Perhaps it’s because of my own situation, but I’ve been noticing a really strong celebration of dropping out.

Just two days ago, an article written in The New York Times wondered if “dropouts will save america”:

I TYPED these words on a computer designed by Apple, co-founded by the college dropout Steve Jobs. The program I used to write it was created by Microsoft, started by the college dropouts Bill Gates and Paul Allen.

And as soon as it is published, I will share it with my friends via Twitter, co-founded by the college dropouts Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams and Biz Stone, and Facebook — invented, among others, by the college dropouts Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz, and nurtured by the degreeless Sean Parker.

There is something fundamentally wrong with that block of text. Conclusions by examples are never an effective way of proving a theory. For every Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerburg, how many unsuccessful dropouts are there? How many dropouts utterly failed and were forced to return to college?

Moreover, it seems that a common pattern is that these “dropouts” still attend some amount – however small – of college. This leads me to believe, rightly so, that dropping out for most of these characters was never actually planned. Zuckerburg and Moskovitz started Facebook in their dorm room at Harvard, moving out to California during the summer and only when it was clear they were working on something popular. As for Apple, clearly Steve Wozniak, Jobs’ engineering counterpart, found something very compelling in a college education…eventually going back and completing his degree.

Even in my limited experience, the situation was remarkably similar. I started working on my startup while still taking classes and with no goal of leaving. Even after receiving a grant from the State and generating significant interest, I simply took care of my time more carefully to maintain both school and work. I slept less, but I kept both going. It wasn’t until my quarter ended and Kout got into AngelPad that I thought of leaving. At that point, I had proved that strong potential existed, a claim further solidified by a generous investment by six ex-Googlers and two top Silicon Valley vc firms.

As a recent college-dropout, it was never really about dropping out. Dropping out isn’t an accomplishment, any more than money is a sign of achievement. Sometimes, but not always, it’s simply a symptom of success.

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