Steve Jobs is not an exception. He met Woz in college. This means he benefitted from college.
Jobs, Woz, Zuckerberg, Gates, Dell, and virtually everyone on this planet benefits from college up until they don't. A big portion of students escape before they graduate, though most escape at graduation. Almost all students drop out for the same reason--financial. That's because other reasons--geographical, academic quality, offerings, or costs--can be addressed by changing schools or majors by those who are willing to find a better fit in another program. And yes, working at McDonalds has priority over college to drop outs only because they don't feel they can afford college. People don't work two low-paying jobs while attending community college or state school half-time, if at all, for fun. If you can afford to go, then you're not in the same position.
Therefore, if your problems with school are that classes are too slow and you're not getting enough real-world experience, do what Jobs, Woz, Zuckerberg, Gates, and Dell did--use that extra time to experiment with ideas while in college.
(Note that I did not say start your own business/startup, because you have to start tinkering before expecting to come up with a great idea and product right away, and anybody who says the first thing software billionaires did or that you should do is to create a startup, is lying. First, you have to fool around and try to create your own software while you're in college. Once an idea seems to take off, and seems plausible, then you can consider taking some time off from school to see how it goes.)
> Steve Jobs is not an exception. He met Woz in college. This means he benefitted from college.
Jobs met Woz during the summer after his sophomore year of high school, when they were working at the same company. Jobs later went to Reed, in Oregon, before coming back to California and eventually starting Apple with Woz.
What he benefited from by going to Reed was exposure to their top calligraphy department, which inspired Jobs to support rich typography on the Mac.
I had actually googled that at 4am before posting, and left it intentionally vague (it was not necessarily the first time he met Woz, or the only benefit Jobs found in college). But you are correct and precise.
Interestingly enough, Paul Allen and Gates also met in high school.
This means that in their case, Bill and Paul thought going to college was a good idea, up until it wasn't.
Woz ran up a huge computing bill in school. It seems Jobs wanted to continue attending college, but on his own terms, taking classes he wanted to take (there are now many colleges that allow one to create their own concentration, and two year colleges are more popular, prevalent, and accepted.) They dropped out for different reasons than Paul and Bill, but were making connections and projects by that time. Similar to Paul and Bill, Jobs and Steve already knew each other and had worked together.
"Steve Jobs is not an exception. He met Woz in college. This means he benefitted from college."
are you sure about that? any reference?
from www.foundersatwork.com/steve-wozniak.html:
"There's another guy at Homestead High School, younger than you, and he's interested in electronics and pranks and things too and you really should meet him." So he thought we were alike.
Jobs, Woz, Zuckerberg, Gates, Dell, and virtually everyone on this planet benefits from college up until they don't. A big portion of students escape before they graduate, though most escape at graduation. Almost all students drop out for the same reason--financial. That's because other reasons--geographical, academic quality, offerings, or costs--can be addressed by changing schools or majors by those who are willing to find a better fit in another program. And yes, working at McDonalds has priority over college to drop outs only because they don't feel they can afford college. People don't work two low-paying jobs while attending community college or state school half-time, if at all, for fun. If you can afford to go, then you're not in the same position.
Therefore, if your problems with school are that classes are too slow and you're not getting enough real-world experience, do what Jobs, Woz, Zuckerberg, Gates, and Dell did--use that extra time to experiment with ideas while in college.
(Note that I did not say start your own business/startup, because you have to start tinkering before expecting to come up with a great idea and product right away, and anybody who says the first thing software billionaires did or that you should do is to create a startup, is lying. First, you have to fool around and try to create your own software while you're in college. Once an idea seems to take off, and seems plausible, then you can consider taking some time off from school to see how it goes.)