Be a College Dropout
Rob Long ·
Aug 29, 2011 at 3:03pm
To celebrate the College Feed's first day, I'd like to ask a question:
Steve Jobs, the legendary impressario of Apple, is a college dropout. So are Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Michael Dell.
They all left college to pursue something -- Gates, Zuckerberg, and Dell has businesses they were passionate about; Jobs just wanted to bum around like a hippie. It would be hard to make the case that any of them made a mistake.
So, a question for the newly installed members and contributors on the College Feed: what would you drop out of college for?
And why haven't you?
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Oct '10
Re: Be a College Dropout
My field (computer graphics) isn't as reliant on college degrees as others (that's why I chose it; my health was always too poor to make college work).
Feb '11
Re: Be a College Dropout
That's 4 out of how many millions? So what are the odds?
Re: Be a College Dropout
I went to college because I wanted to gain the technical know-how, credentials, and quantitative ability that would enable me to start to innovate, help create useful products, and design and analyze complex engineering systems. I graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering and am now coterming. While college is, as has been pointed out,not necessary to innovate in the high tech startup world, a good technical education--which is undoubtedly expensive--returns the investment many times over and is pretty powerful both in opening doors and in cultivating useful skills. It is also relatively free from political indoctrination and nonsensical curricula. Given the chance, I would do it exactly this way all over again.
Jul '10
Re: Be a College Dropout
As a history major, I nearly did. (i'm in the senior year now). I was going to drop out my first semester of freshman year, but contracted with the Army at the 11th hour for ROTC. It's a necessary evil, as I wanted to go into the Infantry anyway, and will do so as an officer. I have been fortunate to keep my summer job as a house painter all 4 years, a lucrative career that taught me far more about life than professors.
Jun '10
Re: Be a College Dropout
I'll add two to your list: Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.
Both have only one semester of college under their belt. Limbaugh was bored to death, and Beck just ran out of tuition money. Both own their own media companies today.
Jun '10
Re: Be a College Dropout
A decent job that paid about 35,000 a year and had decent health benefits. Preferably, the job would provide tuition assistance for night classes so I could advance into another field.
Out of 50 applications submitted this summer, none have presented such an opportunity. In this country, such jobs are becoming an endangered species and B.S. or B.A.'s are little help .
May '11
Re: Be a College Dropout
Living in Utah I'm a sucker for a multi-level marketing job. When I dropped out of college I did join a Mormon funk band. It was a band with all Mormons who played funk. It wasn't the music in the style of Parliament with verses inspired from the Book of Mormon of Joseph Smith. Just to be clear.
Oct '10
Re: Be a College Dropout
etoiledunord: I'll add two to your list: Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.
Both have only one semester of college under their belt. Limbaugh was bored to death, and Beck just ran out of tuition money. Both own their own media companies today. · Aug 29 at 3:44pm
Add this as well. The folks that founded SeaGate Tech. dropped out and lived in the hills of Scotts Valley, Ca. prior to emerging with a plan. Powells Books and Nike both began by a guy selling either shoes or books out of the back of a station wagon. Speaks volumes.
May '11
Re: Be a College Dropout
If you are a passionate entrepreneur like Gates and Zuckerberg then by all means drop out. There are some jobs however that you cannot do without college. I'm studying at my local community college in order to get into nursing school. I do think however that there are a lot of American in college right now that should be there. Degrees like Peace studies make me scratch my head. I think the country would be better off if more of us went into more apprenticeships and trades rather than higher learning that wastes peoples time and creates six figure debt.
May '11
Re: Be a College Dropout
Couldn't agree more. I read somewhere (not great documentation on my part) as a country we owe over a trillion dollars in student loans.
Dec '10
Re: Be a College Dropout
Don't forget the Thiel Foundation, which pays you to drop out.
Then again, maybe Peter Thiel doesn't want the competition, as he went to college.
Jun '10
Re: Be a College Dropout
With the dot.com bust, about a decade ago, a lot of smart people became corporate dropouts (their employers went broke, or downsized, and they got laid off) and for many of those people, it was the best thing that ever happened to them. They started their own companies, well aware of what NOT to do, and they succeeded.
Apr '11
Re: Be a College Dropout
Let's add a few more....I'll begin with Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, and Abraham Lincoln....Shall I continue?
Most entrepreneurs throughout history did not attend college. College is designed to train people to work for someone. Entrepreneurs create jobs.....College students fill them.
Dec '10
Re: Be a College Dropout
But wait! You can have both!
Immediately after high school I went to college, and in a mere three semesters, I failed so completely that my parents laughed in my face when I asked for the next semester's tuition.
Disappointingly, by quitting college I did not become fabulously well to do.
Years later I enrolled in summer school with the goal of earning an engineering degree because I realized that I worked for idiots who's sole redeeming quality was that they had engineering degrees.
I paid my own way for the most part, and got my employers to kick in (many evil corporations have educational assistance).
Many years after that, degree in hand, I'm still not fabulously well to do. I am happy to say that my efforts redeemed me in my parent's eyes. And, surprisingly, it gave me more than a little respect for those idiots.
Apr '11
Re: Be a College Dropout
The trick is getting hired at present-day Apple, Microsoft, et al without a degree.
Apr '11
Re: Be a College Dropout
The trick is creating the next Apple or Microsoft.
Feb '11
Re: Be a College Dropout
It becomes the question of what you want to do with your life. Are you a natural and driven entrepreneur type? If so, you are better off not going to college. Are you leaning toward technical fields that require base knowledge like engineering, accounting or other fields in science, then you probably should attend college. I think it becomes very expensive and not to mention wasteful to those students who have not clue or aptitude for a discipline. Those types of individuals are the ones who should avoid going to college right after high school. Then there are those who lament and say "but college is about learning and broadening your horizons, etc" The reality is in this world is that unless you are going to create/run your own business you better be wise in what you choose as a college major. It basically acts like a screening tool for non-trade organizations. It has become even more so since the courts prohibited the use of various tests that were used to determine the aptitude of applicants.
Sep '10
Re: Be a College Dropout
Boots on the Table
The trick is creating the next Apple or Microsoft. · Aug 29 at 7:16pm
True--and if you're like Steve Jobs (creative, good salesman) it really helps to hitch your wagon to a electronics hardware genius like Steve Wozniak, who was the true brain behind the Apple I and Apple II. If you meet someone like that, it could be worth dropping out of school to start something with them.
Jun '10
Re: Be a College Dropout
If a 22 year old were to invest the lump sum of $100,000 they would have spent on 4 years at a state college and add $300 per month for 28 years. They can retire at 50 with over $2,000,000 assuming a 10% return. At 8% they retire with a close to $1,200,000. These are not outrageous returns for well balanced funds over time. Obviously many people will spend a lot more than 100k. Conversely, leaving college with $100,000 in debt and adding a car payment and a couple of kids virtually guarantees financial struggles well into middle age. On the other hand...
It is ironic that as the degrees awarded have become devalued by lower standards, impersonal hiring practices and standards have made upward mobility difficult for those without a punched ticket. And college is terrific for networking. What of ideas, essays, books, plays, concerts, art exhibits, cramming, parties, spectator sports, intramural sports who cares about retirement right?
Re: Be a College Dropout
I think it's dangerous to point to these outliers like Gates and Zuckerberg as if they are just like the rest of us and lucked into a good idea. They are extraordinary. In Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers" he looks at Gates, a kid so obsessed with computers he begged his way into computer labs at 14 and never left. He put in Gladwell's 10,000 hours of practice and then stumbled onto someone else's idea (DOS), bought it for a nickel and exploited the hell out of it. Zuckerberg is a similar story. Not to take away the drive and brilliance of these guys, but they also had to be born at the right time in history to become who they are, according to Gladwell.
Personally, I viewed college as trade school. I learned to DO something, not just about something. Write. I interned. I hustled news articles for local rags by the inch. College is also a safe place to try and fail. But sometimes you don't...Nike wasn't just some guy selling shoes out of the back of a truck, but the result of Phil Knight's experience as a Stanford MBA.