Why You Shouldn’t Go To College

I was recently solicited for career advice from my college buddy, Corey, on whether he should return to school for the MBA. The subject of my email reply was “Don’t Do It.”

Should you go to college at all? I have come to the conclusion – conveniently timed after I completed my MBA – that you should not.

Already convinced? Then jump to my HOW-TO-NOT-GO-TO-COLLEGE GUIDE.

DISCLAIMER #1
This advice is for young people in the developed world. My Latin American readers and others in the developing world should go to college. If you’re not a citizen in the US, Canada, Western Europe, Australia or Japan, your situation (risk) is different than that of my intended audience.

DISCLAIMER #2
Some jobs require the degree. My ex was a teacher. I have cousins who are nurses. I have good friends who are engineers. And I don’t know any doctors, but all these people and more have to go to college.

But for the rank-and-file, Ovarian Lottery-winners going into business, save your time and money. I’m officially jumping on the bandwagon of people denouncing organized education – kind of like all the people who are cool with God or spirituality, but against “organized religion”.

I was an unconventional student, having answered essay questions like this, rocking mohawks and sleeveless t-shirts to graduate business school, etc. I didn’t care about the right thing to say or how students were supposed to behave. I knew I was smart and that I understood the subjects, and for that the professors would always love me (or at least pass me).

EXHIBIT A
My attitude is exactly why I didn’t get along well with my grad-level B2B Marketing study group. I was a sharp contrast with these sheep-mentality hardliners. This course featured role-play negotiations between other study groups posing as buyers, suppliers, etc. Each group had to turn in a 2 – 3 page written plan before any given negotiation. I don’t think the professor didn’t read the plans, but only assigned the write-ups to ensure students read the cases before the actual negotiation day.

When it was my turn to write up our plan, I wrote a light 2-page piece detailing our strategy based on constraints, objections, possible walk-away threats, etc. It was an 80% effort / B+ paper per my usual on inconsequential busy work. The group members got their panties up in a bunch about it. They expanded it to their usual 7 – 8 pages with endless rambling about shit that never came up in the negotiations. Their write-ups were so horribly boring that I never read them – and that’s why I don’t believe the professor did either (he only asked for 2 – 3 pages!).

The kicker: the other male in the group was elected (or maybe he volunteered) to have a talk with me after that assignment. He was nice in explaining the group didn’t feel I was pulling my weight. His first recommendation was that I not use bullet points. That seemed to be nonnegotiable among the group. He then suggested I not abbreviate the company names. He said that I should repeat myself a few times. This dumb-ass basically asked me to pad the papers out. Pad it out? And that fucking guy has an MBA now!

EXHIBIT B
I once visited a friend while her roommate was buying an essay online. This makes no sense to me: this girl was paying top dollar at this elite school at the same time she was paying somebody else to do the work. And that fucking girl has a college degree now! (from that school, no less!)

THE POINT?
These are examples of students learning to get the grade as opposed to learning the subject matter. All the Pad-It-Out-Guys and Pay-For-Homework-Girls of the world have devalued organized education. Universities are not the best place to learn anymore. It’s too easy to fall into the habit of simply getting the grade, and that habit comes at the expense of learning.

While I was more subject-oriented than the average student, even I was trained to get the grade. I didn’t read most of my textbooks. After finishing my Bachelor’s degree, I regretted not reading all the assigned readings. I regretted selling my textbooks. And then I did the same thing in grad school – skipped most of the readings and sold my textbooks! WTF?

Getting the grade tricks the rational student into thinking he’s learning. I was in a fraternity, I had a job, I was boxing and lifting weights, and I had a social life. I was busy. But I had a 3.0. No problem, right? In this situation, most busy, rational students will do the least work possible if they think they’re being educated. No problem, wrong.

The problem: I don’t know shit and I ain’t got the bread to buy these motherfuckers!

INFORMAL LEARNING
It wasn’t until my last semester or so in grad school that I realized I may have learned just as much outside organized education as in the classroom. If I could measure the knowledge gained from all the books I’ve read, all the newspaper articles, magazines, and blogs, there’s probably a greater amount than what I gained from organized education.

This means that I should have invested all my time and resources into learning solo instead of investing in a university.

OBVIOUS OBJECTION TO MY ARGUMENT
You: But Colin, you had to go through college and other experiences before you learned that organized education is a sham. Maybe college is what helped you figure this out. You wouldn’t have known how to educate yourself when you were 18. You were an immature idiot. How do you expect others to figure this out when your dumb-ass didn’t?

ANSWER
Me: That’s why I’m writing this post, to help you educate yourself better than the idiots in college for a fraction of the time and money. Below is my guide to skipping college. After each how-to, I explain how my formal education was not ideal for learning.

HOW-TO-NOT-GO-TO-COLLEGE GUIDE

Want a [fill-in-the-blank-here] degree? Chances are that the professors at your university-of-choice post the syllabus online. The syllabus details everything you’ll do in class, from textbooks to news articles to videos to assignments. The learning guide is online, for free. Tuition only pays for the hand-holding babysitter in your head and the credential.

My basic Information Systems class webpage outlines all the readings (with links). More tidbits and links on subject matter from that class here. Even the Final Exam is online. What else do you need?

One benefit of a college education is that it’s well-rounded. But you don’t need to pay for that. You don’t have to meet with an advisor or pick classes according to availability and your prerequisites.

Step 1 – Pick the university and degree you’d like and find the course requirements. (I doubt you’d pick mine, but) Here are the General Education requirements for my undergraduate degree.

Step 2 – Note those requirements and go to the comprehensive course guide. For more detailed descriptions of the courses, you may have to pick up a hard-copy course book from campus.

Step 3 – Pick your courses. Then find the syllabuses (syllabi?) online and get to work. If you complete the syllabus, you’ll have a better grasp of the content than 95% of the students in that classroom.

Specialized advice for specific subjects below.

Math, Chemistry, etc.
If you feel you need a classroom with a professor, take these classes at a community college. I took all my math classes and more at a community college. There are just as many hot girls (and hot guys like me), the education difference is negligible but the price difference is real.

Any course with “Composition” or “Writing” in the title
Check out the readings at arm’s length. Unfortunately, writing college essays is the main culprit where getting-the-grade inhibits learning. Most students aim to cover all the bases, meet a (real or perceived) minimum page count, and say the right thing at the expense of writing a good paper. I’m guilty of this. I don’t have them anymore, but I wouldn’t read my undergrad papers today because I know they suck and it’d make me sad.

If you want to learn to write, start a blog. Nothing will grade you better than if you can build an audience. If you want to learn to write, don’t take Freshman Comp. Start a blog, and join a creative writing group (like this one).

MIS (also known as Computa Skoo’)
Read all the texts on this subject, maybe the most crucial for our generation. If you actually plan to be a programmer, skip the degree by participating in open-source projects. In fact, many of the more innovative web development companies don’t give a shit about your degree. They want to see what you’ve done in the open-source community. The best coder I know studied gym in college. Fucking gym! His open-source hobby is what makes him and his work marketable.

If you’re starting from scratch, take this HTML tutorial. Then do CSS. And so on. You’ll never regret it. And it’s free!

Accounting
Read one text if you don’t plan on being an accountant. Pick a book that focuses on concepts rather than ledger entries.

Business Law
The legal environment of business is more important than I thought it was when I took it as an undergrad. Read the texts on these, plus a newspaper. At any given time, there are a handful of high-profile companies in court facing serious issues (Microsoft, General Motors, satellite radio, Pirate Bay, etc.)

Finance, Marketing, Management, etc.
Read the texts.

General Business
If any of the assigned texts are too dry, choose a book on the corresponding subject from this reading list (I’m currently working on that list myself). In fact, read a text from each subject on that list anyway. If you do, you’ll be better educated than most MBAs for a fraction of the price.

MORE TIPS

Sitting In - College classes offer much more liberty than high school. The professors don’t care if you come to class at all. In larger classes, they don’t know everybody’s name. You can go to class without paying for it.

That’s exactly what a young, frugal Steve Jobs did. He credits much of his design- and art-focus to his sitting in on calligraphy classes that he never paid for. And now Apple is synonymous with killer design. Read Jobs’ classic 2005 Stanford Commencement Address.

Extra Credit – Check out these links of things to do that make you more marketable, more valuable, and a better person. And do those things.

Seth Godin’s to-do list for unemployed college students
Lifehacker’s Top 10 Tools for a Free Online Education

Reading – Read a newspaper every day. Read books. Read magazines. Read blogs. Just fucking read!

Vernon Jordan, one of my favorite American success stories, grew up black in the segregated South. He was accepted to DePauw university in Indiana. Before leaving Atlanta, his dad told him he wasn’t welcome back home. If he dropped out, he would have to make it on his own. But his father also gave him some advice. His father knew that the white students would be 3 – 5 years ahead of his son’s reading level. So he told the young Vernon, “Read, boy. Read.” Vernon Jordan read, and he went on to become a power player on Wall Street and in the Democratic Party. Read!

FURTHER READING
I’m not a pioneer in voicing this opinion. Higher education has seen a flurry of criticism lately from letters-of-record and recognized intellectuals. If you prefer those smarter, more professional sources over my anecdotal bullshitting, read all these:

Harvard Business School’s Debate on What’s Wrong with B-Schools
New York Times Business: “Is It Time to Retrain B-Schools?”
New York Times Op-Ed: “End the University As We Know It”
Seth Godin on why textbooks suck: “Textbook rant”
Ben Casnocha’s piece whose title sums up the heart of the matter: “Why is College the Default?“
Ben Casnocha’s entire category detailing his beefs with the education status quo
Charlie Hoehn’s argument against formal education: “The Grad School Redemption”
Charlie Hoehn’s story of an excellent student who sucked on the job: “Favors are overrated”
The American Scholar: “The Disadvantages of an Elite Education”

CONCLUSION

Competence vs. Credentials

Some of you are thinking, “But Big Company X, Y, and Z won’t even consider me if I don’t have a degree.” You people stay tuned for the upcoming post: “Why You Shouldn’t Go Corporate.”

I spent 3 years with two household brand-name, blue-chip companies. I learned jackshit. Those 3 years were a bigger waste of time than college itself. The most important thing I learned was that I didn’t want to work for those kinds of companies.

Titles and credentials themselves are becoming outdated. Remember they’re worth less now because of Mr. Pad-It-Out-Guy and Ms. Buy-Her-Homework-Girl.

Here’s Ben Casnocha “Disrespecting Credentialism”.

Doing vs. Seeming

I currently work with a guy who launched his own company while getting his MBA. From our talks, I can tell his business education was shit. I’ll have a low opinion of that school forever. But it doesn’t matter because of what he’s done with his business. Who gives a shit if he fudges on the terminology if he understands the concepts from the trenches. That’s the knowledge that pays. Ryan Holiday captures this concept perfectly in “A Disrespect for Certain Kinds of Things”.

I’M A FAILURE
Unfortunately, Corey didn’t take my advice. He’s going back to the same university and working for a big, hometown company. Just like I did.