College is a place where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed
Robert G. Ingersoll
In university I learned so much about how education shouldn’t be done that, after leaving it, my self-education followed the best possible principles:
I created my environment to have motivation.
I sought fundamental goals like freedom (for myself and others) and money.
I always tried to simplify concepts to the basics.
I learned from mentors in one-on-one conversations.
I tried everything in practice.
I went fast.
I tried to earn while I learn.
As a self-learner you can learn anything you want, using any approach you like from any expert. You’ll be in charge of your speed and direction.
University is old both as a concept and as an individual institution. The world today changes much faster than it can follow.
Let’s see how the university influences your Resources – Health, Assets and People.
Health has components that the university might jeopardize, you’re likely to experience stress or not getting enough sleep.
The university costs money and time to attend.
In the top universities of the world you can meet people that would be hard to meet face to face every day. Both professors and fellow students. Meeting these people will be such a huge benefit, that you can as well choose to go for it and sacrifice some temporary freedom and a lot of money. But in at least 70% of the world’s universities it’s probably not worth it.
Remember that even for the best of the best universities it’s still a trade-off! If you’re very introverted and want to study History of Art, why do you need to go to Harvard and spend a ton of cash to learn the same information Youtube and Wikipedia and books on the subject and museums already have? In 4 years, with the time and money saved from Harvard, you can build a History of Art blog that will promote you to a top wanted expert on the subject. I can assure you that having your name publicly cited as an expert by thousands is worth more than a Harvard degree. And the blog will be a financial asset worth 6-figures and bring you steady monthly income.
If you want to be a doctor and save lives, I can tell you it’s a tough personal choice, regarding education time and cost, stress, long shifts, inability to work from home etc. However, we need doctors!
In this regard if you’re planning to study medicine even in an average university, you have my full support. Questions about freedom, money and return on investment are irrelevant if you want to save lives. I can only give you my total respect. And we should make sure as a society you’re well rewarded for being a hero.
The same goes for therapists, we need a lot more of them too.
The thing is, we all need doctors and we all need engineers of all kinds, or the physical world will start falling apart.
IT experts, office administrators, advertising, sales, marketing, writers can and better be self-taught. But as much as I love chaos and creativity, I’m still not in support of self-taught doctors, construction engineers and airline pilots. The cost of some errors is too high. We’ll need to draw a line somewhere and keep some places open, even if not currently of the highest educational quality.
The good news is, when we close some useless public universities, government funding can increase for the rest, bringing more motivated professors that value practical knowledge, kinder staff and better lab equipment.
Here is what I think should be removed (all fields equally or better learned in practice).
- All IT stuff, both software and hardware. This is where self-tuition shines.
- All economics except for accounting.
- Everything related to marketing, advertising and sales.
- Writing and Journalism (if you want to learn how to write, write and read and write more)
- Foreign Languages and culture (if you want to learn Swedish, go to Sweden, not a university)
- Sports (learning theory about sports is one of the stupidest things I’ve seen)
Here is what I think should be downscaled:
- Some humanities.
Here is what I think should be kept:
- Highly specialized occupations like pilots, sailors
- Police academies, first responders
- Math and Exact sciences + Statistics + Sociology
- Engineering
- Law
- Arts
Here is what should be increased and better funded:
- Medicine
- Psychology
As a result we’ll have more doctors and therapists. But also more developers as if they are all being self-taught, it sends everyone the signal they can become one.
Each decision we make sends an internal signal. When I quit university, I took full responsibility and felt like a grown up for the first time. It’s an important moment for every adult. And I sent myself a signal that I wanted to live my life in Hunter mode.
Responsibility is extremely important for us and our participation in society. The more of it, the better.
If you study till 25+, you take responsibility at a later age. At this later age you are likely to have less youth enthusiasm and idealism, a bit less energy and family and kids may be on the horizon. Which means that the window within which you can fight for social change and a better world with all of your time and energy is already closing. You can still do it, and should if possible. But there is no reason to wait that long. People suffer needlessly every day from issues we can collectively solve and while we live in one of the best moments of human history, the future has challenges. You can start helping at 20. If you’re Greta, you can start at 15. The best time to do something of value is always now.
If you’re not sure where to start, you can prepare by building freedom and attracting resources like money, assets and like-minded friends. Education is an important part of this preparation. But trust me, in most cases, the best teacher is looking at you from the mirror.
You don’t need a foreign structure such as a university. You don’t need anyone to impose discipline on you. Let go of pressure, let go of fear. Let love and chaos lead the way. You’re already free, you just may not know it yet.
And if you’re currently studying for a non-hero major and your motivation is half-hearted to none,
QUIT NOW.
You have no idea how good it feels.
