Ask HN: Advice for freshmen entering college • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Advice for freshmen entering college

#101

Post by alexgartrell » Tue, Aug 11, 2009, 6:37 PM UTC

TA as soon as you can.

Do research as soon as you can.

Surround yourself with the smartest people you can.

Don't make partying a priority (this is a painful one, but binge drinking, fun as it is, won't help you towards accomplishing either of your goals).

If you're learning a new language or tech, find a way to leverage it against something else you have to do for class. If you want to learn LaTex (for grad school, of course), write a paper for a class in LaTex. If you want to learn C, brute force the answers to discrete math problems with a problem written in C. There are lots of opportunities to do this.

MOST IMPORTANTLY, there will inevitably be a group on campus that is all about being geeky. Inevitably, they'll know something about tech as well, but they'll mostly want to use memes in real life, play weird card games, complain about athletes, etc. Including yourself in this group means ostracizing yourself from everyone else. Not worth it.

Take the hardest classes you can, and ahead of schedule.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for freshmen entering college

#102

Post by potatolicious » Tue, Aug 11, 2009, 6:37 PM UTC

akeefer wrote: post #73

It's a bit random, but: if you're not already in good shape (and many of us hacker types aren't coming out of high school), find where the gym is and learn what to do there, and go three times a week. College is one of the first chances where you A) generally have free access to a decent gym, B) have enough control over your own time to set a workout schedule, and C) you're generally old enough that working out will…

I didn't do this in college and I regret it. Thankfully I am now on a schedule, controlling my diet, etc, and I feel far better than I have ever in my life. I've always been overweight, and you have no idea how good it feels to know that your health trajectory is improving as opposed to the opposite.

I have never been more glad that practically my entire wardrobe needs to be replaced. My BMI is now on the low end of "overweight", and I cannot fucking wait for the day when I finally drop back into the "normal" range - something that I haven't been since primary school.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for freshmen entering college

#103

Post by run4yourlives » Tue, Aug 11, 2009, 6:41 PM UTC

noodle wrote: post #94

run4yourlives wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was talking about a PhD. MBA's are more a function of whether or not you can pay for the program than your undergraduate grades really.

i was using an MBA as an example, as its usually the most exaggerated. another example is that there is a well known preference inside of google for PHDs from a specific set of schools.

Well, google may in fact have specific qualifications that they require in order to work for them, but that's hardly representative of whether or not you can be successful, unless your entire definition of success is a job at google.

My point is that outside of academia and a few outliers, most employers don't give a lick where you obtained your degree. Sure, some people are charmed by an Ivy league school on your resume. I can bet though that more people are charmed by what you are actually doing than where you went to school.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for freshmen entering college

#104

Post by pwnix_rising » Tue, Aug 11, 2009, 6:56 PM UTC

Locke1689 wrote: post #74

run4yourlives wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you pass, grad school is an option. Maybe not the top echelon, maybe not right away, but it's always an option.

Don't do this. The name of the school on your PhD does matter.

Correct, especially if he wants academia.

It's not as bad as it is for MBA, law, or (at the extreme) humanities PhD programs. In those fields, it's not even worth going if you can't get into a top program. Nonetheless, the ranking of the PhD program matters.

What matters more than the ranking of the program is the reputation of the advisor. However, at a no-name grad school, there may not be any reputable advisors in the field he wants to pursue.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for freshmen entering college

#105

Post by burke » Tue, Aug 11, 2009, 6:59 PM UTC

JeremyChase wrote: post #10

jlees wrote: post #5

If you're not enjoying it you don't have to do it. I switched course (admittedly from maths w/ CS to pure CS) after my first year and had a much better time. Get involved in stuff. Don't spend all your nights indoors hacking!

Yes, be flexible. I started out in Computer Engineering, and was miserable for 1.5 years. After switching to Computer Science I was much happier as it was a better fit for me.

2.5 here :/

Re: Ask HN: Advice for freshmen entering college

#106

Post by larrywright » Tue, Aug 11, 2009, 7:01 PM UTC

1) Get a Github account, fork projects, fix bugs, and send pull requests. Write your own libraries and apps and push them there as well. When you graduate, you will have a corpus of code to show people, and a documented history of playing well with others. That will matter more than your GPA to any company you would actually want to work for.

2) Have a social life. As someone else here commented, don't be afraid of girls. If you ask her out and she says no, it's not the end of the world. Don't be afraid to take risks.

3) If your study/organizational habits are lacking, seek out the people who have their act together and duplicate their habits.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for freshmen entering college

#107

Post by peregrine » Tue, Aug 11, 2009, 7:02 PM UTC

michael_dorfman wrote: post #40

Choose your classes based on the professor, not the topic. Good professors can make a boring topic seem interesting; bad professors can make the most interesting topic seem boring. Therefore: ask around to find out who the outstanding professors are, and take whatever courses they are offering.

http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/

Re: Ask HN: Advice for freshmen entering college

#108

Post by lutorm » Tue, Aug 11, 2009, 7:26 PM UTC

_cbsz wrote: post #99

Locke1689 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't do this. The name of the school on your PhD does matter.

Really? I would naively expect the outcome to matter a lot more. As a PhD, your work product has a lot more transparency than B.S./M.S. degrees, because people will actually hear about your work if it matters (for several different, valid definitions of "hear about" and "matters"). However, I would also naively expect the name of the school to correlate with outcome, but only because because different professors work…

The outcome is severely affected by what the faculty are doing at the school you end up at. Your chances of successfully completing a Ph.D. doing something completely different from what people are doing in your department are slim.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for freshmen entering college

#109

Post by lutorm » Tue, Aug 11, 2009, 7:29 PM UTC

lallysingh wrote: post #47

1. No beard or moustache until you're old enough to drink. Goatees are OK. 2. There are core programming skills, and there are technology-of-the-week skills. Instead of worrying terribly about the latter, worry about getting your core ability to design and test efficient, maintainable code. Definitely play with functional languages instead of the enterprise-y fad-of-the-week. 3. Don't hang out with other geeks all th…

1. No they're not.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for freshmen entering college

#110

Post by iterationx » Tue, Aug 11, 2009, 7:52 PM UTC

Don't skip the first day because thats when you get the syllabus. Don't leave your education solely to the university. Don't learn any European languages, they all speak English in Europe, I'd trade my German degree for a Chinese / Japanese degree any day of the week.