Bringing order to the chaos of student life
As a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania, Jay Rodrigues had a tough time balancing his academic studies, work in student government and his fraternity commitments.
“There was no way of communication,” said Rodrigues about organizing his life on campus, adding he would also miss a lot of live music events, because he would hear about them after the fact. “It was so disorganized.”
His college conundrum led Rodrigues to create DormNoise, a Web-based calendar tool that helps students organize more efficiently.
“We are truly the only interactive student calendar system out there,” said the 21-year-old. “We bring order to the chaos.”
DormNoise works by letting students view the campus calendar, student group calendars and their own personal calendar. Faculty and administrators can also participate. Users can organize and sync them all together under one Web program or on the iPhone, BlackBerry and Android smartphones. DormNoise can also be used within Facebook.
The name DormNoise stemmed from Rodrigues’s own experience living in a dormitory.
“I wanted a name that had a universal college experience behind it,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what time it is, there’s always a dull drone, this buzz in dorms. There’s always someone up on the computer, listening to music, talking, laughing or whatever.”
Do entrepreneurs need education?
Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook from his Harvard dormitory, but after the social networking website exploded in popularity, he promptly quit school and became a full-time entrepreneur.
An informal roll call of Fortune 500 CEOs that dropped out of high school or university and went on to become self-made billionaires, includes the following: Bill Gates (Microsoft), Larry Page (Google), Michael Dell (Dell), David Geffen (Geffen Records), Steve Jobs (Apple), Richard Branson (Virgin), Ralph Lauren (Ralph Lauren), Jerry Yang (Yahoo) and the aforementioned Zuckerberg.
Most on this list received a modicum of post-secondary education, before bailing and pursuing their entrepreneurial dreams.
Like Zuckerberg, Gates also went to Harvard. Page and Yang both attended Stanford. Jobs only completed one semester at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Dell left the University of Texas at 19. Geffen dropped out of three universities before launching his record label. Lauren went to little-known Baruch College in New York State, but left after two years. Branson, a mild dyslexic, never made it out of high school. And it’s not clear if Ford founder Henry Ford ever had any formal education, outside his training as a machinist.
A new blog post (“Is College Necessary for Young Entrepreneurs?”) by Adam Toren, who co-founded YoungEntrepreneur.com with his brother Matthew, uses a fascinating survey by OnlineCollegesandUniversities.com to fuel the discussion of how important a diploma is to entrepreneurs.
“Ask around and you’ll find conflicting answers,” wrote Toren in his blog. “Some will tell you it’s necessary in order to gain the skills you need to succeed. Some will tell you it’s necessary to build character. And some will tell you not to waste your time.”
After laying out both the pros (good place to form lasting friendships and potential business partnerships) and cons (average cost for a 4-year degree is around $80,000) of higher education, Toren steers clear from offering a definitive opinion on one side or the other, although most of his evidence would appear to support saving your parent’s money and getting a job instead.
education is not a necessarily key to enter be an entrepreneur, but its a key to enter world
