I’m getting a lot of questions about why I don’t just go to college and get graded on my actual analyses. To answer those questions quickly: Because I’m making a lot of money doing what I already love (enough to make me happy, anyway, though a personal goal of mine is to continue steadily leaping income brackets as I have been), and because there is currently no area of study in college that I knowingly want to aggressively pursue (other than, perhaps, communications, marketing, and sociology or psychology — but again, I read the required texts for these classes on my free time anyway).

Also, again as I’ve mentioned in blog posts on heycheri.com, the modern job market is changing. From conversations I’ve shared with founders and CEOs in the current market, me personally heading back to school for four years would be a waste of my time. Hiring managers also agree with this assessment as, again, my current experience in my chosen field largely exceeds that of whoever may have gone to school to simply study what I am already doing.

It’s different, of course, for people who really need school to get the jobs they want, and I have nothing against anyone going to college. I support the idea of an education. In fact, the idea of becoming well-versed in fundamentals and basics is extremely important to me, and is exactly why you’ll catch me reading textbooks you’d normally find in a college setting or writing these lengthy annotations on my blog, but just “for fun”.

Again, there is nothing wrong with self-teaching, and really, logically speaking there will always be someone ahead of you or behind you in terms of your grasp of knowledge in certain subjects. If this were not the case, how would professors have jobs?

For me, because of course I didn’t study certain concepts deeply in an academic setting, I am instead studying the things I become naturally curious about on my free time and for leisure (though obviously there are some people who take the study of certain subjects much more seriously than I do).

I’d like to point out, however, that even when I was in college full-time, I still wrote lengthy blog entries about psychoanalysis, and continued to annotate very publicly my views on the basic concepts grasped during class. This is just something that I do, have done, and will always do until I fucking die. Lol.

So in addressing those of you who believe I shouldn’t be sharing my insights because I should only be sharing them if I’m in a college setting, I just disagree with that idea completely. I would still be sharing my insights regardless of what environment I’m in, and I have old blog entries to back up this claim. This is how I process, retain, and learn information. I find it fun to document my learning process. :) And exciting to look back on what I knew, versus what I’m currently learning, or predict what I might know in the future based on my current pace of growth. It’s fun to observe this process in myself.

And to those of you sharing your excited insights with me about the same subjects I’m offering here — I know! I share your passion. I share your excitement for learning these things. I know exactly how you feel. Haha! It’s like your mind is being blown, right? Feel free to continue reaching out to me. I love geeking out with you guys over this stuff.

I think one of the most exciting things is when I’m able to connect with other people also interested in these mind-blowing moments. People in my industry who like to discuss these same things, or even readers and friends still currently in college who just like to talk about these same things outside of an academic setting — it’s fun! Just fun.

As Brian Greene said in his preface to The Elegant Universe, “I could feel the excitement while lecturing in the field — it was palpable.” Yes! While one’s ideas may not be universally accepted, the niche community who does reciprocate positively drives the excitement. Nice to find out that so many of my readers have curious and excited minds as well. I’m happy we are able to connect on this level! I’ve had so many mind-blowing conversations with friends recently on these same subjects. Ha.