Listen up everyone. I have a confession to make: I am a high school dropout.
Gasp! It’s true. I dropped out of school in the middle of eleventh grade and never looked back, except in those creepy weird dreams I have every so often where I am for some reason compelled to go back and finish high school at my current age.
I did obtain my GED two years after withdrawing from school, but I never pursued a college education. (Well, there was that one semester I pulled at the community college, but that was just to meet the requirements for a scholarship to attend Mises University.)
I knew exactly what I wanted. I could not stand school. I guess it was alright up until about ninth grade. But then the strangest thing occurred. I started developing serious interests of my own. And I wanted the time and resources to pursue them, on my own. I wanted to immerse myself in these subjects without having a figure of authority standing over me or assigning me work to check and see if I comprehended what I was learning.
School became colossally boring and unfulfilling. I did not want to read those books. I had no interest in learning that subject. I was into history and poetry and fiction writing, but both my English and History teachers that year were those drone-voiced teachers who only wear mulch-brown and never laugh. Ugh. I had to get out. So, to the disappointment of my parents and probably to the slight relief of the school’s administrators (boredom is directly correlated to troublemaking), I did.
Lately, I’ve witnessed quite a bit of smack-talking about people who do not have college educations.
“He’s not qualified to have an opinion. He didn’t even finish her freshman year of college.”
“College graduates are so much more likely to raise smart, capable children than parents who never attended college.”
“I find your opinions on politics to be wrong and stupid. It is no wonder you think this way. What more can be expected of a high school dropout?”
“Come back and tell me what you think after you get a college degree.”
Where do you find these intolerant, self-satisfied assholes? You might be wondering.
Facebook, okay? I mostly find them on Facebook.
I probably shouldn’t hold the people on Facebook to a very high standard. I’m sure they’re nicer and more tolerant and level-headed in person. After all, for many people, social media seems to be the one place where they can vent their frustrations and say what’s really on their minds, even if what's on their minds is a bunch of judgmental bullshit.
But it’s not only Facebook. It’s in the news. It’s on the floor of Congress. It’s in the hopes and sometimes the expectations that parents hold for their children. Somehow, much of the world has been duped into believing that a college degree is a firm prerequisite to Anything One Might Hope To Accomplish Past The Age Of 22.
Looking back at my decision to leave high school before graduating, I still think it was the right choice for me. It’s been almost fifteen years, and while I am definitely not serving on the board of a multi-billion dollar corporation or seeing patients in a busy medical practice or teaching in a schoolroom (I would NEVER! That’s how much I dislike school), I am also not paying $300 per month for my piece of paper that won’t get me a job in the field of my choice. When you look at it that way, who’s smarter? The non-college graduate or the debt-laden liberal arts degree holder?
I have, however, done a lot of traveling and a lot of writing. I’ve worked in a lot of different jobs and learned a few skills that may or may not come in handy during the zombie apocalypse. I’ve started a family. I’ve homeschooled my daughter (another big no-no among the intolerant crowd--a high school dropout teaching her own child how to read and add and subtract?! Inconceivable!) and I’ve had my own talk show. I’ve started a business and thus far kept it running, and I know how to find the area of a triangle and how to use a semicolon.
None of this is to say that there is no value in a college education. Certainly there are professions that require that kind of preparation. And if you have a college degree or are working toward one, I applaud you and hope that it is benefiting you greatly.
But there are other ways to get an education. There’s travel, working at a job, trade school, apprenticeships, hobbies that become passions that become careers. You can conduct your own science experiments, create your own art, and start your own business. There is Google, Ted Talks, Khan Academy, and Minecraft Homeschool (my favorite!) There are books! Glorious, fascinating, precious books that you can read in both analog and digital formats!
I just think that college is over-prescribed. I would like to see more people like myself in the world: smart, curious autodidacts who are passionate and motivated enough to take charge of their own learning. Actually, there are quite a few of us, but our culture fails to take note.
William Shakespeare. Hans Christian Anderson. George Washington. Abe Lincoln. Frederick Douglass. Thomas Edison. Wilbur Wright. Mark Twain. F. Scott Fitzgerald. Walt Disney. Henry Ford. Coco Chanel. Ray Bradbury. George Orwell. Dave Thomas. Will Smith. Rachel Ray. Richard Branson. Bill Gates. Sean Connery. Ellen Degenerous. Mark Zuckerburg. Oprah Winfrey. Jim Carrey. Steve Jobs. Wolfgang Puck. Tom Hanks.
What do all of these people have in common? They either did not attend college, or dropped out before graduating. They are pioneers and iconoclasts who contribute(d) massively, or even revolutionize(d) philosophy, literature, science, technology and the arts. They are, above all, NOT STUPID.
We know not to judge a book by its cover. We know not to judge a person’s character by the color of his skin. Can we please stop judging people’s intelligence by the level of formal education they’ve received? And stop insisting that every high school student needs to go on to college in order to “make it in the world”?
What do you think? Does college make you smarter? Do we need more college graduates, or less? Is higher education over-hyped? Have you ever met a guy with two doctorates who nonetheless could not string together two coherent sentences, even in a non-academic setting? (I have.) Let me know your thoughts in the comments!
This article first appeared on my blog.
Thank you for reading!
Hi! My name is Leslie Starr O'Hara, but I go by Starr. I live in the mountains of North Carolina and I write fiction, satire, humor, and the odd anarchist think piece here on Steemit. FOLLOW ME if you're interested in stuff about science fiction, writing, homeschooling, productivity, or just stuff that will make you laugh your britches off.
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