Drop Out Or Graduate?
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Steve Jobs gave a speech last weekend at the Stanford Commencement to the 2005 graduates. I haven't been able to find the transcript of the speech, but I did see some comments on the Stanford site as well as some coverage and references in other places. Notably Slashdot where the first post looked like this:
Ug... Job's touting dropping out will undoubtedly start a flurry of "ask.slashdot" questions similar to:
Posted by Michael in an alternate universe
from the Still-in-the-parents-basement dept.
hey d00dz, i wanna drop out like Steve Jobs did! i also wanna leet sysadmin job. i aint got no skoolin' or relevant experience. the job has to let me wear my floorscent green hair down to my ass and let me show my 130 tattoos. and don't forget the piercings in my eyebrows, nose, lips, tongue, septum and 2" holes in the ears. and it has to pay $100K a year or i aint geting outta bed and i'm 2 leet to start at the bottom and work my way up because I AM UNIQE!
The world owes me a living! so what do u /.ers do?
Thanks, Steve
I thought that was pretty humorous since it seems like lots of people commenting on the speech want to denigrate the value of a college degree and they say that real work experience is more important. In many ways I agree that in your DBA job (or other IT job), the real world experience is very important, but often these are the same people that don't want to pay the dues to get the experience. One of Jobs' comments regarded "dropping in" on classes. That might work in some places, but if you're not paying for the class, it's illegal, and immoral. Professors get paid and they work to provide instruction and materials. If you don't want to pay, don't go. Learn on your own, the Internet will provide you with a start.
However, the more important question is should you get a college degree or just go to work? There's lots to write about here, but here's a short take, maybe I'll put more down later.
First of all, college doesn't teach you to be a great programmer, DBA, etc. College to a large extent teaches you about life and how to learn, how to adapt. Not to say that your basic Java or C++ class doesn't teach you things; it does. However it's not turning out programmers, the college turns out a graduate and hopefully an adult ready to be a professional in their chosen career. You learn about being on your own, being responsible, and hopefully how to manage yourself.
It's the rare person that gets through college with good grades that hasn't learned to manage their time and responsibilities. That's what the 3.0 GPA shows. Just like it's the rare person that gets bad grades, but is ready to be a valuable employee when they graduate.
Contrast that with going to work, being an apprentice or sorts, learning to work in an office on a project, with deadlines that move and requirements that shift quicker than the sands of the Sahara. You can learn similar things here, maybe more of a crash course than college, but I think that it requires more effort on your part to take this route. It's not easy and there's a discrimination that you have to get past while you build up your experience.
My advice is to go to college if you can. If not, be professional, work hard, and do your best. But most of all, do something you enjoy.
Steve Jones
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Good points Steve, and another great article. The Stanford site doesn't have a transcript either, but it's worth visiting just to read some of Job's quips. You can see that here: http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/grad-061505.html
I have to say at this point in my life that I'm sorry that I never completed my degree. I do enjoy what I do and I (finally) am making a fairly decent living, but I believe I would have been much further along at this point if I'd gotten my act together and turned all those credits into some kind of degree. There are a couple of reasons for me saying this, and I'd strongly advise any of the younger members out there to stick with it and finish school if at all possible.
Personally, I've worked with people with advanced degrees who knew next to nothing. And I've also known people who had no degrees but had a tremendous amount of talent and experience who could do anything they put their hands to. But I'm not the HR Director and I don't make the compensation policy. It's generally been my experience that those with degrees are almost wihout expection better compensated than those without, regardless of their talent or ability to do the job. Dropouts can point to Jobs and Gates as examples, but you have to know that these guys are execeptions to the rule and that they had an incredible amount of luck and timing working for them.
Yes, if you ever stumble across the opportunity to found your own Apple or Microsoft and have to quit school to do it, by all means go ahead. But for the remaining 99.99999% percent of us, it's probably a better idea to finish your degree. That's just my thoughts for what they're worth.
My hovercraft is full of eels.
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One thing I've learned since graduating in 1992 (B.S.B.A. International Economics and Business) is that I've done a lot more reading and 'learning' on the job than I thought I did in College. In College I could go to class, do the minimum work, and maintain a 3.0 average. I spend a lot more time now (outside of work) reading technical books, studying for certification tests, and doing research.
I'm going to start a Masters degree program in August. I'm fairly confident that I'll do OK because I've never stopped learning, so it (hopefully) won't be a huge adjustment.
Long story short, why look at this type of thing (the majority of us, that is) as an either/or situation. I'm going for both on the job experience and formal education. That way, hopefully my bases will be covered.
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You stated that "if you're not paying for the class, it's illegal, and immoral". Here in Wisconsin, since my taxes pay for the operation of the state university system, I have the legal RIGHT to sit in on any class. What this means, of course, is that you really are only paying for the piece of paper that the degree is printed on and not the actual education. You may see it as a derisory idea, but by "dropping in" on classes I have actually had the opportunity to enhance the education of the paying students with my years of experience in an industry they are just starting to explore. I have gained valuable knowledge from the classroom experience as well, although, I would view it more as insight than knowledge.
I believe I have discovered why corporate structure has evolved into the "command and control" system that is destroying so many good companies. Students are taught to compete with one another and carry that attitude into the way they work. The problem is that a simple examination of human nature shows us that teamwork is more productive for both the company and employee. Consider the natural efficiency of a tribe. The members of a tribe are efficient because they help one another achieve success. The "command and control" corporate culture at most companies causes the company to operate in direct opposition to the naturally efficient tribe model.
By "dropping in" on classes and sharing my experience with the students, and in turn learning from them, helps to demonstrate to my future IT co-workers that the only way to truly be successful in their work is to support their team in pursuit of a common goal. It is a wonderful experience to see a student form the opinion that an extraordinary effort to support their team is much more rewarding than chasing an individual performance bonus that they will likely never see anyway because it was used to placate a greedy executive with no clue about true human nature. I know without any doubt that my presence in the classroom will prevent at least one potential Enron in the future.
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I value a 'relevant' college education (e.g. CompSci, Maths) very highly. I ended up in IT after a general social sciences degree and then, after several years, did a part time Computer Science MSc. It was hard! Some of the lectures & assignments were mind boggling and stretched me far more than any work based programming had done until then. It really opened my horizons, stretched me, gave me confidence and my career a huge boost - I still feel if I can get my head around some of the concepts in the Set Theory course I can do anything!
Maybe the key here is I returned to college as a thirty something with a clear idea of what I wanted and a commitment to working hard and learning. They say youth is wasted on the young, maybe collge is as well.
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Here's the transcript of the speech:
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505
Edit: Sorry, this is the prepared remarks, not a transcript of what he actually said.
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They say youth is wasted on the young, maybe collge is as well.
I can't agree with this statement. Although when people are younger, they may choose a major that they may not stay in for life, there are still youth out there who will choose a major and stay in their careers for most of their lives. And even so, even if you go to college and learn something not related to your field directly, can you really say it's a waste if you've actually learned something that you might be able to apply to life in general? And having a clear idea of what I wanted and a commitment to working hard and learning is something that a younger person may be able to grasp quite well. I have a sister-in-law who's in college right now, going to school for pharmacy - a dream she has had all her life. She didn't make it into the professional division right away, but she didn't give up and finally did make it in - because she knows what she wants and stayed committed to it, even when a roadblock came. And I know many other students out there who still do have this strong commitment and knowing what they want - they may be few and far between in some areas, but they still exist.
As for Steve's editorial... for me, I took the route of getting my degree (Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Engineering Technology) and getting job experience as I went, through internships. What I learned in school helped provide me with just a small glimpse of what I could do in the real world. But through my internships in programming for various companies in different industries, I was able to get a lot more on-the-job training, which a college education alone couldn't provide. It was with those companies that I learned just how to apply my programming skills ... and picked up some business skills along the way.
For me, taking the best of both routes has really helped me along the way. And I recommend it to those in college, as I think having those internships/prior experiences in the field (no matter what the industry) can only help a lot once you do graduate.
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I think part of this debate is what is more important training or education. Training is more focused on specific job skills, such as MCDB, or MCSE, or CCNA. These are training tools that prepare you (sort of) for a specific job.
Education tries to prepare you for a specific field, not a specific job.
I earned an A.S degree, then worked 20 years in electronics then earned my B.S. degree. It was a huge difference for me personnaly between the time I was 20 years old and had no idea what I wanted to do and the time I was 40 and working on my B.S. I was much more focused.
I think a college degree is fine, but it is not an end all to knowledge. Training is constantly required to keep abreast of new ideas and concepts lest we become as obselete as a 386 computer!
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- Education is what may help you reach the extra mile.
- Training is what keeps you current.
They are both necessary if you want to really go far in your career. The balance of the two will keep you in between. It's your choice
Just my $0.02
* Noel -
And my 2 Cs...I grew up in India where Education is HUGE & dropping out was NOT AN OPTION - we could've gotten beheaded for that...<;-)
I hear though that with all the outsourcing going on, a lot of kids are now never making it through college since they can earn big bucks just by answering phones in an Indian-American accent (& y'all know what I mean if you've heard one of them...) - it took their parents years and years to make the kind of money they're making at eighteen...
Guess it all depends on what you want to make of your life and how happy you are doing what you're doing....
As Steve seems to be constantly echoing in almost each and everyone of his editorials - "do something you enjoy"!!!
**ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI !!!** -
Just a thought - most employers are looking to hire somebody with a degree and relevant work experience. It's a lot harder to get a job with just one or the other, but certainly possible in both cases. The main difference I see is this: you can get an entry level job with just one or the other, but it's next to impossible to advance without the necessary education. Does it mean you're not the best person for the job? No. But, from what I've seen, to move up the ladder without the desired degrees requires a great deal of luck, and gets more and more difficult with each step.
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College education is a necessity for the majority of us to be successful. Yes, it is true that Apples and Microsoft’s owners did not graduate from college, but after all they are the exceptions. Secondly, I do not believe they ever really stop learning after they left school. They may not get the degree, they still continue their education. I truly believe for the majority, we will have a much better chance to make a nice living with a degree than without it. As Steve commented “It's very rare for a person who gets through college with good grades but hasn't learned to manage his time and responsibilities. That's what the 3.0 GPA shows. It is also very rare for a person who gets bad grades, but is ready to be a valuable employee when he graduates.” After all, college teaches you to be a responsible citizen and give you the base knowledge to learn and to think.
I did not grow up here in the U.S. Thus, I have a very different perspective about education. In our culture, we will do everything to get a good education and do well in school. Here students are more interested in having a good time than learning something when they are in college, at least a lot of students are like that. You hardly see any foreign students to drop out of college, but American students drop out of college left and right for all kinds of reasons. Here people emphasis a lot more about making money than about getting a good education. In my opinions, a good education will help you achieve much more in your life overall. Get a good education if you can!!!
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All you people are missing the point. If you want to get a good job, then yes, go to college, get that piece of paper. If you want to be a successful entrepreneur like Jobs, you don't need the piece of paper. What you do need is real education (which he got), on a broad range of topics, a lot of imagination, independence of thought, and guts.
I wouldn't underestimate the value of an MIT education, but I don't think the average college program prepares anyone to be the next Steve Jobs. It'll prepare you to get a good job in corporate America, but that's a different thing entirely.
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I learned much of the foundation of what I needed for database administration from college. I know too many people who can navigate their way through Enterprise Manager, and write a decent query, but have limited understanding of relational principles, because they have never been taught or trained. I learned much of that in my 400-level Database Architecture class and was better prepared when I did land my first database admin job.
I'm also a software engineer by profession, with a BBA-Computer Information Systems degree. I think I would have really struggled with programming if I had jumped right into it on the job. My programming classes were great for 1) teaching the basics in a learning-friendly environment, and 2) weeding out those without the aptitude for programming, while giving them a chance to find a different career path the easy way. (Ever seen a bell curve that doesn't curve?
)That being said, my eyes were opened wide when I did get hired and realized how little I knew about either one. There is only so much that college can teach you, and I'd say it's limited to the basics. If I were hiring, I would look for people with both experience and a degree.
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Steve, you were right in your article today to mention descrimination against non-college-graduates. That's something anyone should keep in mind when weighing the decision of whether to drop out or not.
As an application and database developer, I've worked at a number of places where the person next to me was doing the same work as me, and at a very good quality level, but was paid less because he didn't have a college degree.
It may not be fair, but there it is.
Again, something to think about before deciding not to go to college or dropping out of college.
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