Dropping Out Is Probably Not for You (2011)

&gt;The thing that I don’t enjoy is when people ask me if they should drop out of school or university to ‘start their own business’<p>Amazingly enough, it&#x27;s not a binary decision. You can stay in school and start your own company. In fact, your school may even have an incubator program to help you. Being is school is probably one of the best times to start a company since you have free o cheap access to many resources that are expensive outside of school, and you have fallback when your first few ventures fail.<p>With that in mind, I&#x27;m always amused at the subset of programmers who rail against degrees. The most recent example I found was this: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;nickjanetakis.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;nickjanetakis.com&#x2F;</a>, where the author thinks a degree is a fancy piece of paper. A degree in computer science or software engineering can only help you in your career, and it probably has one of the best ROIs for any degree program.

This article comes off as judgmental and out of touch.<p>I dropped out of school because I didn&#x27;t like it and was miserable. I was in school because that&#x27;s what people do at 18.<p>Five years later I had a lot more life experience, a clear goal in what I wanted to get out of school, and went back. Maybe I&#x27;m in the minority of people in that I&#x27;m highly motivated to learn things independently, but I&#x27;m still not totally convinced it was the best use of my time and money, and I live in Canada where it&#x27;s a lot cheaper in the USA.<p>I think people should follow their hearts, be ready to pull themselves out of ruts, and to find their ambitions.