Why should I finish my college degree? (I really want you to tell me)

[EliteNinja]

Stay in college for the cheap alcohol and awesome parties, dude. On a full scholarship, you're getting paid to party.

AND as a bonus, you have a career to fall back upon.

[Hoi Polloi]

You should also take a moment and consider that college is not exclusively vocational training. Branch out from CS and math and take courses that teach you critical thinking and new ways of seeing the world. There is a universe of thought and imagination that you can discover in college unlike any other time in your life which will typically become focused on just a few things.

IMO, there's nothing weirder than history. Discover the world that medieval scholastic philosophers lived in. If you think like Henry Ford that history is just one damn thing after another, you'll be pleasantly surprized. Amazing.

Plus there's all those pretty girls and boys. Yum.

[KKbluff]

Just about to finish my college degree and just took a 40k a year job. I can still play and make a good amount playing poker and feel productive in other areas of my life and career. Plus, a degree is something very valuable that if given the opportunity is always +EV.
good luck

[KKbluff]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention that college is too much fun to NOT goto. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[RydenStoompala]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm an 18 year old

[/ QUOTE ]

It shows. let me put this in a highly communicative style and use politically correct terminology: You're wrong. About everything, you couldn't be more wrong if you were speaking freakin Klingon to a Greek graduate studies class held in the arctic and you were dressed in a bathing suit.

If you dont get the degree, especially since you are on an academic scholarship, then you're a good student who is also a complete idiot. It's all about choices and the one you're asking about isn't even close to a debate. If you dont see it, your academic scholarship was handed out by a bigger idiot.

Delete the concept. It's flawed.

[toots]

Aw, c'mon.

It's not that I disagree with any of your arguments. In fact, they seem 100% on target.

But for the rest of us, the ones who are humored by watching someone slip on a banana peel, then try to convince everyone watching that they meant to do that on purpose, where's the humor value in talking him out of this idea?

I mean, you might actually convince someone, and I'll have to find some other form of entertainment.

[Isura]

If you quit now and never go back I'm sure you will regret it one day. You have the rest of your life to work and make a living, now is the time for you to enjoy life and experience new things. There's a lot you'll learn about yourself finishing college (outside of schoolwork) such as character, hardwork, social skills. After finishing college, if you don't find any work interesting then you can again consider playing poker for a living. But quiting school to play at 18 is correct for like 1% of the population.

[Ass Master]

The risk/reward characteristics of choosing to drop out are horrible. Based on your own description of your profitability, the expected reward is fairly small. Making enough to live comfortably (based on your current expenses) isn't sufficient compensation for the huge amount of risk you are taking and the possibly huge opportunity costs you might incurr if you drop out and try to make a living playing cards. On the other hand, what opportunity costs do you think you would incurr by staying in college and continuing to play part-time? A few years in school should have no negative impact on the long-term feasibility of playing cards for a living, if that is what you ultimately choose to do.

If I were in your place the only way I would even consider dropping out is if I were making A LOT of money, with sufficient understanding of the game and a sufficiently long track record to be confident I wasn't simply the beneficiary of exceptionally good short-term luck.

In your position, I would first try to exhaust every possibility other than dropping out. Did you choose CS because you were actually interested in it, or was it for career purposes? Maybe consider changing majors. I have a friend who floated around from major to major as an undergraduate at UCSD and took something like 7 years to finish. However, he eventually found a major he was really into and ultimately went to Harvard to work on his Ph.D. in that field.

[nik]

Well, I know all too well about not wanting to finish school and persue a life of fame and money. I was recuited by numerous high profile schools out of high school. But I was convinced that I could make a living playing baseball. So I left for Florida and was signed to a minor league contract in the Reds organization. About a year later, I blew out my shoulder. Went through rehab, but it never came back. Next thing I know, I'm 20, I've been out of the academic world for a few years and the sports scholarships were no where to be found. So, I found myself bartending and luckily met a beautiful woman who has been my wife for 14 years. I never went back to school and I'm now a stay at home dad. I got lucky. I have a great life and it is because my wife went to college, studied mathematics and computer science and makes a ton of money.

Playing poker is a great way to make extra money, but you really need something more stable. At 18 it's hard to fathom that. But take it from someone who's been there. Take that for what it's worth.

Good luck.

[DMBFan23]

I would not trade my 3rd and 4th years of college for any experience you could offer me, short of 2 years worth of threesomes with girls that I get to pick out from the swedish bikini team. I think you should get a degree as a backup and education is good blah blah blah, but virtually all the reasons I think you should stay are socially related. there's still a lot of life left to be lived. lots of travelling to do (and summer break is great for that) lots of parties to go to, lots of late night food, lots of girls, lots of time with no financial responsibility, etc. if none of that interests you, then I say move on.