Neat idea, @jevinsidhu, and I see some familiar faces (hi, @davefontenot and @jjeremycai!).
Related thought: It's OK to go to college. 😊 It's en vogue to drop out of school and those that have a clear and confident plan of what they want to do, probably should. But college is also a great place to learn, meet people, and explore career paths. @mazzeo would agree.
@rrhoover Thanks so much! :)
Those guys + @jeffshin are amazing, incredibly friendly and super supportive. Can't accomplish much without people like that.
University is coming up for me in a few years and I'm pretty excited to see what it holds. Would definitely be interested to hear what @mazzeo's opinions are.
@rrhoover@mazzeo@jevinsidhu@davefontenot@jjeremycai i agree with Ryan here. it is somewhat of a "flavor of the week" thing to drop out of college and do the startup thing, but i also applaud the team here for taking something that might societally dismissed and turning it into a positive. i think something like this could really work around the community aspect: creating a positive environment for dropouts to share their stories and reasons.
i'd caution though not to make it too dropout-focused. if you want to foster an environment where everyone feels comfortable learning from each others' experiences, you don't want the vibe to make graduates or those in college feel somehow left out or not welcome. spin this in a positive way, rather than letting the negative stigma affect the collective conversation. that's what i see the point of it as, no?
@adammarx13@rrhoover You hit the nail on the head -- fostering an enviroment where everyone feels comfortable is definitely the aim. I don't plan on dropping out, so creating an enviroment where it's spun in a positive way that isn't affecting the collective conversation is important to me.
Thanks for the advice, will keep this in mind for the future! :)
@jevinsidhu@rrhoover I can definitely see how such an environment could foster conversation between people of both experiences (dropouts and non-dropouts) in a way where they could learn from one another's experiences. Look forward to seeing the next evolutions of this!
An awesome collection of stories from those who have decided to drop out of school and jump into the world of tech startups. Very cool concept put together by the young, but talented @jevinsidhu
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Technically I'm a Masters drop out (but not really - does deferred count?). I did my undergrad degrees anyway and loved it. There's more to uni than just studies - there's the networking part too which I've found equally as important. I've found some of my best buddies from uni days so if I completely missed my undergrad then I wouldn't have these wonderful people in my life. I know a lot of people still had a PT or FT job - some of them in the industry they wanted to work in. So you can have it all if you balance it nicely. And then you have 'a piece of paper' as a back up.
Yo! I'm Jevin -- worked on The Unbeatn Path 😄
I've found that a lot of dropouts write some sweet stories after leaving school, detailing some pretty insightful thoughts. I thought it'd be cool to create a space for that content.
If you have any suggestions or questions hit me up!
@themsaid This would make a great story, especially since Egypt has such a low dropout rate! If you haven't already, you should definitely write something about your experiences, super interesting :) I love, "If you can't find what you need in a school, leave it and seek for knowledge on your own."
Hit me up on jevin.sidhu@gmail.com if you end up doing writing 😄 Thanks for commenting!
@thisdickie Just added Twitter/Facebook links on the landing page, thanks for the kind words & heads up!
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I think this site has some fairly interesting points. The stories are wonderfully well-written and pretty insightful.
But I think it's all very one-sided to even suggest, especially to people who aren't in the tech industry, that it's a great idea to dropout. It is for sure a 'flavor of the month' to suggest that people abandon a potentially bright future in a chosen field of study at a university, just as it is a 'flavor of the month' to suggest that people adopt STEM fields in favor of the liberal arts.
Just because this plan was successful for a few people doesn't mean it will work for everyone else. Compounding this as well are factors like gender, class, and race: brilliant people of color drop out of university all the time, but you don't see them getting invited to work at a social media analytics job. Let's not sell the idea that if you drop out of college you can have a great job/life, &c. You have to be especially brilliant and especially privileged to be able to keep going and eventually have a job that can keep you out of poverty.
@glvninpdx I think @jjeremycai's (http://theunbeatnpath.xyz/jeremy...) + @jeffshin's (http://theunbeatnpath.xyz/jeff-s...) story offer some perspective to the harsh beginnings.
With that being said, dropping out is completely subjective -- it will definitely will not work for everyone.
Jeff mentioned in his story how he did a ton of reading before making a decision. Reading the planning and experiences from the stories featured may help someone thinking about dropping out. Hopefully the unbeatn path can also be a place where people who are thinking about it can go to hear others' thought-processes and experiences!
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