Is it ok if I skip college?

Parents Forum
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<p>Two S’s quit part way through. S2 worked manual labor jobs until he finally decided he could not get what he wanted without the degree. Went back and will graduate when he is 29. He lost almost all of the credits he had completed the first time around and had to repeat the entire 4 years, starting in a community college because the 4 year schools did not trust him to stick it out and do well. A different challenge is emerging now. For undergrads, employers like the young and moldable new undergrads. In interviews he is has to answer why he waited to get his degree and why so many schools. He was really smart too and is now getting A’s in finance and accounting. Age and false starts are still something he has to answer. Grad degrees age is not so much a factor but undergrad it seems to be.</p>

<p>S3 has not gone back. He spent several years in retail and as a waiter. He still is a waiter and bartender but is now in a really good company that is going to send him into management even without the degree. Both are really smart, gifted programs and IB program when in school. </p>

<p>It is not however how smart you are but what you can do. You have not demonstrated that you can do anything yet. So employers look at those who have demonstrated it somehow, and that is often the successful pursuit of the degree. </p>

<p>By all means quit and go out to work. You will find your way eventually.</p>

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And you’ll have to borrow that money from a banker, who you’ll have to persuade that you’re a good risk. And you’ll have to rent a location, and find suppliers, and find customers, all of whom you will have to persuade to do business with you. And, I’m sorry to say, none of these people will do business with you if you have the attitude that you are smarter than them, and that they owe you something. On the bright side, there are some people who will marry you, even if you have that attitude.</p>

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<p>Very good advice! My sister got her college degree at 47. Then she found that she couldn’t get a decent job in her field without a masters…so she’ll be receiving that next weekend…just shy of her 56th birthday. </p>

<p>(Note, however, that while she is also smarter than most college educated people, she has lived her adult life without health insurance, has been chronically impoverished, doesn’t own a car in an area with poor public transportation, has had her utitilities turned off because she didn’t have the money to pay, etc.)</p>

<p>Have you read Nickel and Dimed?[Nickel</a> and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America Summary at WikiSummaries, free book summaries](<a href=“http://www.wikisummaries.org/Nickel_and_Dimed:_On_(Not)_Getting_By_in_America]Nickel”>Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America - WikiSummaries)
One of the things the author says is that while at WalMart, she thought that at some point, management would notice how smart she was. (She has a PhD in cellular biology.) Nope. Didn’t notice, didn’t care.</p>

<p>My son is now done with college - at least for now. He is really really smart, but has Aspergers and other issues. He is a grocery store cashier. He receives lots of compliments and is being given more and more responsibilty. What minimum wage emloyer wouldn’t want a super smart employee…that they can have for $7.50 an hour? Just sayin’ that those without degrees are often taken advantage of in the workplace.</p>

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<p>LOL Hunt…</p>

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<p>Not to stray too far from the topic, but I’ve long thought that most high schools do a great disservice by pretending that everyone will or should go to college. Instead of requiring every high school student to pass physics, it would be more helpful to have a “how to run your own business class” - a bit of finance, tax, accounting, real estate, employment law, etc.</p>

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<p>From my point of view- you like studying, but you just don’t want to go through the college life. How about getting a degree online? Granted, I don’t know anything about it. Not even sure how it works. But if it could mean staying and home and doing what you like, maybe you should look into it?</p>

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<p>I can’t think of the last time I met someone who was past the age of about 30 or 35 without a degree who didn’t regret not going to or not finishing college - regret for either career reasons or self-fulfillment reasons or both.</p>

<p>But hey, Kobe Bryant is doing pretty well, and he never went to college. So knock yourself out. See if the Lakers have any openings.</p>

<p>Seriously, for the OP I recommend he join the military. It’s the best way I know for a young person with no college and no particular job skills to get going in a self-supporting career. Of course, the military is kind of known for making people jump through pointless hoops, but they will likely be very different hoops from the ones you jump through in college.</p>

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<p>If this were my kid, i would tell him exactly what I posted. And it was an option I have offered to 3 of mine, and would have supported. But I would not have supported the kid financially other than the old 3 squares and a cot. Living at this G rated house and having to obey house rules is a pain. For an 18 year old, getting a car is a pain. Not having one is a pain. Getting a job to support self is a pain. You feel left out being around your friends too , if most if not all are college bound, unless you have something specific you are pursuing. A gap year is one thing, but trying to make it at age 18 with no further education goals is another unless you have something solid in mind.</p>

<p>But if someone just doesn’t feel s/he wants to go further in school at this time, take a break, get some perspective, find other things to do, by all means. And if you wait till you are age 24 to start up college, you will be considered independent of your parents in terms of financial aid.</p>

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<p>Really? Because elsewhere you said you had just two years of college, in engineering.</p>

<p>Sort of like when I asked you about wehther you’d seen a professional…you listed a whole lot and just dismissed them. </p>

<p>Obviously so much missing from this story or you are just a bored ■■■■■. </p>

<p>If you aren’t, you obviously aren’t cut out for college. You can blame your poor grades on boredom, bureaucracy, incompetent professors, a system that only rewards ‘hoop jumping’…but the reality is so many others have not had that experience at all. So you might just ask whether this is YOU or if its your college. </p>

<p>Then again it doesn’t matter does it. However much you want to describe yourself as a fast learner, brilliant, and so on…just maybe that isn’t the case, however much you are unable to acknowledge that.</p>

<p>Likewise, you fashion yourself as someone who likes books, likes to learn, wants a real education rather than hoop jumping, but most of your threads point to someone who is entirely pragmatic, just looking for a high paying job with the least amount of work who views college as just another ticket. Someone whose sole focus seems to have been on vocational oriented majors taking intro courses and then decries how pointless it is. Oh, but I should add, who feels ‘lower level’ colleges would be beneath him. </p>

<p>Basically none of it adds up.</p>

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<p>Well, anyway, it’s too late for you to actually “skip college” since you’ve already been going to college.</p>

<p>If you want to stop going to school and go to work? Stop school and go to work. </p>

<p>But, either way, you can’t skip steps,which is what you are really asking. Nobody is going to ask you to come and take over their exciting, cutting edge employment situation just because you happen to like to read books. But, you can go and get a job at Starbucks, or some other retail venture, or if you had a skill set in CS, sometimes you can get a job from an internship…if you are good and hardworking and innovative.</p>

<p>My brother hated high school, and went out west and worked as a manual laborer doing all sorts of things, including fixing fences for Ranchers in Wyoming, ski lift operator, construction, some boat work up in Alaska, and then he bought a bicycle (not a motorcycle), and rode it back into the middle of the country with everything he still owned on his back. He’d been gone for four years or so when he showed up at my back door.</p>

<p>He took a shower, slept for a while, came into my kitchen and asked me to help him apply to colleges. He was ready. Now, he does something he never would have thought he’d be doing back when a desk job sounded like a prison sentence.</p>

<p>But, he’s different than you, maybe. He never asked if he “could” skip college, he never asked anyone for anything for free, he just got in his car and drove west until he found a place that looked like the place where he wanted to be.</p>

<p>You will notice, however, that he eventually came home and started college. You can do whatever you are capapble of doing. But that’s up to you.</p>

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<p>No. It is not okay for you to just skip college. Suck it up. Get back in school and let us hear no more of this nonsense. College is not right for everyone, but it is right for you.</p>

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<p>I am a consumer who is not willing to buy an overrated product. Rather than hop aboard the conformity train, I am stepping back and making an objective assessment. Is it ok to look at it and think “I don’t think I will come out of this better than I came into it, I would rather blaze my own path than become dependent on the system and trust it to take care of me”?</p>

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<p>“Basically none of it adds up.” </p>

<p>oh really? Maybe I can help sort things out for you.</p>

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No, it isn’t OK, because you are more likely to become dependant on somebody else if you continue with that attitude. Blaze your own path how, and to what?</p>

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<p>So go blaze your own path. What’s stopping you? You have a plan, right? You’ve got a killer new product you’re inventing, or a fabulous service you’ve dreamed up, or some talent that you can leverage, or some kind of opportunity lined up to do … what, again, exactly? Feel free to show us the wonders of the path you’re blazing. But until you’re blazing said path, or at least pointing in the direction of the path with the rudiments of a plan to take you down it, the words mean nothing.</p>

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<p>“Blaze your own path how, and to what?”</p>

<p>That’s why I came to ask about. Is it really the case that the only good jobs go to college students and why is that? </p>

<p>I am not going to respond to pizzagirl, she is more of a ■■■■■ than I am, and that is hard to beat.</p>

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<p>Sithra, you sound so much like me when I was younger. You are spot on when you describe college as an over-priced product. However, you can get a degree for far less than you are (probably) currently paying. </p>

<p>How many credits do you have? How much is tuition at your school? How much debt are you in already? How well do you take tests? Have you considered CLEP tests? You could skip the BS and get straight to the point by testing out of as many classes as possible.</p>

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<p>Yeah, I second Pizzagirl, if you’re so convinced that college is nothing but a conformity train, then why don’t you go blaze your own path? It’s a free country and if you think you can become just as educated and financially secure without college, then absolutely, go for it. Try it and see what happens, then you’ll know. There’s no way to predict it with 100% certainty, but it sounds more and more like you’re convincing yourself of something when you’ve already made the decision.</p>

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<p>sithra-- it matters little what you say, and only what you do.</p>

<p>If you are interested in pursuing a life off the beaten path, then quit standing in the middle of the path asking everyone why you have to stay on that path. You don’t.</p>

<p>define “the only good jobs” and then you will have found your path. I suspect you think “the only good jobs” are the ones that go to college grads. I mean, if your greatest skill set is reading and “thinking”, then I don’t know what to tell you. </p>

<p>To me, you sound like you could use a stint of manual labor. Get out of your head for a while. Your ideas aren’t really all that original, yet. You need some experience other than not liking school. Go get a job as a line cook in a restaurant.</p>

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<p>Poet, dissatisfaction with the conventional is the heart of innovation. Sithra seems to have the non-typical outlook of an entrepreneur. Sithra should spend some time studying marketing.</p>