The value of college

I've discovered recently, while spinning yarns of college shenanigans, that a surprising number of people at work did not go to college. Of course, keep in mind that Microsoft was founded by a college drop out, so naturally the company culture is not one to close any doors to where it may locate talented people. There are several in our team who didn't go to school, but our lead theorizes that's probably a statistical anomaly compared to the company as a whole.

It occurred to me just now that, given their ages (generally between 28 and 31), they were also coming out of high school at a dramatically different time, when the Internet was taking hold as a part of everyday life. Many of those guys were working in some Internet related business around that time in lieu of college. That makes a lot of sense.

Some lengthy debates have erupted on CoasterBuzz about the value of college (we do talk about roller coasters now and then), and I've typically taken the stance that the value of a college education is enormous. I don't feel that there's some moral or intellectual superiority there, but I think it's a safe generalization that people who do it (and particularly those who live on campus) have a broad "life advantage." There are always exceptions of course, which is why it's so hard to argue the point. I mean, when the world's richest man is a college drop-out, how do you compete with that?

Those who contend that you don't need college, and are passionate about it, tend to not have gone. A common theme too is that they perceive it as paying for a piece of paper. While the degree is certainly an outcome of college, you don't get it just because you paid for it, and it sure as hell isn't an easy road. I see it as an achievement and I'm not afraid to say so.

The question becomes more about the value of that achievement. I've worked with, and looked up to, enough non-degree earning people to know that it's not a requirement. Some people are naturally brilliant and have born-with ability to lead. But for every one of them, I've also worked with three or four people who I think were grossly incapable of managing time, engaging coworkers and generally executing in their position.

So this observation may in fact push the differences in people beyond the college choice and to the underlying personalities. Perhaps people who succeed or suck at life or in the workplace do so because that's just who they were in the first place, regardless of whether or not they went to school. Looking at the data I've observed first hand, perhaps that's a better theory.

There are still some strong benefits to college, and it only took me a decade and a half to admit that some of them are the very things I used to bitch about. As it turns out, that "liberal arts" education exposes you to enough diverse subjects that you have a better pulse on how the world operates. I'm still not sold on the foreign language requirement, but intro classes for business, religion, science, math, etc., all provided more value to me than I was willing to admit.

The real majority of learning I still believe comes from the living in the environment though. It comes from having roommates, getting drunk, putting off that research paper, freaking out about how overwhelmed you are, getting your ass out of bed for class, going to parties, interacting with the academics stuck in a bubble... there is just so much that happened in those four years for me.

And much of it was failure. I think that's the most important aspect of it all. College provides a safer environment for failure, and risk is generally lower. The ability to experiment with lesser consequences is very valuable.

So I think I generally still feel that college is a very valuable experience, but it's not a measurement stick for how likely success comes to people. More importantly, I'm starting to think that the quality of a person is more influenced by their underlying personality.