Yes, I did leave university.
The story:
On 1st of October 2013 I started my first university year in a Bulgarian university. I was quite excited, because this was something new for me – all the people on my age, at that time 19 year-olders, were talking about how cool is it to be a university student, hangout with “great people”, learn “valuable” things, pursue your dream career and just do what everyone does – attend university.
Note: Before applying to a university in Bulgaria, in winter of 2012 I applied in five universities in The UK and got approved by five of them. After a good amount of weeks thinking about what is my future vision for life, I decided to stay in Bulgaria, at least on this stage.
Beside the fact that I was excited about starting university I had this strange feeling that something is just not right and that I am not starting university with 100% pleasure and desire. Furthermore I couldn’t see how my university education would help me grow in my modest, so far, entrepreneurship/business career and help me achieve my dream goals.
So, I decided to give out a chance to Bulgarian academic education.
It turned out that this strange gut feeling was right. The first month of my university education was strange – I just didn’t felt I belong there – neither in my classes, among any social groups or even in the hallway (I must note that I am extremely social person, so I am not an introvert) .
I couldn’t just drop out of university without knowing why I am doing this. So I questioned myself: What is it? What’s wrong and why don’t you like it?
Few things came out for me:
I just didn’t enjoyed it
If I will be spending four years of my life doing something, it should definitely be something that I enjoy. Listening to professors talk outdated stuff without any practical application and discussing girls, cars and hangovers with my classmates was not something I enjoyed that much.
I had stopped working on the ventures that make me happy
While I was studying (as well as now) I was working on two ventures: an online magazine for entrepreneurship and startups in Bulgaria, which I founded – Entrepreneur.bg; and a Bulgarian entrepreneurship organization, which I am member of – Start It Smart.
University will take a big chunk of your time, if you want to be serious student by attending and studying. I wanted to be, so I did, but on count of not working on the things that really matter to me and make me wake up in the morning.
Minimizing my work hours spend on these ventures was a problem, because I didn’t see them progress and I didn’t felt good about this fact.
Entrepreneurship and university education!?
My opinion is that business and more specifically entrepreneurship can not be taught. Entrepreneurship is learned through experience. It is learned by getting out there and putting your effort, burning desire and enormous amount of persistence in something you love, something that you believe would change people’s lives. Entrepreneurship is learned by failing and making mistakes. It Is learned by examining yourself, your past business and work steps and learning from them– upgrading your skills, strategy and tools.
The average bachelor student in Business studies has 3-4 years course in which he/she is learns about economics, marketing, business strategy, accounting and so on. After four years at the end of his studies, the global business environment would have changed so dramatically that he/she will be able to use no more than 15% of the “business” knowledge acquired throughout the university education.
Not mentioning that in 80% of the universities the programs by which the business students are taught, are already at least 5 years old (in the best case).
Human beings and educational system
Every human being on this earth is so different than any of the rest more than 7 billion, that it’s absolutely ridiculous to educate all people the same way. Even identical twins are completely different than one another.
We all have different interests, different vision for the future, different mindset and food preferences. One may be good at Literature and another may suck at Literature but be an amazing Chemistry genius.
Our educational system treats us as we are all identical. But we aren’t and what works for someone may not for others.
What am I passionate about
I am passionate about creating. Creating value and giving something new to the world. I am happy as long as I contribute in a positive way to people’s life’s . This may mean creating a product or a service which solves a certain problem , filling out an empty market niche where you can definitely see a demand for innovation.
Since I dropped out, do I stop learning?
No! Believe me if you want, but now I learn twice more things for the same amount of time. Furthermore, the things that I learn are not two but zillion times more valuable for my personal and business growth than the ones in the Uni.
I’ve designed my own “educational program” consisting of some of the following things:
- Learning how to learn (being more effective in processing information);
- Reading books (with purpose of getting a specific knowledge, not “just because you have to”)
- Meeting successful people in 1 on 1 mentorship sessions (which advise me on different areas of my life – business, personal development, finances, leadership etc.)
- Attending carefully selected seminars and conferences
- Taking online courses (including MOOC’s and video trainings)
- And most importantly: Practicing and analyzing my previous steps, all the time! Each day I make at least 5 little mistakes from which I learn 70% of the new things.
I am not saying that going to university is a bad thing. What I am saying is that it didn’t suit my needs and future goals.
And at the end: Thank you for reading my blog post. This means a lot to me. In future I will be posting a ton of other interesting articles on entrepreneurship, personal development, education and life.
P.S. If you are a high school student who read my article and you are wondering whether you should attend a university or not – I encourage you to try out and see how it feels. It may turn out that university is good for your specific future development. : )
Note: Excuse my English spelling and grammar. I am working on it!