Hi guys, this is Lee.
Welcome back to the channel.
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Some of my audience are young people who consider going to college.
One of the questions they asked me is that if they need to go to college to learn to
code.
I would say, no, you don't need to.
If you follow my channel, you know I am a self-taught developer.
But I can still land a job in top tier IT companies like Microsoft and top tier communication
companies, like Ericsson.
But does it mean going to college is a waste of time and money?
To answer this question, I would like to share some facts you may not know about college.
Make sure you stay to the end.
Before I started, I would like to tell you something about my education background.
I was born in a city in the south of China.
The population of the city is around 4 million, just like Sydney in Australia.
I enter the best high school in the city as one of the top 20 students.
I think I am doing well in school, because you know all my competitors are Chinese students,
whose parents are crazy about education and exam scores.
After that, I went to one of the best colleges in Beijing.
I got a bachelor's degree at college.
My major is electronic engineering.
I landed my first developer job before graduation.
If you want to know how I get a job before graduation, you can check the video on the
right corner.
I also got a computer science master's degree in my spare time.
You may think I like the school system a lot based on my experience because it looks like
I am doing very well in school.
In fact, I don't like or hate the school system.
I know each system has the advantage and disadvantage at the same time.
But I find that many people may have some misunderstandings about college.
The first one is that people treat college as a place for job training.
Then they found that college education doesn't meet their expectations.
College is more than that.
I want to treat college as a pre-society.
It is a place where we can prepare ourselves better before actually entering society and
taking a job.
We don't just go to college to learn job skills.
We can expand our other skills, which plays essential roles in our life.
e.g., learn to communicate with different people, observe how smart and intelligent
people work, learn to deal with pressure and stress, and understand teamwork when to complete
the projects with different people.
I have to admit that sometimes the knowledge taught in the college is outdated, especially
like computer science, which develops very fast every year.
Unfortunately, a college education couldn't catch up with the changes.
But it doesn't bother me that much.
The reason is that I have spent over 12 years in school before entering college.
I don't need someone to teach me how to study anymore.
I already build a system that can help me learn things effectively and efficiently.
Another benefit is that there are so many other people in the college who are smart,
intelligent, and hard-working.
You can learn a lot from them to improve your learning system all the time.
From my point of view, the biggest issue is that many people enter college without a clear
goal.
Sometimes college students choose the subject and stick to it because their parents tell
them that's what they need to learn.
Or it is easier to land a job in the future.
Or the subject is popular at that time.
They don't have a clear goal instead of following other people.
In this case, they have no motivation to learn things.
I can fully understand it because I was there before.
I don't enjoy my first subject in college too much.
That's why I felt depressed.
Then I took some time to think about where my passion is and what I want to do in the
future.
I found that I want to study computer science and work as a programmer.
Then I decided to learn computer science in the second year when I entered college.
After that, I started enjoying every day at college.
It could be full of difficulty and challenge.
But having a clear goal in college makes my life much easier.
Another misunderstanding is that many people think they will get an excellent job once
they get a college degree.
So they tried very hard to pass the exam and get high scores.
But what they don't know is this is not enough.
A lot of companies don't treat college degrees as the main factor of high-performance employees
anymore.
Many top tier IT companies are looking for talented and intelligent people to join companies.
Getting a college degree doesn't mean you are a capable candidate.
Just keep that in mind, a college degree is not the golden key to land a good job anymore.
You also need to have concrete job skills, communication skills, and capability to deal
with a difficult task under pressure rather than having textbook knowledge only.
One of the misunderstandings is that many people believe they will become successful
automatically when they get a college degree.
I have seen many college students throw their books away once they graduated.
Because they believe they will have a bright future once they get a degree.
Unfortunately, that's not the case.
Sometimes I feel sad to see people throw away the books.
They believe they have had enough.
They don't need to study anymore.
But the fact is we need to keep learning when we get into society.
All the difficulties, frustrations, and stress you have experienced in college, they are
nothing.
If you have a chance or opportunity to get into a college, don't waste your time playing
games, You can fail an exam in college.
But you don't want to fail in your life.
Getting a college degree is the start of your education, not the end.
Another misunderstanding is that many people with great success don't have a college degree.
That's why it is a waste of time and money to go to college.
Unfortunately, I couldn't agree with it.
The reason is that there are also many people with great success in their life with a college
degree.
The reason that many of these successful people drop out of school is not because of the college
is useless; it is because they have a clear goal; they know what they are doing.
To achieve their goal, they have to drop out of school to make things happen.
No matter we choose to go to a college or not, having a clear goal, making ourself being
teachable, being willing to develop all the skills continuously, all these will make us
become a better and competent person.
Do you think college is a waste of money and time?
Please leave a comment and let me know.
If you want to be a better programmer, I also make a video about 5 top signs of inexperienced
programmers.
Make sure you don't make these mistakes and become a pro quickly.
You can find the link on the right corner.
If you like this video, don't forget to subscribe to the channel and turn on the notification.
Then you will get notified when I publish the new videos.
I appreciate your support.
Thanks for watching, this is Lee.
I will see you next time.