I had poor high school grades and was formally kicked out of my first community college for poor grades. Went into the work force, eventually went back to school at a different community college, and now have an ivy league degree. Sometimes the timing is just off or there are external factors that have nothing to do with your raw ability.
Ask HN: Did Anyone Else Here Simply Not Do Well at School?
11–20 of 112 posts
Re: Ask HN: Did Anyone Else Here Simply Not Do Well at School?
#12I was a pretty mediocre student in college, mainly because I did well in HS without having to work too hard and tried to apply the same methods to studying in college. I did well in courses that interested me, but overall was just an average student at least as far as gpa goes. I did find that I'm a much better student now than I was then, probably because when I take a course these days I have a goal in mind or something particular I want to get out of it so I'm more motivated to put in the work. Not perfect though. I imagine some doors closed were closed to me, especially in being able to go further in academics, because of this, but I don't think it made much difference career wise.
Re: Ask HN: Did Anyone Else Here Simply Not Do Well at School?
#13I did pretty well up until middle school. My parents went through a messy divorce and I kinda checked out at that point. Spent a lot of time on the computer but didn’t have motivation for anything else.
Around junior year in high school I somewhat started applying myself again but it was far too late to get into a good college.
Went to community college for a couple years and then transferred to a cheap in state school with a decent CS program and graduated with a CS degree.
Fast forward to today and I work in Silicon Valley, own a house, and have a family. My teammates have CS degrees from universities like Stanford and MIT. I guess it all worked out in the long run, it just took me longer to get here.
I don’t have any regrets, I met a lot of important people on my journey I wouldn’t have met otherwise.
Re: Ask HN: Did Anyone Else Here Simply Not Do Well at School?
#14[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Did Anyone Else Here Simply Not Do Well at School?
#15I did very well in high school and had a pretty good time. I barely did any work and still got great grades. I got into a good engineering program and there I had a bit of trouble.
I went from being a smart kid in a high school class to being average or slightly below average in university. Suddenly, school was moving faster than I was comfortable with. When I got a few bad grades I really struggled with that because it hadn’t happened before. I managed to get things turned around in my third year and have had a really great life since, but those first two years of school taught me a lot about myself.
Re: Ask HN: Did Anyone Else Here Simply Not Do Well at School?
#16If you're certain it's what you want, don't accept no for an answer and keep hassling the school or college at different levels and see if you can still make it happen.
Re: Ask HN: Did Anyone Else Here Simply Not Do Well at School?
#17Fck school dude, you good. I mean, unless you like it. My only regret from college is that I spent it studying instead of doing a lot of drugs. If you’re doing computer stuff, the grades don’t mean anything. There are so many paths to get in. You should only stress about the grades if you wanted to go on to be an academic— but if you aren’t enjoying the setting then you probably don’t want to go the academic route anyway.
Here’s the best most beautiful part about coding:
### ain’t no one can stop you ###
You don’t need* a degree to do it. School is not the gatekeeper. The information is yours for the taking.
Check it out: https://www.udacity.com/course/design-of-computer-programs--...
You do NOT need to pay money for that course, I know they really try to get you to sign up for a nanodegree but click around till you can take the course.
If you can understand and replicate even 30% of the material in that course you are a certified badass.
Can you load data from a file, manipulate it, and save it to another file? Congrats you are able to get a job with some effort.
If you have an opportunity to take any courses, even the video courses, from Dave Beazley, do it: https://dabeaz.com/ (assuming Python is your thing). You will know more about Python than all of your professors and anyone interviewing you.
Last bit of “stick it to the man” advice, you have one major advantage over more experienced developers that often goes overlooked: the ability to go deep on a technology. Most senior developers need to be generalists, the cost of going deep is almost never worth it. At this point in your career you actually have the opportunity to become better, for instance, at TypeScript or Python by spending a whole year or two studying the hell out of it while you look for a job. And being a specialist early in your career is something you can hang your hat on, people WILL hire you just for your subject matter expertise, and they figure you can learn the rest on the job.
Oh yeah two more things (I also have ADHD) #1 go to conferences, like PyCon or ClojureConj or whatever you are interested in. They are extremely welcoming for new folks. We are excited that anyone gives a sht about the stuff we are interested in. You will almost certainly walk away with tons of interview opportunities if not offers.
Lastly, about school — don’t overlook the opportunity to make friends and take advantage of the school resources. That’s my biggest regret from school. I don’t have any friends from college despite being a generally outgoing person. And schools have an ENORMOUS amount of opportunities available and most people don’t take advantage of them. These opportunities for socializing and resources are MUCH harder to come by after school in the work force.
tl;dr fck school
Re: Ask HN: Did Anyone Else Here Simply Not Do Well at School?
#18I think society, collectively, puts a lot of currency is "knowing what you're going to do". It's a question that adults ask children, especially precocious ones.
But, frankly, it's pretty much bullshit.
I was an average student in university. The courses I liked, I did well in. The ones that I struggled to engage with, not so much. The reality is that once you are out in the real world, no one's going to tell you what to do.
If getting a CS degree is that important to you, then stick with it until you can qualify for it. But there's no requirement that you must have one just because you want to work in the field.
Note: There might be companies that won't consider you as a candidate if you don't have a CS degree. My recommendation is that, again, unless you really want to work at a company like that, find your own path.
Re: Ask HN: Did Anyone Else Here Simply Not Do Well at School?
#19Mostly a C student through all of my years of school, some B’s in topics I enjoyed (eg: Business, Physics).
Accepted directly into my University’s CS program, first year was pretty difficult. During the first summer I started working for a local tech company, they wanted to keep me on past summer so I stayed. A year later I was interviewing with Google, Amazon, LinkedIn, Uber all at the same time (no clue how my LinkedIn drew attention). Now I’ve been with AWS for 8 years as a sr. engineer, no degree.
I learn best by doing, so I followed the paths that would enable my learning. For me, studying and testing never worked well.
Re: Ask HN: Did Anyone Else Here Simply Not Do Well at School?
#20I had, literally, eight different majors over my Bachelor's career, with almost enough credits for two whole B.A. degrees by the time I was done. I just finally picked a major that I had the most credits towards and was cheapest/easiest to finish distance learning (a degree in theology). Of course, by this time, I was over 30 and had already built a career sans degree and (if I recall correctly on timing) was working at Apple as a software engineer.
I've always been an autodidact not as a point of pride but instead of necessity. I grew up really poor and, given it was Alabama, our education/library system wasn't great. I taught myself a lot of things, and because of that, had a lot of interests, which led to a...er...chaotic college experience when the road to education was less narrow.
My point is, yes a lot of people go through this, and the only path you're limited to is the one you pick. Getting into a career in engineering without a degree does require some hustle to get over the initial inertia, but you can do it. If you feel like you have the knowledge and wherewithal to make it happen, major in a "backup" or something that interests you. If not, there's no shame in it, so pursue the plan you laid out. All in all, the ultimate result is that you learn how to think about things and pick up some skills along the way. However you and your brain get there isn't really defined.
(Ninja edit to say: I was a low B student in high school, had a 3.2 GPA in my bachelor's work. I took some master's classes from Harvard when I could afford them, and I was knocking them down with a 4.0. Environment makes a big difference too, so don't feel like you're stuck in what you've tried. You might just need to find the right place.)