Comparing College to TOP

It seems there has been a massive influx of people who are bashing school and college when comparing it to TOP. There is no comparison when it comes to college/university and TOP. It's like comparing potatoes to carrots. They have similarities, but people miss out on the important differences and purposes.

College has a lot more to do with learning theory that can be applied to skills in a broad sense. School isn't supposed to "teach" you, you're supposed to take the resources and opportunities given to you and explore each subject yourself. People believe they have bad teachers, when they themselves are supposed to teach themselves. School gives you an opportunity to grow your tangential knowledge that helps you everywhere. Many people expect college to be similar to High School in how things work, but it isn't.

TOP is a very focused curriculum, it lacks a lot for people to get general knowledge skills and tangential information that can be applied a lot of places outside TOP. Consider geometry for instance: TOP doesn't teach it, but it sure comes in handy when you're trying to build an application to find out if furniture can be designed to fit through a hallway and doorway.

At the end of the day, one isn't worse than the other, the purposes of them are different at the end of the day. So discrediting schooling and such is a very ignorant move, especially if you never finished. School isn't for everyone, that's true, but it doesn't mean it's not incredibly helpful when used properly.

We, as a community, need to get away from this anti-intellectualism mindset I've seen growing here.

TOP is not against schooling of any sort. We just cannot support helping people with their college work (or any other outside resource) because of our limited resources.