The professor who told me I was wasting my tuition money...

I was sitting in the back of a calc 2 lecture at UT Austin about three weeks before I dropped out. Prof was going on about some derivative rule I already knew I'd never use in real life. I raised my hand and asked when this stuff actually matters outside of school. He looked at me dead serious and said 'Honestly, for most of you, it won't. You're paying for a piece of paper, not knowledge.' That hit me hard because I was already working a side job troubleshooting printers for a small shop downtown and learning way more practical stuff. Two weeks later I walked out and never went back. Now I run my own repair service and make more than I would with that degree. Has anyone else had a teacher straight up admit the system is kind of a scam?

2 comments

Log in to join the discussion

Log In

2 Comments

michael_jones3mo ago

Did the guy actually say that to a whole lecture hall? That took some guts. For me, it was a community college intro to business class where the teacher told us half the textbook was outdated and we'd learn more from five YouTube videos about running a small business. I ended up taking his advice and that's where I actually started figuring out how to manage money and talk to customers. Real world stuff beats a lecture every time.

9

ninah103mo ago

That YouTube advice is gold. My cousin took a similar path in a welding class where the instructor basically said the textbook was 10 years old and to just look up current techniques on Instagram of all places. @michael_jones it's funny how the real learning comes from the stuff the old guard hates. Ended up learning more about customer service from a video of a guy fixing lawnmowers than any lecture.

1