December 30, 1972: Jobs Drops Out of College
The vast majority of college students see college as a means to an end. Earn the requisite credits and you get the privilege of listing a college degree on your resume, thereby opening up enhanced career options.
A rare few are more interested in learning than in increasing job prospects, and Steve Jobs was one of those folks. Feeling that the cash burden on his parents was too great, Steve dropped out of college, but convinced an official to let him audit classes freely. For housing Steve Jobs relied on, among other things, unoccupied dorm rooms. Steve Jobs began learning unencumbered by actually being a college student this week in 1972.
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This is blatant hagiography.
Steve Jobs NEVER considered the cash drain on his parents as a reason to quit school.
Rather he INSISTED on being sent to an expensive private college in Portland Oregon (Reed). It was either Reed… or he wasn’t going to school at all.
Jobs was a spoiled young man.
His adoptive parents would do nearly anything for him and his similarly adopted sister.
Who he is today… I don’t know, but lets not sugar coat his past.
In other words: Jobs is no different than any of us: he is full of human flaws.
First of all +8 points for use of the word “hagiography.”
Secondly, none of this is original research and such so it all has an outside source. In this case the source was a commencement speech given by Steve Jobs, the relevent quote:
“And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life.”
Now you can easily argue that this is a case of revisionism by Steve Jobs and you may be correct but we’re going for interesting factoids, not a deep look into the hidden motives. Sure, for a scholarly peice this methodology is a bit light but since it isn’t, since we’re just writing up a quick daily read, we’ll just take Steve jobs at his word for these purposes.