For a long time, I was
unsure of what I wanted to achieve in college. But I’ve realized
recently that for most people, college amounts to a horrible investment
forced on them by their parents and society. Unless you are pursuing a
degree in higher mathematics, accounting, science/medicine or
engineering, college is a waste of money. Certainly it was for me. I’m
an artist, but our art school feels like a joke and a
pseudo-intellectual circle jerk. Rigorous life drawing isn’t even part
of the curriculum. It’s a dairy farm of self-important flower children
being milked for their future earnings (at the local Starbucks) and
being told that making random scribbles on a canvas or painting the
canvas white is true talent instead of nonsense that will leave them
starving. Practical art schools aren’t much better. At Kendall in Grand
Rapids, I could have learned illustration and jewelry design; the kind
with stone setting and CAD programs, as opposed to twigs and pubic hair
like at Western…and graduated with $70k in debt for jobs that pay $35k.
As far as business school goes, Apart from the accountants, business school is filled with dim-witted frat boys occasionally wearing suits, being taught how to “motivate” or “manage” people, or worse yet, how to be a good worker bee….as if they needed an expensive (and rising) college education for that. Let's not even go into the people studying Gender and Women's Studies or Comparative Religion. According to an article I read over breakfast one morning, 40% of college graduates end up settling for a job, which in terms of skills, does not even require the degree they paid so much for. It’s a requirement that is only a requirement because it’s a requirement.
I remember in my
organizational behavior class our professor asked how many people were
interested to start their own businesses. Only a couple of the roughly
two hundred students raised their hands. I thought that was ironic. I
want to run a business. I’ve actually started doing it…and in doing so,
I’ve come to see college as somewhat irrelevant. My time in college has
shown me the joy of alcohol and recreational drugs. I’ve made countless
friends from around the world and have had time to stave off adulthood,
but not much else has come of it apart from learning a few skills that I
might not have tried otherwise, though half of them I learned on my own.
This class has taught me Excel, which is really valuable for my internet
business, but I could have taken an equivalent course at a community
college for 1/8th the cost or studied internet tutorials for
free.
I suppose I was stupid and irresponsible when I started school, and didn’t fully explore the options available to me. The only reason I don’t drop out immediately is because I’ve already sunk a large amount of time and money into college. I might as well have something, however small, to show for it. In conclusion, my plan is to spend the year I have left here growing Critical Hit Collectibles so I can have enough income to move wherever I want and survive comfortably on that money plus occasional pay from freelance sculpting work or a part-time bartending job. You can shove cubicals and corporate ladder climbing.
IN VINO VERITAS,
Kevin Hayden