Yeah. I left college and now I'm working as a designer and social media manager making lots of money. All I had to learn was Photoshop, Illustrator and some few other tools. Basically.

Same here in Mexico. None of this "pretentious stuff" described in the OP happens really. No one lives on campus either and the lectures are actual classes. So no, maybe just in the US.

Considering their high schools are a joke, I'm not surprised. From what I've heard it seems like they study in college what we study in high school

But University here in my country is not a messy thing as it is in the US, there's no such a thing as this fraternity sh*t and those college bros walking around with their books all day around campus, sun bathing with their team jackets and wearing sun glasses. Here we only have classes and then go home to study more.

Here we don't get our laptops out in class and drink Starbucks so thank god for that. We only use our laptops for presentations OR if you're in some sort of programming course

Lol girl there's a lot that can be said about the United States as a country itself and its universities but it being low quality is not one of them

Referring to the OP, I think going to college just for the education is dumb but I chose to go to a high-ranked college because I want to make money in the future soooo

Some colleges there are prestigious because of the name, but when we look at the facts, education wise they aren't any more serious than an average state university in Bulgaria.

Many college students don't buy macbook pros, drink starbucks, or look pretentious.
Looking it up, I went to the #4.

A Love Story tea!

You do realize these are most likely remedial classes for those who practically failed out of highschool right. Then there is a lot of recap. For example, my highschool ended at Cal 2 (Cal 3 was honors and I was too lazy to do that before college.) But then Cal 1, 2, and 3 were offered in college for those who did not understand it or failed it in highschool. I honestly don't believe you know much about our U.S system of college, how there are a lot of speciality colleges for purposes, and there are a lot of special fields in those disciplines. For example, using law school (since I just graduated there) if you want to be a good litigator, you do not go to Harvard, Yale or Stanford, you go to schools like Cumberland. If you want to be a prosecutor in the South, you don't go to Harvard, Yale, or Stanford, you go to Vandy, Richmond, or Alabama. If you want to be in Music Business, you go to Belmont University, which isn't even a tier 1 school, but the best school in the U.S for music business.

Without actually researching the actual disciplines of the colleges, you know next to nothing about what U.S. colleges have to offer, and honestly can't comment on our education system.

Edit: It is dumb for people to go to College in the U.S. if they have absolutely no idea what they want to do. It is also why I feel no pity for people taking out massive amount of student loans. But thats another subject.

what Italian university is slaying the charts every post about your country has a bit of pretension

I agree with this member. this is not the first time i see you describe italy as a real life disney land. I can say true for sicily but the rest of italy is not all that as you make it out to be.

It really depends what you think the purpose of college is and what you want from it. It's not meant to be a training factory to get everyone jobs (which could be a problem for people who think college > well off for life.) If that's what you want, it makes sense to go for a degree that will likely land you a well paying job.

I will say that it's a lot to expect 18 year olds to know exactly what they want and what they need, and because of that you end up with a lot of people who are jaded against university/in a lot of debt. It's very possible to land well paying jobs in a variety of fields if you have enough drive and rigor, but uni offers a more conventional path and often networking opportunities that aren't available unless you were born into having connections.

As much as the description in the OP is a stereotype (even if I never encountered it), I've met many people who dropped out their last semester (or pretty late) because they just never enjoyed college or saw the point - a question they should have an answer for before going but I imagine societal pressures pushed them to go before they were ready or even if that path wasn't for them.

I love college. I've learned so much here. Not overrated at all.

Like someone else said, it depends on what you want out of it. If I went to college strictly for the degree or a "sheet of paper" as many people pessimistically refer to it as, then absolutely college would have been very overrated considering I didn't end up studying something that would land my a high-paying job straight out of undergrad. If you treat your college experience like that instead of taking advantage of the opportunities and exposure, then surely enough that's probably all you'll get out of it.

No, you don't "need" a college education to be successful, but having completed college and seeing how it transformed my life and way of thinking I can't help but realize that everyone could benefit from a quality education and think of certain people who had alot of potential, but just weren't educated or had enough life skills to leverage it. The best way I can sum it up is a bumper sticker I saw the other day that said "If you think college education is expensive, try ignorance". There's generally just something different about the intellectual level, clout, and presence of college-educated person versus someone who isn't. And I don't mean that in a condescending way.

Obviously, I'm just speaking from my own personal experience so I can understand it may not be the path everyone is meant to go down, but with the kind of experiences and lessons I learned in college; starting from the bottom and learning how to work my way to the top, the numerous unique research opportunities I got, surrounding myself with diverse people from all over the world with and brilliant minds and different perspectives that challenged my way of thinking, even though I'm thousands in debt, I don't regret going to college and the impact it had on me is something you really just can't put a price on.

It's not about education it's about passing your classes and getting a degree

I haven't experienced all four years of college, but I don't really want to go back to the one I dropped out of.


I do miss the on campus Starbucks and the all you can eat cafeteria line (even though that was expensive)

I know i'll graduate one of these days.

Pretentious students doesn't really have an impact on the quality of the education they receive sooooo...... College is important if you want to do certain fields in life so no its not overrated. Is it a necessity? No, but it will be much harder to find a good paying job so if you want to tackle that kind of obstacle then go straight ahead.