Mar 5, 2000
Who Needs A Diploma?
Why the High-Tech Industry Wants Dropouts
The New York Times Magazine, March 5, 2000
A couple of years ago, just before Dan Hammans dropped out of high school, his guidance counselor told him that he would never earn more than $15,000 a year, that he would never hold a job for more than six months at a time and that, to put it plainly, he would never amount to anything. ”He pretty much told me I was a loser,” Dan says. He is sitting in his 1999 Mitsubishi Eclipse, which is fire-engine red, cost $23,000 and boasts 210 horsepower off the factory floor — though with Dan’s modifications, that’s up to 260. Dan is on his way home from a job at which he earns roughly $1,600 every two weeks, or about $25,000 more each year than a certain Mr. Sternberg of Gilbert High School in Iowa would have thought possible.
Read the complete text at The New York Times.