Stephens - Hacking your education ditch the lectures, save tens of thousands, and learn more than your peers ever will

Dale grabs you on the first page and wont let you go. If youre about to go to college and you dont have the guts to read this book first, you deserve exactly what you end up with instead.

Seth Godin, author of Stop Stealing Dreams

The traditional path to getting an education and establishing your career has been disrupted. In this remarkable book, Dale shows exactly how to create your own educational experience and live life on your own terms.

Dan Schawbel, bestselling author of Me 2.0 and founder of Millennial Branding

The ROI on college has plummeted while alternative pathways have proliferated. For savvy hackademics, as Dale calls them, there are better, faster, cheaper alternatives. Young people should build a plan for a cost-effective degree and/or follow Dales advice to hack a better education.

Tom Vander Ark, managing director of Learn Capital and author of Getting Smart: How Digital Learning Is Changing the World

The DIY education revolution is in full force. Before you spend another dollar on tuition, you owe it to yourself to read this book.

Chris Guillebeau, author of The $100 Startup

College students pay more than quadruple in real terms what their parents paid twenty-five years ago for a vague credential, grim job prospects, and a crippling amount of debt. With Hacking Your Education and the UnCollege movement, Dale Stephens makes a compelling case that talented and motivated people can avoid this never-never land and learn even more.

Peter Thiel, entrepreneur, investor, philanthropist, and cofounder of PayPal

This is the book colleges dont want you to read. Because if more young people read this important book, the professors and college presidents would be out of jobs, but the students would get a much better education without all the debt and bullshit.

Michael Ellsberg, author of The Education of Millionaires

Brilliant and incredibly useful to anyone already doubting the school system but unsure of the alternate path. Dales book is one step ahead, showing you great and practical examples of how to thrive without limits, without school.

Derek Sivers, founder of CD Baby and author of Anything You Want

HACKING

YOUR EDUCATION

Ditch the Lectures, Save Tens of Thousands, and Learn More Than Your Peers Ever Will

DALE J. STEPHENS

A PERIGEE BOOK

A PERIGEE BOOK

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

USA / Canada / UK / Ireland / Australia / New Zealand / India / South Africa / China

Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

For more information about the Penguin Group, visit penguin.com

Copyright 2013 by Dale J. Stephens

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

PERIGEE is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

The P design is a trademark belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

First edition: March 2013

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Stephens, Dale J.

Hacking your education : ditch the lectures, save tens of thousands, and learn more than your peers ever will / Dale J. Stephens.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-399-15996-1

eBook ISBN 978-1-101-61968-1

1. Self-culture. 2. Education, Higher. I. Title.

LC32.S74 2013

371.39'43dc23 2012045086

Text design by Kristin del Rosario

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, Internet addresses, and other contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Most Perigee books are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotions, premiums, fund-raising, or educational use. Special books, or book excerpts, can also be created to fit specific needs. For details, write: Special Markets, Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

CONTENTS

For my parents. Thank for your love and the freedom you gave me.

ABOUT UNCOLLEGE.ORG

UnCollege.org offers self-directed learners resources to help hack their education in the form of online content and real-world educational experiences. Hackademics Camps offer a deep dive into self-directed learning. In 2013, the UnCollege Gap Year program will launch, offering an exclusive group of ten young people the opportunity to explore self-directed learning for a year instead of going to college. To apply, visit www.uncollege.org/gapyear.

INTRODUCTION

You wasted $150,000 on an education for $1.50 in late fees at the public library?

MATT DAMON IN GOOD WILL HUNTING

SO, WHERE DO YOU GO TO SCHOOL?

I turned to the speaker, a motherly looking woman in her midforties. We were at a cocktail party at a hip bar in Palo Alto, the center of Silicon Valley, so she expected me to say Stanford, the university just a mile away. Instead, I said: I dont. I dropped out of elementary school. And I dropped out of college.

Her eyes widened. What do you do instead? Where do you live? How do you support yourself?

Before I could answer any of these questions, she stopped, looked at me very seriously, and asked, Do you have a girlfriend?

Was there something very obvious that I wasnt understanding? Is the purpose of college really as straightforward as finding a girlfriend (or in my case, a boyfriend)? If thats the case, Ive been totally wasting my time.

The question of where you went to school is one everyone gets asked. We ask because we assume that school is a positive experience and a formative part of our lives. But maybe were asking the wrong thing. After all, this woman didnt really care where I went to college. If Id said Stanford, she would have nodded, smiled, and moved on to an equally superficial question like Where do you live? This question-and-answer game reflects a malady of society: university descriptions as self-descriptions.

Perhaps what we should be asking at cocktail parties is not, Where do you go to school? but, Why did you go to school? Answering that question requires some thought. And you might not know the answer. Theres nothing wrong with going to school, but if you attend a university, you should know exactly why youre doing it.

My own path to this point had been circuitous, to say the least. I dropped out of school after fifth grade. I hadnt received any formal education for more than six years. Instead of sitting in class in high school, copying notes from a blackboard, Id spent the last six years working on political campaigns, living in France, and starting my own businesses. And yet here I was at a university. Despite years of experience to the contrary, I still felt that all roads led to an ivy-covered institution.

Going to college is meant to be the culmination of twelve years of hard work, determination, and study. Youre told that if you get good grades, ace the SAT, and do lots of extracurriculars, youll get into a good university. The reasoning seems solid when youre in high schoolafter all, everyone tells you that college graduates earn more and are less likely to be unemployed.