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Ask HN: Advice for freshmen entering college

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Re: Ask HN: Advice for freshmen entering college

#141

Post by mofey »

pwnix_rising wrote: post #52
run4yourlives wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

College doesn't matter at all That's exactly what I was going to post, but I feared the downmod army, to be honest. I'm 34 now. Nobody has cared what happened to me in my early 20's since I was about 25. It just doesn't matter. Sure there are a lot of positives you can gain in those 4 years, but some of the most boring and average people I know define themselves by where and when they went to college and what they di…

I'm 34 now. Nobody has cared what happened to me in my early 20's since I was about 25. I think college is less relevant, in a constantly changing social and technological environment, than it once was. It used to make sense to front-load one's life with education, concentrating on schooling into the mid-20s and then starting to work. Considering education to be an investment, it was only logical to pursue it as earl…

The purpose of quality education is to avoid acquiring a skill that will get obsolete quickly.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for freshmen entering college

#142

Post by justin_vanw »

Go to class. Go to class regularly. Go to bed at 10PM or earlier. Don't drink or eat things like caffeine in the evening that will give you an excuse to get up and dick around. Don't own any game systems or a television. Don't spend hours and hours on the computer messing around. Don't take more classes than you can keep up with.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for freshmen entering college

#143

Post by justin_vanw »

gdp wrote: post #12
JeremyChase wrote: post #4

Don't skip class. College is easy if you actually go to class and pay attention.

I disagree on this point. I skipped classes left, right and centre. I'm sure it annoyed the hell out of my lecturers, but I was spending my time doing things that turned out to be much more valuable in the long run. For example, I did actual research! By the time I was finished with my undergraduate programme, I had enough "real" research experience to gain entry to a very good PhD programme in another country. This…

This is like buying a ticket and then skipping the flight. You can't tell me that the 9-12 hours a week (max) you skipped classes made the difference between getting into grad school and not, you are merely rationalizing.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for freshmen entering college

#144

Post by smokinn »

peregrine wrote: post #107
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/

Take this site with a huge grain of salt. It generally rewards easy professors and punishes hard ones. Many of the best teachers at my school had so-so records on the site because they weren't afraid of failing people. People that do average or well in a class are much less likely to fill out the form on that site than someone who's looking to spite the professor that just failed them.

The corollary is also true, that easy but useless professors tend to have high scores.

The best advice for picking professors is to make friends with people in your program that are further along than you and ask them who their favourite professors were and why. If they say he was great because the class was easy and you got an A avoid that professor, you won't learn a thing. If they say something like well I didn't get a great mark but I learned so much that it was worth it that's the professor you want.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for freshmen entering college

#145

Post by gdp »

justin_vanw wrote: post #143
gdp wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree on this point. I skipped classes left, right and centre. I'm sure it annoyed the hell out of my lecturers, but I was spending my time doing things that turned out to be much more valuable in the long run. For example, I did actual research! By the time I was finished with my undergraduate programme, I had enough "real" research experience to gain entry to a very good PhD programme in another country. This…

This is like buying a ticket and then skipping the flight. You can't tell me that the 9-12 hours a week (max) you skipped classes made the difference between getting into grad school and not, you are merely rationalizing.

That really depends what the objective of going to a university is:

Mine was actually to understand. This is largely incompatible with the notion of covering a large amount of material which you need to regurgitate near-verbatim in an exam. That kind of environment essentially reduces any subject to a memory recall game. I decided I wanted to come away with a very rich understanding of fewer things, and my exam grades mattered less to me.

So, it's not like I didn't go to any classes. I just didn't go to any which didn't really increase my understanding. If it was the sort of thing I could just read out of the text book and memorise, then I would do that instead of wasting my time sitting in a lecture. Instead, I worked on projects (both credit and non-credit varieties). I went and sat in the computer science tea room with a stack of papers and I just read them. I asked academics about things that I read and didn't understand. The most common answer was usually "Hrm. That is interesting. I don't know the answer to that, but there's a paper by so-and-so that might explain it!" - result! Print another paper and head back to the tea room.

After two or so years of this, I had a pretty darned good foundation in my sub-field of computer science. Enough that I managed to work on some novel projects, which I wrote up and published in my fourth year. By my third year I had managed to convince the department to drop a bunch of course requirements in favour of letting me do a project worth an equivalent number of credits. I actually did all of this in the lecture time slots.

The alternative would have been sitting through introduction to {programming, algorithms, self-harm} for years, getting bored, and probably just dropping out to go earn real money cutting code.

So really, who got the better deal? My classmates who digested the material at exactly the rate it was delivered? I think I got the better deal, because I actually made full use of being in a university environment.

And as I said, I believe that was what got me into a very good PhD programme. I got my money's worth.

So, skipping classes is fine as long as you are willing to take responsibility for your own education.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for freshmen entering college

#146

Post by ganley »

Get good at time management. College undergrads have an enormous amount of free time, few responsibilities, and a lot of flexibility. The main cause (for me, at least) for not doing most anything you want is poor time management. Start here: http://www.alice.org/Randy/timetalk.htm

Re: Ask HN: Advice for freshmen entering college

#147

Post by cschmidt »

I live in Needham, just down the street from where you'll be (Hi Neighbor ;-). If you can get a parking spot on campus, I'd be sure to have a car. Boston is a much more interesting town than Needham, and you'll want to be able to explore. (If not, you'll be taking the commuter rail.)

Secondly, why don't you take a class at Wellesley College? Our babysitter just graduated from Wellesley, and she took classes at Olin. It seems like a good idea to do the reverse.

Olin sounds like a great school. I think I would have gone there if it has existed in my day. Just go with the program. Lots of these comments apply more to people going to large, state schools. You'll be having a much nicer experience.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for freshmen entering college

#149

Post by justin_vanw »

gdp wrote: post #145
justin_vanw wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is like buying a ticket and then skipping the flight. You can't tell me that the 9-12 hours a week (max) you skipped classes made the difference between getting into grad school and not, you are merely rationalizing.

That really depends what the objective of going to a university is: Mine was actually to understand . This is largely incompatible with the notion of covering a large amount of material which you need to regurgitate near-verbatim in an exam. That kind of environment essentially reduces any subject to a memory recall game. I decided I wanted to come away with a very rich understanding of fewer things, and my exam grad…

You are rationalizing.

> The alternative would have been sitting through introduction to {programming, algorithms, self-harm} for years, getting bored, and probably just dropping out to go earn real money cutting code.

Ok, there it is. Attending class seems to cause you anxiety. This leads me to believe you have ADD. Maybe I'm just projecting.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for freshmen entering college

#150

Post by gdp »

justin_vanw wrote: post #149
gdp wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That really depends what the objective of going to a university is: Mine was actually to understand . This is largely incompatible with the notion of covering a large amount of material which you need to regurgitate near-verbatim in an exam. That kind of environment essentially reduces any subject to a memory recall game. I decided I wanted to come away with a very rich understanding of fewer things, and my exam grad…

You are rationalizing. > The alternative would have been sitting through introduction to {programming, algorithms, self-harm} for years, getting bored, and probably just dropping out to go earn real money cutting code. Ok, there it is. Attending class seems to cause you anxiety. This leads me to believe you have ADD. Maybe I'm just projecting.

> You are rationalizing.

Uh, sure, if by "rationalizing" you mean "explaining why my opinion is valid". You're make it sound like I have a drug habit or something. I skipped some classes in university, I'm glad I did, and everything worked out for the best. What is there to rationalise?

> Ok, there it is. Attending class seems to cause you anxiety. This leads me to believe you have ADD. Maybe I'm just projecting.

Erm, no. No such diagnosis here. Perhaps the off-the-cuff "self-harm" reference threw you off. It was a joke.

I certainly have a low tolerance for boredom, but that's not the same as "ADD". I certainly have no problems concentrating on things if I need to. I've always been a very busy person, and so my time is precious to me. If I'm doing something when I could otherwise be making more efficient use of my time, then I will not enjoy doing it.

And this psychiatric-diagnosis-over-the-internet thing is a bit weird. Who said anything about anxiety? I used the word bored. I used my 4 years of university to my best advantage, and in that situation "going to classes" didn't figure very highly in the heirarchy of things that were useful to me.

I think I have to follow this all up with a giant

WTF?

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