not going to college, so..
 

I have been lead to believe that I "need" to go to college, I need to spend tons of money to do tons of work on nothing that particularly interests me... and I need to do it RIGHT NOW. Or in the near future.

I'm 20, I've been working at walmart for a year, making $8.80 an hour soon ($8.25 right now). I'm very skilled at computers, and I can actually type 149 words per minute. I was thinking of becoming a secretary... doing some kind of clerical work, something that wouldn't require college. So, I must ask of fellow sonic youth board members.. is it really okay to not go to college?

My girlfriend is going and she keeps pressuring me to go, because she thinks she's going to be a millionaire because she's studying chemistry. I constantly have to deflate her ego and explain to her that she may be going for chemistry but so are about a million other people and they're going to be competing for the same job as her.

I dunno.. I'm just at a crossroads of what I want to do, I work with some dudes who went to college and ended up working at walmart cuz they got paid more..

and even a guy I know who is serious about college has said that you're not going to be rich off of it, but you'll just probably end up doing a job you like a lot more than stocking, making about the same wage.. and if that's all it is, I don't think it's worth it.

What are your guys's views on college?

Animal Collective tells us that we don't have to go to college. But, it does give you many more oppurtunities in life. I want to go. I have no idea where but I want to go.

you can go to college anytime, id start out on your own and then rexamine your life when you are 25 or 30. if you still arent happy with whats going on, maybe you should go to college. if you are content then by no means should you.

Maybe take online courses or something.

You can do two years at a community college and then apply to transfer to a big college or university as a junior. A lot of times, schools will accept more transfers/non-freshmen because there's less of them applying.

If you feel you need to go to college, go out for it. It's one of those things where you can't really listen to anyone else.

do not believe that guy for a second. Look at the statistics. There is a very thick, bold line between college graduate's salaries and highschool graduate's salaries.

But dont go if your just going to try to get it over with to move on, you must retain it to better yourself.

All men by nature desire knowledge. - Aristotle

College is not only a way to get "richer" but you can also continue to learn at fast rate and more knowledge is never a bad thing. Check out this if you have the time:
http://www.ericdigests.org/2003-3/value.htm

this is that guys conclusion:

depends if you want to educate yourself or make alot of money, college doesn't garuntee the latter but you will get educated, i didn't go to university until i was 25, you are only young you can go later but don't get stuck becoming a walmart lifer.

i supppose that some people do look for college degree's when looking at your cv or application for a job. but you have plenty of time to make a decision so dont let anyone pressure you into it or you just wont enjoy yourself. take as long as you need.

you have computer skills & you have an employment history now. if you type 149 wpm you stand a chance at getting a trancriptionist job with the clerk of courts as a court reporter.

my advice though is to apply for an accounts receivable (a/r) job with a company or barring that, a collection agency.

tell them you have phone experience with a survey company and/or telemarketing company to hedge your bets.

basically an a/r job entails collecting on past due invoices owed to the company. it pays better than wal-mart & you work in an office. usually there are openings for these types of jobs as it's the bottom rung of the white-collar world much like a dishwasher would be to a restaurant.

& since the a/r job isn't all that physically taxing, you'll still have energy to go to technical college at night at some point. a tech degree in respiratory or physical therapy can turn into a nice career as a highly paid, highly in-demand medical professional & with that expertise you can get a job anywhere you want.

i started thread similar to this one a few months a go check it out, it has alot of great information on it. my dilema was whether to go to university or go traveling?

http://www.sonicyouth.com/gossip/showthread.php?t=1451

I started going to college right out of high school and it was too soon for me, I had to move out of my house right at 18 and my mom moved to Atlatna so I was in Detroit all by my self and I just got drunk for around 4 years..... so I'm going back to school now and feel really good about it, you have to want to go, no one can make you.

I'm going to study visual communications/design this fall and I already know it'll be a suicide "career -wise". The whole design thing is a no good field of work and as a worthless graphic designer I will never get a job that's somehow in accordance with my education. There's just not enough work for each media/whatever student and at the same time e.g. healthcare and social work is suffering from the lack of labour. The same goes for many blue-collar fields.

with a name like phlegmscope you might've been born to shove tubes down people's throats & get them breathing again, i.e., be a respiratory therapist.

My dad is a respiratory therapist. He gets paid pretty well. He works nights too so he gets paid even more.

Well then, I guess shoving tubes down to people's respiratory system combined to drug smuggling will make a good plan b if my graphic design career wont take off.

Thank you everyone, but I think you helped me the most atari.

I guess I was mainly saying.. I don't want to go to college, so what decent options do you think are there for me..

I kinda want to be a mailman actually.

dude you need to go to college. the reason everyone tells you to go sooner then later is because college requires you to take two years of bullshit, and it is good to get it over with. but first, you must figure out what it is you would like to do with your life. fuck walmart, fuck clerical, that is job, that is work. what is is that you REALLY want to do with your life? when you answer the question you can work college into the equation, but for whatever you could want to do, there is a college to attend. it is the only ticket out of poverty aside from basketball, rapping, and stealing.

Alex's Trip pretty much said it. It opens lots of oppertunities and lets you have a career which you can enjoy more than one in which you don't go to College. I'm in my second year of New Media & Publication Design because I love to do graphics, and hopefully I can use those skills to also fix my half-assed myspace.

I know several people with Master's degrees who are no better off than I am.
My bandmate is a freaking ART PROFESSOR at a major university and still works at a coffeeshop on weekends to make ends meet.
A degree is only a semi-guarantee of income if it is in certain fields.
I would be no better off with my English degree than I am now with senior-level college experience.
I will never go back.

took me a while to find this picture but

if you look at all like this guy you could turn your secretarial work into a tv career

^Same, degree and all. (Savage Clone)

Technical school is way more of a meal ticket if that's what you're looking for.
A 4 year liberal arts program is a good way to be an educated person, but it's pretty obsolete as a vehicle for a guaranteed higher standard of living.

This line is only made bold and thick by science and business students' later income and earnings. If you study art, music, writing, literature, philosophy, etc, your income level will be remarkably similar to the rest of the non-college crowd (probably far less than the trade school crowd, in fact).
The statistics are skewed because of the high incomes available to people with advanced degrees in science and business related fields. The arts and humanities are not a meal ticket in the slightest, and your best hope there is to stay in the vacuum of academia, where you can be paid to pass your esoteric knowledge on to a new generation of hapless, fresh-faced teens who have yet to face the demon known as Academic Disillusionment.
With any luck, you might get to sleep with a few of them at least.

haha yeah if I would have became an Art Professor I would have been kicked out before I ever got tenure due to all the young ladies fancying me hehe.

The liberal arts education & the fine art education I received in college taught me absolutely nothing new. I knew all of it before I ever went to college. But that's just me.

Just a couple of examples that stand out.

I had this TA in World Lit approach me in a bar once & ask me how in the hell I scored a 100 on the final because he saw me at the bar every night and I missed so many classes. The same guy asked me before that if I had really wrote a particular paper or not.

I mentioned to my color theory professor & later a 20th century art history professor that a movie was coming out about Basquait. Both of them were like, "Who?"

I attended one quarter (back then it was quarters not semesters) at Armstrong State in Savannah & that was the only time that college remotely challenged me. I took this Biology 2 class & the professor was some washed-up drunk scientist with a perpetually red nose & the damn guy thought it was a doctorate level Anatomy course or something. Every other course I ever took in college was a complete joke & I can only cringe & imagine how very dumbed-down things are now.

I heard a story of someone with an MA degree trying to apply to a job at the grosery store sales counter, but couldn't get the job because they didn't have an open place and every clerk already were an MA. So the boss said that the applicant would have to be a Ph.D.

That is a problem around here, too much highly educated people, while the need of labour is somewhere else. My visual design studies will last about 4-5 years and that's an equivalent to BA degree (it's not an university, but a post-secondary level polytechic), I can apply to an MA program after graduation, but I'm not sure if there's any point, since it would add two more years and the employers don't really care about your education background. It's the portfolio and social skills that matter.

That's why I quit going.
I was being taught things in a senior level writing class that I learned in 9th grade at the age of 14! What was I paying for?

Phlegmscope!
Great/sad story!

ha ha
seriously a technical degree will get you the chance to make big bucks minus the bullshit of having to fetch someone coffee.

besides secretaries are on the way out. everybody types their own shit now. "assistants" of all kinds however need to kiss ass now to so many bosses (make me a chart for this, do a presentation for that) it's like bukkake @ work.

maybe im biased but i'm throughly unsuited for any kind of submissive job.

however i don't mind applying the lash when necessary :D

Employers & society in general figures that if your parents have enough money to send you to a university then you'll make due somehow without their help. They term you "overqualified". The labor market respects specialized skills, not general knowledge.

So, college has become much like Preparatory School used to be; it's a place where the wealthy can dump their offspring for a few years.

60 minutes tonight features a piece on illegal immigration, one on Whole Foods Market, & a segment with author Carl Hiaasen.
I can't wait though for the all-new The Sopranos/Huff block.
Screw Big Love, maybe I'll catch it when HBO shows repeats.

I see Inhuman has a last fm link in the sig. I had an idea to do that kind of site in 2001 & never got it off the ground.

So...

What should us college-bound youngsters do? Technical school? Or College/University?

i may be adding nothing new to this discussion . . . but too many people equate college with "career prospects." that's why you get such an inordinate number of people coming out with undergrad business degrees -- people think that's the only degree that's going to get them any money, never suspecting that if money is their only motivation for attending college they're in the wrong place to begin with. the point of the matter is, college is not the place to learn marketable skills -- it is a place to get a firm grasp on the ideas and theories that have shaped mankind since the beginning of time, and possibly find yourself in the process . . . not to mention that the analytical and critical skills they teach you are useful regardless of your career choice.

case in point: i'm majoring in math and philosophy. now i'm planning to go to law school so i have no real worries about a job, but i damn well know that if i didn't pursue further education i wouldn't be in a terribly advantageous position in the job market. i mean, maybe i could be a systems analyst or actuary or high school teacher (though that requires training in education), or maybe i could go on to math/philosophy grad school and be a professor, but otherwise i'd be screwed.

one note though: my experience in college has been quite different from that of atari 2600 -- i find myself quite challenged by the work, and i consider myself fairly intelligent. i do well, but it's not without effort. then again, i do go to william and mary, which is considered to be an academically "prestigious" school (whatever that means).

amen.

Don't go to college.

The workforce is already competitive with people who have degrees...we don't need any more competition. Keep your Walmart job!!!

if i were to go to college in some fine art like say music, philosophy, art, english i wouldnt be going because it will help me get a job i would go because i genuinly want to expand my intellectual horizons in the area but if you are going to college so it will help you get a job i wouldnt go unless you want to go into some highly technical and specialized trade such as science, technology, medicine or anything else of the like.

so id say just look at you motives, find the pros and cons of each and weigh the results.

In my opinion, I would highly recommend college. However, I don't recommend it for a better career, for more options, for more money, or even to enrich yourself academically. I personally find all of those prospects reason enough, but that's just me. I like school, and I want to keep my options open. It will potentially increase your income, but it isn't assured.

The fact is that if you go to college for the full 4 years, you are very likely to find something that you will enjoy doing - more so than anything you would have landed in without the experience. Before I went to college I was positive I wanted to work with computers. Going to college (and that has only been 1 year so far), I've realized that there are many things I would find greater enjoyment in.

I will probably be making less money than I planned, as well. I went to college to go into computers because it would help me to get a good job - but the money isn't what I want out of life, and as much as people may claim it's what they want, I don't think they do either. People want to be happy, and as appealing as endless money and high-paying jobs may seem to people, it's not a surefire route to happiness (and is probably quite the opposite in many cases).

College is worth it merely because you see more options going there, not because it opens them. It is very possible that you will come out of college wanting even more strongly to work as a mailman or in a secretarial job. And while I think your girlfriend is okay following her dream, you're completely right - she might not end up where she thinks. College is not guaranteed to improve you life.

But the point is: Going to college, you find what you want. I'm sure I'm still going to modify my path significantly - I haven't found what I want - but I found the right direction. If I hadn't gone, I wouldn't have even found that.

However, if you think that you can be completely happy with where you're going, sans college, then you don't need it. Just make sure you feel good about the path you're taking - don't skip college just because it's a quicker, easier path. You might miss out on a career you could love. Skip it if you're sure you're already happy with where you're going.

So, an update, I turn 24 tomorrow, and in the 4 years since making this post, and still not going to college, I have saved up $25,000 living at home -- and still paying bills, and giving my mom $2000 last year to help her pay off her debts that she never has to pay back -- and working part time at Wal-Mart. And I haven't just saved it all, I mean I've bought TONS of movies, cd's, books, instruments, etc. So, working part time at Wal-Mart does pay the bills, and then some. I don't have insurance, and I've went to the dentist consistently, and went to the doctor a few times and just paid with cash. Note that no one in my entire life has bought me shit... this computer, my car, etc... all that was bought by me. I'm not bragging -- anyone that works hard can achieve their goals, you just have to be patient. I also have $2000 in Wal-Mart stock, and another $2000 in my 401k plan there.

Meanwhile, all my peers are still in college, or dropped out, I know almost no one with a job, and nearly everyone I know is in debt. My ex-girlfriend cheated on me and broke up with me -- one of her reasons was that she couldn't be with someone who doesn't plan on "making anything" of himself, she said you HAVE TO go to college to get by in life. She got her degree recently, and has sat on her ass in Florida for 8 months because she can't find a job, she owes me $200 and has maxed out 2 credit cards and will likely be in debt the rest of her life, like her parents are.

Meanwhile, I have another "friend" who has went to college to DRAW (2D art) for years, works at a library sitting on his ass 16 hours a week, has had EVERYTHING handed to him his entire life, and yet is still in debt, with almost no bills, and pretty much hates his life, because he was convinced he had to go to college, but he has nothing to show for anything in his life, even only being a few months younger than me.

I have another friend who goes to college just to get money from the government, and he's going to take one college class every semester for the rest of his life, because he apparently knows a loophole where if you're taking at least one class, you won't have to pay back all that money. Him and his girlfriend together get $16,000 a semester, and are somehow broke within a month of getting the money, for 3 semesters now.

I have never went without what I've needed, and if I stay at wal-mart for a few more years, I'll be making $17 an hour. I still kinda want to be a secretary or something, but I'm STOCKING FROZEN TV DINNERS. It's the easiest shit in the fucking world. I am honestly thinking of quitting soon, and just relaxing for a while, especially with my mom recently contracting cancer... I've had to deal with tons of bullshit in the past year, and really, it's been the worst year of my life. I do need a break. But I am afraid of not being responsible...

I just kinda like not being responsible. I like to be able to have time to film movies and make music and do things with people. I don't want to ever make my job, or my career, my "life". Music and movies are my passion, not some shitty school, not some shitty job.

I drive the shittiest car ever, but it works. It runs. I can listen to music in it. I wear shitty clothes with holes in them. I haven't had a real haircut in 5 years. All I eat is ramen noodles and spaghetti. I play shitty squire shit. I buy tons of used shit, thrift stores and Big Lots are my best friends. I seriously think going to college would have been a really insanely stupid idea...

I'm not saying my plan is the only plan, I just am saying that I didn't listen to anybody -- family or friends, whatever, I went against everyone, and I have more to show for my life than anybody, without ANY help. I'm not really proud of it, because it's just common fucking sense, I'm not a genius. I just didn't let people control me and force me into something stupid. Meanwhile, every facebook post from my 30 year old friends and shit says things like, "Yea, life is terrible, I'm $5000 in debt!" every day, and it gets like 900 replies saying "yea man life sux, life sux." If I am smart about shit, I'll never have to worry about anything financially... that's a good feeling.

All it took was patience. That's it. If you do anything for long enough, consistently, whether it's being a filmmaker, or being a musician, or going to school, or working -- you will get noticed... you will get ahead, unless you're just incredibly stupid.

Am I happy in life? Financially, and creatively, yes. I have a great sex life, too. I need to work on moving out of this house, I guess.. my girlfriend is going to school to be a mortician. She only has a few more classes to take. So I'll finally be moved out within a year from now. Ack. I might just end up working until then, then quitting, we have a place we can live at for free for 11 months out of the year, and 1 month we'll have to go back to our houses. I'm going to take that opportunity to tour with Robe. and or Scissor Shock, since I've played tons of shows around the U.S. but never went on a big tour. I also want to direct some more movies, really go out and meet people.

I've got like 10 albums in the works, I've got another 10 movies or animated serieses in the works. That's really the best part of my life. I seriously feel like, creatively, I will never run out of ideas, about 20 have came to me while typing this. Like, I want to do a movie of nothing but still frames cut out. I will film a bunch of scenes. Print out the individual frames. Cut them out. Staple them together. Then make this huge flipbook. You know flipbooks right?And I will flip the flipbook in front of the camera. FOR THE WHOLE MOVIE.

Even though I'm a supernice guy, and extremely giving, a few of my peers use any opportunity they can to get jabs in at me, because they hate their lives and they want to feel better about themselves by insulting me, but they usually fall flat on their face. On the other side of the token, I feel like a lot of people only try to hang out with me because I have been mildly successful with the things I do. People use me like crazy. Well, not anymore. I don't let them. But they have in the past. I often just give away free movies and cd's and whatever. Objects don't mean shit to me. My guitar, my laptop, my camera -- what else do I need?

2010 has been a superexciting year for me. I found out VEnetian Snares is a fan of Blaze and will be in Blaze season 2. I finished my best movie to date, Currently Untitled. Robe. is in RUE MORGUE issue 100 this month, and the new album is on Crucial Blast. I am recording the best Scissor Shock stuff of my career. I am actually genuinely happy in some aspects, though not completely, probably because I do suffer from OCD/anxiety/whatever. My girlfriend has helped me a LOT... she's about a trillion times better than that last bitch, really. She's an angel. I guess this has been the best year since 1998, when I met Bill Gates and was playing Duke Nukem every day and I had my own N64 website and was writing a zine, and started Stagedive Suicide! Haha.

Anyway, just an update.. Hopefully, it can inspire someone. I always feel weird being so personal on here, but you guys are my friends, even my enemies are my friends, and I've been posting on here since I was 14.. so, yeah, I'll be 24 tomorrow. A decade on this board... (well, maybe not this board... but the board, in general) So, yeah, I dunno.

Never let anyone tell you what to do in life, make your own way. We all need a little direction, but a little common sense goes a long way. There is no easy way to get by, no quick way to get everything you need -- be patient and work hard and be friendly and keep only a few people close to you, and you'll be just fine.

seems like youre doing alright

so youre not pissing on your boss and quitting walmart? or yes?

all serious

College is not about getting a job, no matter how much the greedhead republican fucks try to make everyone think it is so they can treat college as a profit making enterprise instead of an education.

College is more about exposure. You get exposed to people, cultures, ideas, knowledge, music, art, sciences you would never have a chance to otherwise.

If you are lucky you learn the most important thing, which is how to educate yourself AFTER college and continue on a path toward self-improvement and developing a critical thinking mind.

There are opportunities for education in college that you will not find anywhere else.

I edited my post to include a bit more...

I dropped another day, so I only work 2 days a week now, haha. But I'm making so much money, that it's pretty much the same paycheck as when i started. I have to take my mom to treatments every week, and help her around the house, cleaning the house up and making dinner and shit. I also am at my grandpa's half the week, since he has developed some form of mild alzheimer's that seems to get worse all the time... he's in pretty bad shape. Basically, I am busy quite often with all that stuff, and I can't really deal with working any more than I have to. So I said fuck it and cut out even more days. Bahaha.

My update: It's been more or less a failure but I'm still hanging on to it... I'm a fourth year student and I was supposed to graduate by this spring, but as I can't get my shit together, can't sleep, lack motivation, have certain hearth problems (as in real physical problems, not fucking romantic shit), I won't be graduating until late fall or later. I have tons of shit to do and I have to find the energy to get an internship job / commissions to work with in order to have some actual shit for my portfolio (because most of the school work I've done over the years is fucking rubbish I don't dare to show anyone). Also I probably won't be getting any benefits during summer because I'm not getting any credits either. At least I'm not in debt.

But I'm still pretty happy I'm in "college" (or whatever the equivalent school here is) because otherwise i'd be doing absolutely nothing.

sounds like a good compromise solution. if any company is solid in this economy, it's wal-rats. since the recession started i've seen a lot of bmw's in their parking lot.

i didn't know you were so busy with your family btw. you're like this secret saint or something. anyway, good for you, really. and i hope your stock is doing well.