I learned that many professors had favorite books where they got their test questions. I would go to professors' offices and check out what books they might have on their desks or book shelves, then take a quick trip to the library.
Ask HN: How Did you hack your education?
11–16 of 16 posts
Re: Ask HN: How Did you hack your education?
#12I became a full-time college student at 15 and had the state pay for it.
A limited number of "middle colleges" (such as Washtenaw Technical Middle College in MI) allow students to become full-time college students. The state paid for my college tuition and books and all of my classes counted for both high-school and college credit.
So, at 18, I graduated with a HS diploma and a community college Associate's Degree.
Re: Ask HN: How Did you hack your education?
#13No matter how many different classes require a paper to be written, always write one paper and reuse it for all classes. US Profs love creativity and when you come to them and ask if you can write about the "History of Religion" for your history paper they will always say yes. Then go to your religion professor and pitch the same paper. Et viola. Two classes with one paper. And since you'll have a little more time to…
> write one paper and reuse it for all classes.
Careful with this. My school, at least, treats this as academic fraud unless you have agreed in advance with each professor that you will be multiple-submitting that piece of work.
Re: Ask HN: How Did you hack your education?
#14Drivers Ed was taught by an old irish ex cop who was obsessed with talking about how much alcohol you could drink before you should not drive. His best piece of advice? Keep a jar of peanut butter in the glove compartment so when you get pulled over, put peanut butter in your mouth and it will cover the smell of alcohol on your breath.
I would work on my robot after school and my favorite teacher would write me a late note, so I only spent the last 10 minutes of every class in drivers ed.
Robot got me into college. 20 years of driving and not one speeding ticket or accident.
Re: Ask HN: How Did you hack your education?
#15I utterly failed in school after realising that it didn't matter that much. Unfortunately I discovered girls, booze and fun just in time for my A-Levels and after finding more to life than studying hard cut back massively. I picked subjects I was already way ahead of my class in and dropped out as they were wasting my time, then went back in just in time to find that two thirds of my graduation would be based on maths (a course that I never signed up for, but essential for A-Level Physics) and Microsoft Access (I'd used DBase, FileMaker and even Oracle, but this made no sense to me).
It was only when I flunked my A-Levels that I realised how little they mattered. Pretty much everything I'd learnt about computers I'd learnt off my own bat (exception: Microsoft Access). I thought about going back, but the prospect of graduating from University at 26 just seemed like a waste of time, so I got myself a job as quick as I could and tried to work my way towards games development.
I never quite got there (after flirting with the games industry I saw it was just as bad as Infosec, but even more full of idiots at the time), but overall I think I did ok.
Re: Ask HN: How Did you hack your education?
#16I found a way to access last year's exams by doing some url magic in the course catalog so I could access the Blackboard page of previous years the course was offered. Same type of questions came up every year so I knew where to focus on. It's no longer working though since they upgraded Blackboard. Also, googling for the solutions manual has worked for me a few times.