“I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.”

“i had no idea what i wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out.”

“The recruiters came and talked with us in school, and I remember it like yesterday. I wasn't interested. I told them I wanted to do something good. I told them I wanted to help people. I told them I couldn't do it, told them I wasn't interested. But they told me that there was no better way to do good and help people. They told me they helped people all the time. Doing good was what they were about. Plus they were going to pay me. Where else could I get paid for helping people? Plus they would pay for my college. Plus, in addition to helping people, and paying me, and paying for my college, they would teach me a skill. I would be helping people, and seeing the world, and earning money, and having college paid for, and learning a skill that I could use later to earn money and help people. In the end, it was a pretty easy decision.”

“ONE THING I AM NEVER GOING TO DO WHEN I GROW UPIs fall in love, drop out of college, learn to subsist on water and air, have a species named after me, and ruin my life.”

“At that point in my life, I was not looking for a career. I viewed my first decade after college as a time to explore. I didn't want anchors to hold me down. If something caught my attention, I would try it. If not, I would move on.”

“…not that it’s any of your damn business, but my entire life has just been assfucked. I’ve been left a shithole bar by a father that I didn’t even know I had, and if that isn’t enough, I had to drop out of college because the bar came with a kid too.”