Is getting a university degree the only way?

A lot depends on why you go to college.

I started out as a music major. When I was 18 music was my passion. I knew that chances are that I’d never make much money. I read that even J.J. Johnson had to take a day job as a blueprint inspector to make ends meet. I wasn’t doing it for money.

Then I discovered this thing called the Internet. I remember setting up my first SCO UNIX computer when there were less than 1 million computers on the internet. I named my little server sunra after the jazz musician Sun Ra. People told me that I was wasting my time learning C, UNIX, and the Internet because all the jobs were in Cobol, RPG, MVS, etc. I was Internet before Internet was cool.

I worked at a University in the 90’s. Back then everone thought of Computer Science as a sure thing to get a good job with high pay. A lot of CS students weren’t even interested in the subject; they just wanted a nice paycheck. I remember classes when in the middle of a lecture when the professor was explaining a difficult concept a student would raise their hand and ask if it was going to be on the test. They didn’t want to waste their time learning anything that wasn’t on the test.

The reason for going to college shouldn’t be because you want to make more money or you think you need a college degree to be “educated.” People should go to college because college offers them something they want to learn.

If you are good at what you do and you have passion for it success will follow. If you are chasing success rather than your passion you have things in the wrong order.

Indeed not everyone should go to college. Only people with a passion for what they study should be there.