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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.
He also dropped acid in his younger days. That a good thing too??
Sounds like good advice to me!
...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
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...
Education != College.
College can provide a wonderful education, if the student is ready for it. I started college when I was 16, but I was too immature even though the "test scores" said otherwise. I needed to grow up, get life experiences. I did these things (though I didn't realize it at the time), and graduated when I was 24.
Had I gotten through school by the time I was 19, which was the pace I was heading, I would have had a college degree and a job I would have hated. Probably would have been found hanging by a rope by now. Instead, I love what I do, and life only gets better by the day.
Summary: College is education for those ready to receive it. Same goes for life in general.
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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
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.
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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 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
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
You'll get out as much as you put in. If all you ever do is take engineering classes and do the required minimum work, you'll have wasted a great opportunity.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
Nice, but it's an urban legend.
Trolling is a art,
Sorry Dude,
That larry ellison speech has been proven to be a fake
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.
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.
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.
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
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...
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
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.
I don't know your financial situation. However, I can tell you that I did work my way through school. That was part of the problem when I was 16... working 40 hours and going to school sucks bad.
:)
Eventually, I earned enough that I could afford 25 hours per week with a lighter schedule.
If you really want to go to school, you can. I didn't realize what was out there for folks in the way of grants and stuff... probably good, or I'd be more in debt
Why don't you share what you think you want to do with your life, and mayble we can figure out a way to get you in school...
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
...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.
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.
>but what are you supposed to do for the 12-16+ years of school before you're allowed to really get into what interests you.
Get into stuff that interests you?
Seriously, you can't pick up a book and read? You can't do things on your own? Does the only thing that interests you at age 12 involve pressing buttons on multi-million dollar toys and then reading the a series of numbers on a print out?
Who exactly are you waiting for to give you permission to do what you want to do?
Stop waiting to be spoon-fed.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
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 don't know about this.
Woz was the engineer that designed and built the Apple II, true. But Steve provided the vision, style, and intuitive grasp of the need for the personal computer. That framework was how Apple grew into a great company. I'm not certain that Woz would've done this alone--I imagine there were plenty of hand-designed computers of that day and age which are rotting away forgotten somewhere, yet are scions of exemplary engineering.
I would say that Woz was probably much luckier to know Steve than the other way around. Without Steve, Woz would have been just another engineer--a talented and remarkable one, yes; but Steve managed to bring a world-altering vision to the table.
That is much rarer than great engineering skills.
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 #!
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.
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..."
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Hypocritical fuktoads
Bill
bamph
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.
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.
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
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
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
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.
Steve was trying to say that success comes from taking risks.
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
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 .
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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."
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.
"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."
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.
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.
Look on job sites. Almost every decent vacancy requires a degree, some with a minimum of a 2:1.
A lot of people on here seem to think they are 'above' getting a degree, that they're too smart for that and after school they can just stroll into a job because of their enormous intelligence. That only works for a very, very small number of people.
A degree shows that you at least have a basic understanding of the subject, and have spent a lot of money, time and effort in the subject area of your choice. Who in their right mind would employ some kid into a reponsible job who had just finished school, had no proof that he knew shit, and had the arrogance to think he didn't need a degree?
A degree also shows that you have a commitment to the field in which you're pursuing. After all, you don't spend 4+ years studying something that you're not really interested in doing. When the option was presented to me to earn my master's degree in Electrical engineering after I finished undergraduate work, I jumped at it. And I'm glad I did; it's bumped me ahead of the pack (and those l33t kiddies) when it comes to getting a job and subsequent promotions. As someone who regularly interviews people for positions at my company, I don't just blindly say "Whoa, PhD...he's the man!". A degree, or multiple degrees, are only part of the picture of a job candidate. Oftentimes, if one candidate comes in with a BS with some co-op or intern experience, and another with an MS and no experience, the BS candidate will be chosen, as the "on the job" learning they acquired is often as valuable, if not more so, than the additional degree.
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.
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.
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.
We don't say "I'm going to eat a breakfast", or "I'm going to have a sex", or "I'm going to troll a slashdot".
And we certainly don't say "I got to to Harvard" unless we have a speech impediment ... or are trying to adapt to the Gentoo Keyboard ...
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