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You Are Not Mark Zuckerberg, So Stay In School
theodp writes "Over at TechCrunch, Vivek Wadhwa offers some don't-be-a-fool-stay-in-school advice to students that sounds a bit like an old-school Mr. T PSA. TechCrunch CEO Michael Arrington's questioning of whether students need to get any degree or go to college at all may sound appealing — dropouts Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates did do alright for themselves — but Wadhwa gives some good reasons why you should probably take the school-is-for-chumps argument with a grain of salt. 'The harsh reality,' warns Wadhwa, is that for every Zuckerberg, there are a thousand who drop out of college and fail,' and many big companies won't even consider hiring you for that fallback job without a degree. And, believe it or not, you can still become a tech billionaire later in life even if you're cursed with a PhD." Tech entrepreneur Michael Robertson approaches this question slightly differently; here's an analysis he made a few years ago, with the conclusion that the college investment pays off only about half the time.
I'm not an unethical thief who would thinks nothing of stealing from friends.
When I get into discussions about this topic with (young) people and they think they can play the "Bill Gates" trump card (For some odd reason, they think I should admire the man since I'm "into computers"), this is exactly what I tell them. It's just plain common sense.
If you can't or won't get a college degree, go into plumbing, carpenting or another trade. They are highly undervalued "socially", but I know many of those who make much more money than I do with my computer science degree and cushy admin job. Of course, you won't get "rich" in the "rockstar rich" sense, but if the goal is to make a good living, those jobs are very good choices.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
These dropouts dropped out because they were wildly successful. They didn't become wildly successful by dropping out.
There's only so many jobs for people with degrees. I dropped out of a multimedia design course over ten years ago. Then got into various jobs and ended up doing advanced technical support at a big company after 5 years of working there. A friend who had not dropped out after the first year and completed the degree could not find any steady employement in the designer field and ironically ended up doing lower paid technical support work through an outsourcing partner of the same company.
In the past when less people went on to college a degree was more valuable and basically meant a well paid job for life, but the market has changed and many more people are getting degrees. It pays more to carefully consider your options, getting work experience may be better than years of study in many cases.
Making it better than many other investments today.
"A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
Well they are not call Entrepreneur for nothing, the fact of the matter is they left school early, and worked their butt of to get their business off the ground, played the market, took risks often big ones and are now rolling in money. But the flip side is there are also those that have gone bankrupt though similar actions. And unless those that leave school early already have something they wish to Sell or have a new tech developed to market in mind probably staying in school is the best choice.
The harsher reality is that there is another thousand that finishes college and still fails.
Never go to sea with two chronometers; take one or three.
Between successful entrepreneurs and people who never went to university at all. For instance, I founded my own business when I was 19, now paying myself a decent wage off it 4 years later - and I would say most of the business owners I know didn't go to university. In fact, three of them, including my uncle (now a millionaire) are ex-cons...but maybe that indicates a different correlation...
I understand that this may well not be the norm - but I have seen many separate studies that indicate both of the following statements to be true:
a) University is a waste of money for most people who go
b) Not going to university will seriously limit your earning potential
I guess the truth is probably somewhere in the middle...
Gates is not a success from the gutter, his family was already loaded and well educated. Likewise with a lot of these successful "college dropouts". The reality is by being raised by well educated and financially sound people, you already have a big advantage, let alone when it comes to making early deals using the extended family network. Family networks work so well, you can be a military deserter and still become the president of a large and power country.
You don't need a college education, if you follow the 10,000 hour rule.
I assume you are referring to the idea that it takes 10,000 hours to become a true expert at something. The problem is that in many cases it is irrelevant whether you are an expert or not. What matters is whether there is evidence you are at least competent.
Most people do not end up being tech entrepreneurs, in the same way they don't become international spies for MI6 or top-flight football players. Most people will need to get a normal job somewhere and if you are looking for a reasonably good job, a degree or professional qualification is necessary, either because it is required in the field (eg accountancy, engineering) or because HR will use "has a degree" as a criteria to screen out half the applicants. Now is it possible that one of the people without a degree is actually the cleverest, most hard-working applicant? Yes. But the company is not prepared to quadruple its job candidate search time and costs on the off-chance that an unlikely candidate on paper may be a hidden star in practice.
In general ./ tends to idolize geniuses who single-handedly revolutionize the world through the sheer force of their intellect. That's fine, but genius doesn't scale. The things that can be done by genius alone are limited. To operate on a large scale to provide the goods and services that society wants takes organization and bureaucracy. It's less romantic, but that's the way it is. Negotiating that bureaucracy is just part of life, and today this means a college degree is needed.
Zuckerberg is a douchebag.
Ideally, if you work hard, you will succeed. In reality, if you work hard, it will likely be for SOMEONE ELSE who will use your hard work for their success. This is why your boss drives a better car than you and has a bigger house while you do all the work.
This is a simplistic picture but generally accurate.
So what did we learn from this? If you want to "succeed" (whatever that means) then you have to be more like the people who are already succeeding. If you wish to study, then study those people and do what they have done. And if your conscience gets in your way, then you have two choices -- listen or don't listen. It's a decision you will have to live with either way.
The things Bill Gates has done to the whole world are impressive by any definition. Some people would have a hard time doing that due to issues of conscience while others would have no problems at all. These others are classically identified as sociopaths. Statistics have born out that the most powerful people on the planet are sociopaths as they are willing to do what most people are not, for reasons of conscience. But fear not! There may be some hope for you.
If you are one of those people who believe "if you are too stupid, ignorant or otherwise don't know what I know, then you deserve whatever happens to you" then you are already well on your way to being a sociopath. I know first hand, that there are a lot of people here on Slashdot who feel that way. (I'm sorry, but if you didn't know that truckload of explosives was heading your way while you were sleeping in your home, then you deserve whatever happens to you!)
Personally, I decided long ago, I don't have what it takes to do what "successful" people do... or, as I see it, I have what stops me from doing what it takes. (I can't knowingly make people miserable and call it "just business" as many others seem to be able to do.) I have accepted it and I will just keep working every day, try to save some money and hope I die before I retire.
The program I teach in usually has 100% of the graduates employed within six months of graduating. It takes three years. We're a community college so the tuition is quite low. Many of the students live at home with their parents, so they have cheap living expenses.
The bottom line is that, for some college programs, the investment is pretty safe and pays off.
Remember that the statistics for lifetime earnings take into account the History and English PhDs serving coffee at Starbucks. If you get a good job, your results are much better than average.
I know, in the 21st century, everyone is supposed to be some sort of businessman, and we are supposed to seek returns on anything we spend money on. Really though, people (in theory) go to college to be educated, not just to get vocational training. If you want vocational training -- and there is nothing wrong with that -- then you should go to a trade school, get a 2 year degree, and wind up with the same job you would have had if you spent four years getting a bachelor's.
The sooner the "college is an investment" crowd gets out of our universities, the better.
Palm trees and 8
Since when is "not being a billionaire" the definition of "failure?"
Palm trees and 8
I would also like to see the comparison in lifestyles of the 999 that dropped out and failed to the 1 that stayed in college and failed. For some reason I think those definitions of failed aren't the same.
"yet somehow you are not calling private schools "trash.""
When I said "public schools," I also meant private schools (even though they're not the same, sorry).
"I have met people who are "self taught," and I am sorry to say that in all but a few cases, they lacked certain insights or failed to understand concepts that seem elementary to someone with a more formal education."
Then obviously they didn't teach themselves what they needed to. This doesn't speak for everyone. The concept of self teaching is actually quite efficient if you have the means to do it, and many times (not all, of course, it depends on the person), faster.
"As for homeschooling, I have no problem with that...if you can afford private tutors in each subject you are learning"
There's no need. Willful parents are all you need. If they don't have time for that, then your parents homeschooling you obviously isn't an option.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Rich parents helped Bill Gates more than college. Colour me unsurprised. If someone wants to be like Bill Gates and drop out and be successful, then they should first arrange to have billionaire parents.
This can be somewhat difficult to do, since adoption is rather a buyers' market at that level...
"Sorry, but there are insights that are just not published in books. I used to think that I could teach myself certain subjects, but without the guidance of someone with years of experience, I missed things, even after reading every word of multiple textbooks. Getting by without a good teacher is not something I would expect anyone to be able to do, except for the absolute basics of a given topic."
This is why you need direction. No, this doesn't come from someone with "years of experience," it can come from just about any source. There's all kinds of curriculum and tutorials floating around that can be used. If you follow them in order and do as they say, nothing should be missed. Public schooling also has a curriculum, naturally. Without direction, you really will miss things. You simply can't say that someone that actually has the resources they need (something these people you're speaking of didn't have, obviously) can't learn efficiently.
"Are your parents expert enough in abstract math to teach that to you? How about world history? How about computer science? Again, when you go beyond the absolute basics, a teacher with experience in a given subject is indispensable."
Really? Do you honestly believe that every person that underwent homeschooling and didn't have tutors didn't learn anything? Please. See, this is the part where these great things called "books" and the "internet" come in handy. There is a plentiful amount of information circulating around, and you don't have to be a teacher or a tutor to get it. This is where the "willful" part comes in. If they actually attempt to do a good job of teaching you useful information by studying the material themselves and explaining it, they can succeed.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
It is a safety net which makes sense, really in the grande scale of things and extra year in college should make little difference, it is such a small proportion of our lives. I learnt more in my first year in the real world than the 4 I spent in higher education.
Actually, that's a real problem. Blanket encouragement to everybody to go to college was a big mistake. There's a fair number of people who would be both happier and better off if instead of going to college they picked up an apprenticeship or got a certification of some sort. It's a complete waste of resources to have individuals with a PhD serving coffee at the local coffee shop or waiting tables.
And luck. Never forget luck.
I am sad for all those people who live in a determinist universe where all that happens to you can be explained by hard work and ambition, modulated by the amount of money you started with.
Fact, sometimes things happen to you, good and bad. Fact, these sometimes cannot be offset by any amount of brains and work.
Which is why a civilised society recognises that and helps out those people that ran into an unexpected and impossible to plan for problem. Which is why also, the richer and more advanced society is, the more taxed should be extracted, because a more complex society means also that many more things can go awry, and need to be planned for collectively -- and because more taxes do not affect your lifestyle after you are rich enough.
People saying "this is my money", "I refuse to pay for someone else lifestyle choice", "I provide for my family, why can't they?", are a problem, because they think that given the same circumstances another Bill Gates would happen. Therefore, they think that is they play their cards just right, they will become rich. And if they do become rich (this happens), they think it is purely due to them -- refusing even to acknowledge the importance of living in a society whose infrastructure allowed it. And if they become a significant minority, they will eventually destroy society.
"And, believe it or not, you can still become a tech billionaire later in life even if you're cursed with a PhD." But if you're cursed with a PhD, you're probably also cursed with student debt and years of lost earnings. That makes it harder to get seed money to start up an enterprise.
"Tech entrepreneur Michael Robertson approaches this question slightly differently; here's an analysis he made a few years ago, with the conclusion that the college investment pays off only about half the time."
Robertson compares income for high school versus college graduates, and concludes that a better payoff would come from taking college tuition and investing in stocks (historical ~7% payoff versus 4% public college and 2% private). However, this overlooks things like the amount of effort put in to make that income.
Take my case as an example: With my Master's degree I can teach college part time, make about the U.S. median income on 10 hours of work/week or so, live in New York, and devote most of my time to artistic pursuits. So my income doesn't look much higher, but it's because I've decided that I'm happy with a given level of income, and having satisfied that, don't need to work any more.
Some data to flesh this out: Robertson concludes, over 40 years, graduates of high school make $1.2M, public college $1.8M [http://michaelrobertson.com/archive.php?minute_id=226]. U.S. Census bureau reports hours worked per day: graduate of high school 7.86, college 7.42 [http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2010/tables/10s0625.xls]. So median hourly salary is something like (assume 250 days worked per year) high school $15.30, college $24.11.
U.S. median income is approximately $21,587/year [http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html]. How much do you have to work per year to make that level of income (assume 8 hour days, 5 days/week)? High school graduates 1,411 hours = 176 days = 35 weeks. College graduates 875 hours = 112 days = 22 weeks. The difference would be more stark if I had data on actual days worked per year (i.e., vacation time, etc.)
I agree that income payoff is one factor that people should look at when considering college (along with things like self-fulfillment, reward of intellectual pursuits, networking potential, etc.) At some hyper-inflated level it definitely wouldn't be worth the risk, but I'm doubtful we're at that point yet. Perhaps more a important gauge is overall quality-of-life or satisfaction level (mine, for example, being exponentially higher than if I hadn't gone to college, even though my total income might actually be less).
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
In terms of going with what's there, start with a community college. It's a total waste to piss away more money on the basics in the first two years of college. After a couple of years, go to a state college with a good co-op/intern program. Use the co-op program, do not simply take the classes and get out, get some professional experience on your resume and subsidize the extra cost of state college with your pay.
Exactly. College is so often a poor investment simply because kids pour too much money into it. It's like whining that you lose money on your real estate investments when you pay 10 times what the property is worth.
Going to an inexpensive school and working your way through school, paying the bills as you go in stead of racking up huge loans, will leave you not only with a degree and little or no debt, but it will also give you some valuable life experience and skills that your debt-ridden colleagues will miss.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.