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Bill Gates Addresses Teens

Bill Gates' Commencement Address

Love him or hate him, he sure hits the nail on the head with this! A
lot of truth in this.

To anyone with kids of any age, here's some advice. Bill Gates recently
gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will
not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct
teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and
how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

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Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will
expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You
won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents
had a different word for burger flipping - they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine
about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they
are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes
and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before
you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation,
try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but
life HAS NOT. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and
they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer.
This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off
and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do
that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have
to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

Teens Addresses Gates Bill

Wow, I do not know how much of the list helped these kids about "real life". I mean, all the things he listed are probably true but wasn't a bit too much?. It is really pessimistic to "teach" young kids about life being that way even if it is.

Bill Gates Addresses Teens Reviews Consumer & Travel Family Culture

I'm not a really big fan of Bill. Microsoft itself has been in some sticky situations with the law in the past. But this is still good advice (considering that it is dated; who actually uses a car phone nowadays).

Edited: kittytom200x on 11th Mar, 2008 - 1:27am