I would like to start this masterpiece off by saying congratulations to Nicky Evans and Francisco Costa. Nicky chopped the Sunday warm up on stars for 77k, and Francisco won a WSOPE Omaha bracelet for about 90k euros. Although Francisco's win is much more prestigious and brings more fame, Nicky maintained a better hourly win rate, nice job felllerrrs.
The more I think about college, the more I think it is a joke. College is awesome, if you love to party all night with girls and drink all day with your boys. I never for one second wish I had quit college mid way through to play poker, I'm happy for all the experiences I had in my 4.5 year illustrious career. My first 2 years of college I maintained what I'm guessing to be a 20% attendance rate, while my last 2 were closer to 90%. The times I went to class I was usually hung over or just didn't care enough to really learn the material that would never apply to my life. There were a few classes where I got heaps of knowledge from, mainly within operations courses. For me (more like my parents <3) it cost about $40k, for some people like my selfish brothers it cost $160k each.
I think a better allocation of that money would be to bribe someone. Hey, here is $100,000….hire my kid and teach him everything you know. Who do you think would learn more? A kid fresh out of highschool who goes and works a 9-5, or some muppet-highschool grad who goes to college and smokes 10 blunts a day while preaching chairman Mao? The kid who goes straight to work would also experience an education void of and political bias, unlike college. Of course you can't just get a loan from your bank specifically to bribe upper management, but you should be able to.
I know this bribing theory doesn't apply to all college students, I wouldn't be so bold to assume that. However today in America we are seeing how little demand there is for a general college education. There is plenty of demand for specialized degrees like engineers and medical doctors, but who is hiring communication majors and anthropology majors?
This blog isn't going to be worthless, its going to offer solutions people. Like every other aspect of life, things must constantly be improving and evolving. Instead of inserting BS courses like, "writing emails 101", the college should revamp its whole strategy. I want to send my kid to a school where he can master sales by the time he is 21. Lets get him/her stuck into some Glengarry Glen Ross shit. Tuition would be free as long as they hit their quotas, easy game.
Alongside of learning entrepreneurial theory they should be required to start a business as soon as they start their education. I've read plenty of books on the subject, but never saw a chapter about running a business being 20k in debt with electricity bills to come, which I believe is standard.
I don't want to dissuade anyone from going to college. Perhaps my contempt for education comes from living in such close proximity with Harvard university, the mecca of bull shit. They have professors teaching professors how to convince people professors are important. People who truly are passionate about subjects they can only learn in college should peruse those interests. However, almost all the people I met in college had no clue what they wanted to do on both sides of graduating, and now have a little bill each month whispering gently in their ear…"student loans….pay meeeeeee"
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DJRog00
Maybe the last year of high school should be more geared towards preparing students and helping them to think long and hard about what they might want to pursue. Maybe there should even be a small gap after high school for kids to spend more time discovering themselves (yeah right, they’ll just smoke 10 blunts a day).
I think a lot of what you said in this article is true, but also a bit bias (Oh wait it’s a blog, it should be). You’re right in that general education degrees are not in high demand, mainly due to the fact that too many people are taking them. They can be the easy way to coast through college, party, and still maintain decent grades. I’m not saying that they are worthless degrees, there are some very interesting things you can do with them, but you may have to start your own business and as you’ve already stated: Why should you be 60-80k in debt before you try to jump start a company?
If we can teach the kids earlier in life about “smart” college choices (i.e. Demand for specific major, Cost vs. Placement, Job Market, Where technology is moving to or away from, etc.) we can help them decide if it’s even right for them. There are a lot of jobs I see friends taking that I have a hard time understanding why they were required a full 4 year college degree to get that job. It almost does seem like a scam. On the other side, I know doctors who I wouldn’t trust to do their job without all the schooling and training they had to endure. I’m an engineer and college is where I learned most of the skills and trades required for my career.
In the end, it is absolutely career dependent and I do believe we should take more time with the younger generations to help them make more informed decisions. Thing is you have to figure out a way to get a high school kid to take it as seriously as they should, that will be a task in itself. Paying that much money for an “education” that I know some people don’t even utilize after college seems quite like burning money.
Alright enough blathering from me, good read Jeff. It is nice to see some actual blogs on here again and I don’t think they should all be about poker. Life is not poker, but it sure is a hell of a game.