Posted on 07/01/2011 4:41:56 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
I have been awarded a golden ticket to the heart of Silicon Valley: the Thiel Fellowship. The catch? For two years, I cannot be enrolled as a full-time student at an academic institution. For me, that's not an issue; I believe higher education is broken.
I left college two months ago because it rewards conformity rather than independence, competition rather than collaboration, regurgitation rather than learning and theory rather than application. Our creativity, innovation and curiosity are schooled out of us.
Failure is punished instead of seen as a learning opportunity. We think of college as a stepping-stone to success rather than a means to gain knowledge. College fails to empower us with the skills necessary to become productive members of today's global entrepreneurial economy.
College is expensive. The College Board Policy Center found that the cost of public university tuition is about 3.6 times higher today than it was 30 years ago, adjusted for inflation. In the book "Academically Adrift," sociology professors Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa say that 36% of college graduates showed no improvement in critical thinking, complex reasoning or writing after four years of college. Student loan debt in the United States, unforgivable in the case of bankruptcy, outpaced credit card debt in 2010 and will top $1 trillion in 2011.
Fortunately there are productive alternatives to college. Becoming the next Mark Zuckerberg or mastering the phrase "Would you like fries with that?" are not the only options....
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Good for him - he’ll use the money, then in a few years realize he needs that degree and will enroll in college.
Amazed the CNN published this.
Right on kid
I know more than a few millionaires who have NEVER seen the inside of a college classroom...
Tesla and Edison epitomized the same argument over a hundred years ago.
As a fairly recent college grad, I would agree with everything but the second clause. Collaboration and "teamwork" is the name of the game in a lot of courses. Of course, meaning that the slackers profit from the hard work of the good students. At least that prepares you for real life.
I understand that, however there are currently hundreds of thousands of college educated folks who are unemployed. When jobs start becoming available I just think those will be the first ones hired, over a kid straight out of high school. It will mean you must have a degree for jobs that no one considered a degree important for in the past.
I’ll agree that college is not for everyone, but I am an engineer and I have worked with many, many technicians that envied the engineers, but nearly none were able to do the math nor did they have the critical thinking skills to do the job of an engineer. They only exceptions were the older guys that eventually “non-degreed” engineers...and there were just a few of them.
I am not saying that they were not able to learn what was needed, but since they did not go to school for engineering, they never learned it.
Some College Degrees is are a waste of time.
There, better!
Unless it is a degree that trains you to DO something (Nursing, Pharmacy, Engineering, Accounting, etc) do not go into it!
Education is cheap.
Certification is expensive.
My son-in-law has a brand new shiney Bachelors and a Masters and hasn’t got any job experience. I don’t see him getting hired by anyone who actually needs someone who knows what they are doing. His degree is in computer science. It’s a good thing his wife has real life skills and a job and no college degree.
If I had a kid that wasnt sure about going to college, I would point him to a trade like Plumbing , Autotech or auto bodyman. You can make decent cash and the demand is there.
I would even point him/her into a branch of the service.
Congrats on ONE of them having a job. I’m thrilled if someone can get a job without a degree - I’m not a college snob - I just don’t think those without can compete in most situations. I hope your son in law will find a job soon.
I would point him to a trade like Plumbing , Autotech or auto bodyman.
Study groups are often a euphemism for the smartest person telling everyone else how to do the homework.
Yep! Same with "teams" in the workplace. They use teams to allow the deadbeats to hide from having to do anything functional.
How many people working at CNN have a college education? =.=
For many jobs, you really don’t need a degree. Programming, graphic design,lots of tech jobs that pay well never use theory and practice learned at university.
US high schools push kids into college so they’ll go into debt for the next 10 years to pay to have social engineering garbage force fed to them for 4 to 5 years. This is because they were trained in communist overrun teacher colleges.
Most colleges and universities are no more than communist brainwashing factories that make debt slaves of their students via student loans.
I”m sure there are jobs to be had without a degree, but guess what? His or her boss has a degree - so if they want to climb the ladder, they will need a degree. I”m sorry that most places don’t put more stock in experience and job knowledge, but they don’t - they want that piece of paper.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.