I’m a high school dropout.

I’ve worked five jobs and each of them had a high school diploma or equivalent under the qualifications.

I don’t hide the fact that I’m a dropout. I put that down on my applications and if questioned about it. I explain what happened.

I’ve come to realize that this “requirement” for jobs is mainly written down as a formality that looks good and companies don’t really care as long as you seem right for the job.

Obviously for any work that involves higher education such as college, you can’t get around this issue, but for anything else. It’s possible.

The fact of the matter is, companies need workers and as long as you excel in every other way they’re often not going to be caught up on a detail like not having a diploma.

That being said, I still recommend getting one because it is a valid excuse every workplace can use to reject you if they want. The less reasons you have to be turned down, the better.

You aren’t doing yourself any favors by not graduating, but it’s also not the be-all and end-all people make it out to be.

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Punches · 46-50, F Best Comment

In the real world, very few people care how others did in high school or what college they might have went to.

Unless someone is pursuing some six figure career like doctor or attorney, it just does not matter.

Most college courses do little to nothing to prepare one for their "Career" anyways.

I know a lot of people get close to 30 and start to panic because they are not some huge success.
Well because there is one theory that leads people to believe they should be rich by then.
I have seen and heard it too many times. I went through it myself. Waste of time.

Late 20's people figure they will go back to school and earn this degree and suddenly have all these opportunities.

Well all that takes a lot of ambition. If people are not ambitious when they are teens or early 20's, what makes them think they are going to be "career driven" just because they are close to age 30?

Like I said, in the real world no one care about our level of education anyways.

swirlie · F

@Punches

Very true, very few people care how others did in high school or what college they went to, but those people we interact with daily who don't care about our academic achievements are not the people who typically employ us either.

The people who employ us are employees themselves who work for a company that hired them in the first place and then put them in a position of hiring other people to work for that same company.

That company like all legitimate companies would have established 'standards' of minimum 'education' and 'skill' requirements and therefore would have minimum qualifications posted for all jobs they offer.

Both education and skill standards are then enforced by those employees who are in hiring positions themselves who are tasked with reviewing the qualification status of potential new-hire employees who are applying for a job.

It doesn't matter what your friends or neighbors think about your academic achievement in life because your friends and neighbors are not your employer nor should they EVER be.

Who cares about your level of education are the people whom you are standing before during a job interview and therefore are asking them to employ you, but you can't come to the interview table empty handed when you show up for a job interview either.

You cannot show up for the interview uneducated and unskilled when you're 30 years old. You can get away with it when you're 16 and looking for a part-time job after school, but you can't get away with it when you're beyond about 22.

If you are a high school drop out and you have zero experience working in a job that you are now applying for, your chances of getting that job are also close to zero unless the employer is so desperate that they'd hire someone off the street with no education and no work experience whatsoever to do that job. But is that really where you'd want to work in the first place?

This is where the rubber meets the road when it comes to "The real world" you speak of, Punches. The fact that you think people don't care what education you have has nothing to do with the "real world" of business and employment.