Don't Drop Out of School | Damien Soitout

It is easy to get seduced by the success stories of entrepreneurs who dropped out of college, built empires, and became multimillionaires. The problem with these stories is that they paint a false picture of two key aspects of life:

Entrepreneurship is not something you can casually walk into. Almost none of the business owners in the world are true entrepreneurs. Do not fall for the idea that simply owning a business automatically makes you an entrepreneur. Read this to understand.
People who drop out of school do not drop out of just any school. Take Zuckerberg or Bill Gates. They left Harvard, one of the best universities in the world, and they already had strong mental predispositions. Getting into that kind of school means you are smarter than average. Dropping out is not what made them successful. Their intelligence did.

Reasons to keep studying at least a degree

There are many reasons why you should complete at least a bachelor’s degree. Here are a few among the many that exist.

Almost no one is an expert in a field even after finishing a degree. You need that time to get familiar with the subject and uncover its secrets.
Almost no one is an entrepreneur. Being an entrepreneur is a state of mind, not a professional status. Stop thinking that opening a business will make you an entrepreneur, let alone a successful one.
You need a plan B. If, like me as a teenager, you are good at sports, or like my sister you feel completely at home in the arts, it is important to have a degree in case you do not build a career in the field you are chasing.
You have not found your purpose yet. If you do not have a clear sense of what you want to do, the life you want, and the goals you are aiming for, dropping out of school is the worst decision you can make.
The world is a tough place. A person without qualifications, without a degree, without prospects, and without connections will not get far, or will face enormous obstacles. When people say that in finance there are sharks that eat the smaller fish, the same dynamic exists in every other field of activity.
What money will you live on? Without an education, no one will give you a real shot at a position worth having with the financial compensation you want. In more than 90% of cases, someone who drops out of school ends up working at McDonald’s or a similar job. And if you are counting on mom and dad to cover your expenses, you will never build a life full of real success.
Who is going to trust you? I have hired people of all kinds: some who finished high school, others who reached a PhD. Someone who completed a degree shows a meaningful level of commitment and tenacity. It is easier for an employer to trust a person who knows their value and their place than someone who quit before facing any real challenge in life.