[bradj]

I partially disagree. Assuming you are majoring in something that has some positive ROI and do enough to actually graduate, which isn’t hard at most colleges, the party experience can be very supportive of most people’s future careers.

The social skills, networks, and alumni connections you build at college are a large fraction of the benefit that college gives the average person to further their career.

Otherwise, I agree. College is a great time to take advantage of the time you have to change your network, generate new ideas and take risks. And I also agree that most there can be benefit (though highly unlikely) for some people to not attend college or to drop out.

[Spivak]

I find it really funny how we talking about socialization like it's just for really young kids when we all have experience dealing with adults that never learned the skills.

College is expensive socialization to be sure, so make sure to go for other reasons as well -- but if you aren't going to parties, making friends, and doing stupid shit then you're missing out on part of the real tangible value provided by colleges which is community. (And to be clear this is something totally separate from professional networking.)

[Mc91]

I have been in IT for 25 years. If the gang at work was going to a bar after work, I would go - just to enjoy myself, giving no thought to it furthering my career and so forth.

Despite going for purely to enjoy myself and giving no thought to work or my career, I would say an hour I've spent in a bar with my co-workers almost always does more for my career than spending twenty hours over a weekend getting some pull request finished so my product manager can check it off their list. I've found out information about my workplace that I really needed to know. Once it probably saved me from getting axed during a layoff once since I didn't interact much with outside the bar with the manager who put in a good word for me when they were cutting people.