All I learned in college was how to work for someone else

Stefan Kendall:

Recently, there have been a number of points and counter-points made about leaving college to join or found a start-up. The most popular point against leaving is that a degree will market you better to join big corporations.

And that's exactly it.

College prepares you for a life of the corporate stooge, but it's worse than that. Classes in college actively teach you lessons you must unlearn, and fail to teach you anything even marginally related to what it takes to run a company. If you want to work for someone else, college is great. Having a bachelors in Chemical Engineering and a minor in Drama prepares you *excellently* to get hired as a product manager at a product company. If you want to be an entrepreneur, though, you're screwed.

Things I've unlearned
1. Plagiarism is bad.

Wrong! If the licensing is right, copy to your heart's content. If you're not in violation of copyright, trademark, or patent, you can do whatever you want with someone else's creation. Sometimes they even give you permission. Did you find a real swell formula online? Did you know you can't copyright formulas?

Posted by Jim Zellmer at January 8, 2013 2:28 AM
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