Steve Jobs In Praise of Dropping Out 1014
atlacatl writes "Wired reports on Steve Jobs giving a graduation speech: 'Jobs, 50, said he attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon but dropped out after only eight months because it was too expensive for his working-class family. He said his real education started when he "dropped in" on whatever classes interested him -- including calligraphy.' The irony: that most students were graduating. I wouldn't invite him for a high school graduation. Imagine all the 'hard' work teachers, parents and guidance counselors put into brainwashing every kid that he/she must go to University." (Jobs was speaking to the graduates at Stanford University.)
Avoid ask.slashdot for a few days... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ug... Job's touting dropping out will undoubtedly start a flurry of "ask.slashdot" questions similar to: Thanks, Steve.
Re:Avoid ask.slashdot for a few days... (Score:5, Informative)
Personally, think that many people are just resentful of the fact that intelligent people do not need to go to school to get ahead.
Re:Avoid ask.slashdot for a few days... (Score:5, Insightful)
I must've hit the nail on the head.
Anyway, I'll probably finish my college degree, but I won't be resentful of you. Envious of you for finding a path to success that avoids college, though.
I get really irritated when people talk about how valuable college is, because: I'm here, and I'm not seeing it. I guess you could say that "College is what you make of it," but I know that I could be making a lot more of my education if it wasn't for those pesky classes sapping my energy and desire to learn.
Even for the average Joe, I really don't think college is that valuable. Most people learn things when they can find the information personally revelant, and the material in college is usually taught in such a dry, abstracted way that it's very difficult to find an immediate application in your own life. Also, what you don't use, you forget... and 4 years gives you plenty of time to forget.
There are so many people that disagree with me about my views that it's hard not to think that I may be mistaken somewhere... but I really haven't heard any good reasons for why college is worth the cost, other than the fact that employers assume that a degree is a prerequisite to a position in their company (And that also may just be a rumor... I think studies have shown experience is more important than education for increasing your chance of getting hired).
In Defense of College (Score:5, Interesting)
People who might benefit by going to a university:
1) Anyone who doesn't know what they want to do:
Before I started college I had never heard of Linguistics. Because there were no other courses available, I took a Linguistics course my first quarter, and immediately loved it. I'll be graduating with bachelors in both Linguistics and Computer Science soon. Without going to a university (one large enough to offer Linguistics, at that), it would have been very difficult to stumble upon that passion. This broader background will help me to do the natural language processing research I am (now) interested in. Similarly, backgrounds in many fields (e.g. Biology, Physics, Geology,
2) People who like variety:
Depending on who you work for, the variety of the type of work you do will vary. By design, the courseload in a undergraduate CS program is varied, including architecture, ethics, algorithms, automata theory, and of course, programming. I've programmed in Scheme, Prolog, C, C++, C# over the past four years on projects including a networked filesystem, a unix shell, a raytracer, a scheme interpreter, and device device drivers in NetBSD and WinXP. All of these projects were great fun.
3) People who like to challenge themselves:
Anywhere you go, smart people will be able to find ways to challenge themselves. At a university, you have the advantage of a knowledgeable faculty who have plenty of pet projects they'd love to let you loose on. I've also found it very easy to get faculty to supervise research projects of my choosing. It's a great environment for getting a lot done, if you are self-motivated and hardworking. And there is something "pure" and refreshing about doing work without commercial motives - many great projects were birthed and/or nurtured in an academic environment.
I was reluctant to go to college, under the same opinion that if you are smart enough, you don't need it (plus I was just lazy). However, I've found that the university environment is ideal for smart people: lots of challenges, lots of variety. Anyone with the intelligence, curiousity and passion to succeed on ther own would thrive in a good program. Sure, college is expensive. But, again, if you are that intelligent and motivated, you can get scholarships, assistantships, and grants.
I am extremely grateful that I decided to go to college, it has been a great experience and worth every cent.
Re:Avoid ask.slashdot for a few days... (Score:5, Insightful)
A while back I was looking for salaried work (instead of the usual freelance - which I've gone back to BTW), and all the ads were for looking for someone "imaginative and independant" but with at least a college degree. I couldn't help but thinking that what they were looking for was a perfect contradiction.
Some time later I was speaking with a client who was looking for someone in his design department, and he was commenting on the schools his candidates were attending and judging them on that. I said to him: "do you want ideas, or conformism"? He looked at me and said "Ideas, of course." To tell you the truth I don't know who he hired but you get the picture.
The whole educational system needs a workover, but this won't happen until the job market changes. If everyone is looking for independant, free-thinking people who really care about what others want, instead of the usual conformist self-interested self-preserving lemming we are trained to be, schools of course will follow suit and teach us WHY we're learning instead of just promising us that we'll have the world if we follow their orders. Today's educational system is very confusing and discouraging to anyone with ideas of his own.
Re:Avoid ask.slashdot for a few days... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you've hit the nail on the head with this statement. The educational system definitely needs to change. To me, the issue is that colleges and universities try to tailor their courses and programs for whatever they perceive as the current needs of the job market. Usually, by the time the students who've enrolled in the latest "fad degree program" graduate, the needs of the job market have changed. Also, when you consider the original purpose of the university (learning for learning's sake - primarily theoretical), it completely defeats the purpose. Nowadays, most kids go to college to learn skills to get a job to make money. When the primary motivation for learning something is money and not an actual interest in the topic, this will likely lead to failure.
The educational system needs to be split into two separate systems: One for the theoretical type of thinker, and one for the prictical type of thinker. The theory folks can devise the bleeding edge ideas for new technology developments, and the practical folks can implement those ideas.
IMHO, having a degree is not always necessary. Look at my family:
- Sister 1: PhD in organic chemistry; university professor; moderately successful; big debts
- Sister 2: MS in Mathematics; schoolteacher; moderately successful; not as deeply in debt
- Me: HS diploma; well-paid geek; moderately successful; no debt
All three of us are happy with what we do. For me to reach the same level of success as my sisters, all I did was have an interest in what I do, read a ton of books, screwed up / fixed many systems/networks/databases (my own, of course), and always asked questions of those who are more knowledgeable than me.Re:Avoid ask.slashdot for a few days... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm really beginning to dislike the phrase "make money". Money is work, a purely symbolic representation of a person's labour; With it a person can trade the product of his labour with anyone else's - instead of trading chickens for grain for bricks like we used to.
People seem to think today that "making money" is something you can do without work - but even if you find a way to, don't forget that money is the result of someone else's.
Re:Avoid ask.slashdot for a few days... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Avoid ask.slashdot for a few days... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem, of course, is finding that magical first job that will hire you without either experience *or* education. Good luck with that. The most useful thing about college is the internships - the best way ever around the first job Catch-22.
I will say that the code written by people who worked in tech support for years, then QA for years before finally making it into programming tends to be damn good. Nothing like living with the consequences of bad code for many years to build the proper values. A degree does tend to be faster than that path, however.
Re:Avoid ask.slashdot for a few days... (Score:4, Insightful)
Then the people you work with probably took the degree simply to get a job, and perhaps shouldn't have. Perhaps they were fed bad information before University, that the degree was their best way to go.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. A degree is primarily for people interested in the subject material. A degree offers experience with a wide variety of technologies and opens the student up to ideas which would just not be seen in industry. If a kid wants money, and just wants to learn what they need to, there's a big bad job industry out there waiting.
Job-seekers and employers everywhere realise that a good degree from a good institution is worth something, and employers can see it as a good starting point for that employee, but it does not equate to real-world experience. It equates to an ability to learn, and an ability to work, without silly levels of assistance from others. The kids you work with are probably realising this the hard way, after 4 years of being told that the degree would get them places. (It did, it got them their job. They're now realising that they have to work for more than 4 years to progress further.)
Re:Avoid ask.slashdot for a few days... (Score:5, Insightful)
The point of the speech is to encourage students to "ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING". Graduating isn't the top of the mountain, it's base camp. It's not an accomplishment unless they use it to propel themselves. blah blah blah. Potential is for losers.
Re:Avoid ask.slashdot for a few days... (Score:5, Insightful)
The disconnect between professional requirements and competence is a serious social problem. There are certainly incompetents without qualifications, but there are plenty of amply competent (potential) workers without them -- what do you say to those?
Steve Jobs hardly offers a solution. He entered the business at a time when hundreds of new businesses testified to the potential for entry. Today, the barriers to entry are far too high for the mere ability to produce a superior product to suffice, and it is plain to observe that there are no new entries to speak of. Of course, this is the fate of every market; any serious economy of scale means coalescence to oligopy sooner or later. So, what do you say to today's young Steve Jobs who cannot find his way to a job interview?
Re:Avoid ask.slashdot for a few days... (Score:4, Insightful)
There are technologies which have radically changed almost everything about peoples lives in the last 10 years. Do you really think that every product or technology is as good as it can be.
I don't think that there has ever been a better time to start a new disruptive companies. Startup costs are at an all time low, your ability to communicate to the masses has never been higher.
Maybe I'm just an optimist.
Re:Avoid ask.slashdot for a few days... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Avoid ask.slashdot for a few days... (Score:5, Insightful)
If Steve applied for a job at his own company he probably would not even get interviewed.
Re:Avoid ask.slashdot for a few days... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Avoid ask.slashdot for a few days... (Score:3, Funny)
Me too; I kept winding up on this page [apple.com].
Re:Avoid ask.slashdot for a few days... (Score:4, Insightful)
Jobs didn't apply at his own company.
If you feel that you have the skill to go out and make money, there's basically two routes:
1. Convince someone else that you are worth what you desire to earn.
2. Start a company.
Jobs picked #2. To start a company, you need no credentials, but the list of required skills vary dramatically. You don't need to graduate to start a company, but you need to keep the company alive. Usually keeping the company viable is much more effort than getting a degree.
Now if you're running a successful company, you want to hire people with degrees. In part because people with companies are already working for themselves. In part because you can't run a company where everyone is seriously about to jump ship to set up their own shop.
Re:Avoid ask.slashdot for a few days... (Score:5, Insightful)
Your comment was funny, and well put. However, I am a Linux Sysadmin, with many tattoos (no piercings or long hair however). I can say that Job's had many of the right ideas. I dropped in on many college classes, because I didn't have the money either.
The result, is a very well rounded education. Also the ability to teach myself skills that are relevant to the work place. The key is really self-drive. If you REALLY want to learn, there is little stopping you. College is great from some. Myself, I honestly prefer a self-teaching method. It really comes down to your choice of learning.
So yes, there are many people out there that think they can avoid the work of college by dropping out and landing a "leet job", and there are at least a few that care enough to work even harder to teach themselves.
Steve Jobs' experience was unique.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, my experience was a lot like yours.. I was doing well until around two years ago, but I'm struggling again now..
I don't think my experience is that atypical.. The powers that be are getting their revenge on those Internet geeks for screwing up their plans for global domination..
Seriously. The Internet changed everything, and they want to make us pay..
In the 70s (and I met Steve then, when I was in high school, and he was selling his computer kit to 'telephone enthu
Re:Steve Jobs' experience was unique.. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a fair question. And here are some answers.
A college degree is not a commodity (yet); it is not like 87 octane gasoline dispensed at the pump. The college degree represents a period of time in which you study a lot of useless things in the hope that some of them will surprise you by being interesting; that the depressing or boring things will at least teach you how to wade through depressing or boring material for the rest of your life. It is a period of time when people stop being te
Re:Steve Jobs' experience was unique.. (Score:4, Funny)
Here at
Now, what do you think of Apple's move to Intel. Four words or less, one of them must include the word "zealot".
Re:Steve Jobs' experience was unique.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Avoid ask.slashdot for a few days... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Nail, meet hammer. (Score:3, Insightful)
A lot of people on here seem to think they are 'above' getting a degree, that they're too smart for that and after school they can just stroll into a job because of their enormous intelligence. That only works for a very, very small number of people.
A degree shows that you at least have a basic understanding of the subject, and have spent a lot of money, time and effort in the subject area of your choice. Who in
Re:Nail, meet hammer. (Score:3, Funny)
We don't say "I'm going to eat a breakfast", or "I'm going to have a sex", or "I'm going to troll a slashdot".
And we certainly don't say "I got to to Harvard" unless we have a speech impediment ... or are trying to adapt to the Gentoo Keyboard ...
Sure, a few people drop out because they are smart (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sure, a few people drop out because they are sm (Score:5, Funny)
"Graduates of Yale University, I apologize if you have endured this type of prologue before, but I want you to do something for me. Please, take a good look around you. Look at the classmate on your left. Look at the classmate on your right. Now, consider this: five years from now, 10 years from now, even 30 thirty years from now, odds are the person on your left is going to be a loser. The person on your right, meanwhile, will also be a loser. And you, in the middle? What can you expect? Loser. Loserhood. Loser Cum Laude.
In fact, as I look out before me today, I don't see a thousand hopes for a bright tomorrow. I don't see a thousand future leaders in a thousand industries. I see a thousand losers. You're upset. That's understandable.
After all, how can I, Lawrence "Larry" Ellison, college dropout, have the audacity to spout such heresy to the graduating class of one of the nation's most prestigious institutions? I'll tell you why. Because I, Lawrence "Larry" Ellison, second richest man on the planet, am a college dropout, and you are not. Because Bill Gates, richest man on the planet-for now anyway-is a college dropout, and you are not. Because Paul Allen, the third richest man on the planet, dropped out of college, and you did not. And for good measure, because Michael Dell, No. 9 on the list and moving up fast, is a college dropout, and you, yet again, are not.
Hmm
You will need that therapy. You will need them because you didn't drop out, and so you will never be among the richest people in the world. Oh sure, you may, perhaps, work your way up to #10 or #11, like Steve Ballmer. But then,I don't have to tell you who he really works for, do I?
And for the record, he dropped out of grad school. Bit of a late bloomer.
Finally, I realize that many of you, and hopefully by now most of you,are wondering, "Is there anything I can do? Is there any hope for me at all?" Actually, no. It's too late. You've absorbed too much, think you know too much. You're not 19 anymore. You have a built-in cap, and I'm not referring to the mortarboards on your heads.
Hmm
So perhaps this would be a good time to bring up the silver lining. Not for you, Class of '00. You are a write-off, so I'll let you slink off to your pathetic $200,000-a-year jobs, where your checks will be signed by former classmates who dropped out two years ago.
Instead, I want to give hope to any underclassmen here today. I say to you, and I can't stress this enough:
LEAVE. Pack your things and your ideas and don't come back. Drop out. Start up. For I can tell you that a cap and gown will keep you down just as surely as these security guards dragging me off this stage are keeping me dow..."
(At this point The Oracle CEO was ushered off stage.)
Re:Sure, a few people drop out because they are sm (Score:5, Informative)
Nice, but it's an urban legend [snopes.com].
Re:Sure, a few people drop out because they are sm (Score:3, Interesting)
1. William Gates III
2. Warren Buffett
3. Lakshmi Mittal
4. Carlos Slim Helu
5. Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud
6. Ingvar Kamprad
7. Paul Allen
8. Karl Albrecht
9. Lawrence Ellison
10. S Robson Walton
Re:Sure, a few people drop out because they are sm (Score:5, Insightful)
The US has gotten so fixated on sending kids to college that we've lost sight of the reasons why we wanted them there in the first place. As a result, the quality of education has been declining, while the amount of debt our kids pile up before ever starting a job has been rising. And how many of those kids use their college degrees to do amazing things like sell real estate or become plumbers. i.e. What did that degree buy them other than a wad of debt?
That's not to say that education is a bad thing. But people always get the best bang out of an education when they know they want it. Sending them to school before they know what they want to know only devalues it for everyone. Teach your kids to wait until they're ready. Then they can be sure that they really want to take on a college education.
A year of college will do wonders for most people (Score:3, Insightful)
College isn't just about the degree and the career. College is about a way of critically evaluating the world around you.
Of course, you get out of it what you put into it, but I'm willing to bet that most everyone who dropped out of college after the first year will wish, within the following ten years, that they had stuck with it.
Re:Sure, a few people drop out because they are sm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sure, a few people drop out because they are sm (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sure, a few people drop out because they are sm (Score:4, Interesting)
Now I'm a math major and hope to go on to get a PhD... not because I want to "do something" with my degree (I like programming, so I'll just keep doing that) but because leaning is fun.
Dropping out was really a great thing for me, really. I had fun and crazy times rather than sitting in school wishing I was having fun and crazy times. Now I'm older (and know how to manage the somewhat-less-crazy fun around a schedule better) and can be in school and enjoy it.
Re:Sure, a few people drop out because they are sm (Score:5, Insightful)
We live in a different world today than 100 years ago when the elite sent their sons and daughters off to college. Back then, those going to college didn't have to make a living. They already had all the money they needed. They went for pure academic reasons. Your argument is that these circumstances still apply today. They don't.
Today you have a wide middle class instead of just the poor and the rich. Today regular people can go to college. Today regular people can gain successful careers from an otherwise poor upbringing. But today most people must go to college to obtain the standard of living desired.
Sure kids should also want to learn new things and expand their mind. It is still an academic institution, after all. But you cannot discount the fact that the reason parents push their children into going to college is that they need it to survive. And, perhaps, to make sure they don't live in their basement for the rest of their natural born lives. Of yesteryear it may have been normal for children to live their whole lives in the ye ole log cabin.
Things change.
Re:Sure, a few people drop out because they are sm (Score:4, Insightful)
(/me went to college three years after high school. You'd be suprised how motivating a shit job at minimum wage is.)
Re:Sure, a few people drop out because they are sm (Score:4, Insightful)
The part about this that I find so frustrating is that it's such an expensive lesson for kids. I was a home schooler myself, and my mother constantly emphasized that what we learned was less important than learning *how* to learn. While I'm sure that many would take that to mean that she didn't teach us, nothing could be farther from the truth. Rather, I *wanted* to learn many subjects because I had practical uses for them outside of the classroom.
Do you have any idea how cool it is to look at a Trig book and think, "Oh, the raycasting engines I can make with this baby..."
Here's the basic flaw in his speech. (Score:5, Interesting)
Looking back on his life, there will be certain items that he deems to be "important".
Looking back on anyone's life will also yield certain "important" choices or events or whatever. Those are items that shaped your life.
But that does not mean that someone else can imitate those choices and get a similar life. As you noted, some drop out because they're smart, but more drop out because they aren't. It isn't the dropping out.
And I don't believe that Steve's "experience" with cheap college life and calligraphy would mean much if not for a certain Steve Wozniak.
Arrogance of Good Looks (Score:4, Insightful)
I am referring to physical good looks. The "Economist", a while back, reported on a study which indicated that height is important and seems to be correlated with financial success. So, too is good looks.
A good example is Pamela Anderson. She has little acting talent, but she managed to latch onto television role after television role.
Contrast her with Meryl Streep. Streep is less attractive but worked very hard to achieve what she accomplished.
Jobs, like Pamela Anderson, is blessed with good looks and a winning personality. Most of us have probably worked with people with such physical endowments. People with them have a much easier time in life than people without them.
Not surprisingly, the average height of a CEO is above the average American height. So is Jobs' height. Before he tells people how they should mimic him, he should first ask the people around him to forgive him for his arrogance.
Re:Arrogance of Good Looks (Score:3, Interesting)
Bah (Score:5, Insightful)
He also dropped acid in his younger days. That a good thing too??
Re:Bah (Score:4, Funny)
Worked For Me.
Re:Bah (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Bah (Score:5, Funny)
He is different from you and I am different from him and you are different from me.
Oh wow man I get it! I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.
goo goo gj00b :-}
Re:Bah (Score:5, Funny)
In fact, I'm suprised Mac OSX doesn't ship with a sheet of the stuff.
(* do not try this at home)
Re:Bah (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Bah (Score:5, Funny)
Well, that explains the original iMac.
Re:Bah (Score:4, Funny)
Original? Bondi Blue? Try the Flower Power, man!
DO NOT EAT THE BROWN iMAC! DO NOT EAT THE BROWN iMAC!
Re:Bah (Score:3, Interesting)
> his younger days. That a
> good thing too??
Let me rephrase this: "He also hired John Sculley in his younger days. That a good thing too??"
Re:Bah (Score:3, Insightful)
Frankly, we'd all be better off if more people were willing to broaden their mental horizons.
I'm not saying that acid (or any other drug) makes you smarter or gives you better ideas, but it does let you look at old things in a new way, and it changes your thought process temporarily so that you'll come up with different ideas and connections than you would've otherwise. Especially on subjects like your own life, personality flaws, and futur
Not Feynman. (Score:5, Interesting)
up the machine," electing to go with sensory deprivation instead of drugs to get a hallucinogenic experience going.
--grendel drago
Re:Not Feynman. (Score:3, Interesting)
Are you certain that sensory deprevation is safer than LSD? Furthermore, evidence that LSD is damaging to the mind is suspect (There is aboslutely no evidence that it damages the brain). Stories about people who've 'freaked out' on acid or other drugs were most likely already insane or mentally u
Re:Not Feynman. (Score:4, Interesting)
According to James Gleick's biography Genius, Richard Feynman experimented with LSD during his professorship at Caltech. Somewhat embarrassed by his actions, Feynman sidestepped the issue when dictating his anecdotes; consequently, the "Altered States" chapter in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! only describes marijuana and sensory deprivation experiences.
Re:Not Feynman. (Score:3, Insightful)
Great I'll tell this to all the victims of your mindless bombing of two cities with dense population in close succession in Japan. They'll thank me and the US for saving so many lives.
Or do you think the lack of a World War III is just a coincidence?
Just because there was no World War III proves that atomic bombs have prevented it? Cool line of reasoning.
I tell you a secret. The fact that there was no Worl
Re:Not Feynman. (Score:3, Insightful)
Looks like sound advice.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like good advice to me!
Re: (Score:2)
Facts (Score:2)
Just because Jobs dropped out... (Score:5, Insightful)
In general University/College is a GOOD thing. However, some people's paths take them elsewhere.
--Mike
Re:Just because Jobs dropped out... (Score:3, Insightful)
And of course, no one path is for everyone. Not everyone should spend the time getting a degree. But I would wager that many more would benefit from a degr
Re:Just because Jobs dropped out... (Score:3, Interesting)
--Mike
Re:Just because Jobs dropped out... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just because Jobs dropped out... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just because Jobs dropped out... (Score:3, Informative)
The Woz went back to Berkeley and got his degree in 1982, while he took a break at Apple. Read more about Wozniak here [wikipedia.org].
Good For Him (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think the point of his speech was that dropping out is cool. It was that hard work and determination are what you need to be successful.
Say what you want about Jobs, he's a gifted businessman who knows how to sell. He had the right product in the 70's at the absolute best time.
Your mileage, of course, will vary :).
I wouldn't follow Steve Jobs advice. (Score:5, Informative)
And when Wozniak set up his own company in 1986, Jobs threatened Wozniak's suppliers against doing business with Wozniak.
Just because Jobs did something in his past doesn't mean that is a good path to follow.
Re:I wouldn't follow Steve Jobs advice. (Score:5, Informative)
Many years later, Woz (then rich and famous) was flying on a plane when he picked up a magazine and read the story for the first time; he reportedly wept when he read it.
he doesn't seem to advocate dropping out... (Score:3, Interesting)
college degrees, especially these days, are a guarantee of nothing other than having a piece of paper. for many people and many fields the real learning is accomplished by doing rather than absorbing theory.
i dropped out, and luckily i have done very well for myself. but if asked by younger people who are still in the system, i certainly wouldn't RECOMMEND people leave school unless they already had a very clear plan of their future.
the educational system is geared towards very specific professions at the exclusion of many viable, valuable professions that don't require their teaching. i don't believe it's done out of any malice but rather just a lack of information.
I'll agree with what Steve says (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're talented, smart, and *most importantly* not lazy, not having a degree doesn't matter in the big scheme of things. With those assets you're more than capable of working around and moving beyond the confines of the traditional 'system' most people end up dealing in (IMO, because they aren't talented enough, smart enough or lack the work ethic to do anything to change things).
Degrees are nice and they do make joining the higher class system (white collar?) easier, but IMO, a lot of people also use degrees as a crutch for rationalizing avoiding the need to do anything meaningful.
If you're talented, smart and actually enjoy hardwork, the world is your oyster. Persuing a degree may even be a distraction from you obtaining your purpose and potential.
$.02
Re:I'll agree with what Steve says (Score:5, Insightful)
Try doing real, novel science without a Ph.D. Sure, you can go into IT or even software engineering without a degree, but there's tons of interesting stuff that you simply won't be able to comprehend without years of school.
I mean, have you seen the cool toys physicists get to play with these days?! ;-)
Re:I'll agree with what Steve says (Score:5, Insightful)
Um.. the same could be said if you are good-looking, born with rich parents and get along with everyone.
The point I think is that most people are not talented enough, smart enough, enjoy hardword enough, good-looking enough, have parents who are rich enough or get along with enough people and so need all the help they can get, including that university degree.
OP Misinterprets the Speech (Score:5, Informative)
This is not an anti-education message. In fact, it is a message strongly in favor of a liberal-arts education. In Steve's original college career, he was going through the motions -- going to college because that was the thing to do. When he started learning again, he was doing it out of a personal desire to learn, and with more genuine motivations. And he was taking classes to improve himself and his outlook, not just to get nuts-and-bolts information that would advance his career. Steve's saying that you have to invest yourself in learning and appreciate its value where you might not expect it.
Those of you who are oversimplifying this into a "street smarts" vs. "book smarts" thing have watched too much of The Apprentice. This was a speech about the personal value of learning and the importance of an open mind and broad perspective.
As Mark Twain once said... (Score:3)
btw, anyone else here feel the urge to slap those students dressed as iPods?
I dropped out... (Score:4, Interesting)
Two years later, I was driving a cab. I did that until I saved enough money to build a small recording studio, which I ran while playing in another band and doing live sound on the side. By the mid-'90s, I had a gig as a 3D animator and graphic artist, skills that had previously been hobbies for me. That led to a partnership in a media services company that also did software development. We sold out before the bubble burst.
Right now, I'm vice president of a company that does system administration on a contract basis. Small company in a small market, but profitable nonetheless.
Not having a degree pretty much precludes working for a large corporation, but I've never wanted to work for a big company. I do regret not getting a liberal arts education, and it's something I'd like to pursue soon, even though I'm in my forties. I'm looking to retire in about five years anyway, so I'll have the time.
To make it without a degree, it helps to be in a field that doesn't require one (like the arts), to be willing to do menial jobs now and then (like driving and dispatching taxis), and to be able to teach yourself the skills you need (technical, entrepreneurial, etc.). I can't stress the last one enough: without the support of a company behind you, sending you to training seminars and paying your way, you have to be your own teacher.
k.
proportional fonts: not-so-subtle revisionism? (Score:5, Informative)
If the late Jef Raskin had anything to do with it, they would; he recalls lobbying for versatile bitmapped displays and not hard-wired fixed width character generators, against Jobs and Wozniak.
Sadly Jef is no longer with us to defend the account, but he left a detailed history, The Mac and Me [chac.org]:
Later in the essay, Raskin notes that Jobs was eventually persuaded to green-light the Apple II's "high res" mode. Only Steve himself knows if an enthusiasm for calligraphy influenced the decision... but even had he not, proportional fonts were already being designed into the expensive research workstations of the day, where the hardware budget was orders of magnitude greater than an Apple II's.Why then does Apple *require* degrees for IT jobs? (Score:3, Interesting)
Hypocritical fuktoads
Bill
Re:Why then does Apple *require* degrees for IT jo (Score:3, Insightful)
They never say that dropping out of college will help you get a job - ever notice that these highly successful college dropouts started their own company and didn't go to work for someone else? There's a lesson in there for you.
This is the problem with success stories (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is the problem with success stories (Score:3, Funny)
Success = Creativity + Ambition + Hard Work (Score:4, Insightful)
If I interviewed two people for a job I'd always choose the one who had ambition, creativity and a great work ethic. College degrees and intelligence would be secondary. There is a place for that, but with good leadership you can get an ambitious person to do amazing things.
The other factor that counts is common sense. Understanding the requirements of a job and relating to customers is very important. In a sense, everyone works for customers - our bosses are customers of sorts.
For anyone still in school, don't get wrapped up in your GPA but don't drop out of college either.
College is not for everybody (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, my degree allows me to pursue the same quality of life they enjoy, but at a job which will be intellectually challenging and personally rewarding. I just have to wait a bit longer for the tangible benefits.
That said, I don't think it's appropriate to drop out of high school. College, sure, if you find something else you want to do. But for pete's sake, you really should have a high school diploma.
Steve rocks. But... (Score:3, Funny)
In other words (Score:5, Informative)
Not Really... (Score:3, Interesting)
I've known a lot of very intelligent people but not all of them had the drive or the passion. Unfortunately, many children growing up, especially the intelligent ones, forget the other ingredient needed and assumes their natural talent will bring them success. They neglect school and somehow expect their talents to just kick in and solve all their problems when they need it. Memorization shouldn't be the only part of education but knowing things in advance will save you a lot of time from having to solve them again, probably in a worse way. So, for the rest of us, schooling and formal education are useful. There's no doubt that Jobs is an incredible person, very rare among people. His path to success will no doubt be different and inaccessible to the majority of students.
Different Paths for Different People (Score:3, Insightful)
More importantly, we need to look deeper into what he said and why he said it. For some people, college probably is a waste of time. If he had stayed in college (pressure from family, etc), maybe Apple never would have come to be. Maybe he would have lost all motivation or thinking differently and would have graduated with his degree and got a job as an accountant or programmer somewhere. For Steve, his personality conflicted with the structured ways of university learning. For others, it could be the kiss of death to not get that college degree. Some people need need the schooling to mature a bit. I'm glad he dropped out, scraped for food, and was willing to do whatever it took to survive and to take his "beleaguered company" back.
Actually Jobs said more than dropping out (Score:3, Informative)
The real lesson... (Score:3, Insightful)
College degrees today are quickly becoming what high school degrees were 40 years ago. Advancement in your job is linked to how much education you've gotten. Whether you know more or not is irrelevant, but having degrees count. I have a friend who is a Lt in the Air Force. He's been telling me how a masters degree is quickly becoming a requirement in order to advance into the higher ranks in his department (He's not in R&D or a repair unit or anything like that either). Another example, a few years back another friend of mine was working a summer job for the county doing road maintainence (AKA, scooping up roadkill). Since he wasn't a total screwball like the other full-timers, he got along well with his supervisor. They were discussing my friend's future at some point. My friend wanted to (and did) go to music school, but the supervisor said that if he wanted, after graduation from college, he could recommend him for a supervisor's job working for the county. When my friend asked how a degree in Music Education would be useful working for the county, the supervisor said the degree itself didn't matter, just that you had it. His own degree was in agracultural sciences. So for most mainstream people, a college degree is the best course of action. Maybe you don't have to go into your major's field, but overall you'll be better of having it.
My personal story (Score:3, Insightful)
Honestly, Steve is my hero, and this is why. The guy didn't have a product, great technical understand, business skills, personal or social skills. And if he was a visionary, then what was his vision? No, Steve Jobs made his money as a philosopher. He had the philosophy that every computer should be simple enough for the average human to use, and it should be beautiful. Of all the things Steve has fucked up over the years, this one philosophy has remained, and he has carried Apple on this alone.
Higher ed isn't the only measure (Score:3, Interesting)
It's known that geniuses, by their nature, simply do not fit in. I wonder how someone like Einstein would do in today's invironment.
Transcript of Jobs' commencement speech (Score:5, Informative)
Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months but then stayed around as a drop-in for another eighteen months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife, except that when I popped out, they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking, "We've got an unexpected baby boy. Do you want him?" They said, "Of course." My biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college.
This was the start in my life. And seventeen years later, I did go to college, but I naïvely chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. 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 of how college was going to help me figure it out, and here I was, spending all 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. The minute I dropped out, I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms. I returned Coke bottles for the five-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example.
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer was beautifully hand-calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans-serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me, and we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts, and since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.
If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class and personals computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.
Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later. Again, you can't connect th
Education not the be all and end all (Score:3, Interesting)
Most likely he was talking to a large bunch of smart and educated young people and telling them that today was the first day of the rest of their life, i.e. getting an expensive education is not the end. Some people do not have the same level of education as they do, yet can be successful and smart too. Doubtlessly in the audience there were people who graduated because their parents had money.
At a college like Standford with the degree also comes the network of peers. It would be a mistake to think that because suddently they are part of a high-level clique they are more intelligent and deserving than others. They still have to go to work and achieve something on their own to deserve any significant accolade.
In Europe we have some prestigious schools too. At one of them the president was a military man, and always made some speech at graduation. He was fond of telling his graduating students that (1) there are stupid people everywhere and (2) the more educated they are, the more dangerous they are.
My own university president was fond of quoting movies. There is a classic French movie called "a taxi for Tobruk", a war movie with great dialog, where a couple of people are in a jeep who breaks down in the desert. The two people are a grunt and an officer. The officer decides to stay near the jeep and wait, while the grunt decides to walk and find help. The officer tells him he'll soon die, but the grunt replies "un con qui marche va toujours plus loin qu'un intellectuel assis".
An idiot who walks always goes further than a seated intellectual.
Perhaps this is not very different from the Jobs attitude.
Cheers.
Sometimes it's the right option.. (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a lot tougher to guage wether it's the right decision when you're making it though. When I first dropped out of high school I thought I was moving into a long term career in fast food. In hindsight I saved myself about $20k and gained 4+ years of work experience on my friends.
Since I'm also moving into self-employment the glass ceiling that would face me if I was in a corporate environment with no paperwork is not an issue.
For those of you who are at a crossroads; When you're making this choice, remember, either way you're actually blessed with good fortune, and making either choice isn't the end of the road, by far.
My son won't go to college (Score:3, Funny)
His twin sister will go to college though. She's going to become a lawyer because he's going to need a really good agent.
Re:Guess what (Score:5, Insightful)
College can provide a wonderful education, if the student is ready for it. I started college when I was 16, but I was too immature even though the "test scores" said otherwise. I needed to grow up, get life experiences. I did these things (though I didn't realize it at the time), and graduated when I was 24.
Had I gotten through school by the time I was 19, which was the pace I was heading, I would have had a college degree and a job I would have hated. Probably would have been found hanging by a rope by now. Instead, I love what I do, and life only gets better by the day.
Summary: College is education for those ready to receive it. Same goes for life in general.
Re:Guess what (Score:3, Interesting)
Eventually, I earned enough that I could afford 25 hours per week with a lighter schedule.
If you really want to go to school, you can. I didn't realize what was out there for folks in the way of grants and stuff... probably good, or I'd be more in debt
Why don't you share what you think you want to do with your
Speak for yourself. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, there were a few fools and charlatans teaching, but I dealt with it; I got to work with some of the cleverest, brightest folks I know.
For me---who'd never known there were other geeks out there---it was a transformative experience.
Clearly, your mileage may vary. But what you get out of school is, at the very least, proportional to what you put into it. Blaming The Man for not hacking it in school is pretty damn weak.
--grendel drago
Re:Speak for yourself. (Score:3, Insightful)
Tell that to Galois. Frankly, students who are impressed by today's schools are unexceptionally unimpressive. I've met teachers less competent than me, and teachers more competent than me, but neither has been able to teach me anything I couldn't better learn on my own, or anyway outside the school system. School o
Re:school sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
You'll get out as much as you put in. If all you ever do is take engineering classes and do the required minimum work, you'll have wasted a great opportunity.
Re:school sucks (Score:4, Insightful)
Get into stuff that interests you?
Seriously, you can't pick up a book and read? You can't do things on your own? Does the only thing that interests you at age 12 involve pressing buttons on multi-million dollar toys and then reading the a series of numbers on a print out?
Who exactly are you waiting for to give you permission to do what you want to do?
Stop waiting to be spoon-fed.