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Deleted78083
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Should you study at university?
It's a recurrent question on this forum. In this post, I'll try to help you out.
#1: What is university?
Strictly speaking, university is the place where you go learn stuff.
In the pre-internet era, universities were convenient as knowledge was transmitted from teachers to students directly. Getting knowledge otherwise was tedious. You had to go to libraries and looked for answers in books by yourself. Google wasn't there to respond to your questions. Udemy didn't exist.
As such, if you hoped to learn, university was the right place to go to. Universities welcomed the most brilliant minds of their time and were at the frontline of innovation.
But times have changed.
Universities no longer have the monopoly on knowledge. So why do they still exist?
Peter Thiel observed that universities broadly fulfilled four different functions and hence could be conceptualized as:
Is university the only place to get knowledge and experience? Hell no.
Is university the cheapest and best way to get knowledge and experience? Nope.
Is university teaching you things you can only learn there? No (well, depends, more on that below).
However, universities provide you with two big advantages:
1. Professors, which can give you feedback on your work to ensure that you improve the skills you are learning (this can also be acquired through getting customers).
2. A community and a "sandbox": a place where you can test stuff and make mistakes that don't have consequences in the real world.
I'll be honest with you. If you hope to go to university to learn, you will be disappointed. To really learn something nowadays, you have to get into the top universities in the world.
It's the only place where knowledge is worth it. The rest is a waste of time. When it comes to getting knowledge, Google is your best friend.
Here's a list of fourteen places where you can learn valuable knowledge for free, or almost free.
You want proof? The great minds of the world have now left academia and are working in the private sector (google "shortage of AI professors").
The decision to go to university depends therefore on what you want to do with your life.
#2. What do you want to do with your life?
Since you are here, we'll have to assume you want to build a fastlane business. Is university mandatory to build a fastlane business? No, unless:
So let's have a look at why else we'd think you should go there.
Want to learn? No need to go to university as we outlined above.
Want to party? Just move to Europe or Asia for a year. You ll have the benefit to learn a language on top of that.
Want to secure a job? Fewer and fewer companies are looking for employees with diploma because the pace is so fast that what you learned at uni becomes useless one year after you got out. Diplomas only useful when you have no experience. After that, your experience and skillset are what matter most to employers. (Note: it also depends on your culture).
Want to get into debt (lol)? Buy an apartment.
Want to meet people? Join events, masterminds, conferences, forums, do an internship, or travel.
Want to chill for three-four years? Yes! Then going to university might be for you. Study communication, art history, social sciences, or gender studies, it will be easy.
But don't come to complain once no one hires your a$$ afterward.
Conclusion
Am I against universities? No. I am in fact in the fastlane because I want to make enough money to be able to go back to university, and study and write there until I die.
However, I am immensely disappointed in universities because they didn't teach me anything I wouldn't have been able to learn myself. As such, I feel I have wasted five years of my life when I could have taken this time to build a fastlane business instead.
The only positive experience I got was doing an exchange in one of the best universities in the world, where professors tell you about the dinner they had with the prime minister yesterday. That's when I felt getting to the top of society was possible, because these people weren't any more different than I was. They were just harder working, and more confident (nothing I couldn't become myself).
The bottom line is this:
if you want to be rich as fast as possible, skip university.
If you want to learn how to code, skip university. You'll do it better and faster by yourself.
If you want to learn business, just build a business. Studying business is useless (I know, I did it).
If you want to party, skip university (cost isn't worth it).
BUT
If you want to learn STEM, university may be good for you (because it's harder to learn by yourself).
If you want to give yourself some time and test out different stuff, try university (as long as it's not putting you into monstrous debt).
If you feel it's an experience you have to go through, try it. But remain open to the idea of quitting.
What if you don't have a choice?
Sometimes, your parents force you to study and there is nothing you can do against it.
Here's what I would do then:
1. Choose a useful degree, something that gives you an edge, such as the possibility to start companies others can't (real estate, insurance, law to become a notary, or accounting to become an expert-accountant), or something that is giving you great skills to solve problems and start companies (engineering).
2. Go study abroad in a foreign language: it will most likely be cheaper and you will 10X your results. My favorite countries to study in are: Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Poland (don't study in Polish though). Find out how to study in a foreign country here: How to study debt free, expand your mind and gain international experience
Universities were dying before covid hit. The pandemic only accelerated their death.
Don't go there unless you have an actual reason to. I went there because I didn't know what else to do. Had I looked for an answer to that question instead of looking for which useless degree I was going to study, I wouldn't have wasted five years of my life.
Don't make the same mistake.
Monfii
Edit: this post was last edited on the 13/04/21.
It's a recurrent question on this forum. In this post, I'll try to help you out.
#1: What is university?
Strictly speaking, university is the place where you go learn stuff.
In the pre-internet era, universities were convenient as knowledge was transmitted from teachers to students directly. Getting knowledge otherwise was tedious. You had to go to libraries and looked for answers in books by yourself. Google wasn't there to respond to your questions. Udemy didn't exist.
As such, if you hoped to learn, university was the right place to go to. Universities welcomed the most brilliant minds of their time and were at the frontline of innovation.
But times have changed.
Universities no longer have the monopoly on knowledge. So why do they still exist?
Peter Thiel observed that universities broadly fulfilled four different functions and hence could be conceptualized as:
- A consumption product: a giant party where you do nothing besides drinking for four years.
- An investment product: a way to raise your own quality so that you raise your future salary and can recoup your investment.
- An insurance product: going to university will help you get a good job to avoid falling into the cracks of society
- An endless competition (what Thiel thinks university actually is): a place where great minds compete to become management consultants and investment bankers instead of changing the world as they had originally intended.
Is university the only place to get knowledge and experience? Hell no.
Is university the cheapest and best way to get knowledge and experience? Nope.
Is university teaching you things you can only learn there? No (well, depends, more on that below).
However, universities provide you with two big advantages:
1. Professors, which can give you feedback on your work to ensure that you improve the skills you are learning (this can also be acquired through getting customers).
2. A community and a "sandbox": a place where you can test stuff and make mistakes that don't have consequences in the real world.
I'll be honest with you. If you hope to go to university to learn, you will be disappointed. To really learn something nowadays, you have to get into the top universities in the world.
It's the only place where knowledge is worth it. The rest is a waste of time. When it comes to getting knowledge, Google is your best friend.
Here's a list of fourteen places where you can learn valuable knowledge for free, or almost free.
- Khan Academy
- Udemy
- Teachable
- Skillshare
- Coursera
- Edx
- Udacity
- Codecademy
- Simplilearn
- W3schools
- Lynda (Linkedin)
- Youtube
- Google Certificates
- Amazon Certificates
You want proof? The great minds of the world have now left academia and are working in the private sector (google "shortage of AI professors").
The decision to go to university depends therefore on what you want to do with your life.
#2. What do you want to do with your life?
Since you are here, we'll have to assume you want to build a fastlane business. Is university mandatory to build a fastlane business? No, unless:
- the country you live in requires you to have a university diploma to start a company.
- you want to build a fastlane business in sectors where getting a degree is mandatory, like the medical sector, accountancy, law, etc. However, mind that there are ways around it. Sometimes you can do an internship and get the paper you need to get started. Some other times, you can partner up with someone that has the qualification you do not have and split the shares of the company 50/50.
So let's have a look at why else we'd think you should go there.
Want to learn? No need to go to university as we outlined above.
Want to party? Just move to Europe or Asia for a year. You ll have the benefit to learn a language on top of that.
Want to secure a job? Fewer and fewer companies are looking for employees with diploma because the pace is so fast that what you learned at uni becomes useless one year after you got out. Diplomas only useful when you have no experience. After that, your experience and skillset are what matter most to employers. (Note: it also depends on your culture).
Want to get into debt (lol)? Buy an apartment.
Want to meet people? Join events, masterminds, conferences, forums, do an internship, or travel.
Want to chill for three-four years? Yes! Then going to university might be for you. Study communication, art history, social sciences, or gender studies, it will be easy.
But don't come to complain once no one hires your a$$ afterward.
Conclusion
Am I against universities? No. I am in fact in the fastlane because I want to make enough money to be able to go back to university, and study and write there until I die.
However, I am immensely disappointed in universities because they didn't teach me anything I wouldn't have been able to learn myself. As such, I feel I have wasted five years of my life when I could have taken this time to build a fastlane business instead.
The only positive experience I got was doing an exchange in one of the best universities in the world, where professors tell you about the dinner they had with the prime minister yesterday. That's when I felt getting to the top of society was possible, because these people weren't any more different than I was. They were just harder working, and more confident (nothing I couldn't become myself).
The bottom line is this:
if you want to be rich as fast as possible, skip university.
If you want to learn how to code, skip university. You'll do it better and faster by yourself.
If you want to learn business, just build a business. Studying business is useless (I know, I did it).
If you want to party, skip university (cost isn't worth it).
BUT
If you want to learn STEM, university may be good for you (because it's harder to learn by yourself).
If you want to give yourself some time and test out different stuff, try university (as long as it's not putting you into monstrous debt).
If you feel it's an experience you have to go through, try it. But remain open to the idea of quitting.
What if you don't have a choice?
Sometimes, your parents force you to study and there is nothing you can do against it.
Here's what I would do then:
1. Choose a useful degree, something that gives you an edge, such as the possibility to start companies others can't (real estate, insurance, law to become a notary, or accounting to become an expert-accountant), or something that is giving you great skills to solve problems and start companies (engineering).
2. Go study abroad in a foreign language: it will most likely be cheaper and you will 10X your results. My favorite countries to study in are: Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Poland (don't study in Polish though). Find out how to study in a foreign country here: How to study debt free, expand your mind and gain international experience
Universities were dying before covid hit. The pandemic only accelerated their death.
Don't go there unless you have an actual reason to. I went there because I didn't know what else to do. Had I looked for an answer to that question instead of looking for which useless degree I was going to study, I wouldn't have wasted five years of my life.
Don't make the same mistake.
Monfii
Edit: this post was last edited on the 13/04/21.
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