Pay-Pal co founder hands out $100,000 fellowships to not go to college
mod
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/05/25/136646918/paypal-co-founder-hands-out-100-000-fellowships-to-not-go-to-college?ft=1&f=1001
I like the general thrust of his argument, students need to wake up, not play it so safe and light the world on fire. But I also think that for just about any mainstream job you need a degree.
I also agree that education is in for a hell of a wake up call at least in the US. For the last few decades the equity in the housing market has been financing higher education. Now that the market has dried up, we'll see a lot more people unable to afford college... Another crash? Probably, but different in many ways, I don't think it will shake the global economy, except that people who want and need to go to college won't be able to. Of course instead of fixing the problem they'll cut deep into things that shouldn't be cut.
So far...
For profit healthcare, leads to problems.
For profit higher ed, leads to problems.
For profit lending, leads to problems.
I see a recurring theme here... It's fine to make money off of services, but when you have a higher duty to society you should be held to a higher degree of scrutiny and a higher standard than a street corner watch salesmen.
Looks like more and more people are starting question the time and money pumped into a degree.Today his Thiel Foundation announced that it was giving 24 people under 20 $100,000 fellowships to drop out of school for two years to start a their own companies.
I like the general thrust of his argument, students need to wake up, not play it so safe and light the world on fire. But I also think that for just about any mainstream job you need a degree.
I also agree that education is in for a hell of a wake up call at least in the US. For the last few decades the equity in the housing market has been financing higher education. Now that the market has dried up, we'll see a lot more people unable to afford college... Another crash? Probably, but different in many ways, I don't think it will shake the global economy, except that people who want and need to go to college won't be able to. Of course instead of fixing the problem they'll cut deep into things that shouldn't be cut.
So far...
For profit healthcare, leads to problems.
For profit higher ed, leads to problems.
For profit lending, leads to problems.
I see a recurring theme here... It's fine to make money off of services, but when you have a higher duty to society you should be held to a higher degree of scrutiny and a higher standard than a street corner watch salesmen.
This discussion has been closed.
Replies
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/employment/2010-12-06-collegegrads06_ST_N.htm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/18/recent-college-grads-are-_n_863702.html
If you are an american who never plans to travel the world and work for extended periods of time (i.e. take that promotion from your existing company that is in the Far East/Europe) then more power to ya, lose out on the amazing college experience. But you might be kicking yourself in 10/20 years.
That's a prime example on the view that needs to be changed, heh.
Sorry, but that's total asshattery.
It may be different for the jobs many of you have, but for the regular business world, it is not easy to accomplish much without that piece of paper.
And not everyone can start a successful company.
Feel free to explain how... laws in the vast majorities of countries require a degree for a visa. Are you refuting this? Or did you not read my post.
Luckily your wallet will be full of money, thus softening the blow
as far as amazing experiences, i don't think it's worth the $80k of debt it's up to now. I took 2 years of community college courses before going to a 4 year degree - it was the same experience except the people I met in community college were more serious and driven.
I am curious. How long will you have to work just to pay off your loans that you took out (if any) to get your degree. Is it profitable in the end?
He clearly says that he doesn't want people to drop out who are looking to play it safe and shoot for the middle class lifestyle with 1.5 children and a house in the burbs.
He's looking for those people that are looking to go to college to start up companies, like he and many other tech giants did, Jobs, Gates, zuckerberg. Those people can skip it and just start innovating.
The group of people he is talking to are not likely to need to move to another country to look for work, they're more likely to move there to start up a factory or take advantage of lower taxes...
What he's saying is, don't cash in your ideas for stability and a mountain of debt. If you think you have what it takes to run your own company and you have great ideas, go for it, you don't need a college telling you, you're a big boy now.
We really need to get back to the idea that going out and doing something, and making things happen, and proving your skills is more important than a piece of paper that says you know stuff.
Hell for me, the most informative part of college for me was being part of a mod team online.
I would say I agree with this dude... let kids go out and figure out their skills, instead of institutionalizing them and pumping out cookie cutter know-littles with a degree.
It was my primary reason for getting that piece of paper. How else would I hope to get a work Visa? I'm not a millionaire, and I'm not some mail order bride.
In fact student loans can work over your virgin credit and ruin it faster than declaring bankruptcy, making it harder for you to get a business loan. When are you going to apply for that business loan? After you pay off your student loans? After you buy a house? After your kids are through college? Is anyone really going to pay you enough so that you'll leave them and start up your own competing company? Are you going to live with mom and dad until your 50 in order to scrape together enough cash to finally start things up?
You also don't need a degree to write up a business proposal. You might be a computer science major and never learn how to put one together. You have a degree so obviously you are qualified to start a business. Only business majors can put a business proposal together? Does any of that actually stop you from starting up a company? No.
It's something anyone can do and more people need to do it and get out of the current mindset. Sure its not for everyone but a lot of people might just ignore their ideas and drudge on through life if someone didn't say "hey, hold on a sec think about this".
The idea that the only way to earn a decent living is through a degree, is what they're trying to break down. College is good for a lot of people true, the few they're trying to attract are the few that don't need to go and are wasting their time and their money.
You can also start out small and grow like most companies do. No where is that more pervasive than in our industry. There are a lot of people who started up studios, made it successful and are reaping the rewards and some of them are doing it without college degrees.
It also helps when rich people say "Hey, I'll give you 100k to try your idea out because I think it and you are that good, now make it happen".
This guy isn't looking to help European would be game artists move to the US or Canada to work for Ubisoft. He wants people to start up the next facebook so he can cash in big without doing much of anything, like he did with facebook.
He's looking for people that start companies, not wish to work on their lower rungs.
Don't you see a problem with with that?
Not going to school sucks though, I don't know shit!
(sorry I didn't really have anything to add)
Although the people spending 100k+ in school is pretty stupid, I dropped out of SCAD for that very reason.
going to college because you're supposed to go to college.... not so much
At least when work is stressful you get paid for it and oh hey look you have a career and useful contacts now.
Still, school is good for meeting people and making friends, and depending on where you go (read: most colleges) and where you live (read: in a dorm) it's more about partying than education anyways.
“Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women —two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians—have rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ into an oxymoron."
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/10/18/what-s-wrong-with-silicon-valley-libertarianism.html
Wouldn't take a penny from the chauvinistic fuck myself. Anyone who thinks women having the right to vote is a bad thing can go jump off a cliff.
How old are you? You think it's an arbitrary decision, to ask people that come into your country to be highly skilled? Yes I know people with degree's sometime come out with no skills, while there are artists who never attended a day of third level education that blow the rest of the competition away, but how do you propose governments enforce this? Artists on immigration staff? Writers? Musicians? Join the real world please.
Also good point Meisse, I often forget you guys pay a lot to get a college education... tis definitely another serious factor to consider in going to college in the states. Personally, my degree was free. Even got a grant (which is common, its not a scholarship or anything like that). I even got my yearly registration fees refunded by said grant. And it was such a tidy sum I always spent 90 a week at my favourite sushi bar. :poly136:
Nothing is impossible.
To me, the true value of getting a degree is the people you meet.
School sucks
I can't see myself being where I am now, as a person, or artist, had I not made the decision to go to school. I've always looked at it this way - I wasn't going to school for instruction, or even contacts. I was granting myself the opportunity to have (in a perfect world..) uninterrupted practice for 3-4 YEARS. I know I personally will never have that opportunity again, and would never have been able to even come close to anything similar if I was back home working some janitorial job while doing game art in my spare time.
I know this is just my personal situation, but I needed to go to school. I have been working as a street vendor for a carnival for 8 years before I left for college, and I just flat out needed a fresh start. School first taught me how to learn, and then how to teach myself. I met some awesome people, and gained a TON of life experiences through working various jobs along the way.
Now, the proposal in the OP that I could have dropped out midway through and still been just as successful if not more so, I think is very plausible. I stopped learning things directly from my teachers relatively early on (which sucks), and sometimes indeed felt as though I were wasting my time. If I were offered an industry job during school, I would almost certainly drop out, as I know i would learn heaps more in the workplace. but I wasn't, so no sweat, more practice for when I actually have to enter the job market.
I don't think the idea of starting my own business would be something enticing enough to lure me out tho. I know just enough about business to know that I would never want to own one
For me the bottom line is, I disagree when people just flat out make generalizations about 'school' as if they are all the same as are the people who attend them. They're certainly not all bad, and its all on the student's shoulders to learn in whatever environment they have placed themselves in. If they feel that their time is being wasted, then quit... if there are still things you can get out of it, then stay in. Its that simple
~ Good point. The lifelong friends and all that goddamn fornication with girls and wild drunken memories. I'd pay for it all over again if I could. The degree meant next to nothing, but the experience/memories was epicness. College was like 20% learning 80% living life to the max for me. Go to college, or your missing out.
I do know that every first semester modeling class should use the Mobile Gaming thread as reference. Start them off right with the basics.
I know my situation is a little different than most, but I first got an Associates degree in Electronics, at the community college. That was paid for by inheritance money that I had received from my grandmother. I think around $10k total was spent. It was invested, and my aunt was in control of it, so I don't know the exact numbers.
I took a break, then returned for my Bachelor's in Computer Science. For this part, I had to use financial aid the whole time, and my final bill was $20k. I graduated in 2008, and I put it in forbearance until this year, so I just started paying on it. I honestly don't consider $20k very bad. If I really wanted to dedicate myself, I could have it paid off within 2 or 3 years.
You don't need to go to college to be social.
So people don't go to college to actually learn? wow
paying 40k to get laid sounds a lot, I'll stick with my local bar, ktkxbie.
oh brother, when I read that he was a conservative with a degree in philosophy, I knew that was a bad combo.
How'd you go by that? Marry in?
So not only does he have an axe to grind with women and universities, but it sounds like he is also blaming another group that couldn't vote in the 1920's who he also blames for the "vast increase in welfare beneficiaries". I'll give you a hint, it sounds like Plack Beople.
So according to him, giving women and blacks the right to vote screwed up America... And the only time when capitalism worked was when massive corruption and rampant ponzi schemes where going on!? And he wants to go back to that!? FUCKTARD... The very thing he wants is what caused the things he doesn't like. The social safety net was created because of the Capitalist Darwinism at the time.
Douchbag! I fully support a tax on every breath this fucktwat takes... This guy is on the fast track to a pair of tissue box shoes just like Howard Hugues, probably even faster...
So the only way to escape it is for technology to create new space to form a truly free society.
He wants a floating city or a colony on the moon... that allows its founders to govern themselves? So then whats the next step? So whats next, wage war on the rest of the masses who don't agree in techno-utopia? Heh... throw in a few jumbo-tron's with his face all over them and you've got a great little future where I'd love being an anarchist.
What a closed minded, spoiled little twat. "If you can't let me ruin millions of peoples lives I'll create my own space to do it". I'm so glad I've gotten along without paypal, I'm not sure I can help support his delusions.
With all that said, I still stand behind all of what I've said. I still think students need to wake up, not walk into a wall of debt and realize their full potential instead of just brainlessly waltzing through life especially when they could achieve the same results for cheaper and they seem to not care until its too late. The people you think are helping you, are praying upon you, so wake up be an adult and take responsibility for your finances it will effect a huge chunk of your life if you get it wrong.
And if you get a chance to rob this guy of even a fraction of his fortune, you should go for it, apply then fail hard.
You should dig in a little bit more about this topic, even without a degree, you can still have emigrate.
Getting a visa without a degree is possible, though harder. In the case of US visas, there's O-1s for the talented people, and H1B's if you have more than 10 years of experience in your field.
I'm so tired of people making me-too duplicates of games.
You'd like for me to pay how much for the primary ability to work in a foreign country? I'd rather build through contacts and experience that are just as easily gained while taking part in activities within said career field.
I'm completely understood that a degree is highly situational, but to tell someone that this is their only option is completely arbitrary.
I also understand that, said company may potentially experience difficulties receiving a work-visa if you don't have a degree, due to them requiring hard evidence that you're worth more than the local competition.
-So find something.
I'd also refrain from spending $80k+ on, "The best time of my life".
Sounds like an expensive road trip.
Contacts? College isn't primary for building contacts.. Attend some shit.
I'm still fairly young and I don't necessarily have the ability to run off to college.
My perceived best option would be to attend anything within my requested field, study when I have the time and troll Polycount.
Am I wrong?
I was working in a foreign country (Canada) for the last 3 years before coming back to the US without any kind of degree. I'm thinking you don't know as much about this topic as you think you do
~ lulz. I'm just saying college is more than just a degree that's all.
Hawken is in Japan. If you think getting into Canada from the states is as difficult a process as getting a working visa in Japan as an american with no degree, you obviously don't know much about Japanese bureaucracy and red tape, never mind international attitudes (Japan is only one example too, if you think you can get a work permit in China for Shanghai say, or Italy, France, and major country in Europe, good luck to ye). And it's going to get harder, even for people with degrees. This recession meant that more people stayed in college after their degrees to do a masters to, as has been put in this thread, 'insulate themselves' or whatever; I'm paraphrasing. In ten years time my degree won't mean much in an immigration officers eyes, as there'll be all these people only a few years younger than me with Masters.
I'm not even saying people should do a degree in what they to do as a job. Say if you wanted to be an environment artist. Go and do a degree in architexture, and learn the trade in your own time. That way you have options when you come out. That's the best thing about having a degree for me is. Options. I can't point to a single place on the world map and say 'I can't legally work there'; and that's nice.
Rei: Like I said, if you want to stay in your country of residence, go for it. Contacts and a good portfolio will get you a job in there. Just not internationally.
:poly142:
^
Last year I was offered a position in Seoul, South Korea.. This was because I had previously worked with their Lead Character Artist on a mod.
It wasn't just the work I did on the mod, it was fact that he knew that if he had hired me, I'd fit in without a personality clash.
There wasn't an issue of a degree, they just needed a great portfolio.
Unfortunately I didn't have a portfolio at the time, kind of screwed myself in that situation. (They wanted amazing work as well, would take me quite awhile to put together)
I did know these people for quite awhile, I knew the studio very well..
Having great contacts is incredibly powerful. (WORK ON THAT PORTFOLIO FFS!)
One of the greatest regrets in my life, to be honest.
For a fraction of that per person you could organize an art commune in some cheap locale and hire kickass teachers to drop by and lay some wisdom on you every week. And honestly that sounds like there'd be a lot more fun. And sex.
I'm pretty sure you'd have fit in without a personality clash either, you are both hopelessly deluded
**
This thread has got hopelessly derailed
They requested a professionally finished Portfolio with multitudes of work that were specifically high detailed sculpts. - I didn't have it, the work I did on the mod didn't require detailed sculpts, the sculpts I'd do at the time however, I did show him.
It wasn't, "The whole studio" 3 guys, one of them the Lead Character Artist who was referring me.
The offer wasn't withdrawn, if I had finished the Portfolio within a reasonable amount of time, I'd have taken the position.. Unfortunately I ended up moving to the complete opposite side of the US for a stable job, within that time I never really had the opportunity to work on my Portfolio.
I'm only just recently able to, but I also question whether I'd even want to travel to South Korea like that.
Sorry for the derail, though this is somewhat related.
This is exactly the attitude I'm talking about. I am in school, and I'm not lazy, nor a fool. I wasn't duped into going to college either. I made an informed decision, and knew going in what I was getting myself into.
I don't appreciate the comparison, and I'm not definitely not the exception to your alleged rule. All of my friends here are as driven and self-motivated as I.
I'm lost, did I insult you in some way? Could you elaborate?
No, I believe they feel that way because they expected to get their money's worth, and didn't. If I paid huge sums to be taught and was left to my own devices I would be livid.