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Kenneth Reitz
274 lines
9.8 KiB
HTML
274 lines
9.8 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE html>
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<html lang="en">
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<head>
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<title>Your Degree Is Worthless; Collaborate.</title>
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<header id="banner" class="body">
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<h1>
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<a href=".">Kenneth's log </a>
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</h1>
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<nav><ul>
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<li class="active">
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<a href="./category/Life.html">Life</a>
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<a href="./category/Code.html">Code</a>
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<section id="content" class="body">
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<article>
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<header> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="your-degree-is-worthless-collaborate.html"
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rel="bookmark" title="Permalink to Your Degree Is Worthless; Collaborate.">Your Degree Is Worthless; Collaborate.</a></h1> </header>
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<div class="entry-content">
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<footer class="post-info">
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<abbr class="published" title="2009-09-01T21:17:00">
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Tue 01 September 2009
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</abbr>
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<p>In <a href="./category/Life.html">Life</a>.
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</p>
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</footer><!-- /.post-info -->
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<p>I’ve always been a self-motivated learner as well as a free
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thinker. I was never one to get involved in cliques or social
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ladders. Despite the fact that I was raised being constantly told
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that grades were the single most important thing in my life, I
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could never accept that. So I didn’t. I just did enough to get by.
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I didn’t pay attention much in class. I had no reason to. Class was
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beyond boring. So I’d spend all hours of the night hacking away on
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my computer, soaking in all I could, and most of the school day
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sleeping during class when I could get away with it. When there was
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a test, I’d try my hardest to stay awake, answer the questions as
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best I could – typically earning a low C in my Honors/AP Classes,
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and a low B in my “Ordinary” Classes. I found a good balance. Why
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would I study for 30 hours a week to get better grades when I could
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get by with 0 hours? So, I graduated. And I did the next logical
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thing: I went to college. Ahh, college. The most important decision
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you could ever make in your life. The time to “make it or break
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it”. Where every young man goes to be become a man. So I went.
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While high-school never engaged me, I assumed that courses about
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career-relevant subjects would interest me in a university setting.
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I was wrong. I was very, very wrong.</p>
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<div class="section" id="college-life">
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<h2>College Life</h2>
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<p>I studied Plato, Homer, and Socrates, Turing Machines, and
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Single-State-Automata. I analyzed the progression of American
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Popular Music from the 1920s to today. I learned how to draw, play
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the marimba properly, and splatter paint on walls. I attempted
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jujitsu. Wonderful life experience. But what does any of this have
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to do with setting the foundation of a career? Nothing. At all. Of
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course, the higher up you go, the more relevant the courses get to
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your chosen major. But I didn’t want to wait. Especially when I was
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paying $20,000 a year for this. It was mostly useless information.
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The average college education in America costs 9 cents a minute.
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Every minute. Every day. A complete waste. And I was working 35
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hours a week as a graphics design intern, working at odd hours of
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the night, attempting to pay for all of this. It was impossible,
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and I was unengaged.</p>
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</div>
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<div class="section" id="the-plunge">
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<h2>The Plunge</h2>
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<p>So, after totally losing
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interest in class or anything related to it, I gave up and dropped
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out. I didn’t want to get further in debt. So I moved back home,
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defeated, and tried my hardest to get my life back in order. I got
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my high-school job back at McDonald’s. I worked harder than I ever
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have in my life. I didn’t have anything else better to do, so I
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worked as much as I could all the time. I worked one 65 hour week -
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but that got old really fast. I was again, unengaged. Then, one
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day, I quit McDonald’s without notice. Not best practice of
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course, but I didn’t want to spend any more time there. It’s
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strange what a terrible work environment it is. After a few short
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weeks, you begin to think there isn’t anything outside those walls.
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It was clear that it wasn’t getting me anywhere, so I set out with
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my laptop to try to find something better.</p>
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</div>
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<div class="section" id="how-it-all-turned-around">
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<h2>How It All Turned Around</h2>
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<p>I spent a lot of time on some freelance
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websites, where you bid for odd jobs, usually settling for some
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ridiculously low amount of money here and there. That didn’t last
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long. I remembered coming across a guy on Twitter from my hometown,
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Winchester, Virginia, who was quite into the internet and
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technology. That’s pretty rare in these parts, so I looked him up.
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What I found was a local <a class="reference external" href="http://brightcowork.com">cowork</a>
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center. I went and checked out the cowork, and what I found blew my
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mind. In this little building off the historic old-town walking
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mall was a room. Inside: the COO of a major internet company, tech
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consultants, graphic designers, writers, author, bloggers,
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freelancers, and so much more. I met everyone in and around town. I
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sat in on think tank lunches. People cared about what I had to say.
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We collaborated.</p>
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</div>
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<div class="section" id="collaboration-is-everything">
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<h2>Collaboration is Everything.</h2>
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<p>For the first time in my life, I was meeting
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interesting people with awesome experience, willing to share and
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collaborate what they have learned with me. And I did the same. I
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soaked in endless amounts of information. One simple room full of a
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few people turned on some switch in me that the education system
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had failed to do year after year after year: teach me something. I
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was finally engaged. *Fully* engaged. As soon as I realized that,
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my entire life changed. I started thriving on my own, getting
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dozens of clients. Suddenly, I had a life with significantly less
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stress and worry. No tuition fees! I realized how valuable my
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skills were and how I didn’t have to be part of the institution if
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I didn’t want to be. I rose above. I am now a Web Applications
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Developer at a respectful technology firm. No degree. No debt. Only
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an open mind. I gain more knowledge and experience in a single
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workday than I did during my entire college career. I’m in the real
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world. And I’m loving every minute of it.</p>
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</div>
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<div class="section" id="in-conclusion">
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<h2>In Conclusion</h2>
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<p>Looking back, I’m comfortable saying that dropping
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out of college has been the best decision I’ve ever made. If I
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would have gone through the entire education program, what would I
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have to show for it? $150,000 in debt, a piece of paper, and four
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years less of your life. No real experience. No connections. Just a
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piece of paper. And nothing more. Please bear these things in mind
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before you decide to spend $150,000 on a bachelor’s degree in a
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field you’re not so certain about. Personally, I’d rather spend
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that money on something that will actually benefit me: like a
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house.</p>
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</div>
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</div><!-- /.entry-content -->
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</article>
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</section>
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<section id="extras" class="body">
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<div class="blogroll">
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<h2>Links</h2>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="http://github.com/kennethreitz">GitHub Repos</a></li>
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<li><a href="http://flickr.com/kennethreitz">Photography (Flickr)</a></li>
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<li><a href="http://twitter.com/kennethreitz">Latest Tweets</a></li>
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<li><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/kennethreitz">Résumé</a></li>
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<li><a href="http://pick.im/kenneth-reitz">Design Portfolio</a></li>
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<li><a href="http://laterstars.com/kennethreitz">Later Stars</a></li>
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</ul>
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</div><!-- /.blogroll -->
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<li><a href="./feeds/all.atom.xml" rel="alternate">atom feed</a></li>
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</section><!-- /#extras -->
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<footer id="contentinfo" class="body">
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<address id="about" class="vcard body">
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© 2011 Kenneth Reitz & co. All Rights Reserved.
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