A couple of weeks ago, I answered the question: „What are 20 things that are not worth it?“ on the Q&A website Quora. The very first point I mentioned was: college. And it generated a huge amount of shitstorm in the comment section.
Not long after, I expanded on the idea a bit in the James Altucher post (and on my private Facebook). And once again pissed people off.
Naturally, since pissing people off is a favorite hobby of mine, I decided to take my time and write an entire article on the topic.
Almost two and a half years ago have passed since my graduation. I finished the Faculty of Engineering and Computing in Zagreb – considered as an elite college in Croatia. I was a decent student, I managed to combine private and professional obligations perfectly. And I had a guaranteed job as early as year three. By all standards, I should be very content with my choice and with what college education offered me.
Except that I am not. Two and half years and one quarter-life crisis after, I very often regret going to college.
Mind you, the main reason is subjective. Engineering probably wasn’t the right choice for me. Initially, I wanted to study history. But then gave it up because “I don’t want to end up as a teacher”. 1
But there are also objective reasons. There are many drawbacks and problems that need solving. The room for improvement is huge – especially in Croatia, where universities in two biggest cities are ranked 659 and 791 in the world.
So, even though the following post is going to have every characteristic of a rant, please keep in mind I am talking from my own perspective.
That I don’t claim that the college is not for anyone.
I merely dispute the claim that college is for everyone.
1. College doesn’t prepare you for the job
„I ask you: name me, really, ten things you learned in college? Now, name me 3 things you actually used after college in your jobs?“
~ James Altucher, 40 Alternatives To College
2 months after graduation, I entered my office for the first time and started working at my current job.
From the very beginning, I noticed that real life has very little to do with the things I did at college. Initially, I attributed my incompetence to the fact everything was new to me. But soon I had to admit it had nothing to do with subjective reasons.
I realized that college didn’t prepare me for my job.
Let’s be frank – college doesn’t teach us any real-life skills. I knew very little about the actual power system. I knew nothing about business and companies. Half of the software tools we used in college don’t appear in practice. The other half I couldn’t handle sufficiently. Even my Microsoft Office skills were lacking.
There are two parts of the problem. The first is that the learning process is in college mostly memory-based. You get a2 book on a certain topic. You learn it by heart. You present your „knowledge“ on an exam. You pass or fail. You prepare for the next one. The circle continues. Rinse and repeat.
This is especially true in Croatia, where there is little to zero emphasis on the practical side of the education. There is no collaboration with the industry/business. Sure, being aware of the “theoretical background” is nice, but it doesn’t help you to develop a website. Or make a sale. Or write a book. Or speak in front of a large audience.
You learn it by actually developing websites. Selling things. Writing books. Or speaking in front of large audiences.
The second part of the problem is that the array of subjects taught in college is too broad. Hell, I didn’t have to choose a narrow area of specialization for three years! I think that the process of acquiring general, encyclopedic knowledge should finish by the end of high-school. 3
In the 21st century, developing a specific and applicable skill set should be in focus instead.
2.College doesn’t teach us how to think
Now, many people also argue that high education is more than job training. „College teaches you how to think“ is a common pro college argument. However, nothing I have experienced or seen in praxis supports it. On the contrary, I believe college actually and teaches us how NOT to think.
In order to understand why, we first need to ask ourselves what „thinking“ actually means. In this context, I am referring primarily to the art of „critical thinking“ or the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment.
Critical thinking consists of several „micro-skills“. Of components such as deep study, analysis, the flexibility of thinking, skepticism, curiosity, open-mindedness and willingness to be proven wrong. In my opinion, college does very little to nothing to develop any of these.
The main goal of every college student is passing the exams and getting a degree. The easiest way of doing so is following the rules and memorizing the course material. You don’t get bonus points for creativity.
You are not supposed to question well-established concepts. Or, god-forbid, contradict the professors. Not once have I heard a story of a student solving a task correctly, but in his own way, and getting zero points because „that is now how we are supposed to do it“.
Skepticism is another example. People are, in general, not willing to admit they don’t know something or that they might be wrong. College merely reinforces our belief in our own wit and our own entitlement. My friend who works in an emergency service told me there is a high correlation between someone’s level of education and his tendency to think he is smarter than the doctor. College degree more often leads to arrogance than to humility.
Even so, some authors have dared to go even further. One article on Forbes 4 states that:
[…] students should go into the world as curious, life-long learners, and informed citizens. […] It’s not enough for us to support the next generation in their careers. We must also support their growth into active citizens, who are able to build a better nation for us all.
I highly doubt the whole „college turns us into curious, life-long learners and teaches us how to think“ notion. This is another misconception based on the correlation-causation fallacy. It’s not that college turns people into curious, life-long learners. In the current system, curious, life-long learners who know how to think are simply more probable to go to college.
And remain curious, life-long learners who know how to think afterward.
3. Things you learn in college can be more effectively learned elsewhere
College’s ability to teach you a lot of things you will never think about afterward is not the only thing bugging me. Another problem I have with it is that it’s also very bad at teaching you things you might actually find useful.
For example, one of the skills I use regularly in my job is programming in Matlab – the most widespread and popular computing language for engineers. In college, we had a Matlab course. But it was extremely short. Condensed with information. Full of abstract assignments.
In other words – useless.
I owe my entire knowledge to Mike Fitzpatrick from Vanderbilt University and his wonderful Coursera course titled Introduction To Programming With Matlab. This single course was more useful than all other courses during the entire 5 years combined.
The material was well-organized. Professor Fitzpatrick was brilliant. But most importantly – I was left to my own devices and could have set my own pace. I had control over the learning process.
Coursera: 1 – Faculty of Electrical Computing and Engineering: 0
This marked difference exposed how painfully ineffective formal college education is. How could it be – it is impossible to hold a course attended by 50 people and devote enough time and attention to each and every one of them. Especially if the curriculum of a subject is lacking, to begin with.
Another example. I deem my master thesis highly useful. I learned a lot. But I did it almost entirely independently of the college structures. The company whose scholarship I got provided me with the input data, with the concrete task and tracked my performance. Were it not for them, I could have as well written some sort of “prolonged theoretical essay” and chosen the path of least resistance.
I would have passed all the same.
I believe that everything I learned in college I could have learned more efficiently somewhere else. Even though the golden era of MOOC’s is behind us, the availability of information in the modern era makes knowledge accessible. Ask any software engineer who ended up coding for Google or Facebook where they picked up their skill. There is very little chance they will say: “During a course in college”. 5
I know some people will argue that this applies only to engineering and computing. But I think it applies to other fields. I think you can learn more about languages, musical instruments, history, mathematics, physics, biology, economy, accounting and finance by reading books, listening to online lectures, finding a mentor or actually working in a company, than by sitting in a classroom full of people listening to something vaguely interesting and thinking only about how you will get wasted during a party next Saturday. 6
I think the learning process based on endless repetitions and memorization is completely outdated. That the system makes it very hard to practice something deliberately. That 95% of subjects are a complete waste of time. Especially if you take the opportunity cost into account.
You know – the inability to occupy yourself with other things.
4.College gets in the way of doing other things
„I put in my 10,000 hours writing at a relatively early age. And that virtual apprenticeship has made me a considerable amount of money since then. And I didn’t need college to do it. In fact, the college got in the way of starting earlier.“
~ James Altucher, 40 Alternatives To College
The day after I defended my thesis, I traveled to Novi Sad to participate in a chess tournament. There I met Stjepan Tomić – a chess player and the man behind the rapidly growing Hanging Pawns Youtube channel.
The week I spend with him heavily influenced my way of thinking. Never before did someone reveal to me the existence of so many possibilities. Before Stjepan got into Youtube, he created several websites and had several sources of passive income. He was simply bursting with different ideas about what he could do in the future.
He was the one who introduced me to affiliate marketing. And he was the one who motivated me to start blogging. At first, I thought it might be a way of earning some money with the help of Amazon links. Even though I figured quickly it is not so easy, I kept blogging because I realized I love writing. Especially about chess.
This is one of the main reasons why I resent my college days. I could have as well started my chess blog during my student days. I had the time and I had the resources. But I didn’t even consider doing it. Nobody and nothing at college ever hinted abundance of possibilities existing out there in the big white world.
On the contrary, college education completely lulled my vigilance. I knew there was a very high probability I would get a job afterward. So I simply did what I had to do and never stopped to think why I am actually doing it.
Nobody told me you can earn some money by blogging. Podcasting. Making Youtube videos. Video editing. Giving chess lessons online. And approximately 52352345 other ways. 7
I know it might seem childish to blame everyone around me. But from the very childhood, society conditioned me to believe finishing college is sufficient in itself. By the end of high-school, my thinking was extremely narrow. And college did nothing to make it less so. To put me out of my comfort zone. To motivate me to do some hustling on the side.
No! Everybody assured me I am doing the right thing by being a good student. And following „The Plan“. You know – go finish college. Start a family. Buy a property. Have two kids. And probably a dog. Work 8-4. Go to holiday to the seaside. Repeat for 40 years. Retire.
Die.
College never gave me an incentive to question this concept. Whether I will really like being an electrical engineer. Whether I want to have a family and kids. Whether I want to live like that for the rest of my life.
Whether „The Plan“ is the right thing for me. 8
5.College functions as a company, not an educational institution
In theory, the primary goal of college should be to educate people. Unfortunately, college these days functions primarily as a company, and only then as an educational institution.
It shouldn’t be surprising to people living in countries such as the USA and the UK, where people actually pay for it. Rapidly increasing tuition fees have turned colleges into lucrative businesses, where the main goal is to attract the “customer” – the potential student.
But in Croatia, too, the philosophy of college seems to be heading toward the “Money first, students second” mantra.
For example, in my college, there were many courses where professors appeared for the first time at the final oral exam. Lectures were held by their assistants, practice in the laboratory was held by their assistants and written exams were prepared (and evaluated) by their assistants. Even though they got a paycheck to be professors, in reality – most of them did very little “professing”.
They were more focused on obtaining various (paid) projects. Some of them were private business owners. I know examples of faculty teams applying to public try-outs. Since they have their expenses 9 covered by the state, they are able to damp the prices. And get jobs.
Alas, it is not entirely an individual fault. All of them do it on behalf of the college. They wouldn’t chase projects if the system didn’t allow them. Since they use faculty’s resources to work on the projects, they are obligated to return a certain percentage. This is a unique instance of mutual back-scratching, where both sides get what they want.
One profit to rule them all. 10
6. The academic community is political, not academic
Another reason I am not the biggest fan of the college environment is that today, the academic community is becoming more and more political, and less and less academic. The latest idea to grant an honorary doctorate to the mayor of Zagreb, Milan Bandić – a man indicted for corruption – is the most vivid example. But I think the root of the problem is much deeper than that.
First of all, there is the ever-present problem of hyperproduction of scientific papers typical for modern day and age. Starting from the Ph.D. studies, you have a quota – a certain amount of papers you have to publish before you “unlock the achievement”. There is a lot of pressure and competition, so people have started focusing on quantity, instead of quality.
The most vivid (and hilarious example) of how far it has gone is the paper titled Get Me Off Your Fucking Mailing List, published in a predatory journal International Journal of Advanced Computer Technology. The very fact these low-quality journals, which spam thousands of scientists, offering to publish their work for a fee, exist, speaks for itself.
It is no wonder people in the academic community behave less like scientists and more like sales representatives.
However, even a bigger problem is that, even when people deserve the chance, they might not get it. Already as a student, I heard of people dividing into two “political options” and trying to “push their candidate”. The system isn’t designed to reward the most capable. But the most suitable.
I know several brilliant young minds who spent a couple of years as assistants doing the “dirty work” and then leaving because they couldn’t climb up the ladder. As in many spheres of Croatian society, it is more important whom you know than what you know.
As in many spheres – personal interests rule the day.
7.College degree is the only point of college… and it’s becoming more and more obsolete
Last, but not least, many people will say I am full of shit. That it is easy for me to speak when I finished college and got a job with my degree. That I am a huge hypocrite.
I’d like to take a moment to address this issue. I won’t deny having a degree helped me. But I think it is sad that getting a piece of paper is the main goal of a 5-year-long education. As I explained in point number one, the very fact you have it doesn’t mean you are qualified for a job.
That you have learned anything.
Secondly, I was lucky. It helped me that my father worked in the company I work in today. 11 Not all people are able to find a job so quickly. With or without a degree.
Today, a college degree doesn’t guarantee you a job. Simply because it has become obsolete. According to the World Bank, the gross enrollment ratio in tertiary education in North America has almost doubled since the 1970s (84,03% compared to 47,37%). In Croatia, it has increased more than five times (from 2,19% to 11,04%).
To put it simply, today “everybody” has a degree. Whereas in the past it served as a reliable filter, nowadays it is devalued. Some employers have recognized this and introduced skill testing of their own at job interviews. But, in general, society still deems a degree important. Too important. Which has more to do with its cultural heritage than with its actual value.
I believe it is about time we changed that.
Look at us. So many of us! And we know nothing! Except how to throw that hat in the air. Too bad we can’t throw our degrees as well
- Ironically enough, today I consider teaching as a serious alternative
- Usually rather outdated
- Or probably even before
- A publication who, in general, seems to be a rather stern advocate of the college, as there are several articles asking us to stop doubting the role of a college education – such as this one
- Actually, most of them I know were even more dismissive of the role of college than yours truly.
- With the exception of law and medicine. I still haven’t made up my mind whether you can become a good lawyer or doctor without formal education. Say, by practicing it and learning through experience.
- And more importantly – that you can have fun and seek for opportunities even if you don’t earn money. Trust me, I know..
- Spoiler alert: it isn’t.
- Such as electricity, equipment
- Mind you, there were few exceptions that prove the rule. Shoutout to Maths, Electrotechnics Basics and Digital Logic professors, among others. In case you are reading – you did make a difference
- Speaking of what you know and who you know, right?
