A Piece of Paper or a Business? Dare to Choose

Chemical and Process Engineering was a major my really good friend took while attending a state university. His tuition fees plus other costs amounted to $30,000 per year; that’s a fortune. He’s been out of college for 5 years now, and he’s nowhere close to paying off his loan. He works for a non-governmental organization. As might be expected, that aforestated major hasn’t been valuable to his current position, or any job he’s ever had in his career.  

The current education system is outdated. We have seen many social entrepreneurs taking shots at reinventing, upgrading, and fixing the outdated model with courses and boot-camps focusing on skills and online education.  Yet, leading a full-scale reinvention of education remains a dream challenged by reality.

Are you going to wait until someone somewhere has succeeded on reinventing education before you acquire the education you want? Do you plan to start off your career with a pile of student loan debt? The real question is whether college education opens doors to your dream life. The answer is NO. Instead of drowning in student loan debts in the pursuit of a piece of paper you should be running your own business.

I have compiled a list of six main reasons why a piece of paper doesn’t beat starting a business:

1. “The Composite Law”

Business. Experience. Money.  It takes a long time to get the compounding value that any business owner needs. That’s why you want to start an earlier age, preferably your late teens or 20s. If you kick-off today you’ll gain ground on these variables.

2. Unidealistic Experience

Putting your both feet on the ground can’t be compared to looking down from a vehicle. You can spend four years in college on theory-based learning but you have not learned much until you actually start to practice. How many people have degrees in business and entrepreneurship but are afraid of starting businesses? A lot. Start that business you’ve been thinking about, make mistakes, and know what the world needs. You will learn most from running a business than reading about it.

3. Freedom

Imagine starting life with a student loan debt that will take you 10 years to pay off. Or living under your boss’s mercy: behaving in a certain way because you don’t want to lose your job. Running a business puts you in control of your destiny. Live life on your terms, make the amount of money you want and set your own hours. Or get up at 7 a.m. for a mechanics class that programs you to serve someone else for the rest of your life. It’s your call.

4. College can wait. Can life wait?

You have probably heard of 60-year olds who enrol in colleges or know some. You can choose to attend college at any point in your life and for different reasons. Some people do it for pleasure, some out of curiosity. What about life? If there’s a need and good market in some place, it’s only there for a certain period of time and under certain circumstances. In this case, starting a company can’t wait. If Mark Zuckerberg had waited to finish college in 2006, Twitter would have been there first.  Countries which are considered emerging markets today, won’t be in a few years. Life can’t wait, you shouldn’t either.  

5. Minimum risk

The fact that it’s less risky to build a business at a young age can make a huge difference. When you’re single (or maybe not), and you don’t have a family you have a higher chance of getting a business off the ground without pressure from outside responsibilities. You’re also not stressing on paying bills and student loan debts. It’s an entrepreneur’s ideal plot.

5. Connect

An increased network is important when it comes to running a successful business. You meet tons of new people and learn from successful business people. All these opportunities open up doors for whatever you’re pursuing.

Take this article with a pinch of salt. In this world, there are employees and entrepreneurs. If you’re an entrepreneur, you have seen value in this article. If not, you might want to get back to taking notes on the effects of dark matter in the cosmic microwave background.

What’s it gonna be? A Piece of Paper or a Business? Dare to Choose

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rutakangwa

I’m a startupper during the week and an artist on weekends. Learning all sorts of things – from neuropsychology to numerology – is what I do in between weekdays and weekends.

Life is for living, tap into it.

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