On the Wisdom of Dropping Out: Steve Jobs' Must-See Graduation Speech

by Clay Burell · 2009-06-04 03:10:00 UTC
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"I dropped out of Reed College within the first six months, but then stayed around as a 'drop-in' for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?"

So begins Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford commencement address. I discovered it last school year, and showed it to my AP Lit students for its heretical wisdom: dropping out can not only be okay, it can be transformative. Better still, 'dropping in' to college, only for classes of personal interest, can be a better path than 'staying in' for a piece of paper. Jobs dropped in to school a lot, but not to chase that paper. He never graduated college, and he obviously did okay.

My first year of college was 1981. I quit within a semester too. Everybody told me not to, that I'd never go back - and everybody was wrong. I dropped in and out over the next decade plus as the spirit moved me. I'd often take a class in, say, philosophy, where we'd read only snippets from philosophers that intrigued me, and then move on. Classes like that often spurred me to drop out for a semester or more in order to read some of those philosophers' complete works independently. After drinking my fill, I'd drop back in.

It took me way longer than the norm to finally get that degree, which I wasn't really chasing. In fact, I graduated because my college told me I had too many credits as an undergrad to receive any more financial aid, to which I responded, "Really? I've got enough credits to graduate? I had no idea."

I'm not recommending this as a model, but I am pointing to it as an example of paths less traveled by that might benefit a certain type of student. I'm no Steve Jobs, but I can say I have no regrets for learning and growing in my own way, at my own pace, against the common wisdom of the beaten path crowd. And I think any graduating high school student who hasn't figured out what path to take, hasn't applied to college, and thus may be hearing all sorts of dire predictions about a life of failure - maybe that student needs to hear this different narrative.

Better still, those students who have it all figured out at 18 - probably because their parents have figured it out for them - maybe they would benefit even more from Jobs' speech. It's a very rightly acclaimed 15 minutes that is well worth a student's time.
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Clay Burell
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