A Career Hackers Classic, this post originally appeared in full on the blog of Jame Altucher, author and entrepreneur.

Our takeaway:

  • College is dead. Don’t sit in classrooms. Go build experiences! Master a skill, travel, go fail at something. This will build creative audacity to propel you into a mindset or boldness, growth, and independence. (If you document your work it’ll help you prove your ability to work a job, too).

Here’s a great excerpt from James’ post:

What do you learn when you are young and start a business (regardless of success or failure):

  • you learn how to come up with ideas that will be accepted by other people
  • you begin to build your bullshit detector (something that definitely does not happen in college)
  • you learn how to sell your idea
  • you learn how to build and execute on an idea
  • you meet and socialize with other people in your space. They might not all be the same age but, let’s face it, thats life as an adult. You just spent 18 years with kids your age. Grow up!
  • you might learn how to delegate and manage people
  • you learn how to eat what you kill, a skill also not learned by college-goers

Read the full post here.

James Altucher is an entrepreneur and angel investor who has achieved the rank of chess master. He is the author of the Wall Street Journal bestselling book “Choose Yourself.” James has started 20 companies, 17 of which have failed. But he’s learned a lot along the way.