I pondered this question in my upcoming book, Bounce!. There are alot of famous success college drop outs like Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Richard Branson and Steve Jobs. Lesser known ones I learned about at a site called, College-Startup.com (I love their tag line- Get Rich in Your Dorm Room). Interesting and suprising to me were Simon Cowell, Barry Diller, Walt Disney, Rachel Ray, Ty Warner and Frank Lloyd Wright. Any surprises for you?
I went to college because my parents told me that if “I wanted to get a good job, I should get a good education“…guess they were right, but no one said anything about skipping college and becoming an entrepreneur. In the late 70’s, starting your own thing was certainly frowned upon.
But going to college, does have its benefits. You can learn social skills (or is that partying skills?), working in a team, and how to prioritize tasks.
What did you learn at college that helped you in business?
I learned about finance at college. Even though the course was about corporate finance, I apply the part about understanding statements in my personal finance. And also communication – there I learned how to give effective presentations and how to write to get my messages across effectively.
I wish I had learned about finance in undergraduate or even graduate school. It would have saved me alot of headaches and pains running small businesses.
In college I learned how to separate facts from opinion, how to be discriminating in what I took away from any written piece, and most of all, to realize that HUMANS write that stuff, whether it be textbooks, mag articles or doctoral dissertations. Which means there can be errors in any of them.
Though I probably should have taken a couple of the courses Noelle did . . .