Bill Gates: 11 Things You Don’t Learn in School
Posted by: Michael Zhuang on: March 14, 2011
Bill Gates
A physician client of mine passed on to me this list, from Bill Gates’ talk in a high school. There is a good bit of wisdom there. If you have kids in high school, pass this on to them.
Rule 2 : The world doesn’t care about your self-esteem.
Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school.
Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss
Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity.
Rule 6 : If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault,
Rule 7 : Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring
Rule 8 : Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT.
In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
Rule 9 : Life is not divided into semesters.
Rule 10 : Television is NOT real life.
Rule 11 : Be nice to nerds.
7 Responses to "Bill Gates: 11 Things You Don’t Learn in School"
March 15, 2011 at 1:06 pm
Bill Gates didn’t get to where he is now for no good reason, did he?! What’s amazing is he seems to know high-schoolers’ mentality very well. Very smart guy.
April 3, 2011 at 3:02 pm
This is an apocryphal story. Bill Gates never said or wrote this.
The text is an email chain edited version of an op-ed piece that appeared in the San Diego Union-Tribune on September 19, 1996. In fact, the piece was written by Charles J. Sykes, who also authored of “Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good about Themselves, but Can’t Read, Write, or Add”. Bill Gates had nothing to do with this.
April 3, 2011 at 3:33 pm
@martingale, next time I have to check the fact with you when I got something from a friend I found interesting.
May 1, 2011 at 10:16 pm
I guess school misses alot of lessons, lesson concerned with real life, with practicality in addition to the art of living. All people go to same schools same books they want us to grow this way, other elite go to other schools they teach them the shortcut ways and how to live efficiently. Few people of regular schools got the chance, while the elite will surely get the chance. I suggest that we get the real education, not the rusted one.
May 2, 2011 at 1:01 pm
I suppose so. I have never attended any elite school, I don’t know how it is like. My alma mater Carnegie Mellon is a top school in computer science, I did not learn any short cut there though.
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March 14, 2011 at 3:27 pm
Great list! I’m going to link to it on my site. Love #11.