I dropped out of UC Riverside with one semester left to join a punk band. Twenty years later, the university invited me back as the inaugural speaker in a new dean's speaker series for its College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences.
The university had actually invited me back once before that, through an entirely different channel. A student-run TEDx committee, with no connection to the dean's office, brought me into TEDxUCR. I gave a talk called "How to Talk With a White Supremacist," which went on to become the most-viewed talk in TEDxUCR's history. That visit came and went without the college itself taking much notice.
In 2022, I was delivering the keynote at the Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences, speaking to deans and staff from across the country. At some point I mentioned, almost in passing, that I'd dropped out of UC Riverside a few months shy of graduating. It's a story I tell often, so I didn't think much of it. A few deans in the room immediately texted Daryle Williams, Dean of UC Riverside's College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, half to rib him for losing a former student who turned out to win a landmark Supreme Court case, half to suggest he bring me back. Within a few weeks I was on a call with him and his staff. That conversation became the inaugural event in the school's new dean's speaker series, a two-day residency with panels, a presentation, and a concert. They even brought the whole band down for our first reunion show since we'd retired.
I walked away from the degree, and the school still found two different reasons to bring me back.
I was a double major in Religious Studies and Philosophy, on a Pell grant and scholarships, genuinely loving the work of turning over the same questions from different angles, assuming I'd end up somewhere in public service. Outside of class, I was already living a version of that life: running a nonprofit that sent volunteer teams into developing nations to build homes, orphanages, churches, and community centers. Nights and weekends, I was at punk shows from the Inland Empire to West Hollywood, working with touring bands.
One of those bands asked me to join. I only had a semester left but I figured I could always finish school later, so I dropped out and moved to Portland.
I loved the band I joined. The Stivs had a sound that was often described as AC/DC meets The Stooges, and it was a tight group of people I was genuinely close with. We toured, recorded an album I'm still proud of, and I learned lessons about delivering an engaging live performance that have stuck with me for the rest of my life. But not long after joining, I started feeling something a lot of musicians eventually feel in someone else's band: I cared about it more than some of the other members did. At the same time, a different idea had started growing, something more specific to me. I wanted to build something for the next generation of Asian American kids that I wish had existed when I was the one growing up looking for it.
So I left the band I'd dropped out of school for, and staked a claim on a different idea entirely, in the same city. That idea became The Slants.
Leaving school wasn't a rejection of school. It was a choice to go do something else. What promised to be a once-in-a-lifetime adventure, or so I thought at the time, though what it actually meant was living a little outside the lines everyone around me was staying inside of. School was a vehicle, one of several. I went back eventually and finished a degree, then a master's, so I could teach.
Part of me still wishes I'd finished those first two degrees before leaving. There will always be another band to join, but then again, there's always another school to enroll in. What I learned in the years I spent instead of finishing on schedule turned out to be worth more than the piece of paper would have been on its own.
There's a version of this story that ends with the lesson "follow your passion," but I never fully believed in that phrase, because it isn't always true. Passions are feelings, emotions that can change with the weather. I'd rather follow your core values instead, the things that stay steadfast regardless of whether you find yourself in a classroom or a tour van.
Some people ask me about the cost of following your dreams, usually framed around what you have to sacrifice to go after something. I think about it the other way around. The cost is what you pay when you stay put, when you decide you need a guarantee before you're willing to act on what you say you believe.
I speak on risk, identity, and civic life at universities, civic organizations, and corporate events. If this story resonates with work you're doing, simontam.org/speaking is the place to start.
