1. You don’t want to sit in a cinder block classroom for another semester
In college, I always took an 8 AM class. Not because I was a morning person, but because it was really nice to doze during that class so I had the energy to play basketball during the break before the next one. The biggest problem was that the fluorescent lights reflecting off the yellow-white cinder blocks in the cell-like classroom made it hard to sleep.
If you find many of your classes boring, too easy, or irrelevant to your interests and desires, why put yourself through it? No one’s paying you to do it…you’re paying them! Try something different for a few semesters. Get out into the world.
2. All the best stuff you know, you learned by doing
The most important skills you have are walking, talking, driving a car, using Google, Facebook, email, and your ability to read and react to people in the contextually appropriate way. How many of those things were learned by reading an instruction manual or listening to an expert tell you about them?
It’s no different with the other skills you need for a fulfilling career. If you want to be a creator, an entrepreneur – whether for your own vision or someone else’s – the best way to learn is to do. Try. Fail. Try again. Succeed. Regardless of the outcome, you gain invaluable knowledge, experience, and confidence by doing.
3. Being different is more valuable than being normal
A college degree is a signal. It’s supposed to tell the world that you are more valuable than the average person. But these days, it’s been so watered down that it signals little more than that you’re a typical 22 year old. Sure, your resume shows a degree and a decent GPA. So do the rest in the stack.
If you really want to stand out and get the attention of the most interesting businesses, break the mold and proudly proclaim, “I did something more than college. I’ve got relevant experience that challenged me. I didn’t follow the crowd.” Sure, some big boring company will exclude non-degree holders from consideration for some jobs. But all of the entrepreneurs I talk with tell me they’re hungry for talent, and a degree is of little to no value in helping them identify it. They’re looking for the bold, the hard working, the interesting. They like different.
4. Loans have to be paid back
A lot of students feel trapped in school because it seems free. They don’t need to start paying back those loans until they’re out, so they don’t want to stop taking classes. The hard reality is, they have to be paid back, sooner or later. Unlike every other kind of loan, you can’t get out of student loans, even through bankruptcy.
In a few years, if you’re struggling to find a good job because college just didn’t give you enough relevant knowledge and experience, those loan payments will start to pinch. You can’t get back what you’ve already spent, but you don’t have to put more in. Make a break, start earning money, and more importantly, get a clearer idea of what you want to do, and forge a path to it. It shouldn’t take four years and all that debt.
5. Really big challenges are really rewarding
College is the easy choice. Sure, there’s some late night cramming and stressing over exams, but on the whole it’s something just about everyone can do, and nearly everyone does. It takes guts and grit to step out of the box, jump into the world of commerce, take an intensive compilation of online courses (with no multiple choice testing of your memorization skills, but oral exams to gauge your working knowledge), and learn to be an entrepreneur.
It’s harder. It’s scarier. It’s painful at times. But so is sitting in college classes that you paid way too much for. The difference is, the pain you endure for stepping out and doing is a pain with great reward as it reshapes you and builds confidence. The pain of those sleepy 8 AM lectures is just a dull, nagging pain that doesn’t bring much in return.
Apply today. Ten months can change your life.
October 18, 2013
