[Baltar]

Originally Posted by Lauraknott13

Is there anyone else out there who would support my idea that a degree is not compulsory in order make a valuable contribution in life?

It's definitely not a requirement to be successful in life or to make a valuable contribution. But if you want to spend your life as an employee then you should get a degree. If you want to work for yourself or be an entrepreneur, then you don't need one. There are some very prominent entrepreneurs who don't have college degrees. Bill Gates is an obvious one, as well as his partner Paul Allen. There's also Michael Dell and Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs dropped out after just one semester and his net worth is almost $5 billion right now. The very prominent game developers John Carmack and John Romero also don't have degrees.

Some of these people dropped out to start their businesses, and some of them couldn't stand the rigidity of college and/or were really bored with it. I wish I could say that I was brave enough to leave college myself, but back then my consciousness was at the level of fear so I stayed through it, despite being unhappy doing it. I did learn some useful things there, but given how much time I spent there versus how much useful material I learned it was a very inefficiently spent four years.

In the end the degree itself didn't matter much because after college I only stayed an employee for less than half a year. Even then I think the degree played a very small role in me getting hired. It probably helped me get the interview, but in the end I was hired because of my skills. I later found out that I was selected instead of another candidate, despite the fact that I had a BS from a public college and he had an MS from a private college.

Originally Posted by Lauraknott13

When I think of quitting my degree, i hear my dad’s voice (and many others) telling me that it’s best to keep my options open… that I may be refused future jobs if I don’t have a degree.

Without a degree you will definitely have a harder time being an employee. There's a stupid cultural notion that people with degrees are somehow better. That usually means that people with a degree get paid more, get promoted more, and have an easier time finding employment (or at least getting interviews). So if you want to be an employee then keep this in mind.

However, "keeping my options open" is a terrible reason to get a degree. This sort of thinking will keep you adrift for your entire life. Steve Pavlina has an article called Cultivating Burning Desire where he says that you should "burn the ships". You must decide on a single path and forget about all the others. Keeping your options open sends a message to your brain that it's ok to give up when things get too hard. It's no doubt scary to burn those ships, but in the end it makes you a stronger person. Below is an excerpt from Steve's article. Good luck!!

In the classic book The Art of War, Sun Tzu notes that soldiers fight the most ferociously when they believe they're fighting to the death. A good general knows that when attacking an opposing force, it's important to create the illusion of a potential escape route for the enemy, so they won't fight as hard. What escape routes are you keeping open that are causing you not to fight as hard?

If you don't burn those ships, you are sending the message to your subconscious mind that it's ok to quit. And when the going gets tough, as it inevitably does for any worthwhile goal, you will quit. If you really want to achieve your goals, then you've got to burn those ships to the ground, and scatter the ashes. If you're thinking that the average person won't do this, you're right -- that's why they're average.