Is it ok if I skip college?

Parents Forum
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<p>So far no one has pointed out any career path except entrepreneur where you can have a really successful career without some kind of additional schooling. People don’t pay you to just… be. They pay you for what you produce, what you add, and what they can expect you to add in the future (if they are an employer). I haven’t heard you say one thing about a skill, idea, or product you can produce with your current level of education. </p>

<p>So if you don’t have a good idea (yet), go back to school and get some business-related skills. Go to work for a few years in an industry that interests you and look for a good opportunity to strike out on your own. You will then have some skills and a bit of experience to build on.</p>

<p>If this product is so “overpriced”, why don’t you stop posting and go get a good job without it? You remind me of my kids (and myself) at about the age of 13. Very resistant to the idea that adult chores and activities are inevitable, and hanging onto hope until the last minute that success can be achieved without hard work (which is sometimes boring, or certainly not what any of us would prefer to do at that moment).</p>

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<p>Really Dan? Okay.</p>

<p>However, I’ve known, quite well, I might add, including my brother’s story above, many who were true individuals. Some went to college and some did not. Some have been successful by the measure of “a good job” and one created an entire industry. But, none of them bemoaned the price of a “consumer product.” ALL of them were far too busy DOING things to be concerned with anything they weren’t actually interested in. </p>

<p>The defining feature of the successful entrepenuer is impatience with inaction. Where’s the action?</p>

<p>Also, most entrepenuers, don’t set out to be “entrepenuers.” They just solve the problems in front of them, working many, many hours, and kind of end up standing there with a business they created by accident. Then, they figure out the structure of how to make it work. Have you ever seen an entrepenuer who delegates well? There’s a reason these two qualities are pretty antithetical.</p>

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<p>What difference does it make if the answer is yes versus if the answer is no?</p>

<p>What action will you take if the answer is yes, and what action will you take if the answer is no? If the two actions are the same, then it doesn’t matter.</p>

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<p>Here’s a career path: find an open source project with a lot of users. Volunteer to test, develop, answer user questions in forums, do language translations, file bugs, etc. Get better and better at it and maybe someone will offer you contract work or a full-time position because you are an expert on the product.</p>

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<p>This is a good description of a workaholic, not an entrepreneur. It is wise not to confuse activity with productivity. </p>

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<p>Sorry, I just don’t agree with this at all. Economist Israel Kirzner described an entrepreneur as someone who sees $100 bills floating in the gutter that no one else has bothered to notice. The key to entrepreneurship is your outlook, not your investment of time. We’re all limited to 168 hours each week. </p>

<p>I don’t mean to suggest this kid is about to launch a hyper successful business, just that he has a distaste for the conventional. This could lead him to seek out other opportunities, and become richer for it.</p>

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<p>Yes.</p>

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<p>hmm … I think you’re both right to some degree.</p>

<p>There are examples where someone set out to start a business, any business, to make it big … Staples was started by an entrapenuer who picked office supplies as an opportunity … not because of any past experience or passion … great call on his part.</p>

<p>However, this is a fairly atypical. The original comment is more typical … individuals who are involved in an area, often about which they are passionate, and then when a market opportunity presents itself they grab the chance (think Bill Gates). I collect sports memorabolia and eventually developed a relationship with two of the biggest baseball card dealers in the US … both were selling cards at local shows and out of their home office when the baseball card market took off in the 80s; they saw the opportunity and grew they hobby/second job activity into a huge business. A couple additional comments … first, there were hundreds if not thousands of baseball card sllers when the market took off and these two guys were one of just a handful that siezed the opportunity when it presented itself and developed nationwide businesss (I also wonder how they fared then the market tanked) … second, I’ve never asked but I bet they caught flak from some among their families and their friends for being geeks and childish for selling baseball cards when it was a small time activity but stuck to what they loved and eventually grew their passion into BIG businesses.</p>

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This is part f the problem you may have had in college and certainly in these threads - you’re behaving closed-minded. You started this thread to look for input but really you don’t want any input other than confirmation of your pre-conceived ideas. I’ve read a lot of ‘pizzagirl’s’ posts on a lot of subjects on cc and I enjoy them because they’re usually quite to the point and she doesn’t mind telling it like she sees it and her perspective is one that should be read with consideration. If you decide to be more open minded or at least polite enough to read the input you requested that people were gracious enough to use their time to respond to then go back and read her posts and you’ll find there’s some value in them. The same is true for all the other responses here.</p>

<p>The problem is, when someone keeps asking the same questions but doesn’t pay any attention to the answers, and when they come across as someone who basically wants something for nothing and is unwilling to put effort into attaining their goals, then they come across as an ‘entitled whiner’ to put it bluntly.</p>

<p>Not that you should need it but I’ll summarize the responses - the same ones you’ll get regardless of how many times you repeat your threads - </p>

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<li><p>It makes the most sense to finish college, get your degree, and then get a job that leverages the degree. This is regardless of whether or not you think the degree should be necessary. It is what it is.</p></li>
<li><p>If you don’t get the degree you’ll have more difficulty in obtaining higher level jobs. It’s not impossible - just difficult. But sometimes one is in the right place at the right time or is very lucky and they manage to slip into a position that’s good despite not having the degree. For many who manage this, they’re doing it later in life after they’ve worked at a lower level for more years than they’d have liked.</p></li>
<li><p>If you don’t want to go to college then don’t go. That’s your choice. If you want to just get a job and see if you can be successful (according to whatever definition you choose to use for that) then go ahead and give it a try.</p></li>
<li><p>If you just keep whining about the topic and not doing anything about it, either going to college or getting a job, then you won’t get anywhere and will only annoy those around you.</p></li>
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No, he really doesn’t. He has the typical outlook of the smart but lazy guy who thinks other people are wasting his time and holding him back. Unless he gets over that, he won’t be blazing any path except the one to the relief office. He comes here for answers: that’s the answer, like it or not.</p>

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<p>The fact is people want to make the best of their situation and that’s what I am doing in this thread. I making a cost benefit analysis of my potential options. I carefully read each and every post and some posts I ignore, but most of them I read carefully and try to absorb them.</p>

<p>It may sound like whining to you UCLAdad, but I feel I am making a very objective decision and weighing my options. Thank you for your critical analysis, but I am not going to go to college “just because you say so”</p>

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<p>For what it worth, there are some folks who skipped college and made it. i am not talking about 20-30 years ago. The S of my friend quit a good college and did sales at a retail shop, worked on a couple of start-ups, and then working at a software company raking in 50k/yr. </p>

<p>May be this is what you are looking for, OP?</p>

<p>The guy is very smart and determined to make it big without a degree. We shall see what happens down the road.</p>

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<p>I think most successful entrepreneurs base their work in a very deep kind of common sense-- they understand their markets, they find a need and deliver something that fills it. They don’t, for instance, spend their time asserting to posters on a college discussion board that college isn’t important. What would be the point? </p>

<p>I mean, by all means, skip college if that’s what you want to do. You certainly don’t need validation from a bunch of people you don’t know, especially not people who have come together particularly because they place a high value on education.</p>

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<p>Sithra, you want a good job without a college degree. Fine, several people have told you it is difficult but not impossible, especially if you have special skills or abilities. So if you want more information on what type of jobs you might be able to get, you’re going to have to say what sort of skills you have. Can you program? Can you convince people? What can you make and build? What languages do you speak? Basically, what are you good enough at that someone would want to pay you money to do it?</p>

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Most people on this thread, including me, aren’t saying that. The bottom line is - do what you want. There’s no point to going to college if you won’t put effort into it - that’d be a waste of time and money as you know. If you don’t want to go to college then do something else, work hard at it, and you might find a way to succeed as a result.</p>

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<p>There are lots of folks who will do just fine in college, who really arent ready at 18. For them it might make some sense to spend some time in the real world first - they can then decide if they want college as a path to the corp ladder, to something else, or not at all.</p>

<p>Its kinda sucky that its so hard to find an “exploring time” job, right now, but it is what it is.</p>

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<p>Sithra</p>

<p>You are most definitely a ■■■■■. You’ve started at least 3 threads on the same topic, you come and stir the pot…and seem to actually absorb all of about ZERO from all the feedback, insights, opinions you’ve been given so far. </p>

<p>You do not have to accept any of the feedback or agree with anyone, but really, if one goes back and reads all of your comments and questions…you haven’t acquired anything from anything anyone has written so far. Nada. </p>

<p>Absolutely no learning or growth going on here whatsoever. No intellectual curiosity or debate to push to a deeper understanding. Nada. All this nothingness in response, combined with lots of contradictions, and the fact that you’ve shared only vague and inconsistent generalities about yourself…well this is just ■■■■■■■■. </p>

<p>Stop wasting peoples’ time. And let me just add this (because I know you are ■■■■■ now, I’m not worried about being so blunt): I haven’t heard one thing from your fake self that suggests you could make it without college. Odds are in favor of those with college, and not in favor of those without. Those that beat odds, that carve their own creative path, walk to the beat of their own drummers and/or are entrepreneurs, are go getters who make their own reality and believe in it, pursue dreams, think big and think positive. They also feel they control their own destiny, see opportunities instead of roadblocks, and they don’t blame others for where they end up. Your fake persona seems instead to be just wallowing in a small dark circle, hunkering down with finger pointing about how everything and everyone is conspiring against you, looking for a way to escape and revisiting the same message board week after week with the same old question. Good luck with that.</p>

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<p>I hope Sithra is not THAT hopeless…</p>

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<p>You have received many responses to your questions on this and other threads that you have started. Are you close to making a decision? Which way are you leaning? </p>

<p>And what exactly are you looking for here that has not already been provided? Is there a specific question you have that has not been answered? </p>

<p>Your question, per the thread title, is “Is it ok if I skip college?” A few posters have given you examples of people they know who have made it without a college degree. Most posters say that your chances are much better with a degree, which seems to me to be a self-evident fact, like it or not, especially in this difficult economy.</p>

<p>You have re-phrased your question by asking “Is it really the case that the only good jobs go to college students and why is that?” I think most posters have said that yes, in most instances only the good jobs go to college students. I have a hard time believing you don’t know that already, and that you can’t figure out on your own why that is. </p>

<p>In any case, one reason (among others that have been cited) that college grads have an advantage is that requiring a college degree is a helpful way to weed out candidates for those good jobs. I have had the experience that other posters have described of needing to hire someone and being inundated with literally hundreds of resumes. I had very little time and needed to hire someone as soon as possible, and so did not have a lot of time to make the hiring decision. I could interview only a small number of people, so that pile had to be winnowed down some way. My question to you: if you were in that position, how would YOU winnow down that towering pile of resumes sitting in front of you?</p>

<p>You should know that when people are making hiring decisions, they will often get resumes from people like you who are smart (maybe smarter than 90% of other applicants) and love to read and learn, and who have also gone to college. Keep that in mind when you answer the question (if only in your own mind, if my post is one of those you ignore) of how you would winnow down those hundreds of resumes sitting in front of you.</p>

<p>Another question for you: could you address the inconsistencies that starbright pointed out? You said “Maybe I can help sort things out for you,” but you never did that. </p>

<p>I also wonder if you are a ■■■■■, but I tend to think you are not. I think you might be a troubled kid who is very hurt by your not being able to succeed in college, so far. (I say “so far” because if it is the case that you have only tried engineering and do not like math, you might succeed if you chose another major.) My (unsolicited, I know) advice is that you seek counseling, instead of seeking attention in threads on this message board. It could do you a world of good.</p>

<p>Finally, what more do you want to know? Why do you think your question, as presented in the thread title, has not been answered?</p>

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<p>If an undergraduate degree were not a HUGE advantage in the workplace, then degree completion programs would not be such a big deal. I can name off several in just our metro area. They’re full of non-traditional-college-aged adults who decided that college would make enough of a difference that it’s worth it for them to go back and finish.</p>

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<p>Some people may think they don’t need college because surely they will be getting a call from John Galt any day now.</p>

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<p>I am bound to get some negative responses by questioning established institutions, I know that. It’s kind of like questioning if Santa Claus exists around a group of 5 year olds. Sometimes you have to play a little coy if you want to get information out of people. </p>

<p>I’ll have to mull over it some more but the best answer I’ve got so far is that college is a sort of pedigree that helps weed out applicants for employers.</p>