Passionate Life

time to read 2 min | 374 words

I just read this post which isn't really about college, but more about life choices.

I've to say that the way I understand the college system in the USA is that upon finishing high school a person is expect to go to college and get a degree in something, after which it's possible to find a "good" job somewhere. The advantages are that it get the kids out of the home and hopefully teach some independance (and how to throw a party). It works quite differently here; upon finishing high school you get draft to the Army, which more or less takes care for teaching you how to rely on yourself and how to handle responsability.

I decided not to continue in the army for a very simple reason, even though I currently am in a position where I've a good job, with very good advancement path and the ability to plan for a very long range. Why, you (and most of the immediate family :-) ) ask? For a very simple reason, that is not what I want to do with my life. When I get up in the morning and I think "Let's just get through this day" I know that I'm not enjoying myself. And that is not a way to live your life.

About the usefulness of college*, I know that the chief reason I want to go is to have solid theory that I can implement. I sometimes find myself struggling with things that should be simple if I can just get the idea, but to get that I need this, and for this I need just the one over there, etc. I probably can learn those subjects (compiler theory, math - with all the fields attached, advance algorithms, AI, etc) on my own, but it would be much harder and I probably would only learn the least that I need to do something, and that is not good. The moment I've a firm foundation, I could use that to built much more.

* Is there a difference between college and university? I don't think so and in here we only have universities.