4 years of college equals success?
Is college really the only way to be successful in life? You sure?!
Every middle-class dream begins with a common station of going to college. Along the way, we have these different “semesters” as different stations of our life. Each station is supposed to teach you something along the way and prepare you for when you reach your final destination: graduation. And then, you board another train of the “job” life and then we embark upon another journey and reach the age of retirement. While all of this may sound like an easy way to live, does that mean everyone wants to live their lives like this? I’ve had friends who dreamed of heading their own company in their freshman year and their final year, they were desperately looking for jobs because of their parental pressure and whatnot.
The middle-class notion has always tied the idea of education with success. Sure, this theory might have worked during the ’70s or the ’80s, but today’s world isn’t the ’80s anymore. The world has progressed except for our mindset. Parents telling their children to go to college and get a job could be like the worst advice to give right now. It’s not just the worst advice, it’s the ONLY advice given to children. It makes you think like there is only one way to live life.
Let’s compare how it was like 40 years before and how it is like now.
During the late ‘70’s — the ‘80s:
The Internet wasn’t a big thing back then. Google didn’t exist. The only way to gain knowledge was to go to school. Because if you never went to school, you’d be called illiterate. The idea of dropping out was for losers. And to work at top tier firms, getting good grades, getting admitted to a great university, and possessing great scholastic aptitude were like the prerequisites needed to be fulfilled. Now, people who were born during that time were under the impression that these were the only option to succeed in life because they never really tasted what it’s like to choose a different path. Large multitudes of people relied on getting a college degree and then paying for the debt they incurred. Building something was considered to be an “unsafe” way to play in life and so was the idea of startups. I can understand why people relied on college so heavily because information and knowledge weren’t readily available then. But as time passed through, information was available for everyone and that was the renaissance. In the middle of all these advancements, the idea of college equals success still managed to creep into the new generation.
Presently:
We are blessed with some great internet software which provides us answers within seconds. Every little information from around the globe is packed into a single machine that sits on our laps. The time isn’t the same anymore. Today, an average person can learn programming within a month. A typical college spends an entire semester to teach the basics of a programming language. Consequently, there is a huge rift between getting educated from college and getting educated on the internet. What matters is what you could do with that education, regardless of how you’re studying or where you’re studying from. You should be able to demonstrate how well did you grasp it by practically applying it on the field and not on a piece of paper in an exam. If you studied programming, build software, and demonstrate your understanding. If you like drama, act on a stage. And most importantly, know that success isn’t tied to going to college anymore.
“To question education is really dangerous. It is the absolute taboo. It’s like telling the world there’s no Santa Claus.” — Peter Thiel
The higher education system is overvalued in America. Whenever something becomes overvalued, it gets converted into a bubble. We had the dot com bubble, housing bubble and now I believe it’s the Education bubble. Not many people realize this but this bubble will burst soon and employment will come crashing down resulting in huge amounts of debt incurred.
I believe that the moment we eradicate student debts, parental pressure, successful/unsuccessful notion, our literacy would go up. People would enjoy learning something for the sake of themselves and not to excel in their company to get a raise. Education is something that should be imparted gracefully and not under the hanging sword of debt.
