Hi I'm Toby and welcome to another video
where I'm just going to share some of my
thoughts with you and today I want to
talk about the idea of whether or not
university, or college as it's often
called in the US, should be considered a
waste of time. Now I think University
certainly can be a waste of time for
some people and it's going to depend on
what you're hoping to get out of it and
also your attitude and your I guess
learning style once you're there. So if
you are wanting to go to university
because you want to gain the information
from lectures, you want to be lectured to
and you think that's the only way to
gain information, then you're probably
wrong and maybe university will be a
waste of time for you because it's
certainly true that more and more
nowadays you can get information for
free online. You can get quality lecture
notes, basically lesson plans, textbooks
reading material all online mostly for
free so I think that the main value
proposition of going to university
whilst maybe it used to be that it was
the only place or the main place you
could access quality knowledge, I don't
think that's any longer true and
universities do still have value but
it's not just to be a provider of
information and it's not just to be a
source to get lecture notes from. I think
that universities themselves are even
starting to recognize that they need to
kind of change their business models and
change their main value proposition and
their marketing to recognize the fact
that they can offer so much more than
just providing information and they need
to to stay competitive and to continue
to attract students or else they'll just
completely go out of fashion. So what
else can a university offer you that
would make it not a waste of time?
Well if you're a really active learner I
guess
so you're not just passively going to
lectures and sitting there and then
leaving when you've done what you need
to do but instead you do things that
nobody tells you you need to do. So you
engage with extracurricular activities
and all that kind of stuff at
universities, that can be a much more
enriching experience for you and I think
the main value of the university really
is the ability to learn alongside your
fellow students who are at a similar
level and have the same interests as you.
To learn alongside them, to work with
them, get ideas from each other and get
experience working on problems in the
field of your interest with other people
is extremely valuable and that is
something that I got out of going to
university. It's not just your fellow
students that would give value to your
learning but the ability to learn from
your lecturers and professors and get
advice and help from them. They're
experts in the field that you want to go
into, even just getting life advice and
mentoring from them is something that's
extremely valuable but also getting
their help on problems that you think
are especially tricky and wouldn't
otherwise have any way to be able to
solve them. So to take your university
experience from something that's a bit
of a waste and you don't need to be
there for, to something that you're
actually getting a lot of value from you
really need to go from being a passive
participant of the university to being
an active one and the quicker you
realize what you're paying for and what
the value of your university degree is I
think the better off you will be.
I myself only realize a lot of this
value kind of in hindsight after
graduating. So I went to university I did
physics and maths and I don't regret
going although plenty of the time that I
spent there I guess maybe was a waste of
time, I did plenty of courses that I've
completely forgotten now, I spent a lot
of time being stressed and cramming
material and learning in a bit of a sub
optimal way to just get the grades I
wanted and to get through but luckily
and I feel grateful for this, is that
I was a pretty active participant. I was
engaged with lots of extracurricular
things like clubs and societies at
university, I was involved in running the
physics society at my university I even
did like a few sort of side projects
while I was there. I was involved with a
video project going around interviewing
various lecturers on physics topics and
I guess without knowing it back then I
was preparing myself to be a youtuber
but it was experiences like that,
the friends I made, connections I made
and the ability to understand academia
that have been valuable for me. Otherwise
I guess the rest of the degree was kind
of a waste of time, if I'd only just
wanted to become an expert in physics I
guess there are other ways I could have
done it. Some of the physics ideas maybe
I would have even enjoyed learning them
more online because it would have been
less stressful and I could have relaxed
a bit and taken the learning at my own
pace. I'm grateful that I was able to
gain an understanding of how the
academic world works of how scientific
research is done, how academic
publishing system works and basically
how science moves forward. I don't think
I would have that understanding if I'd
only learnt the scientific ideas from a
textbook for example and I think that
understanding of science and how it
works will be really valuable to me
because it's the field that I'd like to
make change in to educate people in and
to be a part of even though I might not
be part of the conventional academic
community anymore. There are some cases
where of course university is valuable
for other reasons for example if you
want to do a qualification and the
university qualification is necessary.
Like if you want to become a doctor or
an engineer that needs to be certified, various things that actually need
this university qualification I guess
there's no other way around it and there
might even be other cases too like if
you are in a country that you don't want
to be in and you want to go to a new
country one way you can do that is with
a student visa
and I think a lot of people use student
visas to pursue a much better life for
themselves. So of course in that case
university could definitely be
worth it and not a waste of time.
Same with going on to the PhD,  a PhD
can unlock doors to getting jobs in a
new country and getting a visa to move
countries so if that's something you
want to do then definitely it could open
doors for you and it wouldn't be a waste.
There is the whole question of cost as
well and I think whether or not
university is worth it in terms of the
money is a bit of a different question
because it kind of depends on what
country you're in. I feel lucky to be in
Australia and to have gone to university
across Australia in New Zealand where
university is not that cheap but it's
also not as expensive as I hear that it
is in places like the US. If money is a
huge barrier for you then of course you
need to weigh up whether it's worth it
for you even more carefully because you
also need to weigh up whether it is
financially worth it maybe even if
you're in the US and you have the chance
to maybe you could get a student visa
off to Europe or somewhere where
university is extremely cheap or even
free but I don't know how practical that
advice will be for everyone. Some people
will go to university because they don't
really know what else to do and there's
an idea that going to university is a
great place to just figure out what you
want to do. Well sure you can do that at
university but that is also going to
depend on how active you are while
you're there. Are you making
connections with people in an industry
that you think is exciting and you'd
like to explore more? Are you taking
research projects? Are you actually
getting involved in some of the stuff
to the point where you can figure out if
it's the right path for you or are you
just endlessly floating around in the
breeze? Because I guess you can do that
at university but you can also float
around and the breeze outside of
university you can do that at home as
well. So sure university is a place of
many opportunities it can help you figure
out what you want to do
but only if you're kind of actively
thinking while you're there otherwise
it's very possible to graduate from
university and on the day you graduate
be just as lost as the day you
graduated high school, I guess it's
possible to make no progress on that
front. There are plenty of clever and
successful people who never went to uni
you'll find some that will say that it's
a waste of time but you'll also find
some that say maybe they wish they went.
Same with the university graduates some
will be doing well, some will be doing
less well. I guess to summarize the
advice it's that university can
definitely be a waste of time and it can
also be valuable so if you're going to
invest in it and you decide that it's
worth the money for you then you kind of
have to make sure that you also make it
worth your time and I guess you do that
by either being active or being passive
and recognizing what you're paying for
and what the value of university really
is. So if you're a student I hope you go
out there and and make some good
connections and appreciate the people
that you're working alongside because
that is what's going to be really
powerful for you. Best wishes and thanks
for watching.
