What are the most important things you learned in college? What do you wish you learned? What advice do you have to someone who decided to skip out on college and educate themselves?

Think online services, books, adventures, or any other things they can do to be a well-rounded educated individual. (Not that you should ever stop learning!)

Some of the most important things I learned in college: ability to take initiative, be fearless in my pursuits, think highly of myself, and develop a sense of belonging. I deepened my sense of intellectual curiosity too, and learned visual communication, storytelling, etc. but to be honest I think I’ve learned more in the last 1.5 yrs on my own, reading everything I can get my hands on about tech, entrepreneurship, and digital media.

One thing I do think college provided me is a shortcut to external validation—for better or worse, a degree from an elite college confers a sense of infallibility, and can certainly open doors that would otherwise be a lot stickier, providing a solid network of future power brokers across a variety of fields.

I might encourage college for those who can afford it and get into a good school, but for many young people I’d encourage self-education.

Caveats: this requires qualities not a lot of people have at age eighteen e.g. enormous drive, dedication and curiosity, and initiative to open up opportunities for yourself. I don’t think most high school grads have a great sense of the possibility space for even the areas they’re interested in, let alone the world at large.

Also, it seems crucial to find mentors or informal teachers to help create a meaningful course of study, because I think it can be all too easy to superficially explore many things without gaining deep understanding of how things connect in a more advanced real world context.

One thing I highly recommend checking out is the "/mentoring" project—an open-sourced mentorship initiative started by Diana Kimball. I’ve reached out to a few mentors through this, and I’m already inspired by their generosity and willingness to help.

Re: tools—there are so many great places to learn, like Udemy, Coursera etc. but these lack personalization, which is an important aspect of learning; I think anyone pursuing college alternatives should think deeply about what they can both love and excel at—Cal Newport talks about the fallacy of pursuing "passion” (as it’s hard to determine what your passion is; often it comes from dedicated work at what you’re good at) so the intersection of interest and talent is a great place to start.

Thinking in these terms is a good way to begin moving beyond sheer intellectual pleasures, into the realm of providing value to others and interfacing with the broader network of human pursuit and the world in all its complex systems and interdependencies.

More than any specific thing (or tactics/strategies) to learn, I'd advocate developing the self-interrogating mindset of “How am I a part of this world and my various communities, and how can I improve myself and those around me symbiotically?”

Life is defined by contributions that have meaning in a human context. One can begin by exerting positive influence on a small, localized level, and grow those organically. A meaningful course of self-study is a great place to start.

Brendan, I learned the oposite. I learned that there was a set way to think, even in at a prestigious liberal arts college. My goals were squandered by academia and many fields are deemed lower or valuable only to lower classes of people.

When doing research, I learned that academia doen't value self-education when it is not guided by an institution (even after graduation). This is a disservice to our society.

If an institution is providing a service, that is fine, but to devalue the education of others because of the university or lack of is disgusting in my opinion.

I believe that we should stand up against the monopoly set up by higher education. This is why I dropped out.

I would like to see more people using alternative methods to gaining an education. Ironically these are the methods that were used prior to today's educational institutions.

The tools that you have outlined are fantastic and definitely sources I will look into.

You stated: "Some of the most important things I learned in college: ability to take initiative, be fearless in my pursuits, think highly of myself, and develop a sense of belonging." These are all things I learned OUTSIDE of college. The experience depends on the individual, and the experience didn't suite me as it doesn't suite others.

In this instance should an individual remain quiet and finish out their education? I believe that they should be able to choose otherwise.

Agreed—while it wasn't my experience that college *necessarily* restricts one to a set way of thinking (seems to vary with majors/professors/students; but I see your point), higher ed is institutionally staid and in practice often runs antithetical to the curiosity and intellectual exploration that in theory it's designed to further.

To clarify, I don't think I learned initiative, fearlessness, etc. solely b/c of college, but since college coincides temporally with a period of significant personal development, there's correlation even if not necessarily causation. I think college should be one valid educational option among many, rather than an expected default, and I think there's massive room for all kinds of systemic improvements!

I literally could not have said it better myself. The way you put it values both an institutionally driven education as well as a self-guided education. This is the way we need to be approaching education rather than attempting to tear down either agenda. Both have merit and both should be respected.