<p>Sithra-</p>
<p>I think you are making a major mistake, one that many people make, and that is that they see themselves as this really bright person, capable of doing anything, and they think that is going to be obvious to anyone who meets them. The problem is the world doesn’t look like that, groups like Mensa and such have quite a few people who measure off the charts intellectually and basically have done little with their lives. I recommend picking up a copy of Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Outliers” to see what makes people fly, an attributes like you give yourself are simply not enough. </p>
<p>And yes, fortunately or unfortunately, a college degree is more and more the entry level to most well paying jobs and because of the way things are going, not having a degree, even with specific training, is going to hurt an applicant competing against those who have gone to school, for most jobs you apply for you will be competing with others, and not having that degree is often an instant way someone is weeded out, take it from me.</p>
<p>More importantly, college is a lot more then a piece of paper, want to know what having gone to college means?</p>
<p>-It demonstrates a quality you say you already possess, the ability to do anything you set your mind to. When you go to college you take courses outside a major area, there are core requirements and such, which demonstrates you can do more.</p>
<p>-Going to college demonstrates the ability to be on your own and be responsible, if you come out with a degree with good grades, you show you can hump it, do the work, etc</p>
<p>-Going to college also gives you experience being around a lot of different people, something that is true in the workforce as well, it is a very different world then high school.</p>
<p>-And it is interesting you are saying college is boring, while I agree with large parts of going to college can be boring, having to listen to some boring idiot drone on about the symbolic meaning of Ulysses journey could put anyone to sleep. But want to know something? People hiring have been to college, and being able to handle the stuff you don’t like to do is as important as the stuff you like to do. Ask anyone on this board, no matter what their job is, and there are elements of their job they could do without, boring meetings, idiotic paperwork, dealing with bureacratic idiocy (ever read Dilbert? It may be humorous, but it often true), but things you have to do in any job. Think you are going to interview for a job, and say “oh, I will work for you, but you know, writing memos is boring, writing reports is boring, so I would rather not do that?”. </p>
<p>Quite honestly, what college is besides learning skills, it also is a part of the maturation process, it is a transition from the bubble that is high school to more of the real world, and that is nothing to sneeze at, in college, for example, if you were always near the head of the pack growing up, you are going to be introduced to the humbling concept that there are more then a few people out there smarter then yourself, more easily able to learn, and that is going to be true going forward, and that is very important. From the tone of your post, I get the impression that you feel like you know enough, or can learn enough, to do any job without college, that you are already “there”, and one of the things college does is give you the perspective of where you really are. Wisdom is often knowing what you don’t know, or as Socrates said, “If I am to be considered a wise man, it is simply because I know that I know nothing”. </p>
<p>Have people skipped college and done incredible things? Sure, but they are outliers of outliers, guy who headed a company I worked for got into Yale Law School without a college degree, but think that is easy? The point being, that why make your path any more difficult then it already probably will be, why put yourself through all the extra hoops? And if college is boring, maybe you need to ask yourself why it is boring. Are you in a program that doesn’t challenge you? Are you taking courses that seem idiotic? (core courses can seem like that, I know only too well). Maybe you need to pick better courses, move into a more challenging area…which is another thing college can be good for, figuring out what the heck you really want to do.</p>