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NOT Going to College was the BEST Decision of My Life - YouTube
Channel: Nathaniel Drew
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I'm 21 years old and I would be a junior
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if I were going to college but I don't
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I decided three years ago that it wasn't
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right for me that it wasn't a good use
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of my time and energy and this isn't
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just the gap your sort of situation I
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have no interesting going period now I
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come from a family where both of my
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parents were the first ones in their
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families to go to college
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so is it arrogant for me to make this
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decision to not go to college well I
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don't think so and I'd like to share why
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I think that first of all I just like to
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say that if you are going to college and
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you're really enjoying it and it's right
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it feels right for you or you're trying
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to be like a doctor or a lawyer or
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something then this isn't for you a
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college is right for some people but but
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I think that if you're looking at
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college as investment in your education
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in your future I think there are better
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alternatives my first reason for
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deciding not to go to college is the
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internet if you have a device that can
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connect to the internet then you
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essentially have access to all of human
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knowledge that's the amazing power of
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the internet it has democratized
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information so the question then becomes
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how self-disciplined are you how much
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energy and effort are you willing to put
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into diving deep into a topic there are
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articles and forums and videos on pretty
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much anything out there and that's how I
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learned how to shoot and edit video and
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that ended up leading to work as a
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videographer and as an editor I finished
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my high school diploma at the local
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college so I did take a few college
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classes and I can't tell you how many
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times I took a class where the teacher
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essentially just gave us the information
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that was in the textbook that we had to
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buy to take the class and nothing else
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and that is a textbook that you could
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buy on your own and absorb on your own
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you could learn those things by yourself
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I'm not saying all teachers are like
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that and I'm not saying all classes are
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like that but I think it illustrates the
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point that with enough effort and like
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self ownership a little bit of
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responsibility you can you can learn
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anything friends of mine that are going
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to college have told me that they are
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often forced to take and pay for classes
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that they're not interested in or are
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completely unrelated to what they're
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there
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for in the first place not only is that
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a waste of your time and energy but it's
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not really a recipe for success we live
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in a specialized world it's way more
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valuable to be really good at one thing
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than kind of good at a bunch of things
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all right so the second reason for why
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not going to college made a lot of sense
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to me honestly is the fact that the
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stakes are a lot lower
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I can fail in all kinds of different
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stuff and not suffer anywhere near the
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consequences the average student after
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four years of schooling in the US has
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over $30,000 in student debt basically
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what that means is that as long as I'm
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able to keep a net worth of zero so not
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even make any money but as long as I can
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stay away from losing any money and
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getting into debt I am way ahead of the
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curve and not having debt offers me
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something else it offers me peace of
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mind I can make all kinds of mistakes
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and be you know a young adult trying to
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figure things out in life without
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suffering from mice mistakes you know
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what I mean without feeling like I'm
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digging myself into a hole that I cannot
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get out of I could afford to leap into
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freelancing as a filmmaker because I
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wasn't scrabbled with debt and that gave
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me the time to get things going and
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improve and get better the argument
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against that is that yes but a degree is
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worth something which may be I mean yeah
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it's worth something but I don't think
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it's worth what you're paying for in
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most cases
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okay so let's create a scenario here
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where you're paying twenty thousand
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dollars a year to go to school for four
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years
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we're not even consider going out of
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state or going to a high-end university
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because that would cost a lot more like
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40 or even $60,000 per year think about
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how much you can do how much you can
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accomplish in a year as a young healthy
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adult with $20,000 and a little bit of
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discipline instead of studying Spanish
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in college for example you could very
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easily go live in Ecuador or Argentina
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or Spain learn the language much more
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intimately have an incredible cultural
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experience and spend less money would be
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less expensive that's what I did I
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didn't need
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for years I went to live in Argentina
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for four months and in that time not
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only was I able to learn a ton about the
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language and get much better at it but I
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learned a lot about myself and it was an
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amazing experience overall in terms of
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growth and in terms of exposure to new
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things and that whole experience cost me
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around five thousand dollars so way way
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less than the 80 grand that it would
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cost you to do four years of schooling
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to get a Spanish degree in college
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instead of studying business for four
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years you could start your own company
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with twenty thousand dollars four times
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and have the luxury to fail three of
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those times and again this is my opinion
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but if you don't know what you want to
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do which is most people most people do
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not know what they want to do I think
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it's better to experiment and try things
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out for as little money as possible than
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to be doing it and spending all kinds of
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money that you don't necessarily have
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and putting yourself in a vulnerable
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position for a while I thought that I
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wanted to be a sound guy and you know be
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like the guy that holds the boom on set
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and it turns out I don't and that didn't
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cost me anything to find out all I
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needed to do was try it a couple of
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times and see if I liked it and you know
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what else I found out and this was
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life-changing you can get paid to learn
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I was a PA for a long time so our
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production assistant on film sets so I
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would help out in any way that I could
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oftentimes it was kind of lame right so
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I was going and getting people coffee I
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was running to Target to pick up props
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but it was an incredible opportunity
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experience to learn and observe from
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other people around me and figure out if
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I liked working on commercials or if I
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liked working on movies and to ask
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questions and get paid all the while
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doing that once you realize that that's
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a possibility
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why would you do it any other way
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there's another advantage career
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momentum if you're lucky enough to
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graduate from college and go straight
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into a fulfilling job I commend you but
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that's not usually how it works just
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because you have a title doesn't mean
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the world owes you anything and I found
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especially as a freelancer in particular
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but I think this applies to anybody that
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it takes time it takes hustling and
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patience to get things off the ground
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and so in this sense the fact that I
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gave myself the time to pick things up
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and figure out what I'm good at and
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you're out how I like to work I feel
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like I got this big head start because
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all the while all of my friends are
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going to school I'm doing what they're
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going to be doing once they graduate the
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argument that college is great for
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meeting people and networking is a valid
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one I'm not even going to disagree with
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that but it's not like it suddenly
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becomes impossible to do that once
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you're out of college I found that going
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to events inviting people to coffee or
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lunch or interning at different
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companies has been a fantastic way for
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me to expand my network and to find new
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work opportunities and ultimately I
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found that through research it didn't
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feel like college really prepares you
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for the rest of real life my goal in
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creating this was not at all to make
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anybody regret their decisions or to
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shame anybody it's just to share my
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point of view my way of seeing things
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and that's the whole point of college
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right intellectual diversity if you
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enjoyed this video hit that subscribe
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button a lot more videos coming soon I
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talk a lot about mental clarity and
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stuff like digital minimalism
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and I'm excited to share that with the
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world so if that interests you stick
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around and finally if you believed in my
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message I want to support this channel
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and help me create more videos consider
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checking out my patreon there's a link
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to it down below I started to add
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exclusive content bonus episodes behind
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the scenes that sort of thing so check
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it out all right
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see you guys
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[Music]
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you
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