How important is it to get a degree or even a high school diploma these days? I know that this is a vague question but I'm seriously thinking about dropping out of high school and learning useful things instead of the state-approved curriculum.
I'm not too sure about dropping out of high school, but college doesn't seem all that necessary if you're an entrepreneur.
Yes, it is necessary. If you drop out, you will most likely end up in a job you hate being treated like shit for the rest of your life. An education might just buy you freedom.
I can still get my GED. Right now I have no clue what I'll be; I'm just preparing myself by studying and knowing as much as I can.
what do you mean instead of state approved?
is the states version of the scientific method different from other versions?
is the states periodic table different from other versions?
is game theory different when the state teaches it?
are essay forms different when the state teaches them?
school is not neccicary. you can get a education without the state. i don't think you will learn a different system of calculus outside of the state, but the state in not neccicary to learn calculus.
I've been through this exact thought process, Luminar. Let me know exactly what bothers you about high school, and maybe I can give you some advice. Pm me if you prefer.
Don't just drop out without a plan. Look at joining a trade, such as electrical, plumbing, electronic technician, etc. Even hairstyling or something like that. Get yourself out of the "minimum wage noise region" or at least have a plan to do so. Check out the entry requirements - for many of the "high demand/highly unionized" trades like electrician, you have to win a lottery, so bear that in mind. I'm sure most or all will require HS-diploma or equivalent (GED), so either get the diploma or get the GED and then drop out.
Don't be afraid to wander but don't be stupid about it. If you get a trade and a couple years of savings under your belt, you can branch out and explore from there. Are you still living at home? Get along with your parents and don't move out! Free rent is the best way to save massive amounts of cash in a very short time.
Bide your time and don't jump into a permanent romantic relationship (aka knocking someone up regardless of legal/residency status) until you're on a sure footing. I made the mistake of jumping in too early and now my paycheck is being sliced 10 different ways by the courts, laywers and a psychotically vindictive ex. If you already have a HS girlfriend, I would plan on "moving on"; not to be callous but you really don't want to end up in a marriage (or live-in equivalent) with any woman born in the US, UK, Europe, etc. basically any place with a "modern middle-class" mindset. It doesn't matter if you "know her", they're all the same - they've all been programmed by the television, schools and magazines since they were knee high that they are owed the world and that the government is there to make sure they get it from whoever is foolish enough to have a child with them. Think of it as involuntary privatization of welfare.
When you come to that time in your life, many Asian, African and Muslim countries are much better places to marry into. The rules are stricter - you'll have to immigrate and conform - but the return is that you can have a large family and maintain a high income in the confidence that you're not going to be systematically plundered by a vicious, materialistic ex under the full protection of the law.
Clayton -
A high school diploma can get you a job flipping burgers so not very.
Don't just study though- get a job. If you already have some strengths or interests, go in that direction. If you're good with your hands get into an entry level trade or manufacturing. Always be learning more so you can move up. You discover your interests through action. Thinking is simply regurgitating what you already know and many things can't be learned from reading.
Wisdom to live by: if you want to move up in an organization, take on the responsibilities of the job that you want whenever you can. Don't sit idly waiting for a promotion.
If you find you want to move into something that requires more education, get a GED and apply to colleges. This can be a bad investment though as you probably know. Learning to manage your money now is incredibly important. You will be more wealthy than your peers who go ear deep in debt in hopes of a job that might never materialize. If you know exactly what your aim is by already working in that field, you can graduate quickly and already have your foot in the door.
Disclaimer: I'm one of those bums that bounces around jobs so take my advice with a grain of salt (that's probably due to my own personality quirks though, you may have different results). Also, read 48 Laws of Power. If you just want to be cranked through the machine and work whever the system puts you, this sort of knowledge isn't necessary. A self made man needs to learn how to not step on people's toes and how to influence others.
Define your own meaning of success. Don't be preoccupied with what your peers may be doing. This is our own human tendency to look towards others for guidance. You're taking a road less traveled and that can be a challenge.
Don't be preoccupied with doubts of the future either. There isn't a finish line. Enjoy life.
@NonAntiAnarchist, I despise school because it wastes seven hours of my day and forces me to do things that are irrelevant, pointless, and sometimes silly. For instance, Friday in "health" I was supposed to be cutting out advertisements from magazines and writing down details about them (the logic being that that would train us to make smarter decisions when buying things). I'm failing in Biology for no other reason than that I don't feel like doing work and never hand my assignments in. There are lots more reasons but that's just some of the basic stuff.
@Clayton, thanks for the advice; although I'm not entirely confident if I could work as a fifteen year-old dropout. I do live with my parents and I have cash already thanks to Israel's socialist policies (an Asperger's label given as a toddler apparently qualified me for disability money >.<).
Luminar: How important is it to get a degree or even a high school diploma these days? I know that this is a vague question but I'm seriously thinking about dropping out of high school and learning useful things instead of the state-approved curriculum.
I graduated one year ago, so I have had recent experience with the employment situation. Unless you have connections who can employ you (e.g. an uncle who owns an auto repair shop), I would not recommend dropping out of high school. Most employed drop-outs I know have some kind of connection in the business world.
Here are some suggestions:
-Try to graduate from high school in three years. Don't talk to your guidance counselor-their paycheck in part depends on how often you are in school. Look at your school's graduation requirements, and see if you can attend a community college in the summer to get some credits out of the way. Ask your school's registrar if the credits transfer.
-Learn programming languages, and offer yourself as a free intern to some company to build up a resume. I would say Matlab, Python, Java, and C++ are the best. If you are disciplined and eager to escape college, this shouldn't be a problem. If you can force yourself to learn these languages inside and out, and I mean very very well, I would say dropping out of high school would be ok. My mom was a programmer for some time in the late 90s, and she knew people who earned modest salary on little formal education; she also said that advancing in salary could be difficult. Programming may not work for you, though.
I hope this helps. I'm in college now, but I plan to graduate in three years. I share your hatred for high school education. Please tell me if you have any further questions.
@Luminar: Well that simplifies things, then. Israeli culture already has strong mores built in surrounding marriage and divorce and I'll leave it to you to figure out how to navigate that. I work with a lot of people from Israel and I can attest that there is a lot more conservatism regarding family structure than here in the US, which is a good thing.
As far as being 15, that's irrelevant. In the State where I live (Oregon), you can start full-time employment at 16 with a GED. So, find out what the laws are but don't let them hold you back; even if you have to wait until you're 18 for your first formal job, that doesn't mean you can't work under-the-table. Get a GED and start peddling. I assume you have the equivalent of Craigslist wherever you are - use it. Learn how to wheel and deal and work your cellphone. Don't have a car? Take the bus - you have all the time in the world. I recommend this even if you eventually plan to invest. The skills you learn horse-trading will follow you wherever you go... when it comes time to sell that car you've been driving for the last 3 1/2 years, you'll be much better prepared to make sure you get paid its full value. Best of all, it's 100% tax-free as long as you deal in cash and don't put it in the bank where the government can tabulate it. If you build too large of a pile of cash (what a thing to worry about!), you can always convert it into silver and store it in a safe-deposit box or in a real safe.
Fair enough.
I've been a perennial underachiever in school. I made the choice to drop out and get a GED a few years ago. I'm in community college now. I'm not sure the GED per se has held me back (though I still have my own problems coping with school). If you go to a community college afterwards (you can even go earlier than most students would asusming you'd get your GED before you'd graduate) and do well, you'll still be in prime position to transfer to a decent college, perhaps even a better-than-decent college if you can stick a 3.5 GPA or above.
So, yea, highschool itself is relatively unimportant. That said, dropping out could cause you social problems later in life, give you a stigma you might not want to walk around with, and I don't really see an advantage to dropping out, besides getting more free time to do whatever you'd like. Have you ever thought about homeschooling?
offer yourself as a free intern to some company
Never work for free. If nothing else, it's a bad habit. It makes you feel and appear less valuable than you are. You can earn plenty of money doing contract programming. Degrees are generally irrelevant for this (though completed projects are highly relevant).
This is just about getting references to build up a resume, not forming a habit. A six month unpaid internship would give you valuable experience in designing programs. Seriously, having the words "corporation" and "programmed" on your resume can work wonders for you. Contract programming could be done on the side, but it's really not enough to make a living; I know someone who did odd jobs like that.
valuable experience in designing programs.
If you're determined to work for free, your efforts are better spent working as a volunteer developer on an open-source project that you like (e.g. Perl 6). I work for one of the largest tech corporations in the world as a computer engineer (programming is one part of my job) and I can assure you that you will gain more experience and more valuable experience working outside the corporate setting. Its stifling and it's meant to be. Opportunities are kept out of reach and doled out only to management's favorites. The primary purpose of the tech corporate structure is to regiment technical people; over-achievers are not welcome and low-performers who know how to kiss up to management will outperform the substantial contributors every time. Hardly the early lessons you want to inculcate in yourself.
Start small and keep it real. Never give up control and never put yourself in a situation where you are dependent on your job.
Keep as many doors open as possible. Finish your schooling and then decide what you want to do. You have everything to lose and nothing to gain by dropping out. You may be right in believing that you are being taught shite, but employers nevertheless look at your qualifications and will judge you for not having any. You will suffer.
-I was thinking of doing the same: get a GED, self teach myself a useful skill (i know some C but not enough to earn an internship or a job--> and so plunge deeper to learn, but if you are skilled enough to get an internship, here is one: http://tbe.taleo.net/NA5/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=NCSOFT&cws=1&rid=972 ) and enter the workforce. However my parents would kill me at the thought of dropping out of school.
Tomorrow, i shall delve into the dark, over waxing hand of the public education system. Behold all those who triumph against the state. Comrades, give me motivation and strength to resist the indoctrination, the lies, and brainwashing babble that which comes hailing down upon our youth's ears from the department of education.
I am ready.
Tu ne cede malis.
“Since people are concerned that ‘X’ will not be provided, ‘X’ will naturally be provided by those who are concerned by its absence.""The sweetest of minds can harbor the harshest of men.”
http://voluntaryistreader.wordpress.org
^ Lol
Related:
Mozilla's Open Badges project
We talked about this a while back didnt we?
Think of it like evolution versus revolution. Don't be in such a rush to fit yourself into a slot. What's the rush? Odds are, you have a long life ahead of you. Enjoy it, find your place in it, evolve into it. I know the bourgeois Conventional Wisdom says precisely the opposite but Western values aren't the be-all-end-all. It turns out that there are lots of people around the world without iPhones and iPads who are joy-filled and happy and lead rich, fulfilling lives.
Epicurus said the most important thing is friends. People have been repeating the teachings of Epicurus for nearly 2,500 years. Maybe he was onto something.
When i grow up i want to get away from urban areas. ^^^^ And not own a cellphone.
But i will have a gaming desktop.
Are you serious? Stay in school. What are you incapable of deciding what is and is not useful in terms of information dispensed to you? Yea there are some useless parts of high school but there are useful parts also.
Seriously..I cannot believe that someone would drop out of high school.
'Men do not change, they unmask themselves' - Germaine de Stael
http://www.education-reform.net/dropouts2.htm
http://www.education-reform.net/dropouts.htm
a few here that have not done bad in life
That's a pretty short list compared to all of the dropouts that are pushing mops their whole lives.
Bottom line is that if you drop out your chances aren't great. Don't bank on being a successful entrepreneur - it's hard as hell and most people fail. Successful entrepreneurs understand risk management and dropping out is a big ass risk. If you can't figure that out you're probably destined for employment anyway so you're going to need that diploma even more. It's like an insurance program.
The people I know that dropped college or high school to do their own thing already had something useful blooming and essentially got an "honorary smart person" pass because of what they had already done, not based on some future dream of success.
Don't listen to the naysayers. A diploma isn't worth the paper it's printed on, at least in the US, I can't speak to Israel. I was home-schooled, got my GED, got 17 credits at a community college (the minimum required to get into most any real university) and then went to university. This crap about how you'll be pushing a mop if you don't get The Diploma is just a lot of outdated, scare-mongering horse-shit.
http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/000010/200410250.asp some homeschool stats.
do you think public high school prepares people better than collage or open collage classes? i think many high school students would do perfectly well in collage classes. i think anything important that can be learned in high school can be learned outside of highschool, perhaps even at a cheaper price and at a faster pace.
the list of high school billionairs in also short compared to high school graduates or collage billionairs compared to collage graduates. college is not even really for making money a lot of the time.
It's important to get the paper. If you don't like high school get the paper in evening school equivalent or take a GED, but get the paper.
Really? Well, I did it. The next year that I spent in evening school was the best of my life. 18 hours of classes instead of more than 30 a week, fridays off, no homework, get to sleep in the morning, get to avoid rush hour traffic, no unannounced tests and oral examinations, no patronizing from teachers who treat you like an adult responsible for himself and paying customer rather than a prisoner. My only regret would be not doing all 4 years in evening school. It was really inexpensive too when you consider how much of your time is freed up and how much skull-#*cking you're saved.
So what will you do if you do drop out? Why do you think you will be motivated any more by life out in the wider world than by life in school?
Ok, thanks for all of the help.
This is something I've been thinking about quite a lot lately due to my own academic background, and how few doors my degree (soon to be degrees) has really opened for me. The most successful individual's I know have much less education and really excel in other areas (technical knowledge acquired independently out of sheer curiosity, or a sort of charisma that seems to be far more marketable than any college degree).
I would say that high school is fairly valuable due simply to the fact that it exposes you to basic math (geometry, algebra) and grammar. These skills are, indubitably, highly valuable and required for the vast majority of positions in the economy. At the same time, though, it will expose you to pure nonsense and confusion (especially in history/science classes). They will literally teach you things that have been dismissed by practically every major authority in their respective fields.
College can be very valuable and it can also be a complete waste of time. Obviously, it will be a waste of time if you decide to major in something ridiculous that no one cares about (sociology, art history, poli-sci, psychology, etc) but it can also be a waste of time if you major in something considered relatively useful (math, finance, economics, etc).
I would say college is valuable insofar as it allows individuals to establish certain relationships with other individuals that may end up being quite fruitful in the future (connections, basically). You may be surprised (or not) how useful connections are when attempting to find employment. Additionally, every college student should take internships in order to develop actual, relevant work experience (something much more marketable than high GPA’s).
The left tends to over-state the usefulness of education and the acquisition of scientific knowledge while ignoring or down-playing things that end up being much more correlated with success (ambition, entrepreneurship, etc). I would say to you, though, that you should not drop out of school unless you figure out what it is you want to do with your life or until you find employment that you enjoy. Your parents are paying the taxes anyways, so you might as well go to school if you’re not doing anything else.
"If we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion."
At the same time, though, it will expose you to pure nonsense and confusion (especially in history/science classes). They will literally teach you things that have been dismissed by practically every major authority in their respective fields.
I can't say I experienced this myself in these subjects. What country are you from, out of interest? What was it they taught you in these areas that you disagreed with?
No one here is in any position to give you good advice yet. You havent even said what your goals, dreams, expectations, and wants are yet!
If you say you just want to paint stick figures for the rest of your life and just have a job that can pay rent then the answer is going to be completely different then if you want to be a doctor.
My knee jerk reaction when i hear a 15 year old wanting to drop out of school is to say DONT DO IT! Dude you are too young to know what you want to do in life. You are going through the biggest mental/physical changes in your life right now and it is irresponsible to act on your perceptions of the world. I dont think anyone at 15 has the life experience to make a decision like that. I dont know your country's educational system or how hard it is to get a GED. But if high school is 4 years and if 15 makes you a freshman then i think you have A LOT of studying to do to get your GED. So instead of wasting 7 hours a day in school you will be wasting 14 hours a day for a year learning enough to pass the test. So if wasting 7 hours is too much then wasting 14 is certainly too much, and you wont do it without a goal that requires the GED. Maybe someone who has actually taken a GED can tell you how difficult it is, and maybe im off base here.
I'd say that the connections are the only "valuable" aspect of college, especially if you attend an Ivy League or other prestigious school. However, that itself is only important if you want to find employment; that, to get a W-2.
In some jobs, I can see the usefulness of a degree in the sciences. For example, a PhD in geology if you want to work in mining. But even then, I suppose that you could get a job working a shovel at mine and then going home and reading about geology, and then working your way into management or some other higher-up job by showing that you have taken the initiative to learn about geology although you're simply a shoveller, which is an aspect that any employer worth working for values a lot.
So, the degree is useful insofar as employers want you to have a degree; I blame this mostly on the HR department, whose leadership probably have MBAs in human resource manangement, which is a completely useless education, unless you want to work in the HR department.
If you want to be an entrepreneur-promoter, then go ahead. Drop out of high school (and go to night school to finish your GED even if it takes you four more years, if you'd like to). Take some basic courses on accounting and stuff at the local community college--but, then again you could just buy a book on Amazon. Just remember to buy low and sell high, have a good BS detector, have some capital, introduce yourself to everyone everywhere, don't forget about psychic profit, learn from you mistakes AND those of others, go to mixers, and don't be shy.
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
grant.w.underwood:Dude you are too young to know what you want to do in life.
No, he's not. He's old enough to make his own mistakes and deal with consequences.
You are going through the biggest mental/physical changes in your life right now and it is irresponsible to act on your perceptions of the world.
And how is staying in school going to make it any better? He needs to get out and experience what's across the street from school.
I dont think anyone at 15 has the life experience to make a decision like that.
So, you want him to wait until he graduates high school or even college, when his brain will be mush after all of the indoctrination or the hours spent in class wondering why he's there?
So instead of wasting 7 hours a day in school you will be wasting 14 hours a day for a year learning enough to pass the test.
Schools are crap. The most important part of a school is its teachers; however, most teachers suck at teaching. Go to Khan Academy and iTunes U to watch lectures by professors from Stanford, MIT, etc. because they know how to teach a subject.
just so you know i said no one here is in position to give you advice because we dont have enough information, which includes me. Then i said my knee jerk reaction when i hear a 15 yr old kid meaning any 15 year old including him, but of course id be speaking in generalities and obviously everyone is different.
How do you know he is old enough to make his own mistakes? would you say thats true for a 14 yr old? 12? 8? 5? 2? 3 month old? I for sure wasnt ready to make that decision and im grateful that i didnt.
i suggested staying in school because it will give him time to understand himself longer and less to do with school. If he gets out and gets a job im willing to bet he will move out of his parents house the second he realizes that he can sustain himself and the self gratification of living on your own. I still remember exactly how i felt when i closed my door the very first time of my first apartment. Its a great feeling to be able to live on your own labor. Maybe it had something to do with my father being in the top 1% of facist parenting techniques.
I agree school is crap. Doing MIT for free would be a great way to go. He'd be one of the first to do so too, and be considered a pioneer. I'm dont know much about the other places you suggested, but if its anything like MIT's program then go for it. My main point is without us knowing anything about him we cant make opinions. Then my opinions stated are based off the generic 15 year old that wants to drop out. Most kids that drop out at 15 are making the wrong decision, terrible schooling or not.
so does mises want separation of state and school or not?
i figure even minarchists arent advocating for state school.
i know ron paul said he wants the federal government out of the school business and think's it would be great if the states followed this examble.
that's advocating for 15 year olds to get kicked out of school, let alone dropping out on their own.
But even then, I suppose that you could get a job working a shovel at mine and then going home and reading about geology, and then working your way into management or some other higher-up job by showing that you have taken the initiative to learn about geology although you're simply a shoveller, which is an aspect that any employer worth working for values a lot.