I Did It My Way
A different way to think about the purpose of college
By Trip O'Dell
In 1991, accommodations weren't a thing. If you learned differently, there were perhaps two universities in the U.S. with programs designed to help: Yale and Brigham Young. As a dyslexic Catholic prep school kid with a C average, neither school was sending recruiters my way.
I was accepted into one school, Xavier University. I got in because my uncle knew one of the Jesuits who was a dean. It was luck and connections, not merit. The school wasn't wrong. I was very likely not the right student for it. I had no clue what I wanted to do. I knew that Xavier had girls, which was high on the list of an 18-year-old coming out of an all-boys school. I was out of my depth in that department as well.
I didn’t yet have a clear sense of what I was good at. I knew what I liked, what I could do well enough and a few places where I felt real confidence. None of it added up to a picture of where I belonged. I was marching to someone else's plan, and I assumed that was what college was for. Endure it, then things would finally begin and somehow get simpler.
It wasn't until I was 24 that anything aligned. I made an unconventional pivot and went to work at the Pine Ridge Reservation. It was the first time I felt I was on the right path, not because the work was easy but because it was mine.
The hidden cost of the safe choice
This is not a piece about loving your job. Plenty of meaningful work is hard, frustrating and underpaid. The point is not to chase joy. The point is to do work that is fulfilling enough to make the hard parts bearable. Work that is worth the cost of doing it well.
There is a kind of running where every step hurts because the body is fighting it (for me, that’s most running). Then there’s the kind where you settle in, find the rhythm and it carries you. Same effort, completely different experience. Vocation works the same way. When the work fits, the difficulty becomes part of the reward instead of a tax on the rest of your life.
College should be doing this for students, helping them leave with more than a credential or a five-year plan, a clearer sense of what they’re built for and the conditions that let them do it well.
What I wish I’d had at 18
A personality test, or a career-aptitude quiz that spat out five generic careers, wouldn’t have helped.
I wish someone had given me a clear, usable map of how my mind worked, where my attention went, the patterns that pulled me in, the triggers that drained me, the problems that made me light up and the kind of structure that opened me up instead of shutting me down.
If I’d had an individualized profile of how I actually thought, I would have made different choices. Not because it would have told me what to do, but because it would have given me language for who I already was. I would have spent fewer years getting passable at the wrong things, and more years getting genuinely good at the right ones.
That’s the bet behind 5xFive’s SPARC, a practical profile that helps a learner understand how their mind works and make better choices, not as a label, but as a tool. It guides decisions about schools, majors and environments, and eventually the work that shapes a life. It keeps the human in the loop, so a life has shape, purpose and meaning.
A profile does not predict the future nor pick a major. It tells the student something true about the present, in language they can use. It names what is inherent to their architecture and what can grow with the right investment. The next decision becomes grounded in who they are, not who they think they are supposed to be.
Doing it your way is not a slogan
I’m building a startup in my 50s, and by conventional standards it looks like a bad bet. I was on a comfortable executive track at blue-chip companies, and I’ve been lucky enough that, on paper, I should be sitting in a VP or SVP design role by now. That path is shorter, safer and better compensated.
I chose something else, and the reason isn’t romantic. The work I’m doing now fits. It sits right at the edge of my capability and demands more of me than the safer path ever would. It’s also the work I would do even if no one paid me, and that’s the test that matters.
I did it my way.
This is what I want for the rising senior and the parent leaning in over their shoulder, not the bravado of the song, but the clarity behind it. Before the bill comes due, know what’s worth bearing, and what kind of work makes the hard parts hold up. College is one of the first decisions that makes you answer that question, and it costs too much to get wrong by default
Trip O'Dell is the founder and CEO at 5xFive. He crafts the company's strategic vision and champions its mission to re-humanize human potential through intelligent technology. A former teacher and coach, he spent two decades in leadership roles at Amazon, Microsoft, Adobe, Audible and Pearson, building large-scale products across education, accessibility and personalization. Trip's credentials include graduate training in cognitive psychology, plus five USPTO patents in accessibility and human-computer interaction.
