This is an article that came in Yes, The New Indian Express, Friday May 24, 2002

Take it from Bill

(These are a few excerpts from the acclaimed book of Bill Gates, The Road Ahead, that has been forwareded to us by one of our readers.)

For high school and college graduates, here is a list of 11 things that they did not learn in school. In this book, Bill Gates 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. You may want to share this list with someone you know.

• Life is not fair; get used to it.
• The world wont care about your self esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
• You wont make 40 thousand dollars a year right out of high school. You wont be a vice president with a car phone, until you earn them both.
• If you think your teacher is tough wait till you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure.
• Flipping burgers are not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for Burger Flipping; they called it opportunity.
• If you mess up it's not your parents fault. So don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
• Before you were born your parents were not as boring a they are now. They got that way by paying your bills; cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rainforests from parasites of your parents generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
• Your school may have done away with winners or losers, but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades; They'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This does not bear the slightest resemblance to anything in real life.
• 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.
• Television is not real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shops and go to jobs.
• Be nice to nerds, chances are you will end up working for one.