Should I go back to school?

[Jeffage]

Good players leave themselves outs. A college degree is a huge out if you decide you don't want to be a pro anymore, etc. Having a job and playing poker on the side is the best bet for the VAST majority of people and can be very profitable.

Jeff

[MaxPower]

First let me say that I hope you and your wife live happily ever after and your business thrives for years to come.

That said, I have never met a person whose life has turned out exactly like he envisioned it when he was 22 years old. Like Jeffage said, you need to leave yourself outs.

First, is graduating college really that difficult? Take an easy major, go to class a couple of hours a week, study a couple of hours a week, take a few tests and your done. It is not a hard thing to do and will take up very little of your time.

I am not an expert on the Pharmacy business, but I think that the independent pharmacy is going to have an increasing hard time surviving. CVS can easily move into your town and undercut you on price and give better service due to their inventory management. Many independently owned pharmacies are going out of business these days. It is even difficult for them to find retail space they can afford. So it is a mistake to assume that the Pharmacy business is a sure thing.

Likewise your personal life may not turn out like you plan. All kind of things can happen that force you to take a conventional job even if you don't want to. Without a college degree you are limiting yourself. It is possible to be very successful without your degree, but the degree will just make it easier for you.

You also may burn out on poker. It happens even to people who are making large sums of money.

So just finish your degree. Change to some BS major that doesn't require a lot of hard work.

[danzasmack]

[ QUOTE ]
Should you go back to school? IMO, no.

College is for high school morans who lack direction in life. Degrees are just written "proof" that you fulfilled a certain amount of coursework.

It seems like you are intelligent, disciplined, and already ready to run your own business. You already have a slew of skills that most college grads don't have. So I say go ahead with the pharmacy thing and BE SUCCESSFUL.

[/ QUOTE ]

I really hope this is a joke.

[spkid]

I voted yes. For the same reason that I agree with high paid professional atheletes who go back and get their degree or manage to get their degree while playing college sports.

Getting educated is a benefit of it's own. Besides being something to fall back on in case your big money career fails, getting an education is a good thing for many other reasons. Knowledge is power, even outside of the poker room.

I also agree with the people who said it'll be much harder to go back later. My advice is take as many credits now as you need to keep the education free and play poker with any spare time until you graduate.

Money is important, but it is not everything.

Did I just say that?

[dogmeat]

You have some college, made $200,000 this year, but want a bunch of poker players and pro-wanna be's that you don't know to advise you? Good idea.

Dogmeat [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

[daryn]

take my advice:

drop out.

you clearly don't want to be there, so don't be there! you're making money, you have an idea of what you want to do. contrary to popular belief, college is NOT NECESSARY TO SUCCEED.

[housenuts]

i'm 23. most of my friends are around the same age:

jobs of my friends with degrees:

starbucks
rec centre
grocery store
jobless
one guy has a good job with the phone company
some fridge repair company

those without degrees:
a daycare
military
starbucks
grocery store


that's all i can think of now. alot are still in school and will probably end up doing nothing when they are done.

i'm finishing in december. then i'm gonna peace out of here and go to either france or somewhere in the orient.

[freekobe]

I generally hate posts like these and almost never respond, but I'm compelled to respond to this one.

Just stop and think for 20 minutes about this.

You are 22. You are young. You have no responsibilities in your life. Poker and the University of Oklahoma are not mutually exclusive, particularly because you claim you're really smart (which, given the fact that you posted this here and flunked a semester at a mediocre school is doubtful, but I digress).

How much time per week out of your life would it take to complete three semesters of school? If you think you have your life all figured out (which, by the way, I promise you that you don't), take classes in subjects you enjoy. Make it worthwhile. Learn another language. Take some psychology classes.

When you're 32 in 10 yrs and the pharmacy thing didn't work for x, y, or z reason, you'll be glad you finished school. If you don't do it now, you'll have to go back with all those annoying 20 yr olds when you have a kid or two at home and a wife who doesn't feel like taking care of the kids while you suffer through classes with kids who think they know it all.

Going back to undergraduate school when you're older is only cool if you're Rodney Dangerfield in Back to School. When you do it in real-life, you're a loser.

If you pass up three more semesters of school while you're 22 yrs, I can assure you you're not as smart as you think. If things don't work out for you, I can promise you that "College dropout" on your resume isn't going to seduce employers.

And if you think you can survive on Internet poker for the next forty yrs, well, more power to you. That's not something I'd want to bank on, regardless of how good I was. Tons of top pros go broke all the time - I'm not saying it'll happen to you, but it could.

A degree is a form of insurance. Not to take it for free at age 22 will probably be the worst decision of your life. Good luck.

[theben]

you want some flexibility in case you burnout from poker

if you get a degreee now and then play pro, you wont have to stop and take time off to re-attend college in the future

its pretty easy to play poker 20-30hr/wk and go to classes and make a B+ avg. so you can do both easily, unless wifey eats all your time

[CanIPlay]

If you do not know as the other poster mentioned that small town pharmacies are a dying breed, you may not be able to assess the value of a college degree either. I am sure that most who say go to school are older and know the value and the difficulty of going back to school later on. We have seen the pitfalls of best laid plans in the cold cruel world.
Go back to school!!!!!!!!!!!
P.S. Although the small town thing may not worh you are lucky to hook up with a Pharmacist, just read an article that there are too few graduating.
Good Luck from an old fart.