*cringe*
I hope he isn't planning on a career in music entertainment.
... Nevermind... considering the stuff that sells in the American market, today... he'll be a star in no time.
*sigh*
The problem is that he basically insists that he doesn't need to learn things and can simply be successful through the will to be successful.
If you -truly- have a will to be successful, you will understand that knowledge is a way to amplify/multiply your efforts. This does not necessarily mean a degree, nor does it mean that one must go to college.
However, if you think that you're going to be able to be successful by saying: "**** learning" and just trying to beat your head against a wall until you're rich... then you'll die beating your head against a wall. Or end up in one of the lucrative, but risky underground economies that come with a short life expectancy.
Degrees are not necessary for jobs, and in some cases a degree is even a reason why someone is -not- hired (increasingly so in a world where the degree comes with expectations of higher pay and the job is either unnecessary or the degree is not specifically in the field of employment). They do open doors for people who are steering down a relative career path, but they are not essential.
Nor are degrees a life sentence. Just because you get a degree in something does not mean you are forever confined to that narrow area - nor does it mean that you must return to get a different degree if you want to shift career paths.
Still, the more technical your field - the more an employer wants some degree of assurance that you know what the hell you are talking about. You do that through, at the very least, demonstrating skill competency. If you don't have a degree - a list of accomplishments related to the field can work. You may not be an electronics engineer with a degree - but if you have built your own circuits or something - it stands as weight that you do know what you are talking about (and can even be a heavier deciding factor in employment than the degree - someone with a degree may not necessarily be as sure-footed in actually making the rubber meet the road).
Employment isn't necessary for success, either. One can operate his/her own business as an independent tradesman (where unions won't kill you for intruding on their territory... you think I'm joking... peoples' houses go up in flames and pictures of their daughter walking alone show up in the mail over this stuff - yes, in America:
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).
As I said - watch out for the unions:
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" According to court papers and to coverage by the Buffalo News, the charges against them include stabbing a knife into the neck of a construction company president, throwing hot coffee at non-union workers, pouring sand into gas tanks and transmissions of 17 construction vehicles, and threatening sexual assault against the wife of a company representative. The racketeering case was first filed in 2008.
According to court papers, the executive who was stabbed in the neck asked a union organizer what benefit he would get if he hired members of the union. "You guys slash my tires, stab me in the neck, try to beat me up," he protested. "What are the positives?"
"The positives," reportedly replied the organizer, "are that the negatives you are complaining about would go away."
...
AFL-CIO lawyer Jonathan D. Newman, quoted by the Buffalo News, says his union is "not condoning the allegations or arguing that union officials are completely immune from prosecution." Rather, it is trying to make sure that federal law is not being interpreted in such a way as to have a chilling effect on "legitimate union activity."
The definition of legitimate activity is one of the questions at issue.
The Supreme Court determined in 1973 that union violence up to a point is permissible. Under certain circumstances, violent acts by union members cannot be prosecuted under federal law as extortion or racketeering. "
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"• In 1905, Governor Frank Steunenberg (D-Idaho) was assassinated by members of the militant Western Federation of Miners, due to his refusal to cave to their demands.
• In 1990, the Teamsters Union in New York City struck against the New York Daily News, and pelted replacement drivers with bricks, rocks, and baseball bats, and one Teamster was charged with transporting Molotov cocktails.
• In 1991, Steelworkers Local 5668 in West Virginia was found responsible for committing over 700 act of violence against strikebreakers, including two house bombings, six house shootings, four arsons, and 43 death threats.
• In 1993, 16,000 members of the United Mine Workers went on strike in West Virginia. Non-union subcontractor Eddie York refused to walk out, and was shot in the head by union thugs. Callously endorsing the murder, Richard Trumka (now head of the AFL-CIO, and widely known as Obama’s puppet-master), said "if you strike a match and put your finger in, common sense tells you you're going to burn your finger."
• In 1997, Teamsters Local 769 in Miami ordered a strike against UPS, and UPS driver Rod Carter, refusing to strike, was stopped and stabbed with an ice pick while on his route. Another driver testified that union bosses sanctioned the stabbing.
• In 2005, Andrew Shomers of Laborers Union Local 91 in Buffalo, N.Y. pleaded guilty to vandalizing local housing authority offices and firebombing workers on an asbestos-removal project."
So... yeah...
If you can avoid getting killed by the unions - you can apply your trade, freely, without a degree or becoming a union storm trooper.