November 13th, 2008
Who becomes self-employed?
Chad Moutray of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy examined that question by following the fates of the college class of 1993. Some of Moutray’s more intriguing findings:
- “The self-employed tend to have slightly lower grade point averages (GPAs) than their wage-and-salary peers.” The students with the best grades were more likely to seek work in the not-for-profit or government sector.
- Business and management majors were among the least likely to become self-employed. The most likely folks to go it alone: Social science and “other” majors.
- “Race, ethinicity and gender did not play a significant role in determining who would eventually become self-employed.”
Read the full report here.
(HT: National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship)
Aidan Nulman on November 13, 2008
Hm. I’m not usually a big commenter, but the first finding surprised me at how little it surprised me.
As soon as I read that, I thought to myself: “of course that makes sense. The students who are working for their GPAs are working to get hired because of them.”
In my experience, university is only tangentially about your GPA. The real value in it comes from the extra-curriculars that let you try your hand at a number of activities… not to mention the under-expectations others have about you that you can easily over-deliver on.
I guess the point of this comment is: thanks for making me want to think out loud, Dan! Not many blogs/bloggers prompt this in me.
(P.S. The second and third findings were surprisingly more surprising to me.)
Kathlyn on November 14, 2008
The first finding isn’t really surprising at all, but it is somewhat depressing if you were a mis-guided grade chaser. Those of us who were told (and shame on us for listening, but we were young and wanted to “do it right”) that grades mattered at all, chased them thinking they would serve us in the long run, when really, hanging out and making friends (developing social/communications skills) would have done us much better, sole-practitioner or corporate climber.
GPA is all about put your head down, assimilate, regurgitate. Follow the map. No one I know who works for themselves is like that at all!
Adrian Bashford on November 14, 2008
I think it is the same reason why you see a lot of the most successful people coming out of the ‘C-student’ ranks as well. Those that have high marks and a strong educational background really don’t have to struggle(1) and fit the business world’s norms of who they should hire, so they get things handed to them, and tend to work for other people who want to make money off them.
On the other hand, if “the man” doesn’t want you, you have to struggle and find something that works for you on your own. The best option to define a role that fits your skill set is to be self-employed!
1. I know I am generalizing here, there are always exceptions… but were talking big number statistics here.
Judy Rey Wasserman on November 15, 2008
Other studies have also revealed that the smartest and most creative students generally do not “fit in” well to the school system that seeks a regurgitation of facts. If one is not aiming at becoming a scientist, mathematician, financier/accountant, or lawyer grad school only puts one in the “system”.
Any outside of the box thinker is making social relationships, probably working in some capacity or even has their own small company during college.
As an aside many CEO’s were not at the top of their class, nor did they attend the best schools. However, once past the academic regurgitation and please the professor stage, they excelled due to their creativity and ability to motivate and actually get a meaningful job done.
Maybe this is the best of all possible worlds in relation to educating business leaders and entrepreneurs, o perhaps more internships and encouragement to hands on learning and experience needs to be more valued. What if grades were based more on the application of information learned that on how much one recalled but could not apply?
Dennis Grubbs on November 18, 2008
I started to respond to this post… but it got too long, so I just made a blog post about it. You can see it at jjpmarketing.com.
Chad Moutray on November 18, 2008
Thanks for the post on my paper. I am glad that you liked it.