Tuesday, August 31, 2010

The Best Pre-College Primer I Have Ever Read

This is required reading that should be handed out with the Orientation Guide when you enroll in a new college.

And so, dear students, welcome back! Your generation is going to have dig its own way out of the hole my generation has dug for you (thanks for the Medicare, kids, and sorry about the deficit!), but here are a few tips that may help you get the best out of your college years.

The tips are outstanding and I especially like this one:

Creativity, integrity and entrepreneurial initiative will pay off; following the old rules and hoping for the old rewards is a road to frustration. You have to fight the tendency of the educational system to turn you into a timeserving baby bureaucrat, following the rules and waiting for the inevitable promotion.

As you go through college, think about ways you can fight the pressures of institutionalization. Work or volunteer — not just for money, but to keep your hand in the real world. Live off campus. Start a business. Shake things up.

Yup, if you run a small business selling stuff on Amazon you will already be ahead of most of your professors as well as the entire Obama White House. You will know the crushing burden of taxes and begin to figure out that if you run a business you don't pay taxes your customers do.

Hopefully, you will have to make a payroll, purchase inventory, or maybe just take a big risk in order to get your pay. You will have the ability to make money with your own two hands and your brain and not just wait for the next batch of grant money or for your public workers union to shake down your State House.

If you are lucky you will start the next Microsoft or Dell Computers and not need to finish college like Bill Gates or Michael Dell. This real world education will take you much farther than taking a hundred credits worth of ethnic studies or modern dance.

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