Lane Wallace explains why you should go to college, even if you major in something dumb like semiotics:
I figured out the true value of a college degree not in the lofty halls of Brown University, but in a corrugated cardboard factory in New Zealand. I’d taken a “leave of absence” as they call it, after my sophomore year, to figure out if I really wanted to pay all that money learn things that seemed, well … a tad non-essential, at best.
I packed a backpack and took off for the romantic frontier-land of New Zealand with nothing but $500 and a working visa in my pocket. The six months I spent there were a far cry from what I thought the adventure would be, but it was educational. Culminating in my job at the cardboard factory — where I was surrounded by people who hated their jobs but had no other viable option.
In a flash, I grasped the true value of a college degree. It didn’t matter what I majored in. It didn’t even matter all that much what my grades were. What mattered was that I got that rectangular piece of paper that said, “Lane Wallace never has to work in a corrugated cardboard factory again.”
Cubicle rats take note. No matter how put upon you think you are, there are lots and lots of people worse off than you.
