<p>The part I find silly is the suggestion that entrepreneurship is somehow less valuable then liberal arts or even applied sciences, and that the smartest people should focus on academia while the proverbial “B students” run the businesses. I am a focused, intelligent, and driven “A” student myself, but my life’s dream is the independence, freedom, and risk involved with owning your own business. I will be applying to many of the nations top school, as a business major, with the full intention of becoming a well trained and well rounded entrepreneur. To somehow suggest that being Warren Buffet is less desirable or less noble then being Steven Hawking seems a bit narrow minded to me. Feel free to dispute me if you wish because I love a good debate. but I think that some “A” students are needed in the “real world” and many “B” students benefit greatly from a well rounded education.</p>
<p>I agree that students need to think about job and career implications ! I’ve got a nephew who is interested in the theater and I"m glad that he is working out a pragmatic plan for a ‘day job career’. It would also be foolish, for example, to take on a mucking huge debt to get a degree with very limited and/or low paying job potential.
The problem, I think, comes from a combination of factors - when our current basic system, with it’s emphasis on a rounded education, was being built, college really was only for a small percentage of the population. It was not the primary path to a job for the vast majority. It was expensive, but there were also no loan programs, so students might be broke and might work a lot , but there was no crushing debt as there can be today. Families might save, but they didn’t take out second mortgages. So, although the roundedness of education, although a luxury, was not a foolish one.
Now, things are different. College is far more commonly seen as a requirement for a ‘decent’ job. College costs are relatively higher. College loans exist. So, college is viewed, by some, in a far more pragmatic way. At the same time, many have an idealized view of college as a crucial ‘experience’. And, because there was a drop in the college-going population a couple of decades ago, a lot of colleges have improved their general appeal with luxuries once unheard-of.
It all adds up to a big problem. For those who can still afford it (a population probably like the college-going population of the turn of the century), the art history and language and such are still an affordable luxury. For the rest, such things may not be affordable or desirable.
I think there may be a coming split-off - some sort of more pragmatic degree which takes only three years and skips the luxuries (a bit like the English model) and the old ‘rounded’ four year degree.</p>
<p>They don’t teach entrepreneurship in college. If they did, academic intellectuals would be out of a job. Students would drop out, create their own businesses, and be productive.</p>
<p>How can a student learn how to run their own business or establish themselves in some field through a college education when a majority of the people teaching them never did it themselves?</p>
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<p>Point taken, but at the same time, aren’t you saying that the only doctors who can treat cancer are those who have beaten it?</p>
<p>fabrizio,</p>
<p>Good question, but no, I am not saying that. The medical sector is a much different animal than your traditional business. It does not suffer from the same market pressures. If it did, we would see thousands of unemployed doctors due to a “broken product” - sick or dead patients.</p>
<p>But to use your analogy, doctors do not “teach” cancer patients to feel better. They put the knowledge and experience they have gained in their field to use - they create a product - a healthy patient. (As would an entrepreneur)</p>
<p>Most college professors, not all, but most never left the confines of the classroom. From pre-school to post-graduate school they have been raised in a system that teaches the status quo. They were the best at multiple choice tests, writing in journals nobody reads, and spewing to their students what they were taught for 12+ years but using a more expensive “updated” textbook.</p>
<p>This is not an attack on anyone who wants to enter or is in the education industry. I was a signature away from entering a PhD program but I decided to start businesses for myself. Once all my business goals are reached then I will volunteer to teach kids as an adjunct in a community college.</p>
<p>This is an interesting topic. Thanks to this thread, I may write an article in the next day or two on this topic. I am glad I found this forum.</p>