Posted on 11/03/2016 10:50:18 AM PDT by CorporateStepsister
Did anyone here on FR forgo going to college and university and end up all the better for it? I dropped out of college in 2006 right before I had my nervous breakdwon and after ten years of working on my business and other interests, I'm thinking of seeking out private tutoring instead of going back to a really expensive mainstream education system.
What are you interested in pursuing?
What is the goal you are trying to accomplish, that getting a degree seems a desirable means to that end?
I wish I had. Took me 20 years to get over all the mind control. Total waste of time.
I did, despite massive pressure from my parents and grandparents.
Long story short, I went the entrepreneurial route, and wound up being much more successful than my college ‘educated’ kin.
I have a BS and a prrofessional degree. Needed them for my chosen field.
Unless your field requires it don’t go, you are just wasting your time and money.
I finished college and I am glad I did, but I know a lot of successful people that didn’t. It depends on what you have the skills for and like to do.
I have a BS and a prrofessional degree. Needed them for my chosen field.
Unless your field requires it don’t go, you are just wasting your time and money.
Thomas Edison State University
http://www.tesu.edu/academics/online-degrees.Cfm
If you want private tutoring on brain surgery, it will still be expensive.
Went to community college for a semester in 1972 but majored in pinball.
Went to COBOL IMS school in 1983 for around $2,200 and 10 months. It got me to a good six figure income.
It’s different nowadays, though. I have contracted in 17 IT shops since then and every now and then a company will not even interview because I have no degree. Fortunately, it’s like being turned down at a dance by one of 40 girls waiting to be asked.
The important thing is, if you get a degree, get it in a “hard” skill like accounting, engineering, medical, etc. Of our six kids, three did that and all three are doing extremely well. The other three are too, but in different ways. One is a union iron worker, one is an IT project coordinator (on my training and a ged) and the last owns his own business.
He’s got no college and is making more money than the rest of us put together. We all need to learn from that...
I got a scholarship to go, went and failed badly. Engineering was my dream... I simply wasnt smart enough in class.
I got my A&P license and work for an airline, I make over 100k a year, get to travel the world for next to nothing and found a perfect wife in India to be mine 16 years ago..
I think it worked out just fine... but i do miss not being smart enough to get that degree...
Spent 18 years going through college, more of a drop-in than a drop-out. Left to go into the service, returned after the term of service was up, stayed a couple years, went to work several different places, dropped again after the GI bill became available for post-Korea vets, and finally got a degree in 1973. Went out West (California), returned after a year, and used the remaining GI bill entitlement to gain a Master’s degree, in 18 months, then went into real estate servicing, eventually becoming a real estate appraiser.
Mind control? Whenever I thought it was too much, just left.
I was a legacy. My brother, cousins, aunts, uncles, dad and grandfather all went to my school. It was fun and sort of a family thing, but this was long before it cost so much and offered so little. I learned afterwards I could have received a better education in my field at a technical college.
One of my sons built a successful business during his last two years of high school. He never went to college. He continued down the entrepreneurial path and is doing the best financially of all my kids.
One of my favorite quotes is from an ex-president of the Canadian tire company who never completed high school. He said, "My biggest regret is leaving school at 14. I should have left at 12."
I used to have employees. I didn't care whether they had a degree or not. Past experience and attitude are more important.You can teach skills, but it's nearly impossible to change someone's attitude.
Didn’t go. Maybe I should have but my heart wasn’t in it. Ended up with a nice career of 36 with a major aerospace company and they, based on my knowledge and practicality promoted me from a lowly mechanic to an engineering position. Would that happen today? Probably not without a degree.
Fortunately I graduated long before I discovered FR.
“I’m thinking of seeking out private tutoring instead of going back to a really expensive mainstream education system.”
A lot depends on your goals. If you need credentials, then mainstream education would be a way to get them.
If you want to learn a subject, then if you are smart and self-motivated, you should be able to learn anything you want or need from the Internet plus your local libraries, including any local university libraries in your area, as they usually will grant library accounts to citizens of the state. One of the advantages of the latter is that university libraries subscribe to a large number of specialty periodicals (which are now all digital), and you can take a laptop in with you, hook up to their WiFi and download all the articles from their collection that you want. I’ve done this several times with the Colorado University medical libraries to research health issues in depth.
Going back to the Internet part of things, there are also large numbers of free online courses from universities around the world that offer more structured approaches to learning than just setting off in hot pursuit (which is the way I usually do it.)
Of the dozen self made millionaires that I personally know, none of them went to college. They went to work and ended up working for themselves.
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