Thiel Fellows forgo college: where are they now

[Deleted]

www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/business/the-thiel-fellows-forgoing-college-to-pursue-dreams.html?hp

It is too long to post

[smock]

Interesting article; I'm really curious to see where these kids are in 5 or 10 years.

[ttt]

Sept 16, 2012 7:48:55 GMT -5 smock said:

Interesting article; I'm really curious to see where these kids are in 5 or 10 years.

Me too.

It also struck me that out of 44 fellows, only 4 are female??

[Deleted]

I think they'll go far, but it is a false premise. The fellowship on their resume will mean more than a degree, and they are essentially in a different form of college, like Montessori on steroids. They have the luxury of money, mentoring, and connections, which people who forego college on their own are not given. So I am sure they will do extraordinarily well, but it's not like their success is something from which one can extrapolate "college is worthless if you are already a high achiever."

[ttt]

Sept 16, 2012 10:52:19 GMT -5 elle said:

I think they'll go far, but it is a false premise. The fellowship on their resume will mean more than a degree, and they are essentially in a different form of college, like Montessori on steroids. They have the luxury of money, mentoring, and connections, which people who forego college on their own are not given. So I am sure they will do extraordinarily well, but it's not like their success is something from which one can extrapolate "college is worthless if you are already a high achiever."

This is a really good point. I don't think that this experiment means anything at all about the value (or lack of value) of college. And it certainly isn't applicable to 99.9% of teenagers.

[Deleted]

Sept 16, 2012 10:58:03 GMT -5 ttt said:

Sept 16, 2012 10:52:19 GMT -5 elle said:

I think they'll go far, but it is a false premise. The fellowship on their resume will mean more than a degree, and they are essentially in a different form of college, like Montessori on steroids. They have the luxury of money, mentoring, and connections, which people who forego college on their own are not given. So I am sure they will do extraordinarily well, but it's not like their success is something from which one can extrapolate "college is worthless if you are already a high achiever."

This is a really good point. I don't think that this experiment means anything at all about the value (or lack of value) of college. And it certainly isn't applicable to 99.9% of teenagers.

Yep

And I watched the documentary and have read interviews by thiel. He's a jerk and insanely superior. I also find his disdain for college to be amusing since he's a double grad from Stanford, lol.

[Deleted]

Just wait until Harvard and Stanford waive the BA requirements to allow them into business school.

[ringstrue]

These kids sound like they are already well off in the grand scheme of things. I don't get the point of a student waisting 100k to have them try all the previously tried and failed ways to test their ideas. Solar panels and anti- aging are pretty established and tried and tested areas.

I still like the idea in general though of Education have as much real work and real world experience as possible.