Three weeks before the end of my second year at uni, I found myself thinking “Should I drop out of uni?” Well, if I’m being entirely honest I was actually thinking “How do I drop out of uni?” I had actually made my mind up quite quickly and was simply thinking about the logistics, here’s why:
I went to study music production, but I made the mistake of researching and actually producing music before I went on the course. By the time I went to my classes I was sitting there thinking “I know this already. This is what I was teaching myself last month.”
To be honest though, the main reason I went to uni was for the money and to buy time to generate a comfortable income from my creative pursuits. Unfortunately, it didn’t give me near enough money as I had hoped. I could barely invest anything into my career because going uni had also brought on more expenses like travelling and I had to focus on surviving. That led to me completing assignments not because I wanted the degree, but just so I could continue surviving off of student loan. I eventually decided that uni was taking up way too much of my time and subsequently hindering my career growth in many respects.
I’ve also never believed in the educational system. I dislike that we’re taught to be obedient and regurgitate facts that are often of no use in the real world. I prefer to teach myself what I want and need to know using the internet. At uni, anything a lecturer read off his PowerPoint was just as easily found online, and there was often no unique perspective or extra information added.
Five weeks before the end of my second year, I looked at my assessments and I thought “Wow, this looks long.” That’s when I realised I was wasting my time. I started to think about all the things I could do with the time that I was wasting on these assignments. I had actually stopped attending uni a few months prior and was working on everything from home whilst teaching myself. This gave me more time to actually learn a lot of things that were useful to my career goals. I eventually took a step back and looked at all the skills I had honed and cultivated by not attending uni, at that point I decided to focus on that instead.
Now I’m offering social media management, artist development, mixing and mastering, custom music and more over on JCMpire.com. I’ll still be making music and blogging regularly though. My hope is that I can live off the money earned from these services and also make music in my free time.
I personally think I should’ve dropped out of uni sooner.
What do you think, how are you feeling about uni? Let me know in the comments section below.