Let’s get one thing straight: I’m not saying all college is a scam. I want my doctor to have a degree. I want the vet working on my horses to have spent years in a lab. If you’re cutting into a human being or an animal, you better have hit the books.
But for the rest of it? That “general business” degree? That four-year bender where you’re told you’re “building lifelong connections” while getting blackout drunk? It’s a joke. It’s a massive, expensive waste of time, and it’s a lie sold to kids who don’t know any better, often by parents who remember the “gold ol’ days” and are trying to relive their college time through their kids. Kinda sad TBH.
Get Into the Trenches
There’s a reason people are flocking to the trades, and they’re 100% right to do it. But even if you don’t want to swing a hammer, my #1 piece of advice is the same: Get a job in the field you want to be in…then…shut up and listen.
Forget the classroom. Spend two to five years working in the dirt. Become a sponge. Learn from the people who actually have skin in the game.
I spent 13 years in the meat grinder of restaurants and catering before I ever dared to open my own business. That was my university. I didn’t learn from a textbook; I learned by watching things break. I learned how to do the job, but more importantly, I learned exactly what NOT to do by watching my boss’s trip over themselves. You can’t teach that kind of perspective in a lecture hall.
What a Degree Will Never Teach You
College is a sanitized version of life. It’s a safe space with a safety net. But the real world doesn’t give a damn about your GPA when things go south. There are things you only learn when the stakes are real:
- Trusting your gut: In business, the data won’t always save you. You have to develop an instinct for when to bet on yourself and when to walk away.
- Moving with your back against the wall: You don’t know who you are until you’re staring down a crisis with no one to call. College doesn’t teach you how to survive when the money is gone and the lights are flickering.
- Reading a snake: You need to know instinctively when someone is trying to screw you. Whether it’s a shifty vendor or a partner with a hidden agenda, that “sixth sense” is forged in the real world, not a seminar.
- The value of a mentor: A professor hasn’t felt the sting of losing their own mortgage on a bad deal. A real-world mentor has. That’s the person you should be listening to.
The Bottom Line
College isn’t a ticket to success. It’s an expensive way to delay growing up. Many people are successful after college, but it’s usually because they had the grit to survive the real world despite their education, not because of it.
Stop waiting for a piece of paper to tell you you’re ready. Go get your hands dirty, get your teeth kicked in a few times, and learn how the world actually works.