The application of calculus to business dynamics sounds pretty fascinating to me. The whole point of such courses, as I see it, is not to prove that you you will lose money on a crappy product, but to look at this idea in higher resolution. Naturally, this has the corollary that you could also see the dynamics of success in an equally high detail. Which would be useful.

John

“The map is not the territory.” ……… I Keep hearing this phrase a lot :)

Great post …

Thanks

Alexander

I’m newer to your world than many, and lately I’ve been catching up on some of your older posts, like this one re: creating your own MBA. I like very much these ideas! I am an engineer by training, but have developed interests in public policy issues, so . . . perhaps I’ll use your ideas to dive deeper. A question in response to your post – Do you believe your “create your own” strategy applies to undergraduate studies?! This question is expanded below, as I’m trying to convince my brother to attend college (he’s only graduated high school) but am waring out my own “wisdom.” Might I tap yours?

Thanks so much,
Caleb, in Virginia

P.S. – Sorry about the volume; it’s more of an e.mail than a blog comment. I guess I’m getting desparate for my brother – I’m risking really irritating the snot out of you! Perhaps it’ll help to know that I promote your books to all I know; even my very 9-5ish dad is going to borrow my audio copy of 4HWW!

*************************************

When my brother graduated from high school in 2007, he said he’d not attend college; he was the only of his close circle of friends NOT to. At the time, he rebuffed multiple attempts by multiple relatives and friends to convince him otherwise. We live in a city with a major American university and he’s been part of a youth outreach group since 2007 that has kept him close (in both proximity and friendship) with several guys attending this top-tier school. Through all of these college-attending friends, my brother has clear pictures of what college has and has not been for them. He has continued to live with my parents (smart, given the circumstances) and has earned money from a combination of 1) a lawn care business he started as a teenager and 2) selling insurance with my father’s business. He has become increasingly interested over the last 18 months in big-dream sorts of entrepreneurial pursuits. He loves reading SUCCESS magazine and being motivated by people like John Maxwell. His original objection to attending college was that it “just was not his thing.” However, his friends’ experiences (classes, internships, and job prospects) have forged a belief that much of college is irrelevant to actual jobs and life. All of the traditional reasons to attend college I and my wife could think of when he was 18 remain ineffective. We also have a good local community college, so he took a macroeconomics course in the fall of 2010 (unfortunately, it sounded like he got a HORRIBLE teacher; nice . . . !), but his response was that it bored him and he thought it irrelevant to his job preferences. I tried to get him to attend college years ago, but I relented in order to prevent from ruining our relationship over it. Then, I started encouraging him in the entrepreneurial path he was trying to forge so as to not just keep raining on him with condemnation – whether explicit or implicit. I figured, “Hey, just b/c I’m not doing that doesn’t mean I should keep forcing this on him.” In the last year, I’ve started having my own regrets about risks or challenges I avoided by opting for a traditional 9-5 office job path. So, I’ve arrived at the point where I want to not only strongly encourage his creativity, risk-taking, and entrepreneurial pursuits but also strongly encourage him to attend college to ensure he has that base. I’ve seen recent articles about majoring in entrepreneurship in college, which I was previously unaware of, so I wonder if this would be a good idea. But more generally, I request that you share your belief about college in the modern era as it relates to both the job market at large and successful entrepreneurship. Are there litmus tests you recommend to help folks make a decision about attending college?

Thank you SO much for your consideration and time; if you recommend resources other than your own/staff’s answer, those would be most appreciated, as well,
Caleb