I Asked UCLA Students if College is a Scam

are you gonna graduate with any debt yeah i'm on student loans right now so i'll graduate with a lot of debt um how much debt 120. who's paying for your college are you guys gonna graduate with any debt probably yes i have like fifty dollars in my bank account right now what's the craziest thing you've ever done to save money in college basically starve myself for like three meals a week so i was just like not eating dinner three times a week and then i wouldn't eat breakfast either any day but then i just upgraded because i was like i can't keep doing this skipping breakfast you skip meals unfortunately yeah i was gonna say the same thing like not eating apparently college students don't eat because it costs too much what's the craziest thing you've done to save money take the bus sometimes disclaimer this is my personal experience and won't apply to everyone college is good when done right my name is charlie and i regret going to college so when i was 18 we packed up the car we drove 352 miles to ucla and i began what i thought would be the most transformative four years of my life wrong college sucks most of it due to my own fault so i started to find out what went wrong and to get some insight from current college students about why they're here so i'm actually pretty but hurt that college was a waste of time and money for me so to make me feel better i'm gonna take out my frustration on some students and ask them what they're doing here all right so we're here at ucla i haven't been here for a long time this is where i went to school spent four years here didn't feel like i got too much out of it so i am kind of nervous because i've never like interviewed people on the street so i think it's gonna be pretty cool to hear what they have to say about you know attending college why they're here hopefully we hear some good things and hopefully like this video can help you guys out if you're planning on going to college or if you feel bad about having gone to college let's see what happens excuse me do you have a second to answer a few questions about college sure i'm a grad student i don't know about you all right so i'm demarcus robinson i'm 27 and i'm a graduate student in the atmospheric negotiating science department did you think college was worth it yeah i think so yeah why broaden your opportunities experience to see different things and meet different people that you normally probably wouldn't do without college not saying that it's not possible is the cost of college crazy yeah it is and hopefully you know there are ways in the future to kind of decrease the cost we're doing an episode about college and if it's worth it or not 100 percent worth it why the experience the education the degree what's your major busy con what do you want to do with that not quite sure yet hi i'm liz i'm 19 and i'm a poly sci major what do you hope to achieve after gone college i hope to have a good reputation connections and a good into law school law school is my only option okay that i can't do anything with just paulie side do you think college is worth it i think it should definitely be less i have to get into law school like that if i don't you know what if if i don't then better marry rich can't do anything with paulie's side i was psycho bio and you can't do anything with that either okay so i found three people that aren't students yet but will be maybe maybe one day how old are you guys i'm 14 13 i'm 14 whoa okay why do you guys want to go to college because i want to be like a scientist and i want to learn a lot all there is to learn it would help a lot with just like career paths i want to go into i want to get a good education and it'll help me in careers do you think college is necessary not necessary but for me i definitely think it's necessary based on like the career path you want to do right yeah i agree with her like you don't have to do it for every career path if you wanted to become like a science person you might need to go to college i think like it depends on the person like some people they want to go to college and some people don't really need it my name is lucina and my major is psychobiology i'm also doing a minor in global health i was psychology too oh no what do you want to do with your major i'm pursuing like a pre-med track so i want to go to med school so i'm currently in like the process of taking the mcat and stuff i did that too what brings you to college like why are you here like why am i here well i mean like i really like worked my ass off in high school so i wasn't going to go to like a cc or anything and i really wanted to go to like med school so i'm like no like and youtube is always my dream i'm like i'm from la so like i just love like i love college i love living here i love i love everything about it my name's ryan i'm 20 years old and my major is business economics and communications why are you in college i'm honestly not really sure i guess because like that's just the normal thing for people to do nowadays yeah what do you hope to do after college with your degree i have no clue like not at all do you think college is necessary for people i don't think it's necessary for everyone like if you have realistic goals or dreams or like if you have passions that you want to follow like go for that instead but like i didn't really have anything specific i wanted to do so it was a realistic thing for me to do i'm tim i'm 19 and i'm studying cogside esther 19 also cockside why are you guys in college because i need to get a degree and get a job there is no other option all right so to be honest that actually kind of made me feel worse because it seemed like everyone came here with a great purpose and a goal of achieving their dreams i mean ucla is a pretty good school it's really hard to get into i think they have one of the lowest acceptance rates of the uc system so it makes sense why everyone here is you know smart motivated driven to succeed and of course set on their own success but wait i actually came here to ucla with a purpose of my own and that was to become a doctor so i was pre-med and i didn't feel the same type of drive and passion that these students did so that's the next logical question i could think of which was how much of your drive comes from you versus your parents does your passion for medicine come from like you or is it from your parents no it's not for my parents i've always wanted to be a doctor like from as long as i can remember and i've always loved like working with kids and i've done a lot of internships and stuff yeah it seems like you really because i was like the opposite because my parents were like you have to be a doctor and i was like okay fine but it seems like you actually really want to do it yeah i actually really want to yeah i chose it because it was like very broad so i can like explore other parts of study i guess for me i'm really interested in how people make decisions and like cockside learning about the brain and stuff is super interesting do you have any tips for incoming college students on how they can maximize their time here reach out to upperclassmen and ask them like you know what about these classes and your experiences and things like that that sort reach out to professors and let them know who you are because it's not about what you know who you know but it's about who knows you at the end of the day it was times where i was in undergrad and people would just hey you wouldn't come do this internship and blah blah blah sure yeah what's the craziest thing you've done to save money sometimes i sign up for the studies that they have on campus because then they'll pay me to do them how much do they pay like 80 for how many hours like three that's really good dang that's good side hustle who's paying for your college my parents so you're going to graduate without any debt right yes thank you parents what can people do while in college to sort of maximize their experience probably just like joining clubs going out trying to meet people i found that building connections is like a really helpful thing to do so this is a broom walk this is where like everything happens you see there are a lot of people selling things doing fundraisers giving out like pamphlets and brochures i was always too like nervous to talk to them so i would always walk along a different route yeah this is like pretty much the heart of ucla where's everyone at i've been looking forward to interviewing the bear why are you at college hold up hold up why are you in college all right so i know it may seem like i really didn't like college but that's not the truth i actually had a really good time here i learned a lot i came out a much better person but that still doesn't mean that i did it correctly and i do have a lot of regrets about sort of how i spent my days the things i prioritized as well as like the types of people i met overall still a good time and i don't try and regret anything in my life but i do wish i'd do it differently [Music] all right so this is john wooden center this is where i spent like two hours every single day there's a gym that's where i mainly was we also have a rock climbing wall they have racquetball locker rooms this is a sick place this is like this is my favorite part of ucla probably so this is royce hall this is like the main pinnacle of ucla it's probably if you've seen postcards of ucla this is going to be what's in it probably and then right here is powell library this is the main campus library yeah a lot of people they'll spend a lot of time studying you know doing work there but for me i actually didn't even have a real laptop i had a chromebook that i'd never used all my work was done on my imac like desktop thing that was in my dorm room so that's where i spent the majority of my time and yeah i'm actually going to take you guys there right now and show you so this is where you cross the road to see all the dorms [Music] so behind me is denev hall this is where i first lived and i came to ucla in 2010 and my room was actually i think three stories up on the very end so it was a really fun dorm but it was super old it hadn't been renovating forever and the men's bathroom was all the way on the other side so i had to walk like i don't know 200 feet so that was not very cool but a lot of memories made here so one of the big things that messed up my college experience was not having a drama of personality to tell my parents like hey this is not what i want to do so they basically like charlie we really want and think you should become a doctor you get science it's a really high paying field and i was like okay like i'll do that i never like hospitals i don't like blood i don't like needles but it was like an easy thing to say right like if someone asked me what i was going to do with my life i'd just be like oh i'm pre-med i'm going to become a doctor even though i didn't really want to do that myself i just went along with it and that's definitely something i regret because i should have had a stronger personality should have been like hey guys i don't want to do this i want to explore other things like business finance stuff like that because if i had done that i think my college experience would have been a lot better another thing i didn't do was network enough and i had a long-term college girlfriend and i think that really really screwed things up because i just got really comfortable you know just hanging out with her having meals with her so one thing i just really regret is not expanding my network more i feel like that would have made my college experience way better that being said i did do some things right that i'm pretty happy about and that was studying hard i took my classes pretty seriously i got a good gpa i took health really importantly so i'd hit the gym maybe hour to two hours every single day i did cardio i was probably in like tip top shape more so than right now i also partied the right amount so i would go out and party i would go out and drink and have fun but that wasn't my entire life here i didn't do that that much and all my roommates were actually in fraternities but i was the only one that was not and i do think that was the smart move because you know if i want to party i could throw an apartment party or i could just go to their frat houses but i wasn't always surrounded by that and i do think that can be pretty detrimental and then finally another thing i did write was i did side hustles so i did photography i did videography i pursued modeling a bunch of things that were able to help me make some income but also develop a lot of skills that would go on to help me a lot later on so with the exception of the grad student we talked to everyone was under 21 years old and it seemed like they all knew exactly what they wanted to do the more i thought about the more i was like hey why didn't i have that same drive that same clarity and knowing exactly what i want to do at a young age and when i came to terms was hey charlie it's okay that you didn't know what you wanted to do it's okay that you didn't know how to do college correctly because to be honest we aren't taught exactly how we should experience college and that's sort of why i want to make this video because i feel like i didn't do it correctly a lot of you guys watching this video that are going to college might not do it correctly but really it's not too late there are so many things in college that make it a very worthwhile experience and yeah i think i just need to make this video for myself because i always struggled with the guilt of having my parents help me pay for college wasting four years there and not really feeling like i got my money's worth everyone that we talked to in this video seemed to have a pretty big passion for something and just gave me a lot of renewed optimism about college even though i think it was sort of like a scam for me it's really all just based on the individual so you know for you guys it might be a really good experience for others it might not be worth your time that's really up for you guys to decide but if i were just to conclude this video i'd say that college is not a scam college is right if you know what you're doing and college is really great if you go about the right way if you guys don't know what you want to do right now then really spend your college years exploring side hustles meeting new people joining clubs doing pretty much everything you can because college you guys it's a really unique and special place you're surrounded by a lot of young bright people who are all sort of trying to figure out what they want to do with their life and if you take this time to really explore and figure out what you want to do then yes it's going to be a very worthwhile experience but of course if money is the only thing you care about then it's probably not the best you can spend that money investing into your own business and i think that majority of you guys that want to you know go into that business route that'll be probably the better option anyways i hope you guys found this video helpful and if you did make sure to share with a friend and like and subscribe for more videos just like this i make a ton of content about personal finance investing in entrepreneurship thanks so much for your time and i'll see you in the next video peace [Music] you

Channel: Charlie Chang

Views: 443,815

Keywords: college is a scam, is college worth it, is college worth the money, college debt, college education worth it, should i go to college, how to do college right, personal finance, college education system, is college right for me, when should i go to college, is college worth the debt, student loans, student debt, college degree, why college is a scam, higher education, college scam, why is college so expensive, student loan debt, is university, is university a waste of time

Id: 5g8FY57svKs

Length: 13min 16sec (796 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 05 2022