I have asked basically this same question on this board before, but here I am a semester later, and questioning my path yet again.
Obviously, depending on what one wants to do, a formal degree may be necessary. For me, I've been interested in becoming a landscape architect, and as such, just started a LA program this past semester. Well, it's not going as well as I had hoped, not because I'm not able to learn the stuff, but because I just haven't been able to focus
enough to do the work. I've been distracted by finding work, and now that I've found a
job, working, planning and planting gardens, and reading on my own time. It seems like
the answer for me here is clear, that I
should just quit school, learn on my own, take a
PDC, and go for the homesteading/part time designing path, and leave the landscape architecture for those who are more focused and able to deal with bureaucracy than I.
My overarching question that I'm pointing to here is, in the end, which path is generally more successful in terms of making money, getting a college degree and trying to apply
permaculture from that angle, or foregoing the debt (I already have 20k+ because of a previous aborted music education career path...), or simply working, saving, learning on your own, and building your business from that knowledge and
experience. I know that some of the most successful
people in the world dropped out of college, and even high school. Some of the greatest inventions/companies came from college drop outs, including
facebook and
apple.
So what is everyone's thoughts on this? Should I follow the marc zuckerburg and bill gates of the world, or should I keep at it and try to finish, even if it's a liberal arts degree or an associates from a
community college. I've got to be close to something by now, but I'm not sure if I would even really benefit from it in the end, compared to studying at my own pace and working/saving. As my brother said to me, who recently finished a computer science associates degree, which he paid for with his own money he earned while working, he thinks of it as what he could be doing instead, such as working, getting experience, and saving, as opposed to being busy all the time while hemoraging money on supplies, transportation,
books, and accumulating debt. This sounds like sound advice to me. What do you
think?