Dropping out?

[I cant spell u]

I'm not quite sure who to ask about this, those I've asked that have dropped out say go ahead and go for it and that it won't make too much of a difference and they seem to be doing well for themselves. Then my peers tell me it's the worse idea ever. The majority here seem to know what they're talking about most of the time, so how much of an impact would it make on my future? What opportunities would be closed to me?

I'm talking about high school.

[ek]

If you are an intelligent person with a good business brain, you could make it quiet easily without any education. If you are looking to obtain a job, and work for someone else, you're fucked if you drop out.

[busetibi]

I left school at 15,didn't stop me as I went into a career that was just starting up (in the location I was in ) later I started my own business (different field) I now run two companies and am set for life.
having said that, I've told my kids that they will attend university and get degrees, no arguments accepted.
of course for every positive story you will come across a negative story.
not much help but..... : shrug:

[+JuggerNaut+]

you'll have a much easier time making good money with a four year. don't do it.

[Turing]

lol you're asking for advice on quake3world. Drop out of life.

[Foo]

Dropping out is for morons. Even if you loathe your courses. See it to the finish.

[horton]

If you think you can make money for yourself, start doing so while still studying.

I have seen friends of mine without a decent education make great cash, but I have also seen enough people crash and burn. Do it with the safety net of a decent education

[PhoeniX]

I always wonder what's happened to people I knew at school who never bothered to work and failed all their exams.

How many more years do you have left?

[Mogul]

Dude the only people I've ever seen without a high school diploma are these nasty wretches with no teeth, that look like utter shit and can't even land a job at McDonald's. Unless you know exactly what the fuck you're doing to make money, dropping out is the most retarded decision you could make.

[Scourge]

I have a brother that didn't make it past 8th grade. He's making $10,000 a month plus bonuses. I've also seen college grads digging ditches. Education isn't a guarantee, but it can help as I've seen the opposite of those two examples as well.

[obsidian]

Finish high school at the very least. There are always those who do well without high school, but those are in the minority. So unless you count yourself among the few very lucky or very brilliant, dropping out is a bad idea.

[+JuggerNaut+]

your two scenarios aren't common place though.

[Scourge]

your two scenarios aren't common place though.

A lot more common than people might think.

[Underpants?]

yeah it basically boils down to motivation and self-control. If you have always been a self-starter, have a dream AND a plan to achieve it and also already have a command of salesmanship and decent public speech skills, it's only a matter of how soon you will begin learning the path to success.

However, if you are just looking to get out of the monotonous bullshit of highschool with no direction, plan or goal, you're fucking yourself out of a future. In the states, it's now impossible to get into many 3rd and 4th-rate state schools (read: not even univeristies) without a H.S. diploma. I recommend in this case that you keep plugging away and getting those diplomas until something materializes.

[Scourge]

Plus it'll be over with in no time. High school in most places is only 4 years. Surely you can manage that.

[tnf]

Yea do it. I hear good things all the time from my former students who dropped out..usually I see them hanging out at the mall telling me they are thinking of going back to school, getting a GED, or going to job corps.

Sure there are success stories of people who didn't make it through high school and are rich now, but they are few and far between relative to the number of those who stayed in. And in general things are more competetive now than ever, so unless you have some extraordinary skill set or a legendary work ethic and business sense, odds are you're going to regret the decision.

[+JuggerNaut+]

your two scenarios aren't common place though.

A lot more common than people might think.

i like you scourge, but no.

[Berserker]

What grade are you in? What is so difficult about high school that you have to quit? At least finish high school.

[Nightshade]

I dropped out of high school, got my GED and left. I quit because it was boring and I was a mess at the time, going to HS was just a way for me to meet friends, get weed, and find out where the parties were. Fucking waste of time.
Two years later I was in college, though.

[GONNAFISTYA]

I dropped out of high school, got my GED and left. I quit because it was boring and I was a mess at the time, going to HS was just a way for me to meet friends, get weed, and find out where the parties were. Fucking waste of time.
Two years later I was in college, though.

That is almost exactly what I did....except my friends had shitty weed and I didn't hit college until I was 27...cause I was making more money than my university-bound friends. I only went back to school to get a proper "career".

I have to say..."staying in school" just to please some HR cunt is a waste of time. If you're smart you focus your education exactly where you need it...not just to fill out some "checklist" of requirements.

[scared?]

lol ged morons...jesus...

[tnf]

Again, most dropouts don't have that direction/motivation. Some do and will probably do fine if they went the GED route. But apathy has been increasing at an alarming rate across all ability and socioeconomic backgrounds. I see huge differences in the work ethic in my students today vs. those from just 5 years ago.

I have a few ideas as to what might be contributing to these trends - for example instant gratification...kids today have access to virtually whatever they want whenever they want it. Remember the pain in the ass you had to go through in the 80s to get a copy of a song you liked? Either record it off the radio and have shit quality, or go by a tape, record, whatever. Remember the hassles you had to go through to get porn back in the days? I'm starting to wonder if the ability to get so much stuff without any delay is impacting how much time students are willing to put into their work. If something doesn't come to them right away, it isn't worth their time. Subtly they are being conditioned to think that everything should be available instantly. You wouldn't believe how few kids are willing to do anything outside of the classroom anymore. It's routine that I'll have 25% of students complete homework. They have this idea that if they don't understand whatever is being taught immediately, it just isn't worth working on.

Another thing I deal with a lot now is that kids see shows like mythbusters and figure that this is what science is all about. Just go out and blow stuff up, shoot things out of cannons, etc. Going back to the first point, they aren't seeing the fact that before you can do stuff like you see on TV there is a hell of a lot of fundamental knowledge you need to obtain in the classroom first.

Kids who can get past these issues (and I know there they are out there, I'm speaking in generalizations here) will probably be fine wherever they go or whatever they decide to do. In that respect I agree with those of you who said that you can drop traditional education and go your own way. Others will probably benefit, whether they like it or not, from a few more years of traditional education and maturation.

[Scourge]

I do agree with what you said about younger people lacking drive these days. I've had to fire several 20 somethings in favor of 30 to 50 somethings that actually want to work. Most of the younger ones will quit within a month anyway. They just don't last.

Juggs, I don't mean there's a huge number of them. But it's not at the other end of the scale either as Mogul suggests. And yeah, I'm sure most of the success stories are a little on the older side.

[phantasmagoria]

don't drop out unless you have a plan

[Nightshade]

So to sum up tnf and scnerge's posts: Goddamn kids these days...