Comments on: Provost pays for charlatan tour on April Fools Day

By: David Nichols

David Nichols — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 01:38:43 +0000

@Stanley Don't get me wrong Stanley. I'm starting my own business right now. I have nothing against entrepreneurs at all, and I think the other guys feel the same way. The point being made had little to do with entrepreneurship itself. Number one, I think we've started to veer from the original focus of the article which was the fact that the school spent many thousands of dollars on such an event with little accountability. Number two, the event was being used as more of a promotion for overpriced "entrepreneurship" books and services than for actual practical advise for young entrepreneurs. Number three, the talks tended to leave students with the impression that it was easy to be an entrepreneur and that you were simply a worthless loser if you weren't. There are two problems with that idea. One, being an entrepreneur takes a lot of hard work, long hours, and determination if you want to be successful. As I'm sure you realize. Two, not everyone is best suited for the life of an entrepreneur. Some personalities are better suited for work at an established organization where they have stability and more time to spend with their families. These people can be just as successful as an entrepreneur, just in a different vein. As I mentioned in my previous comment, people today feel entitled to the rewards of entrepreneurship without having to put in the hard work. As a side note, read Nate's recent article, College - the glorified trade school. While the system as a whole has issues, I know for a fact that not all teachers can be described as "know(ing) nothing about making money". My Web Application Development professor, Shannon McMurtrey, co-founded McMurtrey/Whitaker & Associates. So don't bash them all.

By: Stanley

Stanley — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 02:44:29 +0000

Please..how much money do either of you guys make? You guys are just students you dont yet understand how to make real money, you are conditioning yourselves at school to be employees, I am extremely successful in all aspects of my life, not only financially, but also with my health, religion and other areas, and I can attribute this to the personal development. I never went to school, I believe in education, but not the school system, self education. You guys do what you want, teachers are broke and know nothing about making money, if that’s where you want to be, follow that path. Follow people that have demonstrated results. Anyway, its your choice.

By: David Nichols

David Nichols — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 19:38:25 +0000

@Nate My apologies, I misread the contributor note at the top of the page, that's what happens when you don't get enough sleep. You are right though, it's amazing the kind of pointless backlash that this received.

By: Nate

Nate — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 17:59:01 +0000

@David Nichols Jason deserves the credit for calling them out for what it is, I'm just baffled that there's a backlash against meaningful criticism. The whole issues shows how there's definitely a need for accountability, especially when our student body is so easily deluded.

By: David Nichols

David Nichols — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 12:14:15 +0000

Great post Nate. I attended a small portion of the event myself, out of curiosity and a desperate need for extra credit. A few of the things said were actually helpful, like the mission and goals stuff. However, I deeply agree with you on the fact that the entire undercurrent of the event was disturbing to me.

The message being pressed on the listeners was one of “you can easily become rich as long as you have a desire to”. This nation seems to have developed an undeserved sense of entitlement in this area. Hard work? Nah, you just have to believe in yourself and you’ll be the next millionaire. If you can’t make it after all, you can always resort to unethical or illegal behaviour. Then, if that too fails, blame the government and draw welfare.

Besides all that, I think it’s very disconcerting that our school would bring in scam artists like this on our tab. There needs to be some accountability in this. Maybe we need to start a petition or something.

By: Zach

Zach — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:02:37 +0000

Who cares about hard work and smart investments when it is so much easier to get rich quick!?

By: Nate

Nate — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:35:45 +0000

I love how easily people are roped into what motivational speakers have to say, and how quick they are to defend those ideas. At my junior college, we had a similar situation, where the school paid a good deal of money to bring a speaker in, who basically hocked his own product at the student body. Maybe this is a great case for communication and rhetoric studies. Think about it, with a little time and effort, you can get nameless hordes to defend your bad ideas!

By: you don't get it

you don't get it — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:07:20 +0000

I hate to inform you that wealth is not having some money one day, broke the next, working your fingers to the bone, having some money, broke again…that is not wealth. Maybe you should listen to these successful individuals as closely as you listen to your “teachers” at “school” that “teach” you how to memorize text out of a book to pass a test for information that 1. You will never remember because you never “learned” anything in the first place, just memorized for the sake of taking tests and 2. Will never use to increase to make money.

By: dan

dan — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 14:52:01 +0000

WOW…i usually NEVER say anything on these random blogs, but you my friend are a completely oblivious to everything you just experienced. You will be miserable at your job and broke for as long as you maintain that mind state!

By: so confused

so confused — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 02:11:51 +0000

Looks like you will spend the rest of your life working your fingers to the bone and remain flat broke. You missed the message of the presentations entirely.