The Fetishization of Dropping Out- Adrian Daub

 In Adrian Daub’s book, What Tach Calls Thinking he examines the ideologies that exist within Silicon Valley. The first chapter of the book discusses how society specifically tech society has fetishized dropping out of Ivey League/elite universities and colleges in order to pursue their start-up to eventually become the next big CEO. He argues that this idea has become fetishized by society and allows the common individual to believe that dropping out of school to pursue your dreams is the way to do it because individuals such as Bill Gates did the same therefore the “if they can do why can’t I” mindset is created. This ideology creates a need or urgency to always be trying to find the next best thing and not to waste one’s time receiving an education however this fails to realize that Bill Gates was a part of the top one percent in which he received an abundance of help from others however this is not the case with the average individual. This is also an ideology that has been reinforced on social media, many motivational speakers will argue that school and education breeds employees and not employers and in order to end up like the top 1% such as Bill Gates one has to do the unordinary, therefore, they encourage others to drop out school hence the fetishization around the concept. 

 

Do you think that school creates employees instead of employers? 

Comments

  1. Sharmaine Ehi-AkatueApril 25, 2022 at 1:50 PM

    This is a very relevant topic for today as I think it is very common to now see a romanticized portrayal of one dropping out of school, struggling, and making it on their own. I do agree with the sentiment that school is not always necessary for one to make it in whatever industry they want to be in, however I think that this portrayal of a romanticized view of dropping out is misleading in a lot of ways. Firstly, when discussing these topics we hear a lot of people mention names like Bill Gates as you did but the problem with using these people as examples is they are the successful examples and people only ever talk about the successful examples rather than the thousands of others who have done the same and are instead struggling substantially. Additionally, I think there may be some other reasons for those who have dropped out being considered and associated as being employers rather than employees for example many individuals who choose drop out are more likely to naturally have characteristics of being independent and self sufficient and someone with those qualities is more likely to go on that path of starting their own business or something like that. I do not think that it is necessarily that schools are creating employees rather than employers because it is very clear that many individuals who go to school still go on the path of becoming employers I think it is rather instead more about the individual themselves.

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