<p>Dilbert creator, Scott Adams, writes:
"I understand why the top students in America study physics, chemistry, calculus and classic literature. The kids in this brainy group are the future professors, scientists, thinkers and engineers who will propel civilization forward. But why do we make B students sit through these same classes? That's like trying to train your cat to do your taxesa waste of time and money. Wouldn't it make more sense to teach B students something useful, like entrepreneurship?"</p>
<p>Having more people formally trained in entrepreneurship is fine. But if they have no deeper education, then they will only be able to open low level businesses, like dry cleaners, house painting, tire shops, or mailbox stores, etc. which is fine also.</p>
<p>For every one person truly pushing the future definition of the civilization, there are hundreds building the prototypes, testing the products, building the products, selling, distributing,supporting, and so on. A whole lot of these people also need to understand the technical fundamentals of these advances to be of any use in the job.</p>
<p>Al McGuire was the basketball coach at Marquette and a long time TV analyst. My recollection was of him saying to spend a year driving a cab in a big city and a year tending bar (after getting a college degree), then you will have a full education.</p>
<p>Coming from a parent whose kid had a B average in HS and is finishing grad school Summa Cum Laude from a top university: HS GPA, more often than not, has very little to do with intelligence and drive.</p>
<p>Im not sure how you teach entrepreneurship - i suspect some of it is personality traits, and some of it is stuff you can only learn in the real world. Certain things useful to entrepreneurs are taught in undergrad business programs. </p>
<p>I suspect the real training ground for entrepreneurs on a college campus is in extra curricular activities.</p>
<p>And I suspect that most of the successful entrepreneurs of the next generation will have majored in something like computer science, not “entrepreneurship”</p>
<p>The world needs all types!
In an ideal world, all these types would know themselves, and in time to apply this to their experiences in higher education.
But self-knowledge does not usually come in the late teens. early twenties.</p>
<p>To me, college is a special incubator: information, knowledge, social mixing, all can happen more “freely” in the ivory tower than in the real world.
Certainly, adding some real world experience somehow (the popularity of internships and gap years attests to his) make a terrific education.</p>
<p>Do you think the creator of Dilbert would have learned so much about himself WITHOUT going to college?</p>
<p>^We also have to remember that many of the people we know best as some of the richest people in the world including Mark Zuckerberg as well as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, never finished college at all…</p>
<p>However, some decades ago (when the wealthy donors were in school), a C grade or GPA was a reasonably respectable grade or GPA. After some decades of grade inflation, a C grade or GPA is probably viewed as a D grade or GPA once was.</p>
<p>"We also have to remember that many of the people we know best as some of the richest people in the world including Mark Zuckerberg as well as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, never finished college at all… "</p>
<p>I wonder though, how many C’s did these guys get in high school? I’m guessing it’s a very round number. And it’s not like they flunked out of college for being poor students.</p>
<p>Add to the list Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, Larry Ellison, Leonard Bosack, Sandy Learner, Andy Bechtolsheim, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, Eric Schmidt, Sergey Brin, Pierre Omidyar, Jay Walker, Ray Dalio or any large hedge fund founder, any Goldman Partner, etc. </p>
<p>Not a lot of C students there either.</p>
<p>‘A’ students work for ‘C’ students? Not usually.</p>
<p>Adams’s essay treats college education as a purchase on a par with a suitcase or a hammer: utility is everything (or nearly so) and there is only one use for the product. Adams is by no means alone (or even unusual) in regarding college in this way, but it is regrettable that he should so readily dismiss the many benefits that students should hope to get from education. And that he should somehow imagine that “B students” have neither a use nor the capacity for thing like art, literature, philosophy, and the sciences.</p>
<p>We don’t want students to limit their educations to the least pragmatic courses they can find. But surely, a world dominated by people with the narrowest possible educations would be a sorry place indeed. And the notion of utility that underlies Adams’s essay is inadequate and mistaken.</p>
<p>My father graduated from CalState LA with a Bachelors in Engineering. He received Cs, mainly in Physics and English. He dropped out a few units prior to receiving his masters, simply because he realized his future in engineering didn’t look too bright. Today, he owns his own business and is making 5-7 times more than his A-student friends.</p>
<p>My uncle graduated from the worst high school in the district. He barely graduated with a D- average. He didn’t go to college. Today, he is an insurance agent and is making more than my father.</p>
<p>I’ve had five Cs throughout my HS career so far. Yet while my classmates were studying for exams, I was selling products- stuffed animals, electronics, rings, etc.</p>
<p>I like being me. I wouldn’t trade my drive, creativity, and intelligence for organizational skills or the ability to work hard in classes I find unnecessary; however, knowing myself, I wouldn’t want the entire world to be like me. This would inevitably cause a world-wide collapse. The world needs A-students, organized students, and hard-working students to keep society in-tact. We need accountants. We need clerical workers. We need professors. We need neurosurgeons (who would read the entire “manual,” so to speak, and not get distracted halfway through the surgery!), and we need engineers.</p>
<p>It seems a bit silly to me that courses in entrepreneurship exist. I feel as though a course like that wouldn’t be worth the money spent on it.</p>