Is it ok if I skip college?

Parents Forum
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<p>I have already tried going to college and ended up hating it. The really weird thing is I love to learn and I love to read all different sorts of books. I would say I am smarter than 90% of college students.</p>

<p>So, I am looking for a little affirmation that I can just skip college and go straight to a decent paying job. I'm not interested in manual work, community college, or a trade school. I still have a chance to go back to a college that would probably guarantee me a job but I want to avoid going back by any means necessary.</p>

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<p>You can skip college if you can find someone who will hire you without a degree. Nobody is going to employ you in an interesting job, for a good wage, just because you’re smart and like to read. You have to offer something the employer needs. Think about what that might be. If you’re willing to start low on the totem pole, you can often work your way up. Alternatively, you could start your own business. Neither of these paths would necessarily be easier or more fun than college, but they would be different.</p>

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<p>Well, have you looked around for work? If you want to work, hit the help-wanteds and try to find a job. If you can find a decent paying job, take it. You can go to college anytime.</p>

<p>I’ve told my kids this - if, at any time, you get a job and want to work, feel free to do so. We’ll pick up any future college bills should you resume later. Or maybe their employer would pick up the tab. You can always go to college. Jobs aren’t always available.</p>

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<p>Sure, you can skip college and go straight to a decent paying job . . . if your dad owns the company. Or you do. Justin Bieber and Miranda Cosgrove don’t have to go to college, either. Otherwise, it might be a little tough. If you are as smart as you think you are, you could probably get into a military service. Some people can support themselves playing poker, or selling drugs.</p>

<p>If you can’t deal with college, why do you think you can deal with work?</p>

<p>Seriously, people can succeed without going to college (and without inherited wealth or a Disney show), but it takes a lot of discipline, and a lot of luck, too, especially getting a toehold on a career. And if things don’t go smoothly, before you develop a superstar reputation in your field, you could have a real problem. Lots of doors are going to be closed that you might wish were open.</p>

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<p>"Nobody is going to employ you in an interesting job, for a good wage, just because you’re smart and like to read. "</p>

<p>But why would somebody hire someone just because that have a piece of paper? Am I the only one who thinks that is one of the stupidest concepts ever invented?</p>

<p>“If you can’t deal with college, why do you think you can deal with work?”</p>

<p>That’s the thing, in all of my school career there hasn’t been one thing I haven’t been able to do if I spent enough time on it. The real problem is just not caring. The reason I don’t want to go back to school isn’t because I can’t get through it, but besides paying for it, I think I’d be too bored to stick to it out and then after all that boredom, the responsibility for going out and finding a job would be placed on my shoulders, only then I’d be ‘certified’ to actually go and look for a job. But even that doesn’t mean much anymore since everybody already has a degree.</p>

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<p>Sithra - How many more threads are you going to start that ask the the question and make the same statements? By now you already should know what the responses here will be. Just make a decision and run with it to the best of your ability.</p>

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<p>UUD, I am asking the same question again but I am desperate for answers and obviously I don’t have them. I have the chance to go back to my school and am very carefully considering my options. I’d probably be able to get a well paying job with a degree from there but I am very unsure about what it’s like to survive without a degree. I’m looking for some more input that will hopefully help me make a better decision.</p>

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<p>You’ve gotten answers on a previous thread; you just don’t like the answers.</p>

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<p>True, if I don’t think an answer has any substance, I just ignore it.</p>

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<p>Write your resume and submit it to monster.com and then look for jobs and submit your resume to the companies that you think you can get in.</p>

<p>Of course many of them will say BS in something required and they will want 1 to 15 years experience, excellent communication skills, etc., etc. And you’ll get frustrated over it all. You don’t need to talk to us about it - just go and show us that we’re all wrong about the world by getting the job that you want.</p>

<p>My daughter is going to apply for a retail sales job at a local pet store. It’s probably a minimum-wage job and there may be competition for the positions but it’s a job that she wants so I assume that she will enjoy the job and do well at it. Would you be happy with something like that?</p>

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<p>Which is a great way to ensure that you will only ever hear what you want to hear. There’s really no point in soliciting others’ opinions, then. Why did you bother?</p>

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<p>This board, for the most part, is not going to give you that affirmation.</p>

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<p>Thank you BCeagle, I think your post has substance. Unfortunately the only thing I can put on my resume is that I attempted to get a bachelors and am currently taking a break.</p>

<p>"Would you be happy with something like that? "</p>

<p>I don’t know…I am pretty confused with my life right now. I am pretty interested in the curriculum I’d be studying at school, but I’m just not sure. I feel like college right now is just the “thing to do” and doesn’t hold much value and even if I go back and get a degree it won’t put me up much higher than I already am. Plus, I am conflicted with how anyone should be viewing college, strictly as an investment or an intellectual pursuit. </p>

<p>Also I am not sure if I would be happy waiting tables or delivering pizzas. I guess I could end up enjoying that. Maybe I’d like it better than being a cubicle worker.</p>

<p>Is there a huge discrepancy in lifestyle comforts between a college grad and a pizza deliverer?</p>

<p>"This board, for the most part, is not going to give you that affirmation. "</p>

<p>Then I will change everybody’s minds about college and attempt to form a mass exodus…</p>

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<p>There are standard resume techniques for a college degree with no experience or some college and no experience. Our son just finished his first semester of grad school but he is looking for a full-time job, internship or coop. He’s perfectly willing to take a break in his schooling and his school supports taking a break for coops. He explains that to employers, either in a cover letter or on the phone in the initial call.</p>

<p>You’re not going to change the minds of most people here. If you think that you’re stubborn, well, we’ve had a lot more practice at it than you have.</p>

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<p>Is life more about jumping through hoops than being smart, would you say?</p>

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<p>The situation is not so much that an employer would hire someone “just because” he had a piece of paper; it is that the employer wouldn’t take the time to interview someone who didn’t meet the minimum job requirements.</p>

<p>That piece of paper represents the fact that the applicant persevered through four years (or so) of college and was able to meet the college’s requirements. For a job for which an observer might think a degree would not be necessary, a college degree provides a screening mechanism.</p>

<p>For my husband’s first job out of graduate school, the employer received 500 resumes. Whittling down the applications by discarding those that didn’t meet the requirements probably gave the employer a reasonable number to sort through. I expect that the fact my husband had an MBA gave him an advantage over those with just a bachelor’s degree, and those without even that weren’t even considered.</p>

<p>My former brother-in-law was smart but didn’t go to college and found a well-paying job soon after high school. His strategy worked until he lost that job. He declined my parent’s offer to pay for him to go to college. The highest-paying job he found in the 20 years since then, with only a high school degree, paid about $22,000. He was unemployed for many years but finally found part-time work as a school bus driver. He survives on that job and the alimony my sister has to pay him. (For this strategy to work, you’ll need to find a continuously-employed spouse with a degree.)</p>

<p>My other sister hated college. She found a job she really liked and completed college in a relevant major at night. Finding a relevant major made the difference for her, as she appreciated the practical nature of her studies and could apply what she was learning right away.</p>

<p>Good luck to you.</p>

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<p>I think what you have to understand Sithra, is that you can’t go straight from high school to successful independent self supporting and vocationally stimulated adult all in one leap. You don’t have to go to college to do it either, but for many people who are fortunate enough to go to college it makes it easier to be a few of them at least. But to get to where you want to be, there are intermediate steps. You might consider it hoop jumping, but really it’s probably more like growing and maturing. You’ve only just begun college, you can’t possibly predict from where you are now what it will teach you, both inside and outside of the classroom, and how it may not just prepare you for the work place, but how it will help shape you into the person you’re going to be for at least the next step down your long journey towards the adult you’re going to become. </p>

<p>There are lots of ways to walk that path though. College doesn’t have to be the only one, but it sounds like that for the kinds of things you want to do, it’s probably the best. And look at it this way, it’s a privilege and an honor for you to live in a country and be financially sound enough where you have the luxury of choosing between college and not college. You’re very fortunate, even among your fellow citizens, and ridiculously fortunate when compared to the rest of the world. I would encourage you not to squander this opportunity when you’ve just barely begun to explore it. </p>

<p>Now as for those hoops: No matter what you do in life, even if you skip college and go right into the workforce…no, actually, ESPECIALLY if you skip college and go right into the work force, you’re going to have to jump through some hoops. The only way to avoid jumping through hoops is if you go live in a Walden type situation in the woods, completely independent from the modern workforce. Even if you are a self employed artist/novelist/writer/thinker/inventor, there will be some hoop jumping. </p>

<p>Think about all those very successful people who either never went to or didn’t finish college. Don’t you think Bill Gates had to jump through hoops before he could become a billionaire (filing for a patent is basically one big exercise in hoop jumping, and he’s got a few. Ditto with taking a company public)? </p>

<p>If you’re not ready to jump through some hoops, if that’s your biggest argument, then it sounds like you need some more time to grow and mature and get some more life experience. You won’t be able to get a good job of the kind you’re probably envisioning (intellectually stimulating, non-manual labor), unless you have the fortune to be employed in a bookstore or an art gallery maybe (though that involves hoop jumping like applications, interviews, etc. And pays very little). But maybe taking some time to live as an adult will help you better understand why people encourage you to go to college and the kinds of opportunities it can bring you.</p>

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<p>Schokolade, thanks you taking the time to write your answer.</p>

<p>I want to comment on-</p>

<p>First, the part about studying something relevant, practical and interesting. Do you think that would cause my to dislike college and think it was a waste? I was a former engineering major and, by the way, I hate math. Do you think that is what made me devalue the “piece of paper”? Let me re-frame my question…is it necessary to get a degree in business administration if I want to have a career in finance or marketing? Would that make me much more likely to get a job in one of those, even if I majored in general business?</p>

<p>Second, the part about one applicant being accepted from five hundred, wouldn’t it be best to network and try to be in the “in” group, instead of jumping all these hoops and hoping to be picked out of thousands of applicants?</p>

<p>I don’t know, I guess those are stupid questions, but that’s where I am.</p>

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<p>S&P, thank you too so much for writing all that, I really take it to heart that you took the time to write that.</p>

<p>“I think what you have to understand Sithra, is that you can’t go straight from high school to successful independent self supporting and vocationally stimulated adult all in one leap.”</p>

<p>I don’t know, I am thinking too much about it. I want to know where I am going, what is going to happen in the future and predict everything. I know it will take a while to get to a “good” job, but is it weird to think college is a detour to the destination?</p>

<p>It’s theoretically difficult for me to accept the idea of learning a bunch of information- even though I like to learn- and the expecting to be “employable” after that. The reason is because information by itself I don’t believe is valuable. All of the information that can be learned in college is not valuable because it can be learned by anyone with an internet connection. I think that is why I feel like it is a waste of time and money and jumping through hoops. And I think subconsciously when I was at college I was thinking “Ok, I have learned this, but now what?”.</p>

<p>And this is really the bottom line…what happens if everyone goes to college? What if everybody learned the same information? All of a sudden college would be become worthless and no one would go anymore. So it ends up becoming an elitist institution where the elitists claim I am better than you are when in reality they just paid a whole bunch for information you can find on the internet.</p>

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<p>“If you’re not ready to jump through some hoops, if that’s your biggest argument, then it sounds like you need some more time to grow and mature and get some more life experience.”</p>

<p>Well, actually, I was willing at first to jump through hoops. But then I got the feeling that the ones who were really successful weren’t the ones who followed all the rules and colored in between the lines. Maybe at this point I am wanting to try something different rather being dependent on the system and expecting it to take care of me.</p>

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<p>I guess im the only one who thinks college is a waste. ima go back to my cave, then.</p>