Bill Gates is always a good example to use of someone who did pretty well without a college education, though I certainly understand where your father is coming from.

If you were only a semester away from getting a college degree, I’d definitely advise you to go ahead and get it (because you’ll never regret HAVING a degree but you could conceivably someday regret NOT having one). But spending four years getting a degree that you see no use for is asking a lot (and if you don’t have a real college objective, it’s very unlikely that you’ll actually stick it out).

Having a bachelor’s degree gives you a definite advantage for entering the white-collar job market, but it’s not much use otherwise; the useful degrees are the “professional” degrees—master’s degrees, doctoral degrees. You can get a job as a school teacher if you have a bachelor’s degree in education, but that’s the only profession I can think of where a bachelor’s degree is a “professional” degree. Hope this helps some.

ID: 536
posted: 13 Jan 2002
updated: 13 Jan 2002