Please go to College

  The new trend nowadays is to frame people who get college degrees as worthless freeloaders who are taking on unnecessary debt and gaining a useless education that could be obtained in a library. People quote that obnoxious Good Will Hunting scene, where Matt Damon goes up to a pretentious Harvard student and reminds him that Matt Damon had a similar education for a much smaller price ( 150 dollars in Library fees). This is supposed to be a hyperbolic statement of course, yet people take it to heart. What people fail to acknowledge is the continuation of the scene where Matt Damon admits his kids will be serving McDonald's to the pretentious gentlemen. So let me make this clear. You are not Matt Damon. You are not a genius. The kind of intelligence exhibited in Good Will Hunting is not typical, it's not even above average, it's incredibly rare. So please stop citing my favorite movie for your own insecurities.
  Now I want you all to stop telling kids to not go to college. It's obnoxious. Are there people who are successful without a college degree? Yes. This isn't a post claiming college is necessary for success. But the overwhelming majority of people need college to be successful. Why? College opens doors. Your college degree makes you more qualified than a random person on the street who decides to apply for your job. In terms of starting your career, college is the boost you need to get the experience you want so you can remain marketable. People often bring up entrepreneurs who easily outclass college graduates. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and the gang are all examples of bright young minds who decided to forgo college for experience. Now I want you to give me the list of people who didn't get jobs because they didn't have college degrees. That's a much harder list to construct because no employer would outright admit they rejected someone because they have no college degree, but I'm sure there are plenty of employers who either reject people without degrees or prefer people with degrees.
  Poor students who hear this mantra of "don't go to college" are the ones who are hurt the most by it. Poor students who are academically successful can easily be persuaded to forgo the costs of college. Rich and upper middle class students may whine and groan, but as long as their moms and dads are picking up the tab, they let out a long sigh and say "might as well". Poor students will hear about entrepreneurial work ethic and the overbearing costs of college. They also don't want to put their parents in the awkward position of saying no to their education. So it's easier to just not go.  But that's a mistake. Even for those technically gifted, it can be a challenge landing an interview with Google or Microsoft, when they typically give their internships to college students. There will always be success stories that defy the odds. But everyone cannot be an outlier. Eventually the institutions set in place for proficiency in this country will bring down those who have decided to reject the system. The day companies stop using college degrees as a prerequisite for their careers is the day I will recant everything I said here. But until then, stop telling kids to not go to college. Stop labeling every student who leaves college without a job as a freeloader. The economy is hard, jobs are difficult to find. Finally, please stop it with the "college isn't for everyone" nonsense. I hate it when people say that. It's typically targeted towards poorer students who are "low achievers" in high school. I do agree college isn't for everyone, but with the variety of colleges and classes in this country, college is surely for most people.

List of random job offers where Bachelors is expected
http://jobs.bloomberg.com/job/London-2014-Financial-Product-Sales-and-Analytics-Polish-speaker-Job/43259900/
https://www.google.com/about/careers/search/#!t=jo&jid=21435001&
https://www.google.com/about/careers/search/#!t=jo&jid=33635001&
http://www.goldmansachs.com/careers/students-and-graduates/our-programs/americas-programs/new-analyst-copy.html


And I'm pretty sure the list can go on and on.

Now I don't want this to be post be taken as a Carte blanche for taking on an insurmountable amount of debt for your degree in Classical civilizations. That's a whole different ballgame that requires an expert in personal finances.

Bias:  I am a graduate of the University of Michigan. 

Elliot Rodger's wasn't psychotic, he was acting like a guy and that's the real problem. TW: Rape

      Most articles have called Mr. Rodger's racist beliefs to be irrelevant (they're not, but I won't be discussing them here). Most people have called out his banter as sexist beliefs gone too far ( once something is sexist, it's already gone too far). And finally, mental illness has been used as a criticism shield for what honestly does not seem as irrational as people make it out to be. Many have portrayed his actions as the musings of a psychotic, but if one examines nerd culture and how it has become embedded in mainstream culture, then the sick inspiration for his massacre becomes quite clear.
      Now don't take that as an advocacy for what he did. On the contrary, this is my attempt at being as frank as possible about what many men refuse to admit about Rodger's actions. I have been around plenty of men who would have joked about doing what he said he was going to do in his manifesto. Everyone in the male community seems to be saving face with this dumbfounded game of "who would honestly do this", but at least in many nerd and geek circles, the murdering of women, especially "popular" women is something joked about in closed doors among mostly male audiences. Now the nerd culture aspect of this case has been covered in this article by the daily beast, but one key aspect the author failed to address is how nerd culture has become embedded in main stream culture. You see many people who consider themselves a part of "nerd/geek culture" like to delude themselves into believing people still openly make fun of people over playing video games, being intelligent, and liking comic books. I mean come on nerd iconography is everywhere. Nowadays to be cool, you need to be a bit of a nerd and the qualifying statements people used to give about liking video games and knowing a lot about Star Wars is no longer necessary. Does this mean mainstream culture has adopted all of Nerd Culture? No, there is plenty of Nerd culture that is too anti conformist to be adopted into mainstream culture.
     However, misogyny has always existed and those aspects of nerd culture fit right into this 21st century world, where oppression occurs through forced smiles and institutional barriers. Nerd misogyny is especially adaptive to 21st century misogynists because as it currently exists it is usually done anonymously and can be easily discounted through the "timid nerd"rouse (e.g. the nerd blames his social awkwardness for his social faux pas). We can see it in the tremendous amount of hostility male gamers show towards female gamers. We can see it in many an angry nerd rant one could find on youtube. If people think Elliot Rodger's videos are unique, then I am sad to say that I've seen plenty of videos where men lament over women not liking them and eventually come to the same conclusion Rodger's had (i.e. women must be wrong, since I am entitled to them). This leads to a regular proliferation of rape/violent fantasies. These fantasies are told in the form of a joke or a hypothetical. There is always some sort of misdirection that absolves the men discussing the fantasy of their shame. The fantasy always picks on an illusion of a "popular girl" caste that has been denied to the men and stereotypes these women as "sluts". What is disturbing is how much has changed since when an actual popularity caste system existed, the 1950s (think of the movie Grease). Today a diversity of cliques are given prestige and acknowledgement, especially in college. In short, nerds want to pretend that they have been spited by an immutable caste system that prevents them from dating "popular pretty girls", when such a caste system doesn't exist and even if it did the culture milieu of mainstream culture is in their favor anyways. To make matters worse, many nerds aren't even what we'd consider to be the traditional "nerd". Drop the pocket protector and glasses, many "nerds" are suave, good looking, and socially competent individuals. Yet they'll still cry the victim and use that fake victimization as an excuse to joke about violent acts towards women.
     This post is meant to cut through the bullshit. Many people have called it misogyny, but efforts such as #notallmen like to plant a seed of doubt, which insinuates that most men don't do things like this. Sorry to break it to ya, but as far as I know, many men do think about things like this. And they laugh and constantly joke to their buddies about it. It's not some mystery as to where this stereotypical generalization of sorority houses come from and it's not mystery as to why he believes he's entitled to women. Most men do believe they are entitled to women. That's the problem.