Do you think college is worth it?

[Ricky Controversy]

Regardless of your discipline, your progress will be determined by your own work/study in that field. A degree can certainly help your chances of clearing the first round of a job application process, but only against those who have no relevant qualifications: someone with a strong work history will crush you every time.

Ultimately, no piece of paper will do you half as much good as flat-out hard work. Do what you need to do to get by, and in whatever free time you're able to muster, seek out opportunities to get your name out there, build up experience and connections, and hone your skills. It requires a lot of sacrifice, and you have to be willing to pull 16-to-20-hour days, but there are no shortcuts to your dreams save for the most fortunate few.

My advice--particularly for arts students, who will get even less from the average lecture period than their peers--is that if you absolutely want what college has to offer, save yourself thousands of dollars by looking up the reading lists for your field's curriculum at a renowned university, and purchasing used/paperback/international edition copies of the books listed there. Read from them on your own time. Practice what they tell you to practice. Use what you learn to build something new. Create a website for yourself and showcase your projects/mounting experience.

If your craft is truly important to you, sacrifice your time to it. I work 16 hours a day on average to be able to make my way as a professional writer. Some days, it's the most grueling thing in the world to type a single new word, but guess what? I've seen progress. A year ago, I wasn't making any money off my own work; my only income was freelance editing and copywriting; it sucked, I had to be incredibly tight with my money. But I kept working and refining and producing content people decided was worthy of purchase, and bit by bit, that income has grown, as has my momentum. I still probably have two or three years to go at an optimistic estimate before my original writing--and to a lesser degree, my art and music--sustains me entirely, but hard work has paid off far more than my degree ever has.

[creb]

I think most college students with half a brain quickly gain an understanding of which classes they actually have to buy books for, as opposed to their fresh-eyed innocence where they simply bought every book they were supposed to.

I mean, I doubled as pre-med and computer science as an undergrad (ironically, went into a completely different area for grad school, and then again for real life), and probably spent $1500/semester initially on books. ;D $200 is really not something to complain about, and even when I became a lot better about gaming what classes really needed textbooks, I still spent well over $200/semester.

As for paying for it all, whatever you can't cover with grants/scholarships, you do with student loans, preferably government subsidized loans. I paid for school entirely on my own via that combination, as I went through a period of family tension at the time that essentially put me on my own after highschool. The upside of this was that I was essentially considered poverty level by virtue of being independent of my parents (something you can do legally), which ironically made finding funding sources for school far easier than when my parents' income was factored into it all. My only other piece of advice when it comes to navigating the labyrinth of financial aid is to steer away from work study programs. You can always find a part time job on your own that adds to your budget, so there's no reason to make a job part of your financial aid package.

As for whether college is worth it...there's no right answer to that question. My father never went to college, and brought home a triple digit income for our family, though admittedly, those were different times. My mother went to college, and grad school (sociology), and ended up quilting and doing artshows as her career. This might sound like I'm saying college isn't worth it, but that's not what I'm saying. I am saying everyone's situation is different, and trying to arbitrarily say whether it's worth it or not does no one any good, since I have no idea what your dreams, motivations, plans, etc are for life.

If I had children, I would push them to go to college, but if any of them seemed like they had a plan or were focused on some career that seemed plausible to me, I would certainly understand if college didn't figure into that.

Lastly, college, like so much in life, operates on the 'you get what you put into it' rule. You don't have to go to Harvard to obtain a good education in whatever field interests you. If you're proactive about your education, and not simply going through the motions (the vast majority of your peers in college are simply going through the motions, by the way), you'll get far more out of your college education, and life in general.

[DonQuigleone]

Yeah, a good idea is to try and get involved in some of the university groups that produce something concrete. For instance, if you want to get into writing or journalism DO write for the Student Newspaper. Those things are often really easy to get into, and they probably look a lot better on a CV then dicking around at your anime club or game society, and if you actually give it a go it's just as fun.

Plus, you can use the editor as a reference, which are often hard to come by otherwise.