Is college still worth it?
February 13, 2021
In this episode we talk about the two main benefits of college and whether college is worth it.
Is college still worth it? That's a good question. So before you didn't have the Internet, you didn't have the exposure and the connectivity that you do now. And if you wanted to get that type of information, you would have to go to some kind of hub where you can get that information. But that hub is everywhere now, and it's in our pockets on our phones. So do we really, really need to go to college? And the answer is it? It kind of depends.
So the best thing that someone would get out of college, there's two things. One, they're gonna get exposure to a lot of different types of knowledge, and the more exposure you get to two different areas, the better you'll learn on whether that area is right for you or not. So it's a good place to go fail and get exposure across different topics. The second benefit is you get exposure to people, and here's the thing. No matter what college you go to, you're going to get the same exposure to the same topics. So it doesn't matter if it's a community college to an Ivy League school. The material is gonna be the same. The material, the information that's been commoditized. What's not going to be the same, however, is three calibers of people and the people that you actually surround yourself with. The people that challenge you, they're going to make you become who you want to be. And if you don't like the people around you and you don't think that's where you wanna be, then you need to change your people, and you need to go to a place that resonates with you.
So I'm not saying that you need to go to an Ivy League school or some kind of special school. But what I am saying is you need to go to a school that fits your core values and aligns with your identity. So if you were to go into school, if you get into a top school, obviously that's gonna be helpful. But is college really necessary? No, I don't think it really is necessary because now you have the Internet. Knowledge is democratizing. You can get access to knowledge, and the further we get along in the future, you can get access to specialized knowledge.
So for me, when I started working on my first startup. I didn't have access to all these other startup founders that we do now. I had to build something and fail, build something and fail. And now I can connect with other founders and learn from their mistakes and learn about how they failed and make sure that I avoid it, because the thing is a lot of us, we make the same mistakes over and over. We just didn't have a platform to publish our mistakes. And this is one of the reasons for this podcast like; I want to share all my mistakes with you guys to make sure you guys can avoid that. And that's another thing that you might get a college.
But you don't really need cause toe to get that anymore. I mean, you have social networks, you have Clubhouse, you have a podcast. You have so many other avenues to connect with people and what you ever what. However, you want to end up doing like those are the people that I would really really connect with. There is a famous saying, you are the average of the five people around you, and I think that's from the book Thinking Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, and that is very true. The people that you surround yourself with will shape what your future looks like. They will shape what you get access to. And if the people around you aren't doing what you want to do in life, then you need to change the people.
And whether that's college or something else, do that. What I would say if I had a child, for example, and they wanted to go to Harvard, I wouldn't necessarily say you should go to Harvard. But if they wanna hang out with Harvard students, then I would say, "Okay, join a boxing gym that has Harvard students." So you could be friends with these people because then you're still getting all of that challenge and all of that nurture that you would from your friends without paying the tuition. And you can spend the time, especially if your hypo man, and you can spend the time to start building what you really want to build. And this is why a lot of people go to Silicon Valley, and they drop out of school. Elon Musk dropped out of Stanford. Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard, and they just want to go build things. And Peter Thiel. He offers scholarships for people. It's actually drop out of school and build a business instead. And I really believe, especially now today, like you could take advantage of everything that's out there just on the Internet, and you don't need college for that.
So if you have the heart and you have the drive, you could definitely learn this stuff on your own. The very next question that people ask when I say this is okay, well, what do I need to know that they do teach in school so I can go learn it myself? And if I had to advise anyone to go learn a few topics and get really good at it, especially if you are going into entrepreneurship, learn consumer decision making. Learn how people think, how people behave, why they behave like that. There's a really good book called Thinking by Daniel Kahneman is an amazing book, and it definitely changed the way I see the world and the way I see other people, and the way I think about things as well. Then I would say, Take a good course, and it doesn't have to be like a college-level course or anything. You can pick up a book. So the topic is where the courses statistics definitely learn statistics, and you can pick up like an MBA statistics book and just go through that book and learn statistics Really well, then I would also learn how to communicate your ideas properly and that just coming that just comes from learning different frameworks.
And if you want to be able to communicate your information properly and also want to be able to analyze information really quickly, what you can do is you can go get this book that is a favorite among MBAs. It's called Case in Point, and it's a book that teaches people how to solve case interviews for consulting jobs. And that case method is really important for consulting. But it's also a really good, analytical way to approach any kind of problem, and that bookcase in point shows you different frameworks to apply to different problems. So it goes look up statistics, case in point, consumer decision making, and if there is anything else I think of, then you can go check that out on my blog. I'll see you guys in the next episode.
Continue your journey with me on my other channels:
So the best thing that someone would get out of college, there's two things. One, they're gonna get exposure to a lot of different types of knowledge, and the more exposure you get to two different areas, the better you'll learn on whether that area is right for you or not. So it's a good place to go fail and get exposure across different topics. The second benefit is you get exposure to people, and here's the thing. No matter what college you go to, you're going to get the same exposure to the same topics. So it doesn't matter if it's a community college to an Ivy League school. The material is gonna be the same. The material, the information that's been commoditized. What's not going to be the same, however, is three calibers of people and the people that you actually surround yourself with. The people that challenge you, they're going to make you become who you want to be. And if you don't like the people around you and you don't think that's where you wanna be, then you need to change your people, and you need to go to a place that resonates with you.
So I'm not saying that you need to go to an Ivy League school or some kind of special school. But what I am saying is you need to go to a school that fits your core values and aligns with your identity. So if you were to go into school, if you get into a top school, obviously that's gonna be helpful. But is college really necessary? No, I don't think it really is necessary because now you have the Internet. Knowledge is democratizing. You can get access to knowledge, and the further we get along in the future, you can get access to specialized knowledge.
So for me, when I started working on my first startup. I didn't have access to all these other startup founders that we do now. I had to build something and fail, build something and fail. And now I can connect with other founders and learn from their mistakes and learn about how they failed and make sure that I avoid it, because the thing is a lot of us, we make the same mistakes over and over. We just didn't have a platform to publish our mistakes. And this is one of the reasons for this podcast like; I want to share all my mistakes with you guys to make sure you guys can avoid that. And that's another thing that you might get a college.
But you don't really need cause toe to get that anymore. I mean, you have social networks, you have Clubhouse, you have a podcast. You have so many other avenues to connect with people and what you ever what. However, you want to end up doing like those are the people that I would really really connect with. There is a famous saying, you are the average of the five people around you, and I think that's from the book Thinking Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, and that is very true. The people that you surround yourself with will shape what your future looks like. They will shape what you get access to. And if the people around you aren't doing what you want to do in life, then you need to change the people.
And whether that's college or something else, do that. What I would say if I had a child, for example, and they wanted to go to Harvard, I wouldn't necessarily say you should go to Harvard. But if they wanna hang out with Harvard students, then I would say, "Okay, join a boxing gym that has Harvard students." So you could be friends with these people because then you're still getting all of that challenge and all of that nurture that you would from your friends without paying the tuition. And you can spend the time, especially if your hypo man, and you can spend the time to start building what you really want to build. And this is why a lot of people go to Silicon Valley, and they drop out of school. Elon Musk dropped out of Stanford. Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard, and they just want to go build things. And Peter Thiel. He offers scholarships for people. It's actually drop out of school and build a business instead. And I really believe, especially now today, like you could take advantage of everything that's out there just on the Internet, and you don't need college for that.
So if you have the heart and you have the drive, you could definitely learn this stuff on your own. The very next question that people ask when I say this is okay, well, what do I need to know that they do teach in school so I can go learn it myself? And if I had to advise anyone to go learn a few topics and get really good at it, especially if you are going into entrepreneurship, learn consumer decision making. Learn how people think, how people behave, why they behave like that. There's a really good book called Thinking by Daniel Kahneman is an amazing book, and it definitely changed the way I see the world and the way I see other people, and the way I think about things as well. Then I would say, Take a good course, and it doesn't have to be like a college-level course or anything. You can pick up a book. So the topic is where the courses statistics definitely learn statistics, and you can pick up like an MBA statistics book and just go through that book and learn statistics Really well, then I would also learn how to communicate your ideas properly and that just coming that just comes from learning different frameworks.
And if you want to be able to communicate your information properly and also want to be able to analyze information really quickly, what you can do is you can go get this book that is a favorite among MBAs. It's called Case in Point, and it's a book that teaches people how to solve case interviews for consulting jobs. And that case method is really important for consulting. But it's also a really good, analytical way to approach any kind of problem, and that bookcase in point shows you different frameworks to apply to different problems. So it goes look up statistics, case in point, consumer decision making, and if there is anything else I think of, then you can go check that out on my blog. I'll see you guys in the next episode.
Continue your journey with me on my other channels:
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