Juan David Campolargo

Dylan Murphy

“907 days ago I started college and after some of the best days of my life I dropped out. Here's why I did it and why I think you should too. I've narrowed it down to four separate events that led up to me dropping out of college.”

—Dylan Murphy, why i dropped out of college

When I first came across why i dropped out of college, I watched it three times in a row and immediately sent it to over ten people. I shared it on Reddit multiple times, and honestly, everywhere I could.

There was just something about the video, the way the story unfolded with such honesty, the music swelling at the perfect moments, the way his voice cracked with emotion when he talked about leaving everything behind. It felt like you were inside Dylan’s head, experiencing the fear, the excitement, and the raw hope all at once. That combination—the vulnerability of the story, the visuals, the raw and unpolished emotion—made it deeply moving for me.

You can feel the moment a kid realizes he doesn’t have to live the version of college he was handed. He’s in Business 101, alone, not quite finding his people, when he notices a guy in a Mac Miller hoodie. He says hi. They shoot photos. They climb roofs. They start saying yes to the kind of nights that make you feel alive again. Small choices that begin to compound.

Jailbroken mode: UNLOCKED.

But what actually drives him isn’t adrenaline; it’s the argument he has with himself. Dylan is the kind of person who can see two paths at once: the safe one with tidy bullet points, and the other one that feels like jumping a fence. He hears both voices. One says be reasonable. The other says be alive. Freshman year ends at a locked football stadium. Friends hop first. His friend Aiden freezes. Anxiety runs through the worst-case scenarios, and then the switch flips: “fuck it.” They go. They race golf carts under the floodlights. Not for clout. For proof. Proof that if you choose the braver voice once, it gets easier to hear again.

Sophomore year hits, and the grown-up conveyor belt starts humming—internships, handshakes, “experience.” Dylan collects rejections. Aiden practices guitar. One night, in the rain on an empty field, the camera keeps rolling when Dylan says the sentence you say right before your life changes: “I’ll have more success if I just do my own thing.” He makes a decision. After that, he books a one-way ticket to LA and takes a gap semester to pursue his filmmaking dreams.

He never pretends the leap is glamorous. In LA he admits, on camera: “I’m fucking lonely out here.” He left his friends, his relationship, and his routine. No fairy dust. Just a kid with a camera, trading comfort for a chance at something that feels real.

His campus years show what he really believes: turn campus into a playground. He doesn’t complain that college is boring; he posts on r/UIUC and throws a campus-wide Capture the Flag—black shirts vs. white shirts, rain pouring, hundreds sprinting across the South Quad. It’s so impossible to ignore and so alive that the student paper covers it. This is Dylan’s philosophy: ask loudly, give people something to run toward, and they will.

Same thing with the big snowball fight. No committee, no “initiative.” Just him tossing out a dare and bringing a camera to prove it happened. He treated the campus like a set and the students like collaborators. For Dylan, campus is a playground and everyone’s invited into the shot.

And when he decides to premiere his first short film, he doesn’t wait for a green light. He scouts rooms, prints the wrong flyers (whoops), fixes them, begs friends for help, edits through a power outage, and rolls out a literal $15 red carpet. Fifty people show up. He reframes “only 50 views” as “a theater full of hearts.”

Meanwhile, because of that stadium escapade, the university put him on academic probation until graduation. He’s barred from campus facilities, and if he’s caught using them, expulsion is on the line. He screens the film anyway. The room is “borrowed.” The risk is obvious.

Any school with any imagination would hand him a camera and a budget and let him make the place irresistible. His videos were so good the university should’ve been paying him to make films that put the campus on the map. Instead, their answer was bureaucracy: don’t inspire, don’t experiment, don’t do anything, just sit the fuck down. Well, he didn’t. He finished the film. He filled the room anyway.

Use Dylan as an inspiration and start today: talk to the kid in the hoodie. Turn your campus into a playground. Post the invite before you feel ready. Keep the camera on when it’s messy. And when the two voices start arguing again, choose the one that says be alive. Then back it up with action.

Things You Can Learn from Dylan:

  • Turn your campus into a creative playground. Treat every space as an opportunity for adventure and creativity. Don’t wait for permission to bring your ideas to life.
  • Use social media as a bridge to real-world connections. A single Reddit post or YouTube video can help you organize unforgettable moments, from giant snowball fights to campus-wide capture-the-flag games.
  • Document your adventures and share your journey openly. Capturing your experiences through video or photography not only helps you grow but also inspires others to follow their curiosity.
  • Take bold leaps, even if they scare you. Life-changing experiences happen when you trust yourself enough to chase what excites you, even if it means stepping away from the “safe path.”
  • Don’t be afraid to ask, "What if?" and "Why not?": Be the person who initiates events, gatherings, and projects. Chances are, others are waiting for someone brave enough to say, “Let’s do something amazing. Who’s in?”

Learn more

Front cover for The Jailbroken Guide to the University
Use the appendixThe back of the book is part of the book.

The appendix keeps the examples, guides, profiles, and source trails close. The book gives them sequence, context, and a way to turn curiosity into action.