In a nutshell, the book is pretty much a "how to" guide for any young person who wants to map out their own path outside the traditional (and expensive) university route and get a great job or start their own business at the end of it. It's full of case studies of friends and acquaintances who, for whatever reason, didn't attend university at all or dropped out and made successes of themselves through grit, determination, good luck and a fair amount of blagging and hustling.
Stephens thinks there are 3 main reasons why we go to university: the social experience, to get a job, and to learn for learning's sake. He argues we can get these things in the real world, without having to pay out for university and have more fun in the process.
So far, so good. But how? Stephens has tonnes of suggestions. Figure out what you're really interested in. Commit to learning outside the classroom. Make a to-learn list, find someone or a group of people to keep you accountable, and put yourself out there (he suggests setting up a personal website that becomes your online portfolio of experiences). Learn in groups with other like minded people. Figure out your talents and how you learn best. Find mentors and teachers. Network, have lots of coffees. Use technology, become a writer or a programmer! Gate crash conferences and university lectures! Take advantage of free educational resources. Have your 2 minute pitch ready! Start up a company. Travel the world! Don't pursue traditional jobs through traditional routes (never send in your CV!). Get a job through your network. They'll call you! (Well, sort of - that happened to some of the people in the case studies). Phew. As he says at the start, this is not a book about dropping out and taking the easy option.
In the book he also talks about Peter Thiel, the tech entrepreneur and co-founder of PayPal, who set up the Thiel Fellowship in 2010 to give grants to people under 20 to spur them to quit college and pursue their own ventures (Stephens is part of this programme). This quote from Thiel made me think back to my post on expectations:
"The problem that exists with schooling is that it ends up convincing most people that they're mediocre, and then the talented people get regrouped and are forced to compete with each other, and then most of them get convinced they're mediocre as well, and you sort of cycle and repeat, until people's dreams and aspirations are badly beaten out of them over time."
What did I learn from all of this? Well, I had no idea that universities like MIT in the US had made their course materials available for free online (yes, really! See here). Not only that, you can listen to university lectures on iTunes U, including from Harvard, which I think is pretty amazing. I'm tempted to take a few modules... Also the case studies in Hacking your Education are full of examples of young people basically designing their own jobs, just as Roman Krznaric suggests in How to Find Fulfilling Work. It's reinforcing the message to put aside other people's expectations and do your own thing.
On reflection, it made me realise that there are loads of examples of people who have "hacked their education". Dynamo the magician (who I wrote about here) could quite easily have been a case study in this book. Someone else I'm a fan of, the writer Caitlin Moran, could have been too - she educated herself in her local library and subsequently blagged her way to becoming a writer. Also, these twin sisters taught themselves to embroider by watching youtube videos and are now sought after artists. I find these stories so inspiring. You can learn anything you want! It's all out there waiting for you.
