather why we go to college.
In the past people went to college for learning, for fun or to get an advanced degree for something like research. Most people that I know of now that are going back to college (not going in at 18) are going back not because they will learn anything at college, but to get past HR at companies in order to get an interview with someone where their experience matters. Although you can debate whether this is actually needed and the percentage - even if it isn't truth, it is the perception of how the world currently is.
My point is that I think a large percentage of people today see college not as a learning environment but as a piece of paper required to get a job - even if the learning is not tied to the job at all. It's the price for entrance into the corporate culture.
I would be curious to know how many people think a degree is more useful than experience and how many people get one because they think they need to in order to get in.
And the elite still have more money than they need. Even if they do work, it is still not a requirement.
The reason parents push thier kids into college is status. Everyone wants something a bit better for thier children, and college is another symbol of status that now can be afforded to the middle classes.
Eventually, this changed the meaning of a college education. Before it was a differentiator, something that indicated you were superior (in education). Now, mass college education implies that a college education is the norm, and those lacking one should be treated as inferior.
Some day, a college education will hold similar value to a high school education of old. There are already indicators of this happening (cultural change is a slow process). Just look at the numerous advertisements for employees with a "Degree", but no indication of which degree is desired.
This means that the next differentiator will likely become graduate degrees; however, eventually the middle class needs to start working, so there are limits on the time they can afford to spend at a brick and mortar schools.
What would you have done if you had not joined the Marines? Got a job with your high-school diploma?
The problem with collage today is that it has become a business. It's not about education it's only about making money.
I aggree with stevo a bit on this topic, even if he is saying it in the wrong way.
I think what he is actually saying is that education will not make your life for you, you have to do it yourself.
It's kinda true, everyones parents ship them out to university to get an education and to start a good career. However, all education does is give you the tools you need. If you never use them, your education is wasted. What drives me crazy is the people that go away to university/college for a random degree, to get some education. Waste of their parents money so they could go party and later drop out.
University is great and all, but only go if you really need it. Anything else is an excuse to stall your life/get away from home.
--University of Waterloo Engineering student
Yeah that's what the college educated ppl in Ann Arbor are doing...can you imagine people with only highschool degrees? They are picking through the trash that the PhD brings out.
But I can't think of any individual with a PhD that would say their PhD was meaningless.
Ted Kazinski... known as the Unibomber.
if you have 90 PHD's you are still worthless if you sit in a shack in the woods despising society.
A high school dropout that will not accept failure and strives to be the best he/she can is 10,000 times the person.
I think you missed the point. education is nothing, drive and desire is everything.
I'm with the Lumpster. College is wasted on too many people that think of it as a meal ticket/party. someone with drive and desire plus be lucky enough to be rich and afford college and graduate school? that is where the scientists at NASA come from.
The goggles, they do nothing!
(/me went to college three years after high school. You'd be suprised how motivating a shit job at minimum wage is.)
That's funny. The minimum wage job I had while in HS was plenty of motivation to go to college as soon as I graduated.
He wasn't saying "don't", he was saying "think"!
Pretty much the whole reason I went to college was in order to get a job like this, so it seemed as if I had what I wanted and it was time to quit school. Usually when I don't know what to do I ask the advice of people I respect. I asked my parents, some professors, and people at work. Almost every single one of them advised that I finish my degree first. Note that I did ask many people who were successfull despite not having a degree themselves. In fact, one of the best programmers I have ever met didn't even finish high school.
So I worked out a compromise where I worked two or three or four days a week in the office, working from home whenever else I could. It was a ridiculously busy two years for me, but in the end I walked away with not only a degree but also two years of real experience. Also, not every job will be nice enough to offer this type of flexibility.
Sometimes I look back and wish that I had dropped out when I had the chance, but most of the time I think that I made the right move.
Where's that Apple/Intel poll?
I want to pick "Jobs is a moron" again.
Who is HRH?
Almost all of the non-degree IT leaders spent SOME time in college. Evidently, they did not take the degree requirements very seriously. I think the ability to perceive (and ignore) administrative obstacles is part of their success.
As I see it, about half of the IT industry can be attributed to people who dropped out.
During a transition to new technology, the IT industry rocks. Talent and perseverence trump credentials. In stagnation mode, there are too many degrees chasing too few opportunities. We need "disruptive technology" every so often to jump-start the industry.
We can't have an industry full of dropouts, but they have their place. Without them, we never would have made it past CP/M.
you're a retard
Yeah,
Anyone can drop out of college and succeed, if they are intelligent, work hard, and are driven and charismatic. But for the average Joe, dropping out of college is a bad decision.
Bill Gates, Michael Dell, and Jobs are all NOT average Joe's!
Given the experiences and reflections that the intervening years have allowed, I have come to suspect that the real difference between Raskin's view and others was a difference that still divides and confuses today. While the weight of marketing made "ease of use" a synonym for "ease of learning", Raskin's notion of ease of use was closer to "ease of trained use".
In the early days it was inevitable that ease of learning would win, and it is certainly the side I found myself on. But now in a more mature industry we are going to be stuck with the cost of the lack of attention to ease of trained use long into the future.
Based on that one meeting, I still find it hard to juxtapose Raskin and "elegant design", having been dragged back to typography 101 by our early explorations of the potentials of PostScript.
-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
Believe it or not, the lack of financial means leads to all sorts of negative consequences.
At least this chap now has some hope of escaping wage slavery.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
One thing I've found is that, like it or not, a degree is a required entry ticket for many jobs now. You may say to yourself, "All the technical jobs are going overseas and we're all going to wind up salesmen and managers anyway." That may be true, but can it hurt to give yourself an edge in whatever economy comes up?
One problem with this requirement is that it steers *everyone* into higher education. Some people, shocking as it may be, don't belong there. People are forgetting that humans have a range of abilities. Some are higher-functioning than others!
Jobs was right to mention that new grads shouldn't think they're better than everyone else. One of the common things I've found working in IT is that the big consulting companies tend to foster this attitude. They hire people directly from school, who've never worked in their lives before, and think they're all that. They're often surprised when they find out they're just as fallable as the rest of us.
Maybe I detect a tinge of regret in Job's speech about not finishing college, or else he wouldnt talk about it. However, Steve points out that different things work for different people. Some people thrive in the stimulation of a college environment while others are stifled. Some can teach themselves in the broader campus of life. Hopefully people have the fereedom and wisdom to discover the best way from themselves without too many obstacles from relatives.
I have seen a disturbing trend of people dropping out RIDICULOUSLY close to getting their degrees. I understand money concerns, but it seems like people are really devaluing college quite a lot. Most of what I learned in college I did not learn in classes, so I do not buy into the whole brainwashing/conformity thing. In fact I would say it had the opposite effect on me...encouraging me to be my crazy self. College for me was very freeing and I think it's disappointing that people are unable to take advantage of college in a way that they feel will really benefit them. Dropping out is not something I see as being something positive to emphasize. Are there things about college which should be changed? Sure...a couple less liberal arts and more free electives would make it a better experience, but the point is that you can really get something out of it.
I must say, as a college student with prior experience in the field I am I am studying (CS, programming since I was 10). I've have very negative things to say about the whole college/university experience.
First, there is no way that 2 hours twice a week will actually teach you how to do something. I've taken three 100, 200 level programming courses in a college, and a university. The average grade in the class was 30. Mind you they curved it so 30 was a C.
Staff at Universities seem to be more concerned with the status of their pet project than that class they teach so they get funding. I had a class where the professor just showed up and read a speech prepared by the TA to go with a slide show prepared by the TA then complained that no one was helping him with his research project. Mind you he was the worst offender I've seen. The general level of incompetence has been a real eye opener. I had a Java professor actually say "final static int variable = 2;" was a syntactically incorrect, not a big deal but it was a question on a midterm....
Then again, I have found knowledgeable professors (Shout out to Prof. Barton). I'm still split.
For those who don't want to read all of that, don't expect college to teach you anything, treat it as advice.
Yeah, but you still always need the escape plan. The current job won't necessarily last for ever. Any number of factors outside of your control (or responsibility) could terminate your comfortable little routine.
Find a good accountant and your escape funds can work for you while you're biding your time.
You don't need to be a Kiyosaki accolyte. You just need to have a little bit of sense.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
They never say that dropping out of college will help you get a job - ever notice that these highly successful college dropouts started their own company and didn't go to work for someone else? There's a lesson in there for you.
Rule of thumb:
If you're not sick, don't go to the hospital.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
Dropping out might work for above average gifted, or very well-connected people, on an individual bases, almost exlusively in start-up small businesses or some brafand new, emerging industries.
But it's not the solution for the millions of average people.
I am pretty sure, that Apple Corp. HR is looking for resumes with high credentials. In fact, I would not be surprized if today's computerised HR systems would send to trash automatically the "drop-out" resumes. Maybe S. Jobs or the HR director at Apple can confirm or deny this.
Even in some new, emerging industries I don't think it works. I can't imagine to show up any drop-outs in the biotech industry.
Other professions (law, medicine, etc.) simply deny any right to even "give it a try" without formal diplomas - regardless of how geniuos one might be.
Uhh... look at your economics history book. The late 70's was a time of high inflation, followed by a series of recessions that rocked the business world. Capital was *expensive*.
If there was ever a tougher time in recent history to start a business... it was when Steve Jobs took the risk.
> So if someone is prepared to work hard you put
> it in the same category as someone with rich
> parents? Yes, work ethic is only granted to
> the priveleged few, all the rest of us poor
> mortals should just be paid by the government
> because we do not want to work.
Umm.. well, actually, yes, there IS an argument that way. Why would anyone ever choose to be lazy? The only argument is that they don't, and being hardworking is just another in-born personality trait, just like being good at music or being good looking.
But it's irrelevant, because hard work isn't that much to do with success. Sure, NOT working hard will mean you probably fail, but it's certainly not true to say that working hard will make you succeed. If you doubt that, go ask a farmer, who works 14-16 hour days producing a good that everybody in the country needs and wants and yet gets paid a pittance.
Sure, but what does that mean? I got a BS and MS in Computer Engineering from some of the best schools in the country, but then I went for a JD and now I'm doing patent law.
I'm pretty sure I moved up.
College tends to force the status quo on undergrads. As someone who did the career first and got the degree later I can pretty much concur with Jobs assesment that dropping in is much more effective.
But we need to have some sort of filter and college fits that need.
But I will admit that the most brilliant people I've met have eschewed college and done spectacularly well for themselves.
For Slashdotters, I think the argument of a college degree being worthless is far more valid than for most other people. By this I mean the majority of people here make a living doing tech related stuff (programming, IT, etc). These lines of work often do not really care if you have a degree or not, as long as you're proficient at what needs to be done. In most other fields, the status quo is to have at least a bachelor's degree, and often a masters. So while many of your arguments for not having to go to college are valid in the scope of computer related professions, it really doesn't apply to a lot of other fields.
It took me 5 years to get my 2 year degree, because I was lazy.
It took me only 2 more years for my BS in math.
Only 2 years after that for my MS in math.
I used student loans for my last undergraduate year, because I was married, was a father, and my wife and I felt that it was important for her to be home with our child.
My parents never gave me any financial help for college.
My total debt (auto, credit card, student loan), after graduate school, was about what my credit card debt was when I got married (before I got my Associates).
The difference (for me) is that I stopped being lazy. (eg. One summer, I worked 20-30 hours/week while completing 20 semester credits in 12 weeks.)
And, there already are plenty of options other than "rich kids colleges."
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
It's nice to be able to eat what you want when you want and not have to worry about the price of tomatoes or of high quality meat. It's nice to never have to worry about whether or not you will be able to afford medical care next year when your company slashes benefits and raises your monthly contribution. It's nice to be able to pay the ever increasing copay on Johnny's operation and not flinch, and not get further into revolving debt. It's nice to not have to worry about your car breaking down and not having the money to fix it.
Nevermind the niceities like showing your kids the Louvre, the grand canyon, the Yankees or just taking them to the local puppet theatre.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
U R ALL CRAXY !! JAckson is GUILTY !!!!!!!!!!!!
def dont let jobs in at high schools.
:)
i mean you hAVE to goto college if you want to not work at mcdonalds. i thought everyone knew that! seriously college is life, and no college is like death or something.
NOT!
so glad that the poster realizes what brainwashing really is
I KUT J00 M4NG!!!
The fact is that most people will have to go to college to obtain a successful career. I would imagine that the dropouts who become billionaires would average out to be a statistical fluke.
Four of Forbes top five richest in America are dropout statistical flukes.
If you can avoid the sour grapes, it makes you think a little bit.
-- $G
Ummm ... I was supposed to get a BA in CIS, the theory was that it was an Art not a Science at UCSC, no grades as well, written evals. Those were the days my friend, those were the days. But like Steve, the course work wasn't nearly as interesting as the startup down the street, and I bailed. I have over 400 units of college course work and no 4 year degree. In today's job market that makes me a slacker despite my 20 years of experience and expertise. It's OK, better to form your our S-Corp and consult then conform to a Microsoft mentality of virus and upgrades than getting any real work done ...
It's a lot tougher to guage wether it's the right decision when you're making it though. When I first dropped out of high school I thought I was moving into a long term career in fast food. In hindsight I saved myself about $20k and gained 4+ years of work experience on my friends.
Since I'm also moving into self-employment the glass ceiling that would face me if I was in a corporate environment with no paperwork is not an issue.
For those of you who are at a crossroads; When you're making this choice, remember, either way you're actually blessed with good fortune, and making either choice isn't the end of the road, by far.
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
Even though Woz dropped out of the University of California, Berkeley in 1975 he returned to Berkeley under the name "Rocky (Raccoon) Clark" to get his degrees in 1982 in computer science as well as in electrical engineering.
Woz also went on to become a 5th grade teacher. How cool would that be to have "The Woz" as your 5th grade teacher!
Being 'average' is a product of one's choices. Or you can choose to express your uniqueness. If you do, the Universe will help you in extraordinary ways which seem like magic! Or you can choose to believe the programming pushed on you at school, and believe you are a shmuck who does not deserve to lead a powerful, wonderful life.
Love yourself, have faith in your passion, and get going!
Universities seem like a good idea on paper but they are not so great when it comes to execution. Most of the really successful people I know in life left school early or never bothered going in the first place.
I am pretty sure, that Apple Corp. HR is looking for resumes with high credentials. In fact, I would not be surprized if today's computerised HR systems would send to trash automatically the "drop-out" resumes. Maybe S. Jobs or the HR director at Apple can confirm or deny this.
I would venture to guess that working for Apple Corp is not a path of passion, but rather a path of submission, and being submissive, accepting the rules of how one is to lead one's life, is what school teaches. Having to 'get a job' is a lie. It is entirely possible to live without wearing a leash and be part of a chain gang.
Why not start your own computer company? Innovate through passion and create! --If you are truly meant to find work with a big computer company, then you will find work with a big computer company regardless of what the HR staff thinks or approves of. The Universe doesn't care about resumes. The Universe rewards faith in oneselve, and the following of one's light.
Other professions (law, medicine, etc.) simply deny any right to even "give it a try" without formal diplomas - regardless of how geniuos one might be.
Law? In essence, law is about helping people get along and resolve conflict. There are many ways to be involved in this than to 'be a lawyer'! --The dark side of law is about following ego and greed, which are false impressions of true passion, and so of course they are closely linked to school.
Medicine? Actually, there are plenty of practicing healers who don't have formal diplomas, and some of them do a far better job than the drug sales people we call medical professionals.
There are many, many artificial boundaries and rules in this world, none of which should be followed without careful consideration.
-FL
Her Royal Highness. http://www.royal.gov.uk/
s/lazy/not a fucking greedy bastard with yank mentality/
Yes they are. They just happened to see through the lie, which is that only some people have light within them.
We ALL have light within us which is meant to be expressed. We are simply taught to ignore this part of ourselves. We are taught that the world is a mean place which only rewards submissive behavior, (following rules). It tries to punish the Gates and the Dells and the Jobs of the world, and when it fails, it labels them as being somehow superior in a way which most people are not. This is a lie! We are all special and unique, and if we all followed our passions in life, the world would work without so much needless misery and waste.
-FL
Actually, I believe there ARE three kinds of *intelligent* people who go to college. Their diferences are determined by their high school performance.
The first group would be such as one of my good friends, in high school his class ranking was the top 10%+1. He had the highest GPA of the people who didn't get to wear a gold cord at graduation. The best of the worst and the worst of the best, we called him. He went to college and majored in mechanical engineering. Many people (including his asshat parents) underestimated his potential. He graduated college with a 3.8 GPA and is now a 23 year old assistant manager for a large engineering firm. Maybe he is a bit atypical, but the first group is largely unnoticed in high school but capable of great things. Slightly above average intelligence, but a lot of determination.
The second group is like my best friend. He's naturally smart, and he is driven. In school and in work he never slacks off; he is always applying himself. While he knows he is intelligent, he feels like his accomplishments are more the result of his hard work and less of his intelligence. He graduated high school ranked 5th with a (weighted) GPA of 4.2 He went to college and double-majored in philosophy and religion, and played football and basketball. He graduated with a 4.0 GPA and is going to one of the better law schools in this state on a full tuition scholarship. The second group has a lot of natural intelligence, and the determination to use it.
And finally, the third group, which I put myself in. A lot of raw intelligence. (I admit I'm on the lower end of the spectrum for this group). And we know it. We get a bit cocky about it. High school is soooooo easy for us. We get A's through out grade-school and high school without putting any real effort into the work. As a result, we tend not to learn how to work and apply ourselves very well. I graduated with a 3.8 GPA (damn gym class) and a ranking of 18. So we go to college and suddenly we're surrounded by Group I's and Group II's who DO know how to apply themselves, and we are out-classed. We struggle and have lack-luster performance. A lot of us (myself included) drop out (although I'm a bit more mature now and am planning on trying again next year). Now I work in a privatized state agency and am known around the office as the expert on fixing the "green thingy on the copy machine" Us Group III'ers are pretty much the bottom of the barrel for smart people.
Free MacMini
I've already decided that my 2 year old son won't go to college. Instead, he's going to be a 1st round draft pick in baseball. So instead of studying every night and doing homework, I'm going to have him in the backyard throwing a baseball. I'll do his homework.
His twin sister will go to college though. She's going to become a lawyer because he's going to need a really good agent.
ADVANCING the subject matter. That's called research and, by definition, there's no degree in whatever happens to be new. (I not saying that academe plays no part but its basicalli cleaning up after the research, tidying up the loose ends and creating a curriculum.)
:-)
While having a steady job in academe or in industry helps with acces to the toys, its not very useful to the subject of the research, (anymore than being a patent cleck helped Einstein with his theories.)
Researchers are driven to it and pursue it to the bitter end and the outer limits because of, well just because, damn it!
Along the way, they start things some of which flourish, some of which are mis-understood, some of which are ripped off, some of which are of no consequence despite the driving passion that got the researcher his insight.
For Jobs, it was calligraphy in a course he audited. Great I say.
For me it was the recent realization that relational != relationship.
Now we'll see how far that gets me. (I'm now fifty one. I've been in computing since 1976 and doing Smaltalk and object-oriented software since 1987 and, so far, its been a multi-continent blast.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Basically I hated college. I constantly considered dropping out, but instead just switched majors, added another one, took a lot of unrelated courses. And eventually ended up getting a damn good and broad-based education because of it. So, in that sense, part of what Jobs says is right: perhaps sitting in on a wide variety of classes is the best way to go, whether you're enrolled or not.
On the other hand, I'm definitely a self-motivated learner, and much of what I know about many topics has been self-taught, BUT I could never have gotten my current job without some sort of degree. The fact is, as many have said already, employeers try to hire people with degrees because they believe it's the easiest way to limit their potential applicant pool to those with the proper skills, whether or not that's actually the case.
"Imagine all the 'hard' work teachers, parents and guidance counselors put into brainwashing every kid that he/she must go to University." As an educator, I'm insulted by this comment. I for one do not attempt to "brainwash" any of my students in going to university or college. I want them to succeed. If that means going to community college or trade school, then so be it. If that means going to work at a restaurant for a few years, so be it... I find it funny how people lash out at teachers and the education system, when it is highly underfunded and the job is often thankless. Teachers are the first person parents attack when there is any kind of problem with their child. Even though the problem may lie with their own problems at home... then when people in the general public think we're "brainwashing" kids, it certainly doesn't help. Sorry if you were brainwashed, but I know at least here in Nova Scotia, we don't do that.
Yeah that's what the college educated ppl in Ann Arbor are doing...can you imagine people with only highschool degrees?
Moving. Who needs competition frpm a bunch of half-wits?
If you allow the system to dictate and define what it means to be employed and make a living, then you will have to submit to the system's rules. I encourage everybody to reject all of that. There are a million ways to live a happy, effective life which don't involve HR departments and meaningless hoop-jumping.
I'd offer the following advice to any who ask: Determine what your passion is in life, figure out a way to express it effectively, and to go out and do it. Make up your own game and ignore the system rules. The Universe will help you! When you are on your path, things just naturally fall into place. Only the System will tell you otherwise.
Magic is real, and it's not really magic. We are all free.
-FL
Plus you sound a bit arrogant for an educated person.
It says, "Steve Jobs told Stanford University graduates Sunday that dropping out of college was one of the best decisions he ever made because it forced him to be innovative "
Also, if you are looking for cheap college, goto NDSU. Thats what I am doing...
Getting an education is not the same thing as getting job training.
College has long been downgraded to job training for most students and parents. Most do not know the difference, nor care. They want job training.
For a person of high intelligence, who can learn on their own, who has an interest in learning and who is ALSO a self starter like Jobs getting an education his way is fitting.
I wouldn't advise that the average student who doesn't know what the difference between education and job training is( or one who is not a self starter ) to do the same.
Steve Jobs might be a gas station attendant today if not for the help of Steve Wozniak, who has a degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Berkeley.
While I'm a bit put out that Jobs (or the coverage of his speech) doesn't mention Woz, I believe that Jobs point about 'dropping in' is a good one. Learn. Educate yourself. However that happens, be it university or your moms basement, learn. Connect. Build. Be. Do it. Live it. Learn learn learn.
You don't have to live anybody elses definition of life, include that of Steve Jobs. Just live your life. Do what you do best.
Just do what you do best
Arnold "Red" Auerbach.
and they had a huge client list that they were 'servicing' (listening to and marketing at,) and yet they were utterly unable to stop Caterpilar from eating their lunch (until Erie-Bucyrus exists only in the history books and in some antique shows.)
All monopolies get caught up in 'servicing the client,' hire people who are focused in and on 'servicing the client,' and so don't see what is really happening. Because to them its NOT happening.
They are blind to 'the solution looking for a problem.' That is where "The Next Big Thing (TM)" is coming from.
That's what founds great companies.
Its not the IBMs of this world that 'do great things,' that got caught with its pants down with minis (DEC, [DataGeneral, et alia]) micros (Apple [Microsoft et alia]), laptops (Compaq et alia,) and managing the entire supply chain (Dell, et alia.)
Though IBM is to be lauded for its continued survival and ability to reinvent itself, (the Linux side of the software business (at least its NOT Microsoft,:-]) while hanging on to its market share in the mainframe and super computer market.
Now they're going to be making intelligent Cell toys. And what's wrong with that?
This time they're taking a paying way into a potentially really dispuptive technology in a market place that's too unsophisticated to appreciate just what's happening.
The kids (and adults,) just see cool interactive graphics and internet connectivity. And Sony and Microsoft are paying the way. Brilliant IBM!
You absolutely DON'T want a monopoly. The thinking in a monopoly is too calcified. The profits to be derived are incremental not exponential.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
1. Figure out where your passions are pointed.
2. Jump in! If you love computers, build and program them. Stay up those late, late nights tinkering! --The same goes with any field. In many (if not all) cases, you can learn much of what you need to know through the following of your own fascination than you can in school. You don't need to be attending school in order to visit a library! You don't need to be paying a school thousands of dollars before you can approach a professional to ask his/her opinions about what areas of knowledge are important. Knowledge is available to ANYBODY who seeks it with enough passion! We ALL have passion within us. We simply need to allow ourselves to access it!
3. Apprentice. --Go and offer to sharpen pencils for free at the company you want to join and do that for two months. You will learn a lot, and you will make connections, and if it is the field you truly want to be in, then you will eventually find your services in demand. Passion and Light are attractive to everybody, and people will pay you to stay and share yourself with the company. Companies are no different than tribes of hunter/gatherers. If you demonstrate your worth within the tribe, then you will find yourself welcomed. Hopefully, the tribe you choose will be worthy of you, and if it is not, then you can re-shape it so that it becomes something greater and more beautiful than when you first approached it. All tribes, no matter how sickly and forcibly contorted they are in today's society, secretly want to be healthy and happy and vibrant!
We ALL have this power to affect our world!
For the most part, formal education is a practice in creating submissive meat cows for the dark system. --Living your Light is the way you can transcend the feeding cycle.
-FL
Rather than go to higher education to train you to do a job, why don't you actually work your way up?
Why don't we send scholars to university, and let the rest of us go to trade schools instead?
People who succeed in life, do so with or without a degree. Although education is not usually a hinderance, it is no indicator of a persons drive or ability to perform.
Jobs is right. University Degrees are great for impressing other scholars, the rest of us could care less. I'm an amatuer scholar, I love to learn, and have diverse, rich study topics which I persue on my own. I don't PAY anyone to teach me, because I want the information and knowledge, not someone else's opinion on the subject.
Orginized Education has become a lot like orginized religion. It started off as a great idea, but at some point, most people figure out they can go straight to the source, and bypass the whole bueracracy that had been created to facilitate access.
Lots of insightful comments about whether you should or shouldn't enroll in college. Whether its financially sound, etc... All valid points in a very BIG personal issue. But I see little discussion about what makes a College a College. TEACHERS. Where else you going to find an institution where at least some portion of the employees (albeit sometimes woefully low) are personally dedicated to making you smarter? College sadly has been turned into an investment device - where its worth is measured in likelyhood of future revenues. I fell prey to that thinking too often in college. And as a result wasted much of my time in college rushing through classes trying to get out of college as soon as possible. Only one chance in your life to be young, impressionable and unburdened and college is a great place to be at that time.
Just do not tell me that you need to attend a university in order to get an education. That is bullshit.
You can educate yourself and remain debt free without going to college.
I do admit that HR departments often turn aside resumes that do not have a college listed under education. So, yes, YMMV.
I left college after 2 years because I was bored to tears. Joined the Marines. Went back to college 6 years later *highly* motivated and enjoyed the heck out of learning - took CS classes for fun. My fellow undergrads, mostly straight from High School, hated their classes and hated me - I was the jerk who didn't listen to them whine about how hard their schedules were, or how much different classes sucked. My experience - most of them were too immature to appreciate the opportunity they had, and they had insufficient life experience to know that they should feel passionate about anything at all, let alone learning. Wow! History of my life - almost. I started working on IT when I was on high school, finished high school, rested for a couple of years, then went to college. It sucked and I left after around 2 years, heavily burned. I decided it wasn't for me and I didn't need that crap. I was quite successfull at my field (even though I'm not my own boss/CEO etc) so I didn't care about college anymore. Today, I've been working for ~11 years. I went back to college on january - finally planning on getting an 'interactive design' degree. I was kind of afraid it'd suck and get burned again, but I figured I'd try anyways. Surprise, it's being marvelous so far. I'm kind of an old guy in the class - I'm 27, most of the students are around 18 - although it doesn't show, people think I'm like 22. However, the same thing you said applies here: while I've been enjoying classes greately, and learning a lot of stuff (I'd never have guessed!), most of my fellow students are fresh from high school and too spoiled to learn everything. There are exception, but most expect things delivered straight to them on a golden plate and doesn't have the ability or the will to make good use of the course (which is a jewel in itself). I work during the day, study at night, and do all the (difficult!) papers/assignments on weekends; still, I can get everything done AND get a very good great. Most of the other students bitch about how they don't have enough time to do it because it's too much, and do extremely poor jobs that even I get ashamed of... even though they don't work and stay at home during the day! I'm with Jobs on this one; however, I think the lesson to be learned is that it depends a lot more of you than on what people are pushing to you. Even though I'm in good terms with everybody and I have lots of great friends there, I have no doubt that most of the people on my course will be total failures when it comes to getting stuff done - but we're still on the first semester, so hopefully they'll realize they're not on their rich kids' high school anymore and move their asses. I'd forward that Jobs' speech to them, but they won't read because it's too long and it's english so... whatever. I wish them luck.
Inside the box, outside the box, become the box, jeez, yer just confusing the newbies!
There is no box. There is no lack of box. There is both box and lack of box. There is neither box nor lack of box. Get it right before you start preaching, man!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I would imagine that the dropouts who become billionaires would average out to be a statistical fluke.
The planned social levelling that schools (particularly public schools) provide for the government is designed to fulfil the needs of the managed utopia, i.e., to supply a professional proletariat and a predictable consumer base. Kids go to school today so that they can "get a good job" in the professions or the trades. Those few singled out as "gifted" may achieve a role in the managerial class.
Schools, being strictly secular and uniform in most cases, produce individuals who are generally like-minded or at least behaviorally similar (in spite of any external beliefs these individuals may hold, which beliefs are generally neutralized by the scientific management programme).
Now, to raise up from the burgeois ranks into those of the very affluent, an individual must defeat the well-documented psychological programming that school imposes upon its students in order to make them suitable employees for any workplace.
I suggest that the opposite of your statement is actually true. Those who have become rich from out of the middle or lower classes (here I am thinking of the modern American class system, established in the mid-1800s) would most likely have been educated in a manner other than what our public schools provide. Most of society's great achievers seem to have refused the state programme of compulsory education, and have pursued their own interests with a singular passion. Such an education would only be available to those in the finest of private institutions (generally reserved for the already-rich), or to those who have been individually mentored by masters, or to those who learned on their own. The only way to get such an education would be to "drop out" or to pursue this education in spite of school, extra-curricularly as we say.
I am very influenced in this thinking by Gatto's books on American education, specifically "The Underground History of American Education." This is extremely interesting reading, very well researched and quite persuasive in my opinion.
this text is not here.
sum.zero
huh?
Pretty Pictures!
was bitching and bitch-in' and making fun of a prof we had who was teaching us formal research technique.
She would 'sachay' her fat, jeans-clad butt in and out of class whenever she felt like it and was dissin' the prof until I got pissed off and told her that we weren't paying to watch her parade and to listen to her lip, and could she just get the hell out or shut the fuck up, I wanted to hear what the prof was saying, not her, and to keep he fat butt out of the way of the blackboard.
She was incredulous that anyone wouldn't fawn all over her and tried to make fun of me, for a week but she shut up and then I didn't see her again (she might even have been there but I had a 'her shaped' cut-out of my vision.)
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
When Microsoft first sent me their recruitment package in 1991, the first page touted the fact that Bill was a drop out. I asked when I was there about Microsoft's hiring policy, to be told that Microsoft had the highest number of Masters than any other company... that I should be priviledged to be considered just having my Bachelors.
When they tried again in 1998, this interesting currio had vanished from the promotional material.
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
For every movie star there are 99 who ruin their lives trying to be a movie star. They end up poor with nothing.
College changes the odds. About 75% of college graduates that I know make double the average national wage or higher. 95% of them make at least $55k which is about $15k over the national average wage. 5% of them did not do well despite their degree.
Lot's of people SAY they can take on a huge project and finish it. A college graduate proves that they have already:
1) Worked in a complex bureaucracy for many years.
2) Learned huge amounts of material repeatedly.
3) Has decent reading and writing skills.
4) Worked and conformed in a complex organization with complex politics.
5) May have made a lot of useful contacts (more likely if they were in a fraternity or sorority).
People like Jobs or Gates (And Penn and Teller who recently dissed college on Bullshit!) are brilliant AND lucky. And not just mildly lucky- there are definately hundreds and probably Jobs', Gates' (and Penn and Teller)'s contemporaries who amounted to nothing.
Most colleges do a decent job of preparing you to be a -worker- and low level boss. Most colleges do not prepare you for being a high level boss or an entrepreneur. But it's not bad- I'll clear about 2 million over my life time- my pensions, investments and savings from that look like they will net another million. That's after kids, ski trips, owning a house, new cars, etc. so I wasn't a hermit or miser.
And that's on a bachelor's degree with a 2.99GPA.
Despair.com said it best...
NOT EVERYONE GETS TO BE AN ASTRONAUT WHEN THEY GROW UP.
So my advice is:
Go to college.
Take your CORE first.
If you really are brilliant and passionate and get the shot- dump college and go for it.
If your of average intelligence and passion, then get the degree and have a decent life. Understand that the levels of competition for those few top spots is insanely high. You have to really want it enough to sacrifice everything knowing you will almost certainly fail and end up with nothing.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Steve Jobs (and Bill Gates) may be wildly successful people, and perhaps to some degree the fact that they were "unhindered" by a conventional college degree may contribute to this.
... and reading through the rest of his speech, I thought it was very very insightful. But, I think there is a tremendous arrogance in the people who are saying this, as it ignores the contributions of everyone else who's hard work and education contribute to making your job so darn easy.
...
On the other hand, I'd like to know how many thousand or million-PhD-hours were spent on developing the technology that goes into every Apple computer (Intel chip, MS product, etc). Yes, I know, "Apple did not invent x, y, or z, blah blah blah". But at some point, someone who went to university and graduate school and a postdoc, etc had to make the major breakthroughs in semiconductors, display technology, storage technology, networking technology, computer theory, etc that makes any of this possible.
I don't believe Steve Jobs was implying that people should not go to universities or that he has no use for people with conventional educations
As a disclaimer, I went to a "name-brand" type of university, and grad school, and did a postdoc (not in CS, though). I learned a tremendous amount in all my work there, even in the literature and history classes that are completely irrelevant to my day-to-day life. That being said, I suppose my imagination is so completely squashed by my conventional education that you shouldn't be surprised that I have a pro-university bias
This is a tough question. On the one hand, one of the smartest guys I know doesn't have a college degree; he can discuss history and politics for hours, and although he is not a lawyer, the firm he works at relies on him for everything.
On the other hand, after not having a college degree for several years I went back to school and got one and have never regretted it. It helped me in my career and I have found that when you are looking for a job and your potential employer knows nothing else about you, that piece of paper says something positive about you that seperates you from the rest of the crowd. Right or wrong, it's a reality of life.
You misunderstood his point.
Large numbers of college graduates make better than average incomes. Some do very well.
Large numbers of college dropouts do not do well. Some do very well.
Adding your comment in... At this time, it appears with a very small sample size that dropouts who do very well, do better than graduates. Of course the sample size is small, so who can say that the result isn't just a matter of random chance.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Ok, but I reckon of the people that drop out, your list of 10 is "a few people".
/ 0,9830,1315791,00.html). As UK uni's awarded half a million (http://education.guardian.co.uk/students/graduati on/story/0,12760,1387845,00.html) qualifications last year that would appear to be about 70,000 drop-outs. If say 3-4,000 of those dropped out because they were too smart I'd call that more than a few.
:0)>
In the UK (as of 2004) 14% of students drop out (see http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story
Of course one needs to define "smart" here. Presumably we're talking pure intelligence and not business sense.
The counterpoint is that I often thought I'd have been better off _financially_ not going to Uni. In any case - I'll wait for your list.
In my case, it's fairly easy. FAFSA guarantees nearly a free ride based on my yearly income, and since I haven't tied myself down with any _real_ responsibilities (e.g. kids, mortgage), I can just drop everything and worry about what's important.
Karma: Dyn-o-mite!(mostly affected by Jimmy Walker reading your comments)
I have two masters and I'm a worthless punk!
People do not need college to get ahead. You don't need a butane lighter to start a fire, either.
Statistically speaking, college grads will do better, but the system is rigged in favor of college grads. That's reality. Which is enough of a point to stop, but I'll go on anyway.
"Getting ahead" is not the point of an education. Education is its own reward. Earning more money is how to justify the expense.
Education changes people. It changes the way people think about themselves and the world around them. Education should help people understand and communicate better with the educated and uneducated.
Education is more than technical training. There are lots of "technical" courses that have no bearing on any particular real-world setting. They are valuable precisely because they don't have an immediate application. The student learns how to learn things that don't have an application, that aren't interesting, that don't fit his style, that don't come easily.
Yes, there are people who don't need school to get ahead. There are many, many more people, billions the world over, whose intelligence is wasted because they didn't go to school. They never caught that one key idea, learned that one problem-solving technique, or were exposed to that one viewpoint that would have let them change the world for the rest of us.
sigs, as if you care.
You're right: we should be sceptical of all claims to "inventing" proportional digital type. One would have to defer to historians such as Richard Southall to ferret out the convoluted truth. Certainly by the time of PageMaker's introduction, typesetter manufacturers were using a variety of digital methods to set type (of a quality Mac users could only dream about).
But even back in Silicon Valley, we all remember inspiring screenshots of the Xerox research machines - and earlier still, the high resolution Smalltalk-80 interface - which give the lie to Jobs' remarks. Digital typography itself was an inevitable revolution, with some accidental heroes on the road to commercialisation and commodification.
(An aside: Isn't it uncanny how closely InDesign 2 tracks our late-80s wishlist for JustText 3? :)
you had me at #!
For the gifted, the choice is primarily a matter of valuing education and long-term prospects more than immediate earnings. Even if you can get an education w/o having to pay for it (if you are good), you need to make the decision to accept (relative) poverty while studying, rather than getting a job right away and make more money in the short term. Of course the relative poverty of students is mitigated by the fact that being at a University is mostly a great experience. However, you are delaying things like a real salary, being able to afford a half-decent car, living in your own apartment, making retirement contributions, etc etc, to 4-8 years later.
I admit it's easier to decide to embark on a university education if you family can financially back you during your studies, so that you don't quite have to limit your expenses so much. I also admit that if you are wealthy, you can buy yourself an education within limits (beyond the MS level, nobody cares if you can pay, at least in CS/Engineering, but everybody cares if you are good). But I believe it is also a matter of relative importance, immediate money vs. long-term career and education, and I believe that this is part of a scale of values that gets passed from parents to children along families, and represents a form of "class".
So the children of low-income parents that keep studying until they get advanced degrees were already part of the class that values education more than immediate money.
The point of the thread was that you don't have to have college degree, just like Steve Jobs, but the fact is that it will be much harder for you to be professional out of highschool. Everyone I know that dropped out, didn't make it past fast food - gas station - bank clerk type jobs. And I think that is true on the average.
If you didn't have to go to college and still be successful nobody would go to college then, trust me, people wouldn't spend tens of thousands and years of their lives if it didn't, on average, translate to better pay or a better job.
Using Bill Gates or Steve Jobs as an example, you might as well advise people to play the lottery, they have a better chance of being successful at that than becoming the next "Larry Ellison" in the business world.
you have any idea how cool it is to look at a Trig book and think, "Oh, the raycasting engines I can make with this baby..."
:o)
Either that's a rhetorical question similar to "do you know how good African pygmies are at figure skating?", or you are using the word "cool" in a context with which I am unfamiliar.
Do you have any idea how cool it is to look at a Trig book and think, "Oh, the raycasting engines I can make with this baby..." :-)
Cool enough to get babes? Oh. Oh well.
the total cost of tuition and fees for 4 years at many good state schools is less than 20K.
That is far less than room and board for the amount of time that it would take to get your degree. If you can afford to live for 4 years while you get your degree, you can probably afford state schools. And if you can't afford it completely it will not take that long to pay off 20K in loans.
I went to a state school, and 2 years after I was done I had saved more than 30K, so if I had used loans to pay for tuition I would have been able to get back to even 2 years after graduation. You just have to live frugally for the first few years after school. Don't buy a flat screen TV, keep your old car a couple more years or buy used.
And before people start complaining about a lack of good public schools, let me list a few (by no means comprehensive):
UC Berkely (and the rest of the UC system)
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Purdue
Penn State
University of Minnisota
UT Austin
Certain majors at Cornell
That list includes top tier (maybe not number one, but consider bang for buck) in math, physics, biology, computer science, and engineering.
Do some research, many states have residency requirments for in state tuition that can be met by going to a comunity college in that state. If you are serious about getting a good education on your own dime, you can do it (I know, my wife did, and now she is in an ivy league PhD program).
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
It started off as an offshoot of the State University of New York in the 70s, and is now a private non-profit institution. It is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, which also provides accreditation to Princeton, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, NYU, Penn State, etc. It is also accredited through ABET, which appears to be the main engineering accreditation body around.
The interesting part that applies to this discussion is that it does not appear to be very expensive, and you don't necessarily need to take your classes through them. They don't seem to have all the nitty-gritty details on their website, but it appears that they will take your credits from other schools, and you can get credits for many if not all classes/subjects through testing, as well as credits from some technical certifications, like from Microsoft, Cisco, and others.
All in all, it looks very interesting. I would love to hear more information from anyone who knows anything about this school.
You're knocking on the front door and there are certain entrance requirements at the front door. That's fine if you want to write test scripts or refactor code.
You probably need to learn how to get to the back door. Do something notable and make contacts in the organization. When they want you to come work for them you won't have to show your papers.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
All I did was correct someone who made an uninformed and wrong post. He said Bill Gates was *not* the wealthiest man in the world, and I posted a link to Forbes who said he *is*. I in no way commented that dropping out is a good thing or a bad thing.
Veil of Ignorance.
The idea that in order to be morally consistent, you have to argue for rules for society without knowing what position you would occupy (for instance, if you imagined that you haven't been born yet, and wouldn't know who you would be).
I never finished college (didn't like it, had severe depression and couldn't really do the course) and it has hurt me professionally, financially and emotionally. If I'd stayed and gotten a degree, I could have got a decent job. However now I have no qualifications, and have a soul-crushing dead-end manual labour job, no-one will employ me for anything else. This means I have no prospects, no money, and the complete mindlessness and futility of my job has destroyed all traces of my motivation is is driving me to suicide.
Seriously, unless you have a business which can make you a lot of money, or you have good connections, don't drop of of university. Unless you're extremely lucky (you're more likely to win the lottery than be the next Bill Gates, no matter how clever you are), it will just fuck you up.
The problem is that, thanks to liberal arts degrees, a typical 4-year degree won't really make you any more than a typical 2-year degree. If you add to that the fact that a 2-year degree is cheeper and more accessible, you have to wonder why so many people don't even consider a 2-year program to be a option. People have this crazy notion that if you can't get a college degree, you must be some kind of fuck up.
You'll definitely make more money if you get a 2-year degree than if you go to college for 2-3 years, get disillusioned and drop out.
Considering your sentiment is just sending people into big education debts with only a little more option for employability in return, you really are promoting a myth. People with a massive debt due to education, car and home purchases are the VERY DEFINITION of "poor". You are just being fooled by their cash flow. Many of the people you seem to admire by implication are in too much debt, and indebtedness is much worse than being merely poor.
The inevitable housing crash is going to bring all these myths out into high relief for us to examine. But wasn't the point of intelligence instead to foresee a catastrophe and then avoid it?
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
The fact is that most people will have to go to college to obtain a successful career.
Considering how many of the jobs those degrees allegedly apply towards are going overseas to the cheaper labor markets, I can only cry "bullshit" on your assertion of SUCCESS and CAREER. What you are saying here is simply in line with the Myth of Re-Training.
If there's no point in training for a job that will be offshored as soon as the company can arrange it, then it's equally pointless to re-train for another job that is equally offshorable. Instead of all this college and training crap, societies need to get a grip on the real problems: the overfluidity of capital and the reluctance of governments to regulate capital.
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
Don't you ever wish that the middle class will start teaching their children to save money, buy carefully, and in general abide by the philosophies of thrift?
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
Agreed, read the discussion at http://www.epinions.com/content_73675148932
it's a pity that's anonymous, you'd be on my friends list for that one.
If you think College is all about making money and getting a chick 20 years your senior then you may have a slight character flaw in there somewhere.
Fact is though, you correctly identified yourself as the 'loser with the porsche'.
I'm one of those lucky high school dropouts that did pretty well, I'm fully aware of how rare that is and how many people that did go through college still don't make it.
Chances are that you'll be a college grad without a porsche, and you can just about forget about that wife (at least holding on to her) if you don't change your attitude.
Trophy's indeed. Are you going to cut off her head and mount it on the wall to stop her from running off or what ?
cheers.
MP3 Search Engine
I did it from 1995-1998. I had a few advantages - I had 2 yrs of credit, so I only had to do 2.5 years of solid "gut" classes, and I had the GI bill, which while not great (much better today) helped. Still, it is possible to get a quality degree from a good state school and leave with $20k in student loans (more than 2.5 times what I incurred). Not perfect, but eminently doable, especially given the alternative. Oh, I had ZERO familial support. All me, GI bill and loans. Your parents, I respecfully suggest, exaggerate the 'impossibility'.
I see where you're going with this, but consider... If you get a degree in a field you don't like just to "get a good job" you won't get a 'good' job - you'll get a decently-compensated job, but you will never be good enough at it to really succeed. I know several accountants and financial analysts who took accounting or finance degrees for the job - and I wouldn't pay them to shovel manure, let alone work on client financials. They make a decent living, but they are just pathetic to watch. It never occurred to them to care about anything but maximum pay, and they are already paying the price - lost human potential. I predict either lives of 'quiet desperation' or absolute unthinking dullness. My point is only that it only makes sense to invest in your education when you can be assured of maximizing your return on investment - which is impossible if you don't care about what you are studying.
At the risk of beating this to death, anyone who wants evidence of the importance of passion in learning consider the masses of foreign students in many/most technology programs (for example). I got to see the other side - in Hungary, where the students routinely do better in Math and Science than Americans, and they have no 'computers in the classroom' by the way, they have to line up and compete to come here, and boy do they. China - same deal. A friend of mine from college from China, when I gave him some static about studying *all* the time, told me that I didn't have 5,000 other students 'back home' ready to step in and take my government grant if I got 'poor' grades, which to him meant sub-3.6/4.0. We in America have it cake easy, unlimited opportunity, and for whatever reason, we take it for granted. Perhaps I'm too hard on my native land, which I love, but for whatever reason, whiny Americans raise my hackles. Now, I'll stop whining. Thanks for all the mod ups to my parent, now I'll brace for the Offtopic/Flamebait/whatever.
Fair point. However, I suggest most Americans are close enough and qualified enough to get into a good to very good state school and work through, if they apply themselves. Private and Ivy schools are great - wish I was Cornell or MIT material - but not essential to getting a 'good' degree. By good, I mean it prepares you to work in your chosen field of study and fulfils your own educational goals. And hey, If I wasn't married and did get into MIT or Harvard, I would love nothing better than to spend my entire life working and going to school part time. Beats the 9-to-5 grind. I'm happy where I am, but that makes a nice cubicle-dream. :)
Slashdot is a haven for people that are in college or recently out of college. Asking a Slashdot what they think about the value of college is like asking a lady at a cat convention, "what makes a better pet, cats or dogs?"
All the people that went to college are going to say that their money was well spent, yada yada yada. And it really might have been. But you can't expect someone who spent that time and money in college to admit that it didn't get them anywhere, and you can't expect someone that's currently in school to consider that it might not help them.
I think that after hearing about the value of college for years, people begin to feel a sense of entitlement if they go to school. They think they *deserve* more money than someone who didn't go. The harsh reality is that nobody deserves anything- you get what you can get.
I didn't finish college. I know that a lot of people I went to school with are very resentful that I'm successful. They think they deserve more money than me even though I work to get my money. I surely don't look down on them in any way, money isn't everything.
In the end, I'll just say to do what you think you have to do. College isn't going to hurt your chances for getting a job, that's for sure. But don't begin to think that you're entitled to more just because you got it.
I didn't read anything in the reports of Jobs's remarks that suggested he was claiming more than to have been sensitised to wider design issues by his calligraphy classes and being in a position, chief head kicker for the Mac development project, where he could force a brake through the conceptual bottlenecks which had long separated end user computing and elegance.
It may be worth reflecting that there has been no comparable "inevitable revolution" in the development process itself, I suspect in a large part because of the high cost of retooling developers' brains. But that hasn't stopped generation after generation insisting such a revolution was also inevitable.
Obviously the Internet itself was the definitive "inevitable revolution", except that those of us who knew where it had to go, and even those who were developing key components, still needed Gore's politial initiative to break through the final barriers to the commercial Web, "progress" which much of the early developer community resisted religiously.
-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
Hahaha, nice one. You sure showed that guy. I bet his wife IS fucking a gardener when she's not out spending his money. Yeah, because real life like totally mirrors Desprate Housewives. And way to bash a PhD job, his name's probably Lumbergh and he might be fucking your wife too, yeah! No wonder you're anonymous, oh wait, I am too! Aren't I another anonymous douchebag!
Of course Apple pioneer Guy Kawa saki had one of the great graduation speeches of all time. Remember "Live off your parents as long as possible." http://www.darkridge.com/~jpr5/archive/kawasaki/>
I've had some really clean feeling shroom trips, some not so much. And the amount of shrooms trips I've taken far outnumbers the amount of acid trips, which is mainly a factor of availability. I certainly like acid, but it runs $10 a hit here when it's around (which is rare), and when it is, it's usually crap acid. A shame really.
I did have a freind who taught chemistry at a high school for a while. He had his class make him almost-acid for a grade, then took it back to his place and completed it (I have no clue about the technical details of this, but I know it's true cause I ate some of it).
kaens.blogspot.com
Some class, since LSD synthesis is extremly difficult.
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
Hey I don't doubt it. All I know is I went to his house one day and he goes "Check it out I had the class I'm teaching make me acid" and feeds me a few hits, and I got a decent trip off it. He could have been bullshitting, but he's not the type of person to do that.
kaens.blogspot.com
Large numbers of college graduates make better than average incomes. Some do very well.
Large numbers of college dropouts do not do well. Some do very well.
Actually, the drop outs do OK and are often lumped in with graduates on salary surveys. It's all in the segmentation. I've seen studies where they do it right and have segments as follows:
Advanced Degeree
4 year
2 year
Some college
HS Diploma
No diploma
I've also seen this one:
Advanced Degree
College
Vocational
HS
No HS
The question is where do you put the guy that quit school after three years?
-- $G
IMO:
If you have $50K - $100K of debt to get through college you did it wrong.
I have a graduate degree (M.S.) and my total debt upon graduation was approximately $8K. I had no financial assistance from my parents. I paid off a car loan while attending school. And I also was supporting my wife and 2 children by the time that I finished.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
That's a good point.
I have two "jobs like" friends who left college after a couple years because they got great jobs and saw no point in continuing. Both have done very well.
OTH, I have a friend whose path into management is blocked until he finishes the degree. Even tho he has years experience, is well-liked, etc. They want the BA piece of paper.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
(blinks a few times, closes browser window)
You'd be surprised at how many people do not have degrees at the Fortune 500 company I work for. Some of these guys are the smartest people I've ever worked with. On the other end, there are some people who have degrees that don't know anything at all.
The problem starts in elementary school. It has become as system of memorizing what someone has decided is most important for long term success. There is memorization of times tables, english words, spelling, geographical locations and names, historical dates, even the periodic table of elements!
.0626! (NOT EVEN A 1.***!) I wasn't stupid, I was just sick of being told that in order to be "educated", I had to spit back some canned answer without having time to consider the meaning.
While I am sure there are millions of well documented accounts of people safely exiting a crisis situation simply because they recalled that xenon is a noble gas that has an atomic number of 54, I can't see the real value in the memorization game which dominates the teaching patterns across the US.
We simply need a completely new system which teaches our children HOW TO LEARN, rather than WHAT TO REMEMBER.
As finiteSet said, "People who might benefit by going to a university: 1) Anyone who doesn't know what they want to do", this country is ripe with people who grow up and don't know or don't remember what they wanted to become when they got there.
We are living in a time when learning is really just memorizing terms for a test in order to receive an acceptable grade, which when done enough times will lead to the reception of a piece of paper, which in turn becomes evidence to the world that that person is "smart enough".
What happened to learning for learnings sake? I dropped out of high school, which I thought was a joke, and 5 years later, (without any study or extra work), walked into an ACT testing center and took the test cold turkey. I walked away with a 23, which is above the national average. When I left school at age 16 I had a gpa of
While I did flounder on the streets, and then at various jobs for about 3 years, I finally found that I was interested in photography, and am now enrolled in the most rigorous photographic institution in the world, Brooks Institute of Photography. I am receiving A grades, and am at the top of my class. I have a different perspective from those around me, in that I am here to learn what I know I need to succeed in my goals, not what the school deems required. Most of all, I am enrolled in a program that is focused to teach me exactly what I need to succeed long term, rather than being focused on current and passing trends. This system is what will give me the ultimate potential in the marketplace.
What we need is for parents to be more involved from the get-go, as well as a system which allows more of a student -> mentor relationship, rather than a teacher -> classroom relationship. I guarantee that if you ask a student to take up studies of things that interest them, and then guide to know what is relevant, they will soon find a passion for learning which is unquenchable.
Don't you hate people who always repeat themselves and are long-winded and overly redundant and talk too much?
If he had only put it so delicately, I would not have objected. But, at least the way it was reported, he was trying to conjure a butterfly-effect nexus between his spur-of-the-moment calligraphy drop-in and the very fact of modern PCs supporting proportional type.
I believe he was trying to flesh that connection out by mentioning the excellence of Reed's calligraphy courses but I am guessing most of the Stanford grads were not aware that Lloyd Reynolds and those who followed him at Reed were not only calligraphers but also more or less "public intellectuals" known & respected throughout the community. Students learned about a craft process, but they also learned about language and philosophy and history and so forth. I have had the impression that Reynolds had a strong interest in humanizing his environment and perhaps if Jobs had explained this a little better he would not look so silly about now.
Thanks for fleshing out the Reed context a bit more. Perhaps Jobs' premise should not have been "Dropping Out is Good for You" but rather "Attending a Humanist University is Good for You (and Everyone Else Too)".
you had me at #!
Instead of all this college and training crap, societies need to get a grip on the real problems: the overfluidity of capital and the reluctance of governments to regulate capital.
Right; so while "society" is doing that, I'll be making a living over here...what will you be doing?
Don't get me wrong, I agree that there are societal problems that need to be addressed, but you can't just say, "To heck with actually being able to do a job, we need to change society!"
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
Now, the problem with using the bomb at all is, we killed thousands upon thousands of civilians. This should have been off limits. Granted, it wasn't. We bombed the hell out of dresden in germany, though not with an atomic bomb, but it was wrong there too. Its one thing to fight a war with soldiers, but its quite another to slaughter civilians who are not involved in the war.
We bombed the hell out of Japan before dropping the atomic bomb also. Heck, the fire-bombing alone killed more people and devestated more area than the atomic bomb. As for bombing civilians, for one, as time goes on, we're finding it harder and harder to seperate civilians from soldiers. Even apart from guerilla forces like we faced in Vietnam, people working the factories creating ammunition, thinking up new ways to kill, designing the software for the guidance systems... they're all a part of the war. Sure, they can make excuses to themselves that theirs is not the finger that pulls the trigger, but they're involved. Now ideally, for things like factories, one warns the populace to evacuate so that you just get the infrastructure, but a) that warns the enemy that you're going to strike and b) the populace may not be free to move. *wry grin* If it's a choice between the possible death from bombs or an almost certain death at the hands of your country's soldiers who are standing guard at the border, you may be inclined to trust to the bomb shelters.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
The smart money's on finishing your degree.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
How would you do it differently?
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
You go out there and try. You fuck up. You try again. You fuck up again.
Eventually, you'll learn.
Oh, and it helps to reduce your living expenses to the absolute minimum. After you are at the absolute minimum, cut 'em in half. You're gonna need time for all those fuck-ups, and if you spend all yer money, you're dead in the water.
--From someone who has started 3 businesses and doesn't really have to work anymore but just kind of enjoys it for some odd reason.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
yeah, but my liver's not doing that well.
I love that donkey. Hell, I love everybody.