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Foreword
You may probably wonder why billionaires like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Ralph Lauren, Steve Jobs become successful without finish studying in their degrees. Having a bachelor’s degree or finishing university studies is essential in modern society when applying for jobs. However, when I was investigating how the riches think, I found that most of them have dropped out of their college. After I have read some books, I found out why they leave their studies. In this article, I will walk you through why successful people tend to give up their studies.
Why billionaires quit their college?
There are various reasons for billionaires dropping out from their college in their early lives. In general, they leave their university studies since they know the educational system will devastate their life and how they think. Or in other words, the school is teaching them some useless stuff for their life and “train” to become an employee, labor. That’s why they give up their degree. Harvard? Cambridge? It doesn’t matter. To explain more and detail, I have separated them into several parts. Read onward.
i. No time for personal growth
If you are a college student, you may probably realize that you have no spare time for yourself to grow. Grow here means physical, mental, and spiritual growth. Continuously reading, learning, and experiencing is what contributes to ones’ personal growth and makes one different from others.
However, being university students, we often become exhausted after attending numerous lectures and have no time or energy to learn things other than academic things. The situation gets even worse when you are studying in famous colleges such as MIT, Oxford as you are to study industriously to complete your study.
Those successful ones realize this problem. So, they quit their study to explore their life and learn what they want to acquire.
ii. Refuse to be an employee
Something I found interesting when I am learning in college. Do you ever realize that our school is teaching us to become an employee? Let me give you an example, and you will know what I am talking about. Imagine you are studying accounting & financing in college, maybe a Master of Business Administration (MBA) course. Whenever your teacher analyzes business models with you or asks you to complete tasks, they will tell you to assume yourself as an employee of a company. Don’t you find it weird? Why they never ask you to think of yourself as an owner of a firm who wants to boost his company’s sales? That’s what I am talking about that school is trying to turn us all into labor. They are trying to convince us to think ourselves as an employee by using words.
You may probably be skeptical of whether such a small thing may cause such a big problem. The answer is yes, and I am quite sure about this after reading numerous books about how the rich think. As Shakti Gawain said, “Being, Doing, Having.” We, humans, take actions base on our thoughts. In other words, what is in our mind contributes to what is in our physical life. If you know nothing about what the school is trying to put into your mind, you will become what they want you to become. You may still be doubtful about it. But you will understand more what I am talking about when you go through your assignments and exam papers, no matter what course you are studying.
| Steps | What will happen if we don’t know what we are learning? |
|---|---|
| 1️⃣ | The school continuously inputs the thought to become an employee into our minds. |
| 2️⃣ | We accept those thoughts. |
| 3️⃣ | Choosing to become an employee. |
| 4️⃣ | Fear to make changes. Never step out of our comfort zone. |
Those successful ones realize this problem. Therefore, they quit their colleges as they refuse to become an employee. Furthermore, they don’t want to work for someone since they know no matter how much effort they paid in their job, the one who gets rich is not them but their boss.
If you work hard for someone, the one who becomes rich will not be you, but him.
Gordon Chan
Iii. Knowing their strengthen and weakness
A bit different from the reasons mentioned above, another reason that successful ones drop out of their university is that they find school is not suitable for them to learn. Or you can think of they are not well academic learners. One of the reasons people nowadays hate studying in school is they found they are not good at learning academic things, something like chemistry, calculus, or biology… And this usually makes them skeptical of their ability and their potential. And sometimes, some of them may even give up their learning and waste their time on something they are not supposed to do.
In today’s world, a university graduation certification is essential when one applies for jobs, as people nowadays would judge one’s ability by that piece of paper. However, seldom do people think of the “real” ability of the applicants. They only count on that paper and refuse to hire people without good grades in their college studies.
Before I have read the book FAKE: Fake Money, Fake Teachers, Fake Assets: How Lies Are Making the Poor and Middle-Class Poorer, I was one of those students who work hard to get good grades in my university studies. Everything changes after I read the book. The most inspiring thing that enlightens me not to focus on my results is that Mr. Robert Kiyosaki, in the book FAKE has said, “A monkey will never win a swimming race when its competitor is a fish. However, a monkey will always win when competing who is the fastest to climb on a tree.” Everyone must get their talents on something, and it can be playing sports, negotiating, listening, or whatever. We should never let anything makes us doubtful of ourselves.
School is a filter, which filters out people who are not capable or good at learning academic things. However, that piece of paper will never define who we are and who we will become. Those successful ones know that. Therefore, they quit their university studies to work on what they are interested in and improve what they are good at doing. And waste no time on what they are not capable of doing.
(Noted that they are not giving up overcoming difficulties. They are just using their time wisely.)
iv. School never teach us money
Money is what we, humans, these days rely on when it comes to living in modern society. How we live are all depends on how wealthy we are. To survive or live better, we are supposed to learn how to use our money accurately and make money in brilliant ways. However, our schools, which are supposed to teach us how to survive in society, never teach us anything about financial education or financial literacy. As a result, more and more people nowadays don’t know how to use their money wisely and make financial decisions for the good of their present and their future.
Something I found pathetic these days. I discover that people today don’t know what they should learn to make money and get rich. All in their mind is to study hard, get good grades and find a high-paid job. Then, repay the student loan and save their money until they are retired. However, as we all know, this is never the strategy to get rich nowadays. Knowing how to make your money to work for you or others to work for you is the thing that makes people rich today. However, our schools never teach us anything about them. They just input what they want us to know and train us into an employee.
(Once, I was one of those who believe study hard, get good grades, and find a high-paid job could make me rich and live well.)
Those billionaires recognize the problem. As a result, they quit their degree and search for their own path to living better and get rich. Here I would like to ask you a question to let you understand why billionaires give up continuing their university studies ——Why do you learn how to find a high-paid job to make money instead of learning how to make money directly?
v. School teaches “useless” stuff
Before reading onward, I would like to ask you a question —— How often would you use the knowledge you learn from school in your daily life? I believe you will never use what you have learned from your school again after you have graduated, except you are working in some specific jobs such as a teacher, an engineer…
To be honest, from my perspective, except basic mathematics, our schools never teach us any useful stuff. We are good to go to survive in society with basic mathematics, something like summation, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Knowledge in various subjects such as material science, chemistry, calculus, etc., will never be used again after we graduate. Will you look at the chemical composition of your laundry detergent? I don’t know, maybe you will, but I won’t waste my time on it.
It is one of the reasons that billionaires quit their university studies as they know it will be a complete waste of time to learn something they will never use again throughout their life.
(Of course, I am not denying the benefit that you will get from studying in university or different subjects. They may enlighten you to become a great scientist or do something great. Here I am just illustrating what is in billionaires’ mind.)
Apart from learning something that will never be used again throughout their life, another reason billionaires choose to quit their degree is that subjects in the school are teaching useless stuff.
Useless here is a bit different from the above paragraph. Useless here means something that is just theoretical but not practical. Economics, for instance, is one of the subjects that make no sense when you are trying to implement what you have learned from school into the real world as it teaches us to use a rational way to look at something irrational.
Of course, the way how the teacher teaches may differ the outcome. For instance, if he tells you something that could be done in the real world and shows you examples, what you have learned will turn valuable. However, these teachers are rare to be seen, especially in schools. They are more to be seen in firms, companies. Therefore, to learn useful stuff, those billionaires tend to leave their school and gain experience and knowledge through working.
Final Thought
This article is written to provide some reasons that why do billionaires drop out of their colleges. You may not find any convincing evidence in this article as it is only an opinion piece of the writer. If you are curious about why they quit their university, I suggest you read the books written by those famous billionaires who give up continuing their university studies.
Showing Up for Life: Thoughts on the Gifts of a Lifetime (Bill Gates).
Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography (Steve Jobs)
[This article has been reviewed in accordance with our editorial policy.]
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