Point of School?

[gmack15]

I go to UT at Austin and I make decent grades. Nothing amazing, but I am not failing.

I have talked to a lot of people about "the point of school" since most of what we learn comes from what we learn on the job.

I run my own business and play poker (NL 25 and NL 50). Can yall give me the point of school if most of what we learn comes from what we learn on our job? I just had a bad semester and I need some encouragement.

Thanks

[Jshuttlesworth]

If you can't see the "point" of school, then don't go.

WTF kind of a post is this.

[gmack15]

I am asking others what their view on "the point of school" is. I am wondering what others think.

[Jshuttlesworth]

To be able to learn about a lot of different things and live with a bunch of people your age in a semi-regulated environment before you go into the "real world."

[kibble420]

[ QUOTE ]
I run my own business and play poker (NL 25 and NL 50). Can yall give me the point of school if most of what we learn comes from what we learn on our job? I just had a bad semester and I need some encouragement.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm in the same situation. I run my own business, and play a lot of poker. I even took a few years off from college to focus on running my business. Now I go to college part time.

While a college education is great, the fact remains that it's not necessary if you want to be an entrepreneur. Some of our greatest business leaders got their experience on the job without formal education. Of course, the flip side of the coin is that college provides a lot of great networking opportunities, and for most people it is the only way to go.

The best thing to do is to weigh the pros and cons, and find your own path. College is great, but it's not for everyone. Most people will blindly tell you that you should get your degree because it's a good backup plan. This statement has its merits, but if you're going to school you should want to be there, and not feel forced. Otherwise you won't get the most out of it.

[matt2500]

I totally agree that you are not likely to get much job-specific training from a college education, unless of course you're pursuing a professional degree like law, medicine, etc. I got a liberal arts degree, in as impractical a field as you could ever hope for (French literature), and even pursued post-graduate degrees, before deciding I didn't want to be a professor.

That said, the most valuable thing I gained from a liberal-arts education was the perspective of a generalist. I learned to relate one class to another, and, at the most basic level, I learned HOW to learn. As you say, since you gain most of your real-world experience on the job, this was the most valuable part of my college education.

My first real job was at a high-tech startup in the early days of the internet boom, and believe me, in 1996, nobody was graduating with degrees in web design or e-commerce. We made things up as we went along, and learned by doing. Our company had a policy of specifically hiring people with backgrounds like mine - generalists with a real wide variety of education and life experience. It served us pretty well.