I sat at my desk reading the same page for the third time in a row. It was a Marxist interpretation of the French Revolution. No matter how hard I tried to be interested, I just couldn’t care.
I had been a Dean’s list student my freshman year but by the second semester of my sophomore year at the University of Michigan I was on academic probation.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t learn the material, I thought to myself. I was simply tired of doing it. I wanted something more than tests and a life on the education conveyor belt. I didn’t want the most interesting thing about me in my early twenties to be what I was studying in college.
My phone buzzed to remind me that I had a mandatory meeting with my guidance counselor coming up in twenty minutes.
I decided I’d tell her then — I was dropping out.
Some Lessons I Learned After Dropping Out of College
I won’t tell won’t tell you that things were easy or that you should necessarily drop out of school. I’ve learned a number of lessons though that I think can only be learned in the real world and whether you finish college or not, the earlier you learn them, the better off you’ll be.
I consider learning these lessons early to be one of the crucial factors in the opportunities that have come my way in the last two years.
1. Professional Requirements Are Negotiable
In college, we’re taught by way of incentives to follow the rules to the letter. Read the books that are approved on the syllabus. Take the exact classes you need to earn your degree. Check off the boxes and you’ll be guaranteed a success.
When students graduate, they’re stuck in this mindset. They tell themselves “I can’t write a book because I don’t meet the criteria,” or “I can’t apply for that job because I don’t have a degree in the field,” or “I don’t have enough experience so I might as well not try.”
The reality, at least as I’ve experienced it, as that most requirements you see for job listings or other professional opportunities can be sidestepped. Since dropping out, I’ve been a featured speaker at a conference full of academics and have gotten job opportunities in heavily credentialed industries despite having no degree.
All “requirement” means is that the person doing the requiring wants to know they’re going to get their money’s worth.
That’s it.
As a young professional, if you can show this, you can get yourself in the door even if you don’t check all the boxes on paper.
2. Intellectual Interest and Educational Productivity Come in Ebbs and Flows
In school, you’re forced to confine your learning to a certain set of hours during a certain set of days during a particular semester. Everybody follows the same learning schedule and pattern and if you break from it you’re punished with a bad test score.
I’ve realized since leaving school that the productivity of your learning comes and goes. Some weeks will be far better than others and it’s okay to simply take an extended break to focus on something else. In fact it’s better to take that break than to force yourself through a bunch of content so that you can make sure you pass tomorrow’s test.
3. Nobody is there to Tell You You’re Great
It’s easy as a high performing student to get a bit full of yourself. Adults praise you constantly for you good grades growing up and quickly you start to think that you’re more important than you actually are.
Then you get out of school and you see that nobody has the time or the interest to tell you how good you are. They aren’t going to pat you on the back in the office or give you a gold star for doing your job right.
The lack of constant praise can lead to self doubt and depression. You’ll start to question your intelligence and your ability to succeed.
This is normal.
You’ll have to learn quickly how to evaluate your work on your own without a rubric and without a stamp of approval from a professor. You’ll have to learn to value your work even if it doesn’t receive immediate applause from others.
4. There is No Syllabus for Success
In the real world, there is no pre prescribed path. You can’t pull an all nighter the day before launching your business and expect success in the morning like you can on a test in school. You can’t read a book or memorize some facts and be guaranteed your product will sell or your business will grow.
What worked in one industry or at one point in time might never work again.
Adaptability and originality are the rules for success in the real world, not following outlines written by others.
August 23, 2016
