
It's Never Really About Dropping Out - kloncks
http://www.ihany.com/2011/10/its-never-really-about-dropping-out/
======
sthatipamala
Spot on. I am a college dropout and founder of a YC-funded, venture-backed
startup. Whenever I talk at my old university, I always tell people that
dropping out is by no means a rite of passage or prerequisite to success. I
have an acquaintance who was able to start a company with $1MM in revenue
while staying in school.

There is no glory in dropping out. "Dropouts" are not some super-class of
people who are destined to save America. It's just something I had to do in
order to have the time to start the company I wanted to start.

Addendum: The best dropouts are those who would do well in school anyway. I've
had people tell me "I'm barely passing in school because the stuff doesn't
interest me. I'll drop out and I do what I want to do". There are 1001 things
about running a company that are more boring than your school homework. If you
can't do well when someone gives you a curriculum and is helping you, you
don't stand a chance keeping yourself motivated enough to start a company.

~~~
laluser
I agree with almost all your points, especially on the idea that the best
dropouts are the ones are the ones who would do well in school anyways.
However, I am not sure that someone who can't follow a curriculum will
translate into someone doing poorly when a curriculum is not given to them in
the "real world". Some people thrive on not having rules to abide by.
Curriculums, especially those created in the school system, are not a one size
fits all, so you might occasionally get people who do really bad under them.

~~~
chrischen
That's true. Sir Richard Branson probably didn't do well in school and
probably wouldn't have had he continued that route.

------
hebejebelus
Recently, I've been thinking very hard about dropping out of college. Here in
Ireland, the education system is somewhat different to the way it is in the US
and many other parts of the world. You pick a course, and then for the next
three or four years, you attend only the classes that belong to that course.
There's very little choice in the matter (though you can technically attend
other classes, but not officially and at the lecturer's discretion).

I'm in my third year of a four year computer games development course. I
absolutely love the course, the lecturers, and of course my friends at
college.

I've been thinking about dropping out because I've been finding the course
difficult recently and because I've got a skewed vision of myself, of my
motivations and my abilities. It's so easy to think "I'll drop out and then
I'll have the time to do this and this and this and this," and much harder to
think "If I drop out I'll spend every day on the couch playing videogames and
growing less and less as a person."

That's not the way it is for everyone, but it is the way it is for me. If you
told me you were thinking about dropping out, I'd ask for the proof that
you're not going to waste, because that's such an easy trap to fall into.
Dropping out gives you a chance to do the best things you can do, but it gives
you the chance to do nothing, too.

~~~
evanmoran
The reason college matters is because people take hard classes and have to
fight through them to graduate. Hard is the point of it, not the problem! Now
you just have to figure out how to do what the class asks you to do. Work
harder. Study more. Make a schedule of when you have to study. Talk to the
professor, to TAs, to tutors. Go to every office hour / study group / class
you can. You can do it, but you will have to grow as a person to make it. That
is the point. Good luck=).

~~~
565555656
what if the college does not offer hard classes. I am not talking about a
scenario where I am brilliant and know everything, I am talking about a
scenario where classes are not really hard. Everything is on a basic level and
no advanced level stuff.

~~~
Robin_Message
Then I'm afraid you applied to the wrong college. If it was me, I'd a) work
out how to demonstrate you are top of the class and b) befriend someone in the
faculty who will mentor you, with the probable aim of c) transferring to
another, more challenging institution or at least course at the same
institution. Fortune favours the bold.

~~~
565555656
a)check

b)check

c)my education system does not allow that

~~~
Fliko
I'm curious about what education system doesn't allow you to eventually move
on to harder studies.

I mean, I've been screwed by schools again and again by their promises of
transfer credit and then not giving it to me after I've dropped out of my old
school and have applied to their school (while going to a lower down college
to fill out some course requirements), but despite that there is still the
opportunity for me to fill out requirements and move onto a harder school.

------
0x12
People drop out of school and out of university for all the wrong reasons.
Laziness, unable to look past the next test to the larger picture of what
being educated is all about.

The people that drop out for the right reasons may have such motivations as 'I
can't learn faster or more here than elsewhere', 'the company I started needs
me more than I need a degree' and so on.

Those people aren't really dropping out. They're taking a short-cut because
they already accomplished what the people that stay in the program are still
trying to achieve.

~~~
mattdeboard
This is my position, I feel. I am debating whether to continue attending
classes for my BS AND juggling my full-time well-paid development job AND
single parenthood, or drop the former, since I'm pursuing the former to get
the full-time well-paid development job.

For me it's all about opportunity cost. The time I'm spending on coursework is
time I'm not spending doing self-enrichment stuff I actually enjoy, and is far
more useful.

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whackedspinach
I went to a job fair a few weeks ago where a few of the engineers from a very
hardcore coding company said "Why don't you drop out? I never really found a
degree useful." That's the problem though. College isn't about the degree or
the resume building. It's about meeting people, having fun, and spending late
nights hacking on projects for the hell of it.

I could graduate in three years or less, but I would be missing out on an
experience that will most likely be extremely beneficial.

~~~
lurker17
Be extremely suspicions of advice that takes the form, "If you want to achieve
the position that I have, don't behave like me".

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absconditus
The key is education, not schooling. The conflation of the two is unfortunate.

~~~
jayfuerstenberg
Agreed.

I know so many people who attended university but are less interested in
lifelong learning than people who never attended.

University is an environment for those who benefit from such.

~~~
johnx123-up
Brilliant. IOW, education is shortcut to knowledge; you can get knowledge
_anywhere_ \--not just from college.

~~~
jayfuerstenberg
Employers love to see universities on resumes because it's a good bet the
applicant seeks knowledge and is willing to put in hard work.

The only problem is that some people only go to make getting hired easier.
This is especially prevalent in Japan with. Tokyo University grads are known
for mostly goofing around in the university years, until they get hired by the
big keiretsu companies.

------
Shenglong
I feel schools teaching and testing terribly boring and insignificant material
has helped romanticize the concept of dropping out. After all, people will
say, _why are you in school, if you're better than that?_

The sooner people stop expecting university to be a stepping stone rather than
an experience, the sooner the dropouts-will-save-america notion will fade.
University is _a lot_ of fun, and it's not just a passage to a job.

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mc32
For people who have the smarts, supportive family structure (have the ability
and will help) and already know what they want to do, they can probably do
well despite dropping out. For people who haven't figured things out or need
the nurturing and or guidance and don't have anyone back home as safety-net
dropping out is not going to help; I don't think.

So, yeah, for super smart people institutional education might prove
redundant, but for many, that's where they are going to learn how to interface
with the economy with improved effectiveness, make connections and build
relationships (network).

------
lemmsjid
People get such different experiences at institutions of higher learning. I
completed my BA at a small, teaching-focused college, and don't regret a
minute of it. I felt like it was an excellent preparation for my subsequent
career, even though I was in a completely different field than I majored in. I
had passionate professors with high standards, who continually challenged me
to up the ante. I came into college thinking I was pretty smart, and, like
intellectual boot camp, they stripped away those egotistical veneers of self-
congratulatory-smartdom and made me realize how impossibly huge the world is,
and how many perspectives there can be, and how I exist in the world not as a
calcified foundation of knowledge and opinions, but as an agent who navigates
the world by learning, listening, and observing.

One moment that stands out is when I turned in what I felt was a nicely
articulate paper, one that would have been an easy A, and it came back with a
D and a "see me in my office." The professor dressed me down and had me write
it again. Why? Because I was critiquing the subject material rather than
respecting it.

I plunged right into start-up world after graduating, and it felt very
familiar, in the sense that in a startup you're constantly confronting
uncertainty and unknowing to the point where you have to become comfortable
with those feelings. Once again, you become an agent of learning rather than
an agent of knowing.

I hear about people from larger schools complaining about huge classes taught
by processors with no interest in teaching, where they have no conversation
happening, and no direct feedback--and I think I would be sufficiently
frustrated in such a situation that I would have been more inclined to drop
out if the opportunity were there. I even hear from people who went to my
school who hated every minute of it--you just can't tell.

I also don't think college is a foundational requirement for success--I know
plenty of people in the tech world who didn't complete their BA and who are
doing just fine--I honestly can say it doesn't have much bearing to see
someone's educational credentials on a resume unless I also can see their body
of work.

It all comes down to what your own experience is. Which is why I'm throwing in
my two-cents...I'd hate for someone who IS having a good experience think that
they need to drop out because Steve Jobs did.

------
namank
Explain Steve Jobs please.

Sure he went and _sat_ in some courses but only for a limited time and only
when he thought they taught something he liked, like calligraphy.

Doesn't that imply that school is but a matter of interest? So if your
interest lies in building something great RIGHT NOW, wouldn't it be better for
you to not waste time and money at school but rather go do something you so
dearly want?

My intent here is not to discredit your post. Though I see the value in your
post, I post this only to avoid you and your readers from clumping all
dropouts into a category. My view is that school is not for everyone. Some
people have this innate understanding of the world and thoughts so radical
that school only serves to beat them into another brick in the wall. This is
unfair to them and unfair of society to judge them.

Personally, I think that if YOU believe in it and if you believe in yourself,
then right now is as best a time as ever. School or not. Everyone has to
decide for themselves.

~~~
kloncks
author of post here.

Steve Jobs might not have completed much college, but the company he created
wouldn't have been successful without Woz who more closely resembles the model
I wrote about.

Steve dropped out of college without any plan. That (miraculously) worked.

But it wouldn't have worked if it wasn't for Woz (and others)...Jobs really
couldn't have done anything he ended up doing without others. Woz, like
others, only left when it was clear something else would be a good option and
that point only grudgingly.

~~~
namank
Miraculous?

So what about NEXT and Pixar? Apple the second time? They were also just
strokes of miraculous luck? I disagree.

Of course it takes technical talent to start a company but that doesn't mean
you need it to make a big/good company. This points to the diversity of our
personalities. Steve knew how to make it work. The focus, confidence,
perseverance, risk-taking dedication, and whatever else it took, only he
knows. Those of us who lack in any of these departments make up for it by
getting degrees. The rest of us, like Woz, do it to for passion.

Doesn't mean degrees are the requirement.

At this point I want to make it clear that I'm also back in school. I didn't
come back because I couldn't make it work. I came back because I LOVE
engineering. I want to learn more and I want to build things. I don't have the
resources of labs and funding to do it on my own so I came back - rest assured
the piece of paper I get upon graduation had NOTHING to do with it.

~~~
Fliko
Steve is an outlier, there is absolutely no doubt about it. There also can't
be doubt that Steve did have a few strokes of luck that landed him at the
right place in the right time, but I think you are also right in that the
evidence of his skills are found in the fact that he was consistently
successful.

I think being consistently successful in your ventures is a sign of true skill
more so then being wildly successful, and it's safe to say that consistent
success comes from experience or talent (if you are lucky).

EDIT: Technical talent is always important in a company that is based in
technology. Steve's ability to design complemented the technical talents of
the people he surrounded himself with, he knew that design and engineering are
a nearly perfect couple with the right balance.

~~~
namank
Yeah, no...an outlier that is also your dataset's most beautiful (valid)
point? I don't think so. Either we are plotting him in the wrong graph or our
initial hypothesis is incorrect.

Oh the Secret of Steve Jobs! One day there will be a person that outshines
Steve. Rest assured somewhere out there they are sitting in their desks trying
to figure out the meaning of life while struggling with the curveball life
keeps throwing at them.

~~~
Fliko
Outliers tend to be the most ugly or beautiful.

------
bad_user
I agree with the article.

My story is not as romantic as most dropouts that have started a company /
followed their dream. I have had to work for a living, and because I started
working in what was the equivalent of a sweat shop with very inflexible hours
and a lot of hard/boring work, I had to dropout since I couldn't do both. The
time spent and the things learned in college, however, were invaluable and I
regret not finishing it.

With that said, I do believe that the industry still places too much weight on
college/masters degree. And I think this is what amazes people: that a couple
of dropouts that wouldn't pass through their shitty filters are some of the
richest / most innovative people in the world.

A college purpose should be to teach and enrich people's lives, but shouldn't
be used for classifying people, unless you're talking about people with no
work experience.

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toyg
I dropped out not once, not twice, but three times from three different
courses; I now make more money than most of my high-school peers, and this
only because I WAS DAMN LUCKY to end up in a fairly obscure niche of a very
small but lucrative market.

I'll always regret not getting that damn degree, because now I simply couldn't
get back "on the rails" if I wanted to: my CV will be dropped by 99.9% of
standard employers, no matter how well I might be performing at my current
job. My sons (now 2 and 0) _will_ get a university education, may that be the
last thing I do.

At the same time, I know people who saw through their undergraduate course in
7 years (not uncommon, in Italy, for hard-science degrees) and that also was
not good -- some of them are now damaged in psychological terms, clinically
depressed and underemployed. That should not happen.

------
laluser
While all the companies mentioned are the creation of dropouts, it still took
hundreds (thousands in some cases) of people to bring all those companies to
the point of maturity that they are at now with the help of extremely talented
college degreed people.

~~~
Fluxx
Agreed. Dropping out is risky, but it can give you rewards. College always
gives you great, though sometimes less great, rewards.

------
code_duck
Dropping out and continuing on to be very successful is a sign that

1> you did not fit in with the college establishment or other students

and/or 2> you learn in a different way than others and were not benefiting
from college

and/or 3> you had already obtained/saw the possibility of obtaining better
opportunities in another way.

Does this fit all successful people? Is this sort of history distinctive to
very successful people, or required of them? Of course not. Some very
successful people have similar experiences, especially #2 - but going into the
world without the college experience is not for everyone.

------
vegai
Smart people go to college but they don't know what they want yet. If they
find out and make it before they graduate, they drop out, because it would be
an incredible waste of time to do otherwise.

------
rayhano
This should be re-titled to "Lazy people drop-out, genius is doing something
better before dropping out"

------
chrischen
"After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted
to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out.
And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire
life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was
pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I
ever made."

Steve Jobs' reasoning was probably the main inspiration for me dropping out.
And he makes a really good point. I also dropped out before I had any form of
"success" (and it's also been one of the best decisions I've made). I'd like
to think that if you'll succeed in life you'll do so whether or not you go to
college. But the pressure to succeed becomes immense when you do something
like drop out of college. That probably speeds things up.

But still, I agree completely that this Steve Jobs type dropping out should
not be so readily encouraged. I only did it because I was absolutely sure
about most of the things Jobs described in that quote above.

~~~
lurker17
Steve Jobs was a (mildly) successful independent businessman before he dropped
out. This is key.

~~~
chrischen
"It was pretty scary at the time"

The point was that he made the decision in a time of general uncertainty, but
certain that dropping out was the right decision.

------
dspillett
Definitely.

The problem with the word "drop out" is that people are starting to use it as
if every drop out has something special to offer. Most drop out for reasons
that do not leave them in a state to be helpful to society as a whole. Some
drop-out just because they signed up for the wrong course to start with (and,
disillusioned, often don't return for another shot at something else), some
because they get lazy, and so forth. I dropped out for personal reasons (I
went properly metalist for a while, bipolar before it was trendy to be, and
was medically signed-off) though luckily I'd made an impression on a local
company the year before and got a part-time job with them while I sorted
myself out (one day a week at first, then two, and so on until I ended up
there full time) and I'm still there now.

It isn't dropping _out_ that is important. It is where you drop _in_ to, or
push your way into, afterwards. Just dropping out is not an answer to
anything. Dropping out to pursue a thought-out and potentially ground-breaking
idea (or just a dream: it can be about personal growth more than career
building or world changing) often is.

Most drop-outs make nothing of themselves and we shouldn't be encouraging it
as a way forward (though I firmly believe that many people would be more
successful building their career without University (the system is against me
on this one!) but again dropping out isn't the answer on its own here: don't
go, or if you go and find you've made the wrong decision have somewhere to
move on to planned before you make another big decision that might be equally
wrong). I was lucky. Mid-/long-term (short term was a slowish start, the first
6 months at least mainly spent "fixing" myself) I dropped into a better
position then some of my friends graduated into and have built a healthy
career. Many aren't so lucky, or are just perpetual drop-outs. Some are
following an idea or dream and a few of those are destined to be game
changers, but only a few.

------
freshfey
The problem is that a lot of people think that dropping out == stopping to
learn, which is extremely wrong (at least in my case). I think that's what
Michael Ellsberg is describing so well in his book.

Education is still important, people. But how you get it (formal, informal,
practical, etc.) doesn't matter anymore.

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bmac27
It's not simply about what's "boring" and "not boring", which is subjective
anyway. It's about tangible vs. intangible. Most school coursework is
intangible & lacking context; grades have little to no bearing on real-world
performance and book knowledge very often doesn't translate into solving
problems & generating solutions for paying customers.

There are plenty of people who love learning but who just aren't interested in
academia, in being told what to learn, what to spit out on some trivial
assessment etc. And the fact that these people can motivate themselves enough
to blaze an autodidactic path as opposed to relying on dictation from other
people ought to be proof enough that those are folks who have more than enough
motivation to start a company.

~~~
sector
If I see somebody who graduated summa from a decent school, I instantly know
at least one thing about them: they're good at identify what the customer
wants, and delivering it. You simply _can't_ graduate top of your class unless
you find a way to give dozens of (sometimes unreasonable, often unclear)
people what they wanted, when they wanted it.

------
brackin
I would also say that many that attend College do not earn more because they
went to college but they were capable of doing so, they were intelligent
enough to do so.

Of course there is no glory in dropping out but there is no glory in working
on a startup, whatever happens it'll be tough. If you can't imagine taking the
risk of dropping out then the risk of starting a company is something much
bigger to overcome.

College is for a lot of people, I don't think that dropping out makes you more
successful in any way. But I think that time is money and if your time could
be better spent then go for it.

You have nothing to lose that this age, once you've got all this debt and as
you get older you have a lot more to lose.

------
evanmoran
The worst part of this drop-out fad is people miss out on going to college-
the-experience. As opposed to college-the-education. It turns out it is
actually awesome to hang out, learn stuff, and meet people 24/7. Work can give
you some of it, but not everyone is committed in the same way. Different ages,
different motivations, it won't be the same. The experience is worth as much
as the education.

------
wh-uws
What about Larry, Sergey, Jeff Bezos? Even Jerry Yang and David Filo.

None of them dropped out of or skipped undergrad college.

~~~
ladon86
All but one of those dropped out of grad school though...

------
baby
Thanks, in times when I'm really thinking about dropping out reading this
really helps me not doing a mistake.

------
thomasdavis
Great men live for mastery and academia but modern universities have nothing
to do with either therefore attending is a waste of precious years. University
takes up your spare time that you could be learning things that you're
passionate about, it also seeds poisonous ideas into your head.

This is mostly relevant to the tech community at the moment because we have
had the tools to make our education open enabling the guys mentioned in the
article to educate them self.

Once the other industries start openly publishing educational material then
the true power of passionate self development will be known.

~~~
rimantas
Funny, university helped me to find out the things I am passionate about. It
also helped me to see the broader picture. Universities can help those
passionate self developers immensely.

