{"id":97,"date":"2006-02-14T00:00:15","date_gmt":"2006-02-14T05:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/devinreams.com\/2006\/02\/14\/is-college-worth-it\/"},"modified":"2010-02-28T09:52:16","modified_gmt":"2010-02-28T16:52:16","slug":"is-college-worth-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/?p=97","title":{"rendered":"Is college worth it?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.college-startup.com\/2006\/02\/64\/\">Ben asked and answered the question<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pearsonified.com\/2006\/02\/college_the_smart_way.html\">Chris added his two cents<\/a>, now it&#8217;s my turn: Is college really necessary?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Let me be blunt: <strong>categorically yes<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the complaining I couldn&#8217;t be happier with the college experience. Everyone should do it. The dorms on the other hand&#8230; that&#8217;s another story. Ben says he loves college becuase he&#8217;s met some very smart and capable people. I, too, would cite that as a good reason to go to college: <strong>networking<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>When you&#8217;re in college, odds are you&#8217;re not entirely responsible for your own finances. This means you have some freedom as to what you do during this time. Personally, I&#8217;ve taken on three (simultanious) jobs, a business fraternity, and a few of my own side projects. If I ever screw any of these things up, that&#8217;s okay, <strong>I&#8217;ll learn from it; I won&#8217;t get fired<\/strong>. Well, I <em>might<\/em> get fired, but my well-being certainly isn&#8217;t at stake. Additionally, I don&#8217;t have anyone (a family) relying on my actions. As Chris put it, &#8220;<em>life will hit you square in the face<\/em>&#8220;, and you&#8217;ll (hopefully)  figure things out pretty quickly.<\/p>\n<p>Keep in mind though, you only get out of college the energy you put in. People will not bump into you and introduce themselves; you have to get out and get involved. <strong>Join organizations<\/strong> and find people who share similar interests. High school forced you into the same classes with the same people. Friendship was merely by association. In college you&#8217;re forced to make decisions: you decide who you are, what classes you&#8217;ll take, who you&#8217;ll associate with, who you&#8217;ll trust, who you&#8217;ll emulate, etc. Again, the <strong>people play a big role<\/strong> in college.<\/p>\n<p>Sure, you learn a lot but just about anyone can pick up a book and absorb the same information. Heck, you could get a job and gain all the experience you could ever need. But, as I mentioned, college provides that time for you to slow down and make some conscious decisions. For those of you in college I pose the following question:<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><strong>What is it that you&#8217;re best at? What is the one thing you can do better than anyone else on your campus?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">College is a perfect time to apply the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jimcollins.com\/lab\/hedgehog\/\">hedgehog concept<\/a>. You have 3, 4, maybe even 8 years to find the answer. I suggest, as Chris has so brilliantly demonstrated through GTA and Blind Date, that you <strong>spend that time wisely<\/strong>. You&#8217;ll never get it back&#8230;<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">[tags]personal, education, college, networking[\/tags]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ben asked and answered the question, Chris added his two cents, now it&#8217;s my turn: Is college really necessary? Let me be blunt: categorically yes. Despite the complaining I couldn&#8217;t be happier with the college experience. Everyone should do it. The dorms on the other hand&#8230; that&#8217;s another story. Ben says he loves college becuase [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[127],"tags":[585],"class_list":["post-97","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-personal"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=97"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1038,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions\/1038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=97"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=97"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=97"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}