Transcript:
University could well be one of the biggest mistakes most people commit to, and here’s why
I am 20 years old, I’ve not gone to university, and I am working as an Android Developer. And I am gonna explain in this video how you or anyone can achieve the same
For most people, this is how it goes. They go to school, college, and then finally, get a degree at university. During this time, the common conception is that higher grades mean a better career and higher paying jobs (spoiler, it doesn’t). Some might consider apprenticeships, but it doesn’t change much.
So why is it that after 3-4 years of sitting in lectures, studying hard, and getting into a fat load of debt that you are still likely to find yourself unemployed when you do have your degree?
Here’s the key thing. You don’t stand out
You are listening to same lectures as everyone around you, taught by professors who’ve probably been giving the same lectures for 20 odd years or so, so you know, the excitement is lost, and even better yet, those lectures are delivered with powerpoints that they whipped up on the train back home after work.
How much are you actually learning at uni? The pace is slow, the quality of the lessons is crude, and you only know about as much as everyone around you.
Give one man a little motivation and a few books and in one year, he could teach himself what most students spend 3 years and 30 grand in debt to learn. This is the man who stands out. Which brings me to my next point.
Everyone super successful person out there has at some point in their life given a speech about how university is useless.
And you might be thinking “Hold up, these are all guys that have accomplished something amazing in life. I’m not aiming for that”.
And I get you. I understand. So let me tell you about my personal case.
Right after college, I landed a job as a software developer that earned me £35,000 a year. Bear in mind, I was still 19 at the time. And I can tell you now that for sure, if I had gone to university, I’m not sure if I would find myself in this position in 5 years time.
So how was I able to get that first 35 grand job straight out of college? Well, it’s actually quite easy. All it is a little self-learning
During my final few years in secondary, I started learning Android Development during my spare time. I picked up a few free online courses at various websites, I tried my hands at fully creating an Android app, and I started my blog which I still post to this very day.
So by the time I finished college, I had all these accomplishments that I can talk about on my CV and in the interviews that it made any grades I got in school just become irrelevant. Sure, as I started to maximise on doing these side gigs that I knew were gonna be beneficial for my future, my grades were sufferring and my teachers in school were telling me that I needed to stop so I can get better grades, but like I said, and I knew this at the time, those grades were irrelevant.
And there are many many ways to go about self-learning, right? That’s the beauty of it, it’s completely flexible. There are online courses, blog posts online, youtube videos, books, and practical experience. You can dedicate the time to try your hands at whatever it is you want to do, or even find people who are working in that profession and shadow them, maybe even assist them so you get that real workplace experience. Then you can put that on your CV and that tramples any degree that would’ve taken you 3 years and 30 grand to earn.
Now it’s easy enough for me to say this as a software developer, right? Tech is one of those fields that’s known to be very accessible to self-learning but I assure you, it is nowhere near the only one. Far from it.
If you want to be a writer or a journalist, you don’t need an English degree. Just get writing, learn some theory of the pen online and through other books, and build up your portfolio.
If you want to be an artist it’s very the same, you don’t need an Arts degree, just get started on that canvas and sell your artwork online.
If you’re particularly physically fit, you already have access to a wide variety of high paying jobs such as firefighting, police, or emergency services.
If you know two different languages, congrats, you’re already qualified to be a translator.
But my favourite one is to become an entrepeneur.
This is one such profession that has the potential to earn more than literally any other out there, and it’s one that going to university absolutely cannot help you with.
I’m not going to say it’s easy. You have to know how to sell, and the ability to stand out becomes especially crucial, but if you get there, you’re settled chief.
Now the final thing I dislike about university is that they teach you nothing about money. They may teach you about a certain subset of skills that you may need for a particular job, but there is absolutely no financial education there whatsoever. What this leads to is most people graduate university and get their degree only to make poor financial choices that gets them into even more debt that drags them down for life.
I’m talking about things like taking out the wrong mortgage, getting a loan on a car you don’t need, not buying any assets. I know it sounds stupid but most people end up this way.
When you make the choice to not to university, you are putting yourself in the position where you’re facing the world on your own at an age younger than most. This forces you to find out what you really need to learn to move forward, to make the right choices, instead of getting spoon-fed.
Now are there any such cases where I think you do want to go to university?
I would say, if you really wanted a job that requires that degree and has no alternative path other than to get that degree, then yes. Jobs in the field of medicine, and some of the sciences. But know that these are few and far between, and that most courses you could take at university have better alternative paths than to spend those 3 years and get into a load of debt to get a degree that doesn’t even guarantee you that job.
I know that this is a different format of video from what I’ve been doing so far but let me know what you think of it. I decided I’d like to reach out to an audience of not only my fellow Android Developers, but to other people closer to my age thinking about how to make it in life and give little tidbits that I know have definitely helped me.