College is for Children

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with a quick piece to help you learn to speak fluent English effortlessly. Hi, I'm A.J. Hogue, the author of Effortless English, Learn to Speak English Like a Native. Go to EffortlessEnglishClub.com

EffortlessEnglishClub.com. Enter your email to get my free video and email course. College. You should not go to college when you're 18 years old. And parents, do not send your children to an American university.

There are many reasons for this. Today I'm going to talk about one. My first day of college, undergraduate at the University of Georgia, a typical American university.

I was moving from home, away from my family for the first time. My family drove the car with me and my stuff to the university, to the dorm room. We came up, found my room, and I opened the door to my dorm room.

When I opened it, no one was in there, but I could see that my roommate had already moved in. He had already decorated his half of the room. And do you know what kind of decorations did he have?

What do you think? Well, I'll tell you. Very, very typical decorations for an American college student. He had beer posters all over the room. Beer, beer, beer.

Everything was beer. And I immediately realized, oh my God, my new roommate is a heavy drinker. He's a partier, is what we say in English. It's a little bit kind of like slang, a partier.

is someone who likes to drink a lot and probably do other drugs as well. So he was a partier. And I wasn't. I was kind of a nerd, a geek, kind of a, you know, a guy who just kind of studied and was a good little boy in school.

And so I was like, oh my God, this guy. I've got some party guy as my roommate. This isn't good. And I looked at my parents. They looked at me. They realized, oh, this isn't good.

I could tell they were uncomfortable. They didn't like the idea of me being roommates with some guy who was 18 years old and was obviously a big, big drinker.

But anyway, I had to go off to college, right? I had to go off and live my life. And so... I unpacked all my stuff, said goodbye to my parents, and they were really sad to see me go.

And then later I did. I met my roommate, and for sure, he was a big-time partier. He was always out drinking and partying every weekend and even during the week many times.

Partying, partying, partying. But the thing is, he was not alone. He was average. He was normal. Most of the guys in the dorm, and the girls too, were big drinkers, big partiers.

They were partying all the time. There was so much alcohol all the time. And there were a lot of other drugs as well. I didn't do any of that stuff, and so I felt kind of isolated.

I felt kind of weird, like... I wasn't normal. I couldn't connect with most of the other students in the dorm because I wasn't a big drinker. They were always pushing me to drink and offering me beer and alcohol and other drugs.

And it was kind of a miserable time for me, actually. It was a miserable first year. Now, the good news is that my roommate eventually failed out of school. He had to leave college because

He was drinking and partying all the time, and finally he had to leave college. So his parents paid all that money for one year of college, and then he failed out. Why? Because he was partying so much.

This happens to large, large, large numbers of American university students. And it's not just the Americans. I met a lot of foreign students who were quite similar. I remember these Malaysian guys.

Supposedly, they weren't supposed to drink because they're Muslim, but man, they would get drunk all the time, going crazy partying. And at least one of those guys also failed out, had to go back to Malaysia.

That is the true atmosphere in American colleges and universities. Party, party, party. Drink, drink, drink, drink, and do other drugs too. at 18 years old.

And this is one of the reasons I say, do not go to college. At least, don't go when you're 18. Don't send your children to school when they're 18 years old. You know why?

It's not just the alcohol. I mean, I'm not... I'm not some kind of prude, meaning I'm not like, oh, never drink. I'm not that kind of person. I'm not even that way about drugs, to be honest.

But, um... But these things, I personally don't drink, really, not much, almost never. I don't care if people do drink, but the thing is, for an 18-year-old to go and just be partying and drinking all the time, what it does is...

It keeps them children. It keeps them having a child mindset of just party and go crazy. Don't be responsible. Don't work hard for anything. Just be passive.

Go to class. Study a little. Pass your tests. And then just party and party, party for four more years. Be a child. basically, for four more years. So it prolongs this childish mentality.

And when you think about it, it's kind of pathetic, sad. Something about it just is so weak and pitiful, I think, that we have people 20, 21, 22, still acting like childish idiots, basically.

Because, you know, I think back to, I read books by people written, let's say, in the 1800s, 1860, 1865, 1870, something like that. And you read about what their life was like, and it's just amazing. I mean, these people became men and women.

around age 15 or 16, around age 15 or 16, they were strong, they were confident, they were making their own decisions, they were making their own money, they were taking care of and even starting their own families at that point. They were doing incredible things, exploring the country, doing dangerous things, fighting in wars, leading men in battle.

16, 17-year-olds. And then you look at the average... 18-year-old now who's just such a weak child who just, party, get drunk, wee! And then 19, 20, 21, 22.

It's so much wasted time. It's so sad that we keep them as children too long. The truth is, a 16-year-old should be ready now. To be strong and independent.

They should be ready to go out there and work and make money and take care of themselves. They should be ready to start a business if they want to. Or to travel independently. Or whatever it is they want to do.

Or at least get out there and explore if they don't know what they want to do. But get out in the real world. Start making their own decisions and being responsible for their own lives.

That is what will make them strong and confident and successful and happy as they get older, instead of waiting until they're 30, 35. And so because of this, then we see this where we have people who graduate at age 22, and they have no idea still what they want to do.

They have a degree in something, but they feel kind of lost. They still, oh, I don't know. Do I really want to do this? I don't really know. What do I want to do with my life?

Because their whole life has been in school, in this little sheltered, controlled environment where they never get to make their own decisions. Someone tells them what to study. Someone tells them what to read. Someone tells them what to write.

Someone tells them what time they have to come to class. They're still treated like children, basically. And in their free time, they go and drink and party and act like idiots.

It's sad. It's sad. It seems fun. You know, when I was in undergraduate college... At the time, I thought, oh, this is fun, you know, so fun. I had no responsibility, but my parents were paying for everything.

All I had to do was go and go to class, take some tests, and let's be easy. College is easy. It's easy. It's so easy. And so it was just, you know, of course, it was all easy and fun for four years at the time.

I thought that was great. But now I look back and I realize, oh, what a mistake. What a tragedy. I wasted four years acting like a child. What if those four years I had done something useful and responsible?

What if I'd been stronger and tried to be more independent and just started making my own decisions in life and being more responsible for my own life?

Maybe I would have started Effortless English 10 years earlier. Who knows? But I would have been a stronger, more successful, happier person at an earlier age. Instead of waiting until I was 38.

And it's not just me. I see it everywhere. It is such a... It's just crazy that we're keeping our children... We're keeping them in childhood until age 22.

Sometimes longer. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. I mean, even my own dad, even just one generation back. At age 21, he already had a child, me, a new baby.

As soon as he graduated, boom, he went out and he got a job. I mean, he was already making some decisions. But then if I go back earlier, if I go back...

two or three generations in my family, it's amazing how much they were doing, how strong and confident they were when they were only 18, 17 years old.

Already they were adults, fully functioning, independent adults, making their own decisions, contributing to society, contributing to their families, and feeling that they were the masters of their own lives.

Yeah, I just get so sad and frustrated when I, because I work a lot of times with younger people, and even people who are 22, 23, 24, they're recently out of school, and they're still so lost.

Because for the first time in their lives, they are on their own, and they have to make their own decisions, and they don't know how to do it. They don't know what to do. And so many of them ask me, like, what should I do? It's like, I can't make that decision for you.

It's your life. You have to decide. I can't tell you what to do. But it's just such a habit. They've been trained for someone else to tell them what to do.

What should I do? What should I study? Will it be on the test? Is this required reading? I mean, this is the mentality of school. Well, there are no required readings in life.

You have to decide what you want to read. You have to decide what you need to learn. You have to go out there and find it and do it yourself. You have to take chances and risks.

There are no guarantees. There are no easy classes in life. There's no easy A. And there's no certainty. You never really know. You can try something, but you never really know if you're going to like it or not until you try it.

You never know if something will be successful or not until you try it. And yes, you will fail many times. See, good students in college, they never fail, and they think that's real life.

And they become terrified of failure, which is horrible. Because in real life, failure leads to success. You become a big success by failing a lot because you learn the most when you fail.

Because you take chances. You try things. You push yourself. You challenge yourself. You do things that you've never done before. And yes, you fail. You fall.

But you learn, and that's how you learn. And then you get stronger, and you realize, I failed, but I'm still alive. I failed, but I survived. I can handle failure.

I don't need to be afraid of it. I can take chances and keep going forward. That's how you build that true confidence in yourself. Not just with body movement and all that, but I mean deep down inside where you know you can handle problems.

You can handle failures. And you can keep going and you're going to be okay. That's the true deep confidence that That only comes from life experience.

And it never comes from school. And that's why so many college students, they have no confidence. None. And they graduate age 22. They should have 22 years of life experience, but they don't.

They just have 22 years of classrooms. They have no confidence, zero, because they've never challenged themselves. They've never been challenged. They've never made their own decisions.

They've never taken their own risks. They're afraid of getting an F. And so in life, they just kind of go along and try to do what's easy and And many, many, many of them are unhappy and frustrated.

Don't be that person. Don't let your children be like that. No, no, no. Please don't do it. Now, as I said, there are certain jobs that need college. We all know this.

You want to be a medical doctor. You want to be an engineer. You want to be a lawyer. Whatever. Whatever. Yes, there are plenty of jobs that need degrees, but you don't need to go when you're 18.

You don't need to do it. You can wait. Wait a few years. Grow up. Get out in the real world and take some chances. Build your confidence. Discover what you like and what you don't like from real life, not classes.

Fail. By all means, please, fail. Try and fail at a lot of different things. Work crappy jobs that don't pay much. You'll survive. It's okay. And let your kids do this.

You'll get stronger because of this. You'll still learn some useful skills in life. And you'll, again, start to build more and more of your own confidence because you'll be making your own decisions. You'll be growing up.

You don't need to wait till you're 22, 23, 25 to finally grow up. Come on. Do you really want to stay a child forever? It may seem like it's fun, but it's not.

It makes you weak. Weak. And weakness is not fun. Weakness makes you feel terrible. It's only fear. Fear is why kids that are 19, 20 years old don't want to grow up.

They're afraid. They're afraid to be responsible. They're afraid to fail. They're afraid to make their own decisions. They're afraid to take chances. They're afraid to be embarrassed.

They're afraid of uncertainty. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. Just do something. Take a chance. College is a terrible, terrible, terrible idea at age 18.

Maybe if you wait and go when you're 20, 21, it might be better. Of course, as I'm building on this idea that I talked about in the last show of the gap years, for many of you,

You never have to go to college. If you want to be a business person, a lot of people also, they ask me because I'm a successful business person, they ask, oh, how should I start my business and what should I do and what should I study in college? Don't go to college.

If you really, really think, you believe that you want to start your own business, be an entrepreneur. Do not go to college and please don't study business in college. What a waste of time. You will not learn to be a successful business person in college.

You will not. You will learn to be a corporate employee, but you will not learn how to start your own business and be successful. You will not learn how to build your own business. You will take a bunch of stupid classes that will make you passive and lazy and

When you should be starting your business right now. Stop making excuses. Just start one. Doesn't have to be perfect. There will be no certainty. Forget having a business plan.

Just start your business. Start it now. Start getting customers now. Start making sales now. Start bringing in money right now. And then you'll figure out the rest.

Okay? You'll learn as you go. Oops, sorry. That's how it works in real life. The other thing is, I definitely don't recommend that you go to an American university, a USA university.

Don't send your kids to an American university. You will spend tons of money, so, so expensive. Your kids will go and just drink and party all the time.

If they don't drink and party all the time, they will be around it all the time and people pressuring them to do it a lot. Do you really want your kids in that environment?

It's not worth it. It's not worth it. And if you're a kid, if you're, you know, 17, 18 years old, do you really want your parents spending all that money on you just so you can go and have fun and drink and take a few easy classes? Come on, don't do that to them.

Don't make them spend all that money or even have to take loans and be in debt. You know, if you really care about something, you can learn it. If you really care about physics, you could be taking free online physics classes right now. Are you doing that?

Are you really serious about learning? Or do you just want to go and be passive? If you care about law, being a lawyer, you could be studying the law right now. Plenty of books out there.

Plenty of free resources on the internet. Are you doing that? If you're not, why not? Are you just being lazy? You just want someone to tell you what to study?

You want to be passive? Well, if that's true, you're going to be a bad lawyer. You need to be proactive. You can start learning whatever it is you want to learn right now.

Even during, if you do a gap year like I suggested, well, you could be learning during that whole gap year. You say you want to be a scientist? Well, be studying science independently during your gap year or years, gap years.

Then when you go to school, it'll be so easy, you will already know it all, or most of it. You could probably take a lot of tests so that you can skip a lot of the classes and therefore save yourself or your parents a lot of money.

So grow up earlier. Grow up. I'm telling you, being an adult, it actually is much better. A lot of kids, they think it's scary or it's no fun because they look at adults who seem so boring and

And you're right. There are a lot of adults who are kind of boring and low energy. But it doesn't have to be that way. The great thing about being an adult is you can just do whatever you want to do.

Live the life you want. Make your own decisions. You want to travel the world? Do it. Figure out how to do it. Get a job. Save money. Do what you need to do.

Go travel. It's your life. You can do it. You don't have to ask permission. You don't have to wait for someone to tell you it's okay. Just do it. That's what's great about being an adult.

It's great. Don't wait until you're 22. You can do it when you're 16, 17, 18 years old. You're ready. Get out there and live. Make decisions and live.

Be an adult. All right. Go to EffortlessEnglishClub.com. EffortlessEnglishClub.com. Enter your email for my free email and video course. Thank you.