Depending on what you want to do, a Technical College is a great choice. That’s what I’m going to now. As far as networking, programming, web developement, and so forth they really are keeping current. Next semester one of the teachers is even putting AJAX into his curriculum, believe it or not. Then there’s the comparative pricing. While at a state university you pay 10-15 k a year, i’m paying a third of that.

So what I’m really saying is there’s no problem waiting to go to a university. Community colleges and trade schools are just fine, and nobody should think less of them.

I’m 19, and right now I attend a Jesuit university in Wisconsin, Marquette University. And you know what, it was the biggest, most expensive mistake of my life. I wasted away around $15K for a year of college that was basically high school all over again. I slept in class, I skipped when I could and the entire environment was everything I hated about school.

Looking back on it I feel as though I was pushed into the more expensive, private school because the mentality goes “The more expensive, the better the education.” Little did I know that damn near everything they stood for was everything I did not want to stand for.

So, now I’m faced with the debackle of going to a state university or just not going. Not going is kind of out of the question because a college degree gives credibility, connections, general knowledge, etc.

My advice is to really and I mean really sit down and dwell, not just think, but dwell on the idea of going to college. It might be for you, but it might not. I have yet to see what I want to do, and I’ve been dwelling for over a year.

There is a lot of money put into each new hire for any business. These businesses don’t want to lose money because they hired someone who isn’t commited to starting a career with them and quits in a month.

Another aspect that doesn’t receive much attention is that college teaches you how to learn and be diversified in your learning. Also, if common sense is applied, then students learn to give their professors what the professors want when completing homework, which is key in any school and work environment.

Although you may not use the knowledge you gained from earning your degree within your career lifetime, you pick up skills along the way and improve your marketability towards future jobs. That alone is a plus.

Reading your second paragraph under “The Lost” made me think of SXSW. There were guys there talking about usability and information architecture while staggering from the bar to their hotels. Most of the people there did not have IT / Comp Sci related degrees, because the truely successful people in web design / development are using methods too new for any school curriculum to have caught up with (aside from maybe Mike Rundle at RIT).

Case in point, my college site WSU.edu has not changed since I was a student there. I thought their “Accessibility” link in the footer referred to the website, but all it basically says “we have ramps on campus,” while neglecting the whole picture. Anyway, I digress. Good article, and very true. If you were to go to college, I would say a good degree would be one related to business. That way, whatever you end up being passionate about, you know how to handle yourself in the cut-throat world that is the world marketplace.