The autodidact meme gets thrown around a lot on this board...

The autodidact meme gets thrown around a lot on this board, so I was wondering—how many of you have actually foregone university for teaching yourself?

If you are an autodidact, how is it?

If you're a genius, the academia will only slow you down
If you're not, why not relax and study at your own pace?

University is a meme, majoring makes sense in STEM fields, everything else is a waste of time and money

under late capitalism most people have no choice but to teach themselves senpai

both of you work minimum wage jobs

yes, because we didn't go to college, but to go to college we'd have to have a job that pays more than minimum wage.
see the problem?

who /Burger king/ here

wrong board

Self-study is much more rewarding. I also find that many stuff that has been ditched is still taught in schools, such as Freud.
But there is little what you can do with your self-learned knowledge.

My own personal shortcoming is that I love pretty much all fields except math related subjects. So I skip the technical and lack mathematical skills.

Another pitfall is that you might learn what is been ditched in the actual field but aren't aware of it.

I've had friends with multiple degrees complain that I'm too well educated, despite my lack of any real education past high school and utterly awful grades even then. It's not impossible they're just flattering me.

People will only give you shitty jobs then get angry and say you're overqualified, but it's not the end of the world as you can just do ten minutes of work then doss about for 30.

It entirely depends on what you study, and to what degree you actually want to learn about a subject. If your subject isn't one that is focused on some sort of truth, such as music or painting then if you are dedicated and intelligent enough higher education would mostly only be good for the time given you to practice, a social world built around that subject and skilled teachers. However the problem is when you want to engage in a subject like history or science or something similar. I've never encountered someone who didn't formally study philosophy to a post-grad level who could even begin to hold a candle to the dumbest post-grads. When you are engage with a pursuing of truth autodidacticism runs into the problem of complete lack of access to very important resources, lack of guidance in what resources to engage with/how to choose resources, lack of questioning your understandings of things you think you understand.
If you are interested in something like science as a hobby then autodidacticism is fine, but it can't compete with the rigor of a good university degree.

what is
>scholarship
>merit aid
>zero interest loans

>having a job
>fulfilling some jews dream for $20 an hour

>such as Freud.
Shut the fuck up

What fields can you go in to with self study? I thought most want to see a degree on your cv.

No man I won't. The scientific consensus is that Freud is pseudoscience. If you want to read him anyway, go ahead.

>The scientific consensus is that Freud is pseudoscience
Why do you pretend this means anything?

t. hasn't read freud's non psychoanalytic work

you're not an autodidact, you're a pseud.

Well some philosophers of science think of Freud as pseudoscience because he doesn't offer testable predictions, and his system has an explanation for any way a human could conceivably react.

Doesn't mean it doesn't lend some insight though.

I said: if you want to read him anyway, go ahead.

Don't let your castration anxiety develop into hysteria towards me, please.

>you're not an autodidact, you're a pseud.
Damn that penis envy

I have "foregone" university to "teach myself" because I tried passing the application test 6 times and failed. I knew I was a retard after the second time though, but still kept banging my head.

Not that I'm learning anything on my own, I have low intelligence, clearly. All sorts of thinking and "conceptualizing" causes me trouble where my brain just fucking fails to do anything productive, I can't even puke out my thoughts on paper in a logical manner, it will just be a mess of disjointed thoughts. I just read a lot, to escape the shit life and non-future I have ahead of me.

Maybe I just fucking kill myself by dying under my bookshelf.

>tfw couldn't get into a free college because too much of a retard.

I have raelly no excuses lol, just a fucking European Cletus hillbilly hick with nigger tier iq

IT, Computer Science, since you link your portfolio - sites and companies you have worked for. I know two sys-admins that have been hired to work in another country and they have no education past high school, they're both in their 20s.

You just described me down to the writing part, b-but I don't have a personality disorder if I know the notes mean r-right?

I've never met an autodidact that actually attempted to forego university, have you? Not necessarily doubting your statement, but I wouldn't be able to compare the two, since everyone I know who is an expert in their field has opted to pursue a formal education. If we look at history however, autodidacts were actually relatively common and most great men were autodidacts to some degree.

I have this feeling that autodidacts will be more common now and in the future again, with how university more and more doesn't serve to educate anymore but to train us for jobs.

Nice post but we're talking about literature here

I don't know about personality disorder but if you find yourself in my posts you most definitely have low int.

because boy I'm absolutely fucking stupid

Hey guys, what about going to university and so self-studying?
The autodidacts on this board are people too unqualified to get into good universities and try to cope by reading a few hours a days and then calling themselves 'autodidacts'.

>I've never met an autodidact that actually attempted to forego university, have you?
Well no because it is a contradiction of terms. If you go to university you aren't an autodidact.

> If we look at history however, autodidacts were actually relatively common and most great men were autodidacts to some degree.
Yea, because universities are a pretty modern phenomenon.

>I have this feeling that autodidacts will be more common now and in the future again
I think the exact opposite. In order to even understand a problem in a field nowadays requires an already deep knowledge of the subject. The only way to gain this knowledge is by access to materials that are not open to the public and the only way to understand the problems to be reading current journals because that is where the problems are. You have to be a genius like Wittgenstein or Einstein to even have a chance of doing anything as an outsider.

...

...

>The autodidacts on this board are people too unqualified to get into good universities

Outside of those people that study something else (trade school, non-university studies) this is true.

Autodidact is pretty much the retard's choice

That's what I'm doing right now. I'm from Germany and enrolled in math and if nothing changes should be able to do so for long as I please, costing me about 500€ per year, maybe more in the future, but whatever. I have access to all resources I need and don't plan on finishing my degree anytime soon. Problem is though that it's probably not permitted and if they ever find out, I will get kicked out or similar.

>reading fiction
>""teaching"" yourself anything
Jesus Christ.

I'm an autodidact for things that aren't related to literature. I did go to university for English. But I taught myself many other fields, like mycology and carpentry.

Not true. I'm about to finish university (in time and with good grades) and I can tell you that it was a terrible waste of time. I can't wait to have a job and continue to learn as autodidact.

You'd think all this reading would produce some less bigoted people

>how many of you have actually foregone university for teaching yourself?

You literally can't, everyone has to pass a certification hump somewhere. It's even hard to get great work publishes without social connections or a professional background.

Good thinkers are still essentially self-teaching, and education exists as a formalism or something more peripheral. If you really like literature, or really like thinking, things that you enjoy are enjoyed for their aesthetics and an institutional or social structure isn't absolutely necessary in driving your interests.

I went to college and graduated in 2005 with honors, with a shiny degree as an English Teacher that I never ever used.

I went on to be a full time email spammer and contextual ad manager for hire.

Now I learn for my own benefit. I stream lectures, I audit courses, I read voraciously, and while I do not believe it makes me "smarter", it is immensely satisfying.

dropped out after less than a year, still dont have an AA, my wife does. i cant do it, its silly. so i read on my own. am a psychiatric social worker with no education, simply my natural empathic skills and psychological and spiritual insights. not bad. and i REALLY love understanding lit. like getting a thrill from knowing what someone is trying to say, at some deep level. i am so happy to have that gift. bring them on, rilke, rumi, joyce, kerouac, mckenna. just amaze me, thats all i ask.

I graduated, now I'm an autodidact by using the skills, resources, and knowledge university taught me to study further.

My own personal shortcoming is that I hate all fields and nothing interests me and I'm way too scared to check out 50 years early.