<p>..."I'm a bad influence. That's why I was invited to speak at your graduation. If I had spoken at your orientation, fewer of you might be here today."</p>
<p>What would you say to your DS or DD if they wanted to (a la Bill Gates) leave school before finishing? Would there ever be a justification in your mind for leaving before graduating? Or, is it a black and white answer: No, no and no.</p>
<p>With the amount of money and connections his family had, the degree would have hardly mattered unless he wanted to go into law or medicine or some such. I can't even imagine myself being in that position, so it would be hard to comment.</p>
<p>In my mind, the reason to get a degree is to obtain an education, not to make a certain amount of money or reach a certain station in life. It'd be an interesting message if Bill Gates decided to go back and complete the degree!</p>
<p>A college education was always a given for our kids. It mattered not what our financial situation is or our connections. Providing them with an education best suited to their individual needs and desires is probably the best gift we can ever give them. </p>
<p>I think Bill Gates' situation when he left school is not the best example to use in a discussion of this sort, as he had a very specific and definite direction for his life. Most kids who contemplate leaving school, do not. Could there be a situation where leaving before graduation was possibly the right thing to do? Sure, but, again, that's probably a rarity.</p>
<p>Let's see, Columbia's Lou Gehrig, Cornell's Kurt Vonnegut, Dartmouth's Robert Frost, Princeton's F. Scott Fitzgerald, NYU's Allen Koningsberg [Woody Allen], Reed's Steve Jobs, Wisconsin's Frank Lloyd Wright, Syracuse's Donald Newhouse, Texas's David Geffen and Donald Dell, and CCNY's Ralph Lifschitz [Lauren].</p>
<p>Lots of different reasons, but usually athletics, a great business idea (and concomitant family money) or overarching genius. In the absence of one of those categories, perhaps best to graduate with the rest of us schlubs.</p>
<p>Not to mention Harvard's more recent dropout, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook.<br>
College provides a structured environment for learning. But it is not the only setting where learning occurs. I am confident that Bill Gates learned a lot more outside Harvard than he did while there, and in fields not related to computers.<br>
He did not need the credentialling that comes with a college diploma.</p>
<p>Well, Rivers Cuomo finally finished his degree at Harvard despite having been a sucessful rock star for many years. So it's not too late, Bill. Come on back and finish up and graduate. I'm sure Harvard would take you back.</p>
<p>Did anyone see the mediated discussion between Gates and Jobs last week? It is online, for anyone interested.</p>
<p>Jobs was much better spoken than Gates. In fact, I thought Gates was poorly spoken. He is right - If I had seen him at orientation, I wouldn't have come again to see him at graduation.</p>
<p>Although I'd be a bit concerned if my son quit school before finishing, I would support his decision. After all, his father did. He quit after his second year and went to work rigging sailboats (hardly the fast track to fame and fortune). He didn't have a real plan, nor a trust fund to back up a poor choice. But he knew he wasn't being productive, and needed a change.
After a few years outside of school, he went back with renewed vigor. He finished in one year and received a full fellowship to Princeton's graduate program in history. </p>
<p>I'd have to trust my kid - and knowing my son, I think he would go back at some point even if he left for a while. Pressuring someone to stay in school when they really don't want to be there doesn't makes sense.</p>
<p>Did anyone see TIME's article on Gates' commencement speech? I thought it was interesting... but gosh this guy gets so bored easily... TIME used a metaphor of Gates 1.0, Gates 2.0, and now Gates 3.0 (Philanathropy). I felt like this guy was wayyyy too much and he's, what, barely 50? </p>
<p>He's a totally overrrated genius. He actually makes Steve Jobs look like an average guy.</p>
<p>But with that quote in the OP's post, I agree... it takes a special person to be willing to drop out of college and actually make something out of themselves. It's a huge risk.</p>
<p>" So it's not too late, Bill. Come on back and finish up and graduate. I'm sure Harvard would take you back."</p>
<p>I think he'd do better at Evergreen.</p>
<p>Really marite? I have a budding entremprenuer and I am pressing him to study at university for four years--and not in his field of interest. Why? First, he doesn't need much instruction in that field and he certainly doesn't need more 'credentials'. More importantly, he needs to go to uni because his intellect is unformed. It's very sophisticated for eighteen but it's not nearly developed. If he doesn't take a few years to ponder history and literature at a greater depth--his intellect is unlikely to progress past it's current point. </p>
<p>Realistically, entreprenuers have zero time to ponder anything but the invention and business at hand. That's what I've seen among entreprenuers and Fortune 200 CEOs. Heard much literature being discussed among Fortune 200 CEOs? Not ever, in fact. Frankly, they don't have the time or the culture.</p>
<p>For me, the point of going to uni is not to learn how to make money. If that's why Gates went to Harvard, then yes, he made a great decision to leave.</p>
<p>If the point of going to uni is to deepen one's intellectual perspective, then Gates made a mistake--a mistake which can perhaps be seen in the rapacious development of his company. True, he is making up for some of that rapaciousness with his new philanthropy but much of the brilliant giving is inspired and led by his university-educated father and wife.</p>
<p>Finally, Gates and Zuckerman were always going to be hugely wealthy successful men. Was it necessary to rush the start of that journey?</p>
<p>Not for me. There is plenty of time to make money, in my opinion. There is precious little time to read history and literature in depth.</p>
<p>He probably went to H. because dad went there, and they had lots of money (and probably contributed a big pile of it.) But that wouldn't be a good enough reason for him to stay.</p>
<p>Glad he opened up a place for someone who could better appreciate it.</p>
<p>"Well, Rivers Cuomo finally finished his degree at Harvard"</p>
<p>So did Elisabeth Shue, something like 15 years after she left for Hollywood. She walked at Commencement, too.</p>
<p>I applaud Cheers for the clear thinking - university (at least on the liberal arts side) is for learning and reading and thinking. I think that I get confused between the college education for the piece of paper's sake (i.e. career, resume, job seeking necessity) and the college education for learning sake. On the other hand (as I confuse myself even more), if learning is what the four years are all about - surely a bright student who can gain entrance to a good university - can avail him or herself of all the learning to be done in a library, bookstore, internet etc. The community may be missing - but with the internet and the easy access to list serves and chat rooms (think CC), a community (even tho virtual) can be created. Do we really need universities? If so, why? Please don't mistake my questions for knowing answers - these are not rhetorical questions, they are real. I'm engaged in a search for answers. Thanks to all of you out there.</p>
<p>Schools and universities are great for educating students in large numbers and providing structure to learning. But they are not the only way or the only time individuals can learn as homeschoolers and as life-long learners can attest.
I don't know about Bill Gates and the computer field when he dropped out of Harvard, but I know that Zuckerberg needed to seize the moment. In fact, two other Harvard students spent the following year claiming that he'd stolen their techie from them. Had he finished his senior year, they might have been the one behind Facebook, not he. 'Should he have, anyway? What's a couple of billions, after all?
I'm sure that Zuckerberg can hire himself all the profs he wants to make up for the 8 courses he lacked for graduation. I have some techie friends who lament they did not take enough humanities courses while in college. They are doing something about it. Some have joined history book clubs. A couple in their 40s who only listened to rock music when I first knew them have taken opera classes and have become super-knowledgeable.
In fact, I'm finding that people who like to dig into something very deeply, even to the point of dropping out in order to pursue their obsession, will dig equally deeply into another field of enquiry when moved. I expect this is what happened with Gates. </p>
<p>It's not college or absymal ignorance. It's learning in a different setting, and perhaps different things than one would have or did in college.</p>
<p>Reasons for leaving college are individual and varied. It is a gnawing sense that college is not the right thing at the time, and that either something better beckons (perhaps entrepreneurial, creative, or athletic) or college itself has become a counterproductive experience. In the later cases, sometimes it is a need to experience the world, sometimes to grow up, or sometimes to work out emotional and personal issues. It seems Gates parents were supportive of his decision to leave school. I really applaud them and any parent who does that. While we, as parents, may want to encourage our children to stay in school and obtain an education and degree, our children's reasons for leaving are their own, and I believe we should support it. Hopefully, if and when, they are ready to go back to school, they will have found a deeper sense of purpose in themselves, and take full advantage of the college education.</p>
<p>By the way, dropping out of Harvard to follow one's internal compass is nothing new. In high school, I read Richard Dana's "Two Years Before the Mast" which recounts a Harvard dropout's own account about sailing on ships around the world, including circumnavigating Cape Horn in the 1830s. He had quite an adventure!</p>
<p>Autodidacts can learn what they need, but many become solipsistic. Being in a community of intellectual equals allows us to subject our ideas to the scrutiny of others, which can be useful and make us less bull-headed in that we learn that others also have good ideas. Since I've never talked tto Bill Gates I can't judge whether or not he needed this refinement or not. His remarks make me think that maybe he did since their effect could only be to make people feel bad.</p>
<p>And you do not think that Bill Gates did not subject his ideas to the scrutiny of others? In that case he is even more of a genius than I thought he was. Microsoft all on his own (whatever we may think of it). The Bill Gates Foundation also all his own! They are worth any number of BAs!
Now iif college is a place to learn good manners, there are finishing schools in Switzerland still.</p>