On Sun, 7 May 2017 11:53:20 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 5/6/2017 11:47 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:


"23 Famous Dropouts Who Turned Out Just Fine"
https://www.buzzfeed.com/ashleyperez/23-famous-dropouts-who-turned-out-just-fine
"8 Hugely Successful People Who Didn't Graduate College"
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/249683

I believe very strongly that there are many people in college who should
not be there, either because they lack the intellectual horsepower, or
because there are other pursuits that would do them and us much more good.

But to examine your lists in context, we should compare with the list of
people who dropped out of college and did badly. Also with the list of
people who never started college and did badly. I'm thinking those are
longer lists.

I don't believe that formal education or lack there of is really a
major factor in whether one is a "success", depending of course upon
the definition of success.

I worked with a guy, for example, who probably didn't have an 8th
grade education and had difficulty composing a letter. He was making
something in the neighborhood of a million dollars a year building oil
drilling locations in remote areas of Indonesia. In contrast there was
a bloke, "Dr. Stone, dead now, but in his career with the company
never rose above the position of Deputy Project Manager.

But note the difference is in the term "formal". Dr. Stone, who had a
doctorate in library sciences, may have been an ace at the Dewey
Decimal System but the other guy, who was what is called a "Dirt
Stiff" had gone to work driving a bulldozer when he was 14 years old
and I've sat in meeting with him and a potential client and he'd be
scratching on the back of a used envelope and finally he'd sit up
straight and say something like, "We can do that job for $3,296.50 a
day and it will take us 37 days to complete it, not including mob and
de-mob. And he'd be right.