Why go to college when you can create your own course?

To answer this question on its face is actually quite simple, to get the official stamp of approval from the college attended. Most degrees out there are absolutely worthless except for a few, like a doctor, architect or engineer. But when it comes to leaning computer programs, music, history, philosophy and especially gender studies, those can all be learned on ones own. When doing so, you’re chances of discovering a different aspect of given subject that hasn’t been thought up before increase dramatically. That’s because you see the subject from your own perspective, not the instructors’. So why do most people take out tens of thousands of dollars to attend college for a degree that they won’t even use? If other people are anything like me, here’s why.

People want to party and find their mate, plain and simple. The social environment of the college experience is what attracts young and hormone-rich people together for the parties, the crazy stories, the friendships and the relationships, and honestly, who can blame them? But that can be a huge detriment to a young person that strictly wants to go to college for a good time.

Another reason people go is strictly for the title of being officially educated in given subject, therefore no one can argue with them about, let’s say, sociology. This is strictly pride and power based. Anyone can learn sociology on their own and the person who learns a given subject on their own are usually going to know more about it because they have a passion for it, they don’t need the title or degree. And for those who are passionate about given subject will likely already have a plan for it, whereas the college student banks on finding a job after they have obtained the title, which may be obsolete by the time they graduate, and that’s if the job they seek exists in the first place. The college student of a useless degree will often quit their studies after graduation because they have the title. The graduate will feel they have earned their stripes and have learned enough. Napoleon Hill writes extensively about just that in his iconic Think and Grow Rich.

I talk to college graduates my age (30) all the time. Recently I had made a pleasant acquaintance at work (low skilled work) with someone who graduated with a degree in economics. Though he dreams and seems to be ambitious, he spends his evenings smoking weed and playing video games, he spends his weekends drinking beer with his friends. I would talk to him about economics but he would claim he doesn’t know too much about the subject. He had quit his studies post graduation and lost interest.

So my advice to you who seek college but fearful of the student loans and the next four years of your life being controlled by the curriculum laid out for you is to create your own curriculum. Invest in yourself on your own terms.

This is how the invention of the airplane took place. During the turn of the twentieth century, scientists from all over the world were racing to be the first to invent a vehicle that can take off from the ground and land predictably by a driver (pilot,) but leave to some fucking bicycle mechanics in rural America to be the first. The Wright brothers took it upon themselves because they has a passion to bring humans to flight and they learned on their own, they created their own curriculum. The other scientists were trying to invent the airplane just to have their names in the history books. Talk about the underdog winning!

What can it hurt? Either self-learn your own subject and entrepreneur off of that or spend money that you’ll never pay off for a job that may not exist.