"How to Get a Real Education"
Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert comic series and graduate of Berkeley's Haas School of Business, began I understand why the top students in America study physics, chemistry, calculus and classic literature. The kids in this brainy group are the future professors, scientists, thinkers and engineers who will propel civilization forward. But why do we make B students sit through these same classes? That's like trying to train your cat to do your taxes—a waste of time and money. Wouldn't it make more sense to teach B students something useful, like entrepreneurship?an interesting piece in this weekend's Journal with this paragraph.
In his article he describes his own educational experiences, such that transcend the parameters of the classroom. It's very clear that this man has learned a lot, and he attributes that to more than academia. Taking over an on-campus bar, becoming virtual ruler of his dorm to live for free with his friends and get paid to sit behind a security desk, manipulating large groups of people, and exploiting the loopholes of bureaucracy are just a few of the amusing things he recounts.
He raises a few compelling points which I've included here. Read the full article, it's well worth the 5 minutes.
Despite how risk-averse this site tends to be (many blindly pushing banking -> PE -> MBA -> greatness as the be-all, end-all career path), a few words of encouragement towards entrepreneurship occasionally pop up.
Combine Skills. The first thing you should learn in a course on entrepreneurship is how to make yourself valuable. It's unlikely that any average student can develop a world-class skill in one particular area. But it's easy to learn how to do several different things fairly well. I succeeded as a cartoonist with negligible art talent, some basic writing skills, an ordinary sense of humor and a bit of experience in the business world. The "Dilbert" comic is a combination of all four skills. The world has plenty of better artists, smarter writers, funnier humorists and more experienced business people. The rare part is that each of those modest skills is collected in one person. That's how value is created.Fail Forward. If you're taking risks, and you probably should, you can find yourself failing 90% of the time. The trick is to get paid while you're doing the failing and to use the experience to gain skills that will be useful later. I failed at my first career in banking. I failed at my second career with the phone company. But you'd be surprised at how many of the skills I learned in those careers can be applied to almost any field, including cartooning. Students should be taught that failure is a process, not an obstacle.
Find the Action. In my senior year of college I asked my adviser how I should pursue my goal of being a banker. He told me to figure out where the most innovation in banking was happening and to move there. And so I did. Banking didn't work out for me, but the advice still holds: Move to where the action is. Distance is your enemy.
Attract Luck. You can't manage luck directly, but you can manage your career in a way that makes it easier for luck to find you. To succeed, first you must do something. And if that doesn't work, which can be 90% of the time, do something else. Luck finds the doers. Readers of the Journal will find this point obvious. It's not obvious to a teenager.
Conquer Fear. I took classes in public speaking in college and a few more during my corporate days. That training was marginally useful for learning how to mask nervousness in public. Then I took the Dale Carnegie course. It was life-changing. The Dale Carnegie method ignores speaking technique entirely and trains you instead to enjoy the experience of speaking to a crowd. Once you become relaxed in front of people, technique comes automatically. Over the years, I've given speeches to hundreds of audiences and enjoyed every minute on stage. But this isn't a plug for Dale Carnegie. The point is that people can be trained to replace fear and shyness with enthusiasm. Every entrepreneur can use that skill.
Write Simply. I took a two-day class in business writing that taught me how to write direct sentences and to avoid extra words. Simplicity makes ideas powerful. Want examples? Read anything by Steve Jobs or Warren Buffett.
Learn Persuasion. Students of entrepreneurship should learn the art of persuasion in all its forms, including psychology, sales, marketing, negotiating, statistics and even design. Usually those skills are sprinkled across several disciplines. For entrepreneurs, it makes sense to teach them as a package.
Do you feel any entrepreneurial seed within you at all? Would you ever give up stability and the comfort of a regular (sizable) paycheck for freedom, both to succeed and to fail?
Given Scott's story, how applicable do you think Thomas Edison's statement is:
It is not so very important for a person to learn facts. For that he does not really need a college. He can learn them from books. The value of an education in a liberal arts college is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from textbooks.
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I started up my own non-profit organization on campus that beat out hundreds of other organizations consecutively. The leadership skills I gained from that landed me a BB internship. I program on the side along with my economic/accounting degree. I plan to do a start up on the side while working full time. I have the company name registered, securing patents, and business plan laid out. I need to pitch my idea and find the right partners to start my business with.
Most people who are coming out of college can't afford to do a start up because the debt they have from student loans. Also starting a business with no technical skills or industry knowledge is quite difficult in today's market.
I second the debt portion. I'm a senior and will be graduating with money made form interning which is being invested in to my start up ventures. Roughly $3k. Once I graduate this May I plan on growing the idea and then quitting my FT job. I can do this because I chose to go to a state school and paid of all my loans.
too much writing. didn't read it
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i focused mainly on real world endeavors while 99% were worried about grades. Got a F500 job in an office working with engineers on the mechanical, electrical, and applied aspects. Have even presented my entrepreneurial ideas to the firm during my initial interview(s). We'll see what happens.
Surprising to hear so many kids on here talk about balancing a startup with school. Has anyone got a success story of finding some seed capital and launching their business straight out of undergrad?
I actually didn't like the article. For this theme, I would recommend reading Marc Andreessen (co-founder of Netscape) guide to career planning, he makes a similar point like Scot Adams about being good at a few things vs being top on one thing. Link:
http://pmarca-archive.posterous.com/the-pmarca-guide-to-career-planning…
This is part 1, there are two more parts.
Any more about why you didn't like it?
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