It's a common belief in America these days that without a high school diploma, you have no future. This opinion may be true to some extent, but it's certainly not a hard and fast rule. There are a lot of highly successful people in this world who never even completed high school. One of these successful people is Flava Flav, who dropped out of school when he was only 13, although, admittedly, it shows. He's now planning to return to school to get his G.E.D., and the ordeal may even become a reality show on VH1. He's not the only celebrity that dropped out of high school and still did well though. In fact, some high school dropouts are actually pretty brilliant. Image Via Jeremy Farmer Photography [Flickr]
Dave Thomas
The founder of Wendy’s, Dave Thomas started working in the restaurant industry at only 12 years old. His family was constantly on the move and at age 15, he refused to keep moving with his parents. He was working part time at the Hobby House restaurant in Fort Wayne and dropped out of high school to start working at the business full time. After working as a mess sergeant during the Korean War, he began working for KFC, where he was able to help turn several of their failing franchises around. In 1969, he sold of the KFC franchises he owned and opened his own restaurant in Columbus, Ohio. He named the restaurant after his daughter, who was actually called Melinda, but was nicknamed Wendy. These days, Wendy’s is the third largest burger chain in America. In 1993, Dave decided that he didn’t want to set a bad example for any youngsters out there, so he enrolled at Coconut Creek High School and earned his GED. Source
George Bernard Shaw
Famed Irish Playwright George Bernard Shaw held an outright animosity towards schooling that he maintained throughout his life. He was quoted as saying, "schools and schoolmasters, as we have them today, are not popular as places of education and teachers, but rather prisons and turnkeys in which children are kept to prevent them disturbing and chaperoning their parent.” Not surprisingly, the writer never completed his own education, having dropped out of the Dublin English Scientific and Commercial Day School. His main complaints about schooling was the standardization of the curriculum, which he believed deadened the spirit and stifled the intellect. He also deplored the corporal punishment being used in schools, although most modern teachers and parents would agree with him on this issue. Source Public Domain Image Via Wikipedia
George Eastman
Creator of the Kodak Camera Company, George Eastman, was forced to drop out of school due to financial circumstances. At only 14, his father died and the only way George could keep his two sisters and mother alive was to quit school and begin working as an office boy full time. By the age of 26, Eastman found his true calling and began working to improve the emulsion process involved in photography. He thought the liquid emulsions proved quite a problem as they were excessively sticky and had to be used quickly before they dried. In only three years, Eastman had perfected his dry emulsion plates and he started his own photographic business in 1880. Source Public Domain Image Via U.S. Library Of Congress
Quentin Tarantino
While a lot of famous directors hone their skills during college, Quentin Tarantino built up his film knowledge by working in a video rental store in Manhattan Beach, California. He not only never went to college, but he quit going to Narbonne High School in Harbor City, California in his freshman year. He started learning the acting craft in acting school at the James Best Theatre Company in Toluca Lake, but it really wasn’t until he started working at Video Archives with Roger Avery, also a director these days, that he really began sharpening his future skills. Some people complain about Tarantino’s movies having too much focus on the dialogue, but for a high school dropout, I’d say that’s not such a bad thing. Source Image Via pinguino [Flickr]
Richard Pryor
If comedy really is born from tragedy, then it is only logical that Richard Pryor became one of the top comedians of the seventies. Pryor had anything but an easy life. He was raised in his grandmother’s brothel, where his mother “worked” and his father served as her pimp. At only ten, his mother abandoned him and his strict grandmother took over his care, beating him whenever she thought he was acting “eccentric.” With a home life like this, it’s not all to surprising that he ended up being expelled from high school at 14. In the end, Pryor ended up proving the adage that “whatever doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger” and his comedy career was one of the longest lasting and most successful of the last fifty years. Source Image Via Alan Light [Flickr]
Peter Jennings
Peter Jennings started broadcasting when he was only nine years old. He followed the footsteps of his father, a respected radio broadcaster for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and operated as the host of a CBC children’s program called “Peter’s People.” Surprisingly, his father was out on assignment when Jennings was chosen for the gig and he was furious at the network for hiring his son solely because he was the son of a broadcaster. When it came to schooling, Jennings was a great athlete, but a terrible student, which he said was due to “pure boredom.” He failed to pass the 10th grade and dropped out as a result. He tried to attend Carleton University, but "lasted about 10 minutes" before he dropped out there. After school, he started working at The Royal Bank of Canada, but he dreamed of being a professional broadcaster. I’d say did pretty well at meeting those goals, wouldn’t you? Source
Peter Jackson
Before he directed the Lord of The Rings, or even his cult classics like Meet The Feebles, Peter Jackson was just a film-obsessed kid. He was trying to make his own film by age of nine, complete with the special effects he loved to see in shows like "Thunderbirds." After he saw the original King Kong, he started trying to mimic the stop-motion from the film. He spent his entire childhood and all of his teenage years making short films and developing his own special effect techniques, which even included making his own minuscule models. When he was 16, he dropped out of high school and started working as an apprentice engraver in a newspaper photography department. He kept living with his parents so he could save money for film-making supplies, which he soon used to begin production on what would become his first full-length film, Bad Taste. When you know that your future is film you don’t have a real need for the three Rs of "reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic." Source Image Via Natasha Baucas [Flickr]
Just a heads up, the article is inaccurate; only George Eastman's father died, he was closely attached emotionally to his mother the rest of his life.
His life story is pretty incredible and he was a great philanthropist, donating large sums of money to the city of Rochester, MIT, and setting up multiple hospitals throughout the developing world. I'm an Eastman School grad, this stuff gets mentioned all the time. :P
Peace,
Drew
That is Peter Jackson at this year's ComicCon promoting District 9. Believe it, or not!
I dropped out and have never looked back.
Best thing I ever did for myself.
I have never run with "the pack" nor will I ever!
And you forgot Sandy the Slutbag, our town hooker, she's real succesful.
I agree that a college degree doesn't always equal sucess or wealth but not finishing highschool is even worse. For every 1 sucess there are 100 failures and I say this as a person who works in the human services field.
This article is setting a rather careless standard that I don't care for.
kodak makes digital cameras
retard
If we keep each of these stories in proper context then they have validity to the individuals accomplishment without derailing education as a whole. In my opinion where society falls short is instead of looking at what a person is capable of with or without formal education, many times the degree gets the job regardless if the person is educated or not. There are many individuals in our society with a degree that cannot read well, right well, or do the math.
Do some research first pplease b4 publishing your staff
There are a lot of high school drop outs and a lot of people who finished high school.
What matters? The ratio of those who were successful (after finishing high school) to those who finished high school compared to those that were successful (high school drop outs) to those who did not finished.
As for the person who claimed the part about Flava is inaccurate, it's not, he did drop out of high school, whether or not he went to college and he is returning to school.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flavor_Flav
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/television/news/e3ie41d1967dbc1d09615dd102360b99b76
on the other hand, how many people living in poverty never finished high school?
splash
Just because someone doesnt graduate doesnt make them a looser...and vise versa. Its what you do with the rest of your life that matters.
The keyword is AMBITION ;)
A Registered Nurse earns more than most bachelor's degrees and can easily break $100k/year with specialization. Think people, think!
possibly one of the most influencial rappers ever
he dropped out in the 8th grade lol
Stay in school, but be sure to follow your dream.
30 grand a year for college or not.
there is a pretty big mistake in that sentence you should fix.
Are you trying to say that, you screw up it all and everything is gonna be ok?
Everyone in this economy knows its not your skills, and what you know, but who you know and who you bl$*. Talent and education means nothing.
Opinionsmatter(31)
Apply the knowledge you have and maximize it.
"Its nice to have that wall paper we call a degree but in my opinion its even better to be productive while doing what you love."
That's why It clearly says "HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUTS" meaning they went but left after they knew they could utilize the talent/s they discovered within themselves.
I'm 21, male and hispanic. I dropped out of freshman year in high school. I'm An aspiring rapper, singer and song-writer. Do you think I'm going to stay and continue to finish school when I'm multi-talented?
My saying goes like:
"Just because you went to college doesn't mean you have more knowledge"
"Just because you have a degree doesn't mean you make more than me"
We weren't made to work for the goverment or for ANYONE else. We were made to work for ourselves. EVERYONE in this world has a talent, a specialty, your gift, something you're really good at. You were born with it.
It's NEVER too late to discover it. Focus and dedicate yourself to make that discovery that's hidden within you and use it to your fullest potential.
Utilize it, Maximize it and...
INSPIRE.
The passion and the dream make the difference.
At the same time, the goverment NEEDS doctors, nurses to "vaccinate" people by injecting toxic into their body so they can depopulate the world to have easier control over it.
#1: Is a college degree worth the cost? If you can afford it without falling into deep debt then yes. It doesn't guarantee you a job specially in a recession but It depends on what you want to do.
PROOF: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0xphr57PZ0&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-GRAF7ESlI&feature=related
#2: A college degree is NOT worth a MILLION dollars. It is the biggest brainwashing lie in America.
If you have a college degree VS a high school diploma you'll make a million more? FALSE. It's actually about $450,000 because you have to subtract the cost of the degree from the pay-off and income tax, and interest on the debt. A college grad does not financially catch up to a college grad until the age of 33 and by the age of 40, the pay-off for college is only about 100,000. So the pay-off is only in your 40s and 50s, not so much in your 20s and 40s.
PROOF: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBBs4ZElzPI&feature=channel
WAKE UP PEOPLE! YOU ARE BEING BRAINWASHED.
Knowledge is POWER.
English majors; was the above a run on sentence? If so, why?
Now support your conclusion to the question above.
Now let us all know what impact that has on the world.
Sorry for the typo.
Cheers~