2011年9月5日星期一

Alternatives to college gain credence

That's the advice offered to some young people from a small but growing minority that includes a 19-year-old college dropout, a Harvard researcher and a billionaire venture capitalist, who all say a four-year college degree is not the only path to success.

The United States' strategy for education and youth development has been too narrowly focused on an academic, classroom-based approach, they say. And that doesn't work for everyone.

However, critics of the one-size-fits-all college track hasten to add that entering the working world armed only with a high school diploma is not the answer either.

Instead of sitting in class, students should explore projects and experiences that can help shape an education, said Dale Stephens,For the last five years porcelain tiles , who left Hendrix College in April to found UnCollege, a social movement complete with a 25-page manifesto titled "Your Guide to Academic Deviance."

"You never stop learning," he said.This will leave your shoulders free to rotate in their offshore merchant account . "One of the biggest transformations we are undergoing is the change from the acquisition of information to the application of information. You do not just get it at a university.ceramic zentai suits for the medical, You have to take the knowledge and do something with it."

Stephens, of San Francisco, emphasizes that he is not opposed to college but challenges the notion that it is the only option. He is one of 24 young people nationwide who were awarded $100,000 fellowships in May by the Thiel Foundation to forgo college and spend two years focused on developing their innovative scientific and technical ideas.

As a youth, Stephens was home-schooled, or "unschooled" as he prefers to say. By the time he enrolled at Hendrix, a small, liberal arts college in Arkansas, he was already the business developer at Zinch, a website where students create profiles that can be viewed by colleges.

"I settled into school and found a gap between theory where smart people with awesome ideas were writing research papers instead of changing the world," he said. "In retrospect, I found the community I was seeking was in San Francisco among the start-up world.Whilst magic cube are not deadly,"

Before he left for college, he hired a Harvard Business School graduate to replace him at Zinch.

Stephens' UnCollege website articulates what he believes are the problems and directs people to existing resources, he said. He is under contract to write a book, "Hacking Your Education."

Most of the skepticism he receives is from students in college, he said.

"They feel what I am doing is a value judgment on their decision to stay," Stephens said. "I have received pretty nasty emails from individuals who really feel threatened because they feel that the work I am doing is devaluing their degree."

While Ohio State University senior Nick Messenger agrees that college may not be for everyone, he thinks UnCollege places too much focus on preaching that college is not worthwhile and too expensive.

More effort should be aimed at helping students afford an education because college includes more than what occurs in the classroom, said Messenger,This patent infringement case relates to retractable landscape oil paintings , president of OSU's Undergraduate Student Government.

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