Dale Stephens says he wants to teach you how to navigate the Kafkaesque educational bureaucracy. If you are twenty-something buy this book, or if you are fifteen, and thinking about going to college read this book. If you feel helpless to find a job in this economy this book will have something concrete you can try like his "52 cups of coffee" focused networking, which isn't anything new until Stephens tells his story, and why you should do the same. In fact, the book was so full of new strategies and new ideas it wore me out reading about them. This isn't your parent's self-help book. This is real world stuff. If you can't afford college, definitely read his book.
Dale Stephens talks about education like someone treading lightly through a mine field gingerly avoiding the financial education trap. He says that "there is a bubble in education and it is on the brink of bursting." I agree. He says that "Universities do not train you for the real world: they exist to make money"; that an "MBA program is worthless"; that "schools can only teach what is settled"; that it "takes years for knowledge to become a part of formal curriculum." And by then the expiration date on your education is stale.
Stephens offers a path for the upcoming generation to get an education that is relevant, and not stale, and debt free, or at least less so that of those recent graduates who've spent a fortune on their masters degree, and work in the service industry when they graduate. He calls it "UnSchooling or UnCollege." "UnSchooling is an educational philosophy that values learning over schooling. He says you need to "stop giving a s*** about grades and start building things." He says " Project-based learning is a style teaching in which students define problems they are interested in and then solve them with guidance from their teacher." He talks about collaborative work groups instead of competition, creating a website and a personal portfolio, and networking with people who are interested in the same things you are interested in. He says make something. He say "hiring managers want to see experience. He says business has changed but education hasn't kept up. He wants college age people to take their life into their own hands rather than handing it over to an institution that is trying it's best to keep up in a fast moving century.
Stephens persuaded his parents to allow him to drop out of school in the fifth grade to school himself. It seems to have worked. He dropped into college then dropped out, again, forming a group to school himself. He founded UnCollege for non-traditional higher education. Stephens says he "agreed to write a book, never having written more than twelve pages." The book is well-written. It's more than readable, it's enjoyable. If it had a shortcoming it is that the book is ahead of it's time. Degrees are still the currency that is valued, too often. The educational system is in flux. This might be the last decade for traditional education, but it is, yet, here. And, yes, Universities are a business first, but some are there to teach, to put the maker ideas into the curriculum.
Stephens probably had more financial and family resources available than a lot students heading for college, but he talks about strategies that work whether a learner has resources or not. He's ingenious in his own life, and wants to teach others how to be ingenious. He asks for help from a friend or relative who works at Google, and gets a foot in a door he's after. Too many will not have an uncle or friend of a friend at Google, or network connection in a high profile firm, but even that might surprise the ingenious student who buys 52 cups of coffee.
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Top reviews from other countries
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Lyncoln Nellucci Barbosa dos SantosReviewed in Brazil on November 9, 2014
Super recomendo! Vai abrir a sua mente e te fazer refletir sobre algumas coisas e te ensinar muitas outras.
- Mr Gary MandersReviewed in the United Kingdom on December 16, 2015
Life long learning rocks!
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