Like professor Erin, graduation high school was not big deal for my family. The celebration included getting invited to have some dinner at my local Oggi's pizza. I remember seeing my friends get cars, lots of money or even have family members come from different continents to celebrate such achievement. My family who lives across the border didn't bother coming to my graduation, and honestly, that didn't bother me. That is because I was expected to graduate high school. Graduating high school was not an achievement but an expectation. In a case in which I had not graduated, my family had seen it as a failure. Although college requires a little (a lot) more effort than high school, I feel like graduating college won't be that big of a deal either. My family expects me to be successful.
But not all successful people graduated college (some not even high school). Like professor's Flewelling post mentioned, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates did not graduated college, yet they are considered to be some of the most successful people in the world and they are the richest. But they are not exceptions, Paul Allen, Michael Dell, Amancio Ortega, Larry Ellison didn't graduate college either and are all considered to be billionaires.
But of course, dropping out from college won't lead to to become a billionaire. These people were already making so much money, and were so invested in their own company before graduating college that they figured time spent in college could be used wiser otherwise. Im sure not all of us have our own company or are making lots of money as of right now, so dropping out would not be the wisest of ideas. Our interest still are getting a degree so that we can prove that we can provide more value to a company than the average person can and thus get a better paying job than the average person.
But it is evident that there are people without a college degree that are more qualified to get a job in any given area than those who have put themselves through many years of college. I have a friend who is 24 years old who already owns his company and lives a more than comfortable lifestyle than the average family. He is a finance drop out. I am currently studying finance. But truth is, it is probable he is more qualified to work at a finance firm than the average college student graduating from finance. Although he would not have a way to prove that, other than showing he owns a company. But there are thousands like him out there, some may own a company, the majority might not. There are thousands of people who love to invest, dance, teach... you name it, who can learn and learn more of that topic through the internet and books that are not as expensive as college textbooks, than actual college, people that are not willing to spend $100,000 dollars to learn something that they can learn on their own. There are exceptions. As a medical student, you can't go to your local convenience store and buy a corpse to practice on. But for most majors, there is no reason you should be going to college other than your parents kicking you out of your house.
Hi Santiago,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your blog. Graduating from high school was also an expectation my family had for me, and there wasn't an option not to graduate. The same goes for going to college. Getting a degree is something that my family sees as necessary to have a stable career. I like how you talked about how all these college-dropouts who are now billionaires possess skills that aren't necessarily taught at a university. Why would they bother spending so much money when they could find other ways to teach themselves the same things.
See you in class,
Karishma Sharma
Hey Santiago,
ReplyDeleteLike you and Karishma, I too have parents who expected me to graduate high school. I guess it's more about not being a failure than it is about being successful. This pertains to graduating high school though, as with college it is the opposite. My parents wanted me to go to college and get a degree to be like the successful American kids they hear "white people" talk about. This is not meant in a racist way, but coming from two Mexican immigrants, they just wanted me to make something of myself and not be like my cousins or other family members, working hard doing manual labor.
It's funny though, because I feel there are opportunities to make something of yourself without college, but it certainly helps to have a degree. The thing is, can you show people you deserved it?
- Anthony
Hi Santiago,
ReplyDeleteI also agree with you that graduating from high school isn't that big of an accomplishment. The ugly truth is graduation with your Bachelor's is now considered bare minimum. It's sad that even people with college educations have trouble finding good paying and meaningful jobs. For those one-in-a-million success stories like Jobs, we want to think that we could MAAAYBE have a shot with copping out from a college education. But realistically speaking, we should just work hard to get through at least undergrad so we can have at least a small safety net if our grand plans for hitting it rich quick all fall through.
-Selena Mae