I wrote this in December 2012.
I have been thinking about the University question for some time, and I decided to get some input from my Facebook friends to figure it out. I decided to ask everyone, why should I go to University? I got a bunch of great answers, most of them falling within the following categories.
1: DELAY GROWING UP.
I don’t want to do this. I want to face the world on my own two feet as soon as I can. The longer I delay this, the more uncomfortable I feel.
2: GIRLS.
I’ve already found the girl of my dreams.
3: FUN.
I can think of a lot of other things I’d rather be doing which I would find a lot more fun, at far less cost!
4: UNIQUE EXPERIENCE.
There are all sorts of unique experiences to be had in the world if you keep your eyes open. If you think about it, University is quickly becoming one of the more common shared experiences that everybody has. Conscientiously not going to University will be an even more unique experience.
5: TRAVEL.
Good point. I’m going to make sure I travel as much as possible. I will document this process.
6: NETWORKING:
Lots of people have told me that passionate University professors are amazing to hang out with. Here’s a challenge I’m hereby setting for myself. I’m going to befriend and hang out with said University professors, without matriculating. I’m going to interview them and have nice long conversations with them, and I’m going to blog about it.
7: CERTIFICATION:
Some people tell me that degrees are increasingly required to even apply for a job. My stance is- if you’re even applying for a job by looking through job listings, you’re going about things the wrong way. I believe that the usefulness of certification as a signal of value is rapidly diminishing because the job market is being flooded with degrees. I believe that the best way to get a job is to create something of value, and then have your employers come to you, rather than the other way around. I will put my money (and my life) where my mouth is.
8: LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES + KNOWLEDGE:
Challenge: To learn and acquire knowledge without going to University. I will document this process.
9: LIFE SKILLS:
Challenge: To learn life skills without going to University. I believe I will learn them from being in a committed relationship, having productive discourse with others, running a business, running a blog and other things. I will chronicle them.
10: INSPIRATION:
I don’t need this. I’m fairly certain that I already know what I want to do, even though I can’t quite express it completely in a soundbite. It is this innate knowledge that makes me feel edgy at the very idea of going to University at this stage in my life.
MAKE YOUR PARENTS PROUD:
When Charles Darwin was 16, his father took him aside and said, “You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family.”
I will make my parents proud, but I will not be taking the path that they might have planned for me.
—
My favourite response came from my friend Caleb, and I will be incorporating his perspective into my own. Thanks man.
Insure yourself against selective exposure. If you’re not careful, you’ll cherry-pick only what is convenient. It is important to force yourself to be exposed to ideas and schools of thought beyond your comfort zone and conscious interests.
Use external pressure to force you mentally into optimal performance. I think the best way for me to do this is to openly declare that I will not be going to University. I am now very publicly challenged to develop myself vis-à-vis everybody else who is going to University. It will be visible, it will be visceral. I will use social pressure and gamification to force me mentally into optimal performance.
Use a qualitative pre-established standard for intellectual discipline. What gets measured gets managed. Make sure you measure things properly. Develop a yardstick.
Acquire direct physical access to accomplished intellectual minds. I will seek out these minds.
in places like Singapore and many Asia countries, a degree certificate is still needed, in the USA, it is not so, as can be seen in examples of those such as Steve Jobs, Bill Gates
That has been the case so far, but I am willing to bet my future on things changing very soon, if they haven’t already. 🙂
Can I tell you the truth? This is just an excuse for under-performing in life. You need to have discipline and focus to succeed whether in school or while working.
I agree! What makes you think I plan NOT to be disciplined or focused, though?
hey i just wanna comment on this post, because its 1 of the most recent and also because it touches on something that is close to my heart. i understand that the practical aspects of higher education probably would not appeal to you, yet there is still much utility to formal education in terms of personal development… (as cheesy as it sounds)
but first i would like to suggest that perhaps you can be “in society, but not of society”… to put it into context. warren buffet detested the fund management industry as a whole, but that did not stop him from entering the industry and becoming one of them. evidently, he did not enter the indsutry expecting to make a change (i doubt he ever had that aspiration) but the point is, his sense of self is so strong that he is able to be part of the indsutry without being swept away by it… he managed to retain to the beliefs he had, did things differnely and distinguished himself..
i guess my pt is this, in general, as much as we all know that certification and grades are not a good gauge of working abilities and intelligence, it is still a necassary (but no longer sufficient) condition for getting jobs… to give another cheesy example… people once asked UFC champion rampage jackson if he loves training since he trains so hard… he replied saying that he hates to train, but at the same time, acknowledges the fact that ” somethings you gotta do what you hate, in order to continue doing what you love”.. if he does not train so hard, he would not be able to continue staying in UFC and compete at that level… yeah man,,. sometimes a man gotta do what he has to do
i know that we can always go back to university again, when we are older, at 30, 40 u can still go back to school. however, sometimes going to unviersity when you are 20 and out of JC is not a arbituarily set stage of our development… if you do decide to go back to university again when you are of that age, you would have to worry about income forgone, worry about family, kids, mortgage etc… so.. if we do agree on this pt, then the collorary is this… why not just get into university and see what it has to offer when the opporunity cost is low… after all its something that is easier done now then later…
its just 3 -4 years of your life, and after that you are free to do wadever you want.. so whats the rush man visa, whats the rush to go somewhere?
personaly, i do have a problem with higher. the burecreacy, the grading system, etc… i am highly cynical of my education.. personally for me, there is only 1 take away… i learnt the true meaning of academic rigor… its often commented that there is a huge leapt from JC to college and as cliche as it seems, i have to agree. perhaps this is only specific to me (since i do math and formal mathematics is really incomphrensibly different from JC math for those that have not studied it), but university did show me what the mind is capable of, the limits (or lack thereof) of human intellect etc… my degree taught me how to approach things and how to learn… (surprsiing given the fact that i skip almost all my lectures and tutorails)…
in fact, imo, learning how to learn is one of the most important life skills one can have… of course, through the process of introspection, one could discover all that without college education… but the point is, why do it the hard way when there is a easier way?
with all due respect, i find it ironic that someone who is as free spirited and as open minded as you could be oppose to the idea of university… why not give it a shot? a physicist once said that
If you decide you don’t have to get A’s, you can learn an enormous amount in college…. im sure that even if u do decide to enroll , grades are not going to be of a huge concern… hence it seems like you would have a good time and much to learn? also, its often said that we are most influecned by the 5 people we hang around with most often… and to that effect, universwity definetliy gives you the kinda exposure u need to find like minded ppl.
haha… i apologize for pontificating and the unedited and verbose pargaraphs.. but yeah i think its important that a counter argument is presented…
meh. uni is droll and meaningless. it is a well-trod path that people expect will take them places and bring them wealth and success. uni is expensive, uni is tough, and it sucks time from your life and from things you want to do.
some people emerge better educated, more intelligent individuals, some gain vital skills that open doors for their careers, others don’t. there is some prestige and some sense of recognition i suppose, but i don’t think that’s what a uni education represents to you.
what i can assure you, of course, is that uni gives you academic rigour. it forces you to apply yourself to tasks which might not seem interesting, and seem excessively difficult. and do well at it too. i suppose it’s a little like climbing a mountain, or running a marathon. why trouble yourself and put yourself through all that agony?
i believe it’s made me tougher, wiser, better able to deal with adversity. what you get out of life and your pursuits is all up to you really.
<3
what happened to ‘chiobu’
You have my respect for going against the grain. I would say NOT going to Uni is the hard route; in university, things will be laid out for you and you can stick with the pack.
But to become truly outstanding, anyone must seek their own education. With conviction, I believe you can do it.
thanks guus! that means a lot to me! 🙂
I have to pose this question to you – what does an education do for you? Do you want to know about everything to a reasonable (but non-specialist) standard, so you can write about it on Quora? Or is there one thing for which you want to know everything about? The latter, really, is what university is about.
Not going to university isn’t that big a deal. You wear it like a monkey on the proverbial back. Be relaxed about it. My dad dropped out of school in secondary two, and I’d consider him a real intellect, probably more intellectual than most university graduates I could name. You certainly don’t need a degree to be an intellectual, well-read person. Graduates who think that their degrees make them intellectual are morons with a piece of paper.
But there are some things for which university is the only game going. (I write from the point of view of a scientist or mathematician.) There’s a reason why there was only one Ramanujan: complexity increases as we venture beyond the boundaries of known knowledge. Very few academic papers these days are worked on in isolation.
In many ways, it is like being an amateur footballer, versus being a professional footballer. There might very well be a 25-year-old amateur footballer playing park football in the weekends who is every bit as good as Leo Messi. But it’s vanishingly unlikely, because of the disparities in training, coaching, professionalism, club spirit, professional exposure with other professional players, the whole hog. It’s the little things that add up.
By the way, it’s a myth that university professors enjoy hanging out with students – or non-students for that matter. They have teaching responsibilities, and an annual research quota. Student evaluations help determine the fate of their tenure. For what it’s worth, most of my professors have always been / were nicer and more generous with their time than I expected. But you might find that they have less time for you, considering that their career success doesn’t strictly depend on you.