I tried to, given the opportunity. I thought it time to level up yet again.
Ask HN: Have you taken 6 months to 1 year break to do self study?
71–80 of 87 posts
Re: Ask HN: Have you taken 6 months to 1 year break to do self study?
#72How do future employers look at this time of unemployment?
I took a year off to travel before my current job. Best thing I ever did. Before leaving, I made sure I had several standing job offers. Get your foot in the door when you're in a stronger position. Do it for your own peace of mind if nothing else. You don't want to spend half of your sabbatical worrying about what to do when it's over.
You found companies willing to wait a year for you to start? That's surprising, I wouldn't have guessed that would be easy to do. I'm thinking about this myself, but I'm looking to join a startup and I can't imagine that would be feasible given that a year is a long time for a startup.
Re: Ask HN: Have you taken 6 months to 1 year break to do self study?
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
You get free dental treatment and glasses if you are a student/unemployed. NHS dental charges for the employed are as follows: http://www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/1781.aspx?CategoryID=74&SubC... - each charge covers everything for 2 months subsequently as well. It is not much really! In 2002, I had to have surgery to have 2 teeth removed which were growing through the roof of my mouth and 4 others removed due to my jaw being…
You're right. I'm gravely pessimistic about the UK in many areas but healthcare is an area I'm really happy with. Due to shortages at the time, I'm "private" for dentistry, and even private prices aren't onerous compared to those in the Americas. I've paid £30 for a checkup, £400 for a root canal and crown, and £40 for an extraction before. Fillings are between £50-£150 depending on complexity. And then I hear of ins…
TBH I'm in London and I've never had to wait for dental treatment. I thought it'd be rather busy here.
With respect to "radical new treatments", I'd rather go out with my dignity intact than hold onto some hope of some snake oil possibly working.
Re: Ask HN: Have you taken 6 months to 1 year break to do self study?
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
I took a year off to travel before my current job. Best thing I ever did. Before leaving, I made sure I had several standing job offers. Get your foot in the door when you're in a stronger position. Do it for your own peace of mind if nothing else. You don't want to spend half of your sabbatical worrying about what to do when it's over.
You found companies willing to wait a year for you to start? That's surprising, I wouldn't have guessed that would be easy to do. I'm thinking about this myself, but I'm looking to join a startup and I can't imagine that would be feasible given that a year is a long time for a startup.
Of course. Why wouldn't they be willing to wait? It's that or nothing.
Re: Ask HN: Have you taken 6 months to 1 year break to do self study?
#75In the UK we have The Open University (which is open for international study too). You can get a real degree in your spare time without a massive spend, working or not. I'm doing a mathematics degree at the moment, whilst employed. No holiday/vacation required!
In the UK, if you work for a company with 250 or more employees, you are also entitled to request time off work to train (including degree study): http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/Employees/Timeoffandh...
Re: Ask HN: Have you taken 6 months to 1 year break to do self study?
#76Good question. I've done this a couple of times. Self-study can be incredibly useful. Being able to do it within the "distraction" of a full time job can also be extremely rewarding. I have a very conservative financial point of view in that if I got fired tomorrow I would want to be fine for the next year without working. This has in the past allowed me to work on my own stuff a couple of times without much worry (a…
lack of health insurance isn't the issue it is in the US Here's what I've found about health insurance in the US: 1) It's not terribly difficult or expensive to get, at least, emergency coverage. In my 30s and single, I've found interesting plans for around $150 per month which cover simple doctor's visits a few times per year, with around a $10k deductible for 'real' stuff. This is very doable with reasonable financ…
There's some big problems with individual high-limit coverage:
(1) $10K is a big deductible if anything actually happens; if there's anything serious, you should assume you'll hit the $10k.
(2) Some of the better medical offices (eg my orthopaedic surgeon) are pretty picky about what brand of insurance they take because what the insurance pays for, how much they pay, how quickly, and with how much hassle vary quite widely. My point is, insurance is not all the same. You may find the better doctors unwilling to see you depending on the brand of insurance you have.
(3) If you do something like, for example, breaking your ankle, you'll be shocked at how much stuff is not covered by insurance. So add 50% to your out of pocket estimates. This is for things like: parking at the ortho / physical therapist office ($5-$8 per visit; 30+ visits, $200), taxis to and from work since you can't take public transport ($34 / day, 6 months on crutches, $4k), drugs (typically separate from the insurance deductible for no reason but to screw more money out of you, $300), buying all OTC stuff you can get at any drug store which is therefore not covered (advil, ice packs, compression bandages, etc -- easily $200). Plus if you actually have a bad accident, you'll probably spend a couple thousand dollars on takeout, etc.
(4) deductibles reset on a calendar basis. I fortunately injured myself in march and had 8 months of treatment, with both surgeries covered in the same deductible year. If you were to hurt yourself in October, you could cross deductible years so double your out of pocket costs again.
(5) Also, you should be very careful about coverage restrictions and in/out of network bullshit. As I mentioned, I broke my ankle. When you have an injury like that, you don't want to go to a random orthopaedic surgeon. I was fortunate and Anthem Blue Cross covered UCSF so I could go to an ortho surgeon who only repairs ankles instead of a generic ortho surgeon. The difference is between someone who has treated my particular injury 600+ times vs someone who has done so a handful of times. Lots of research suggests that outcomes correlate with the amount of times your doctor has treated your injury.
My experience was a bit unusual because the recovery time -- 8 months -- was so protracted, but not unprecedented for joint injuries. Recommendation: don't break your ankle =P
tl:dr: in a worst case scenario, where you have a moderate to bad injury that spans a deductible year, your $10K can be $25K in practice. Make sure you have the cash.
Re: Ask HN: Have you taken 6 months to 1 year break to do self study?
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the US if you quit your job you can buy the same health insurance plan you had, for up to 18 months ("COBRA"). It's not going to be the cheapest thing in the world, but if you're talking about taking a year off, you're probably not on the verge of going broke. (It looks like it'd be far less than what I pay for rent, for example.) Another option could be to take a part-time job. A fair number of stores seem to off…
When I quit my job last year to join a start-up the cost to continue my COBRA benefits would have been $700/month (and I'm a healthy guy in my 20s). Fortunately, I'm in MA with its private health insurance market, and I was able to find a plan for $200/month. I still had to go without health insurance at all for a month, though, to make myself become inelegible for COBRA and therefore eligible for the other plan. "No…
From what I'd found (also for a young single person), it would have been more like $500/month, but even at $700, that's still cheaper than rent at any apartment I've seen since I was a college student.
And remember the context: this is someone who wants to take a year off with no work at all, and so is voluntarily giving up tens of thousands of dollars, in exchange for his own time. Yes, there are almost certainly cheaper health insurance options, depending on how much effort you want to put into the research, but COBRA is the upper bound, and takes practically no time to sign up for, which, again, was the whole point of the exercise.
Re: Ask HN: Have you taken 6 months to 1 year break to do self study?
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the US if you quit your job you can buy the same health insurance plan you had, for up to 18 months ("COBRA"). It's not going to be the cheapest thing in the world, but if you're talking about taking a year off, you're probably not on the verge of going broke. (It looks like it'd be far less than what I pay for rent, for example.) Another option could be to take a part-time job. A fair number of stores seem to off…
Have you checked these claims in the "real world"? Costs have been rising substantially each and every year. The number of employers willing to give even full time employees insurance has been shrinking and the cost of your employer's health insurance plan willing be quite high considering you don't have your employers tax incentives.
Wow, such vitriol! Yes, I have.
It's not hard to find names of employers who offer healthcare even for half-time workers, using any "search engine". I'm sure there are also companies who are dropping their health insurance plans, but that doesn't mean that all companies are.
Re: Ask HN: Have you taken 6 months to 1 year break to do self study?
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
You found companies willing to wait a year for you to start? That's surprising, I wouldn't have guessed that would be easy to do. I'm thinking about this myself, but I'm looking to join a startup and I can't imagine that would be feasible given that a year is a long time for a startup.
Of course. Why wouldn't they be willing to wait? It's that or nothing.
that or nothing or someone else who can start 6 months earlier.