Arianna O'Dell

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$ – 45 Thousand Dollars Down the Drain – $

Okay, not exactly, but this is the amount of money I have paid to attend the University of Washington over the past two years. Outrageous!

For those of you who I have yet to tell, I am still in college. This past week, I finished up my second year, leaving me with two additional years to go.

I tend to leave this out this minor detail when meeting new people. While attending business events, conferences, and chatting with people already in the work force, I have not received much respect when mentioning my age in the past. Even though during my Seattle Ignite talk, I decided to reveal this to many, I quickly went back to my old habit of not mentioning this fact as soon as the talk ended. Why? Even after giving the talk, I was immediately alienated from conversations the moment the student detail was mentioned.

This post is not about being treated unfairly because of age. This is simply a personal reflection on the past two years of my life.

What exactly is the purpose of college?

Some might say that the purpose of college is to find yourself and your passions. I found my passion in middle school, knowing I wanted to own a business. Since coming to college, this still has yet to change, and I know it will not change over the next two years. Unfortunately, during my college experiences thus far, my passion and love of entrepreneurship has not been fostered within most of my classes.

Other people have told me that the purpose of college is to network and make connections. Talking to other college students, they use their age as an excuse for “not having experience” and “not knowing certain things”. When talking to most others about starting a business, or doing something outside of the classroom, I am met with a dazed and unwilling look. While many students I meet are brilliant students, they are simply book smart, with little actual common sense. I would much rather “network” with people who are actually doing great things and not just reading about it.

Other might say that you are at college to read, write, and think. This was my main reason for attending college. A desire to constantly learn, has drove me to work hard in all of my education prior to college. The only thing I constantly find myself thinking about in college classes is, “Couldn’t I have just learned this from reading a book?”

I am not saying college has been a complete waste of time. Every single non-curricular activity I have partaken in has given me so much knowledge and great experiences in contrast to the classes. But paying 45 thousand dollars for this? I could have still done many of the clubs and activities without enrolling.

My typical class at the University of Washington goes like this:

~Buy an overprice textbook.
~Sit in lecture where the teacher reitterates the textbook that he or she wrote.
~Write an essay to only be told it is not adequate, with little guidance on how to improve.
~Get tested on information that has little to no relevance to real world scenarios.
~Get a grade that has little reflection on what I actually know and understand.

I am by no means saying that I know everything, or that I am done learning. Learning is one of my greatest loves; I just believe the University of Washington does a poor job at encouraging learning and focuses too much on having a high GPA. I am completely open to suggestions on how to enrich my learning experience for the years to come. What can I do to receive more from my formalized education?

So far, the business program has only taught me that sitting in a classroom will teach you very little about the real world. I have not had a class that has truly challenged me to think outside the box since I have arrived on campus. Even if I may threaten to drop out, I know deep down I need to finish what I started. I just hope the next two years will be worth the next 50 thousand dollars!