Off Topic Poker Forums

I'm 20 years old, living at home, and struggling to go to community college. I've been made the move from 50NL to 100NL/100PLO a few months ago and have done well over a large sample 24 tabling putting my liferoll at ~$35k(not including a $25k car I inherited because I'd never sell that)

The majority of the classes I've enrolled in I've stopped going to. Chemistry in particular, I've failed twice, just because I can't see the point. I took the same class in High School and received an "A". 2 years later I've forgot everything I learned. So why spend so much time relearning impractical, excruciatingly boring information that in 2 years I'll forget again? I have no motivation to get a college degree because of how much tedious work it entails, the huge amount of money it will cost me, and all the people I know who have graduated with degrees the past ~5 years and are working as pizza delivery boys or as assistant managers at grocery stores.

My social life isn't good. I've lost contact with my good friends from highschool, and the only people I still talk to are the people I went to highschool with that didn't go to college or are going to the community college. I only hang out with them when they want to deviate from their regular activity of getting hammered in someone's basement/appartment -- fun right?

I very much enjoy playing poker 30-50hours/week and seem to be able to make a decent amount doing so. My plan at the moment is enroll for the fall semester at my community college while grinding a ton. If I can continue to win and get my roll to 50k-60k by December, make plans to move somewhere to play online poker for a while; give the professional poker player lifestyle a try, see if that can make me happy because what I'm doing now surely isn't.

start fight club, ldo

or join the military. same thing. see the world, meet interesting people from around the world, learn about their culture, then kill them. if it was good enough for the Greatest Generation, it's good enough for me. that's what i say.

STAY IN SCHOOL AT ALL COSTS

kinda did the same thing.
altough i wast a huge winner in poker (still not a major winner btw, but i get around fine)
i started industrial engineering science at college here.
never went to classes, just studyt for exams like a month straight, 9hr a day & it all fell into place.
obv all the things you learned high school arent going to be verry helpfull but you studiet it once so you know that you can do it, so just study it again & bank that degree

I quit school for exactly the same reasons you mentioned. I was/am making more money than basically anyone I know by playing poker, didn't particularly enjoy studying useless information or working for days on useless projects that din't really teach me anything I could actually ever use in practice.

Most importantly I absolutley hate being looked down upon, which is what happens at any school or uni. You're the student, so you can be pushed around, you can get endless amounts of tests and projects in the same month, you can get lectured about how irresponsible you are when you haven't had the time to prepare for one of them. And the reward, as you said, in very many cases is struggling to hold on to a job that has you doing a ton of physical work for slightly above minimum wage.

The whole point of getting an education is to be able to get a career or a good paying job. In Latvia, which is where I live, there are no good career choices that lead to a well paid job, the best paying profession around here is programming/web-development which pays around $2000/month. I was foolish enough to actually take all the courses for it, only to realise that it is an incredible struggle, especially when you only get 2-6 classes/week of actual programming, the rest of the around 30 classes is complete bs that just overloads your brain and is in no way usefull. Basically you just have to figure it out on your own, but you have to endure four years of all the bs classes to get the degree that only guarantees you a job interview. I lasted through 1 and a half years.

And obviously there's the money thing, poker just pays miles better than any job I could ever realistically get, with or without a degree.

Obviously the situation with the quality of education and job opportunities is different wherever you live, but it isn't exactly great anywhere, so I would advise that you stay away from any kind of university/college until you are really sure what and most imprtantly why you wanna study. Don't enlist for any courses just for the sake of it, youre just gonna end up dropping out and wasting your time, if you're like me, struggling to see the point.

It seems like you're making quite a decent amount of money playing, why not just save up, maybe take a business course and try to start something up when you're ready. Playing poker for a living can be boring at times, and your social life takes a hit, but if you're not happy now, going to school is not gonna make you any happier in the long run, you gotta look elsewhere to find happiness.

+1 to college

Stay in school, you need a back up plan for an eventual 2nd black friday.

don't stay in school for other people. you'll resent them later, and you'll waste the professors' time as well as your own and waste money to boot. do it for yourself or don't do it at all.

nowadays, unless you're pursuing advanced degrees (in which case you'll need intrinsic motivation to do well anyway, or again, you'll end up wasting your time and money), the job market for people with only a bachelor's degree sucks. this is not the 1960's. half of all high school grads go to college now. and most of them will end up working as a middle managers or keeping a seat warm in a cubicle for 40-50k a year. not worth 4 years of life and $20K+ in debt imo. you can get a cheaper vocational degree if you just want "a job."

also, if you end up in the corporate world, a lot of places have tuition assistance programs these days where they just give you money to get a degree in order to get promoted. and you'll take your education a lot more seriously in this kind of situation. +++EV

as such, i stand by my suggestion of starting a fight club.

http://www.philgalfond.com/poker-and-your-life/

Maybe a few points in here you would find usefull, regardless a good read..

Easy.

http://www.anskypoker.com/2009/06/a-hilarious-poker-victory-anthem/

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

The point of having a degree is so IF you ever decide to stop playing poker, or you HAVE to stop playing poker for whatever reason, you have the option to do something else.

You need to pass your classes to get a degree, so just go to class and do the work, it's really not that hard. You are just justifying your laziness.

Do get a degree, but think about doing it in your own time over a longer period in a subject you actually like.

Unisa is a great option for you

don't stay in school for other people. you'll resent them later, and you'll waste the professors' time as well as your own and waste money to boot. do it for yourself or don't do it at all.

nowadays, unless you're pursuing advanced degrees (in which case you'll need intrinsic motivation to do well anyway, or again, you'll end up wasting your time and money), the job market for people with only a bachelor's degree sucks. this is not the 1960's. half of all high school grads go to college now. and most of them will end up working as a middle managers or keeping a seat warm in a cubicle for 40-50k a year. not worth 4 years of life and $20K+ in debt imo. you can get a cheaper vocational degree if you just want "a job."

also, if you end up in the corporate world, a lot of places have tuition assistance programs these days where they just give you money to get a degree in order to get promoted. and you'll take your education a lot more seriously in this kind of situation. +++EV

as such, i stand by my suggestion of starting a fight club.

Was basically what I thought, I suppose it depends on what OP would wanna do if poker falls to crap, if it's go through college sticking with it might be best

I wont tell you that you have to stay in school but you have to work on some sort of a career outside of poker. If you get sick of playing or cant play or cant win anymore and you don't have any back-up you are in really deep shit career wise. If you are not going to college you should build some skill which could earn you money as a freelancer of some sort (or start a small business or a website) because you won't get hired for a decent job without having a degree or practical skill sets. I agree that in college you'll learn a ton of BS and you won't remember most of it a year after you graduate but I still think its the easiest / safest way of building a career next to poker.

Personally I loved my last year of college, grinding for a living in my spare time and still having a normal / social college life

nowadays, unless you're pursuing advanced degrees (in which case you'll need intrinsic motivation to do well anyway, or again, you'll end up wasting your time and money), the job market for people with only a bachelor's degree sucks.

Agree, but the job market for people without a degree sucks WAY harder!

Definitely stay in school and work on your social life. What you want to do at the age of 20 will be far different from what you might want to do at 25 or 30. You want to have as many options as possible for the future imo.