Should You Go to College? My Thoughts on Getting a Degree Before Working VS Building Wealth Before Learning.
I am 6 months away from graduation, and more and more people are questioning my next steps: “Will you pursue a master’s degree?”, “Are you starting to work in corporate?”
It is natural to receive this kind of questions, and I don’t mind people asking. But when I respond with “no” to both, it often elicits raised eyebrows and unsolicited advice from people claiming I’m too young to understand the gravity of my decision and that I will, eventually, change my mind. As if the world will collapse around me.
The common thread in these questions is a clear expectation that my choices should conform to societal norms.
First, they assume that if you’re in your early 20s, you cannot do anything extraordinary and should stick to the only acceptable path.
Second, they assume you have no entrepreneurial inclinations or no desire/capability to build something on your own (which could vary from software, service, a bundle of services, or physical goods). Or that you could employ people (even older than you) and start a business.
Third, if you think I am of little to no need in the job market, which is so competitive that a bachelor’s degree is insufficient (necessitating additional qualifications), then why are you so eager to push me toward that path?
Let’s be clear: the modern educational system is broken — perhaps the reason why additional education is often required for employment. No person following a degree in the 21st century is truly educated in the real sense as people used to be for the past few hundred years. Truly educated people used to learn many classical languages in school, including Latin and Greek. They used to learn the history of civilizations in detail, master more profound mathematical principles, and learn how to actually write. The fact that widespread education yields (in some cases) incompetent and unskilled students is a subject for another post.
Everywhere in the world, acquiring what is considered a great education costs money, and is not free (despite some countries subsidizing it as “free”, it is not, due to the cost of living and time opportunity cost). It often costs far…
