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College was my biggest mistake

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Re: College was my biggest mistake

#111

Post by dinkumthinkum »

chmike wrote: post #101
dinkumthinkum wrote: post #78

Oh come on. I just feel like this is another in a series of "let's indict education" posts. I take issue with everything in here. $44,000 a year for tuition, why? Why did you choose that school if you had no intention of studying? You can teach yourself more in an afternoon than in a 10-week class? Really, let's prove it. I want to see it. You made basically all Fs but yet you can teach yourself more in an afternoon…

The autor is clearly talking of his own experience. He is not generalizing and trying to convince everybody to drop out of college. My experience is that after 5 years of professionnal activity college is not relevant anymore as long as one kept learning and gaining experience. It is what you've done and accomplished that will make the difference and get you closer to success. Beside 44k$/year + interests is far too…

Reread the article, it is exactly what you're telling me it's not (last paragraph). :(

Also, beside that point, this is thrice daily conversation, whether it's Peter Thiel, or KA, or whatever the "anti-college" hit of the day is.

As far as 5 years of experience ... It depends on what you spent 5 years doing.

The $44K/yr is a non-starter. Sure, it's a big waste of money if you get a .33 GPA, agreed. Big deal. That's so much higher than average that bringing this up is sort of a strawman; if that school is way outside of your budget and you're not just dead-set on that school, why go there. That's more than B.S. + PhD for many people. Give me a break!

As far as the idea of college being step closer to success being "plain wrong," this is just a naked assertion that is really generalized and kind of ridiculous.

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#112

Post by dinkumthinkum »

luu wrote: post #104
ipince wrote: post #73

"I could teach myself more in an afternoon than I would learn in a 10-week class." This is either outright bullshit, or your college was complete crap. Most likely the former. Don't do this. You think you're gaining respect or credibility, but in actuality you're losing it.

This thread is full of people who think this is impossible, but it's not. I pretty much did that when I was in school, and I had about a 60% chance of an A and a 30% chance of a B, according to my GPA. I wasn't quite as quick as the poster -- the total amount of effort I put into a course probably amounted to 2-3 days of work, including time spent in classes and exams. But, I knew people who were easily an order of m…

I'm just going to do what most people won't and just say I don't believe it. Sure it is possible. But is it likely that you're the one? Now what you're talking about is an extreme outlier.

I don't believe you spent 2 days worth work on a non-trivial course and produce A or near A level work.

People are promoting this anti-college line with utter propaganda and lies. It's one thing to debate whether college is for everyone ... But come on guys, don't lie.

Now, yes I admit it is possible that you are like Ramanujan so I'm not going to commit 100% to this, but I'm going to commit 99.999%

Even if it were true, your ability would be astronomically beyond the vast majority of even highly educated people. Therefore, this would be the most statistically insignificant data point ever, which makes me further question this ability -- how could such an error be committed????

Why is this anti-college view of so many built on such a weird foundation?

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#113

Post by defen »

luu wrote: post #104
ipince wrote: post #73

"I could teach myself more in an afternoon than I would learn in a 10-week class." This is either outright bullshit, or your college was complete crap. Most likely the former. Don't do this. You think you're gaining respect or credibility, but in actuality you're losing it.

This thread is full of people who think this is impossible, but it's not. I pretty much did that when I was in school, and I had about a 60% chance of an A and a 30% chance of a B, according to my GPA. I wasn't quite as quick as the poster -- the total amount of effort I put into a course probably amounted to 2-3 days of work, including time spent in classes and exams. But, I knew people who were easily an order of m…

> the total amount of effort I put into a course probably amounted to 2-3 days of work, including time spent in classes and exams. But, I knew people who were easily an order of magnitude more productive than I was; for them, it would have been an afternoon of work.

A single math/engineering problem set at any reasonable university will take more than an afternoon, so I really don't see how it's possible you knew people who were learning everything in an afternoon and getting A's/B's. Maybe it's possible in the lowest level courses where you went in already knowing most of the material, but otherwise I'm calling shenanigans.

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#114

Post by dinkumthinkum »

RealGeek wrote: post #92
dinkumthinkum wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh poppycock. This was Carnegie's line, only it was about libraries. Without the Internet, libraries were there for everyone to use. How are kids that can't read going ... Oh come on, can we stop with this "The Internet solves all of our education problems" nonsense? I know it is, because this well educated populace doesn't exist and yet the Internet does. I submit to you that there is very little you need to use the…

See http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_t... and http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/india/thestory.htm... > How are kids that can't read going A picture is worth a thousand words.

No. :) That's interesting and wonderful but does not prove anything about this discussion. I haven't watched the whole but I saw the description, learn to use a PC. OK, there is a big difference between learning to use something and that designed with "usability" in mind and learning CS, physics, chemistry, law, medicine, whatever.

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#115

Post by dinkumthinkum »

ek wrote: post #64

I am currently receiving an education in computer science with the intent to pursue a Ph.D. following graduation. I grow somewhat tired of all this anti-college talk - at the bike shop a while back, the worker asked what I was majoring in, I told him CS, and he asked if getting a college degree was really worth it, as if he thought it wasn't. Yes, it's worth it if what you plan to do is go to grad school or enter aca…

Why do Google, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, etc keep coming over to universities if it's so outdated and useless. Why aren't they out on Tumblr or photo sharing sites trying to work on problems and recruit? They could save a lot of money on these plane trips by just looking at blogs! Don't they know any better? :)

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#116

Post by dinkumthinkum »

sillysaurus wrote: post #46
taskstrike wrote: post #3

More challenging colleges teach you far more than you can teach yourselves. A top 5 computer science school churns out a much more capable and knowledgeable computer science major who is both well versed in theory and knows how computers actually works down to the bytes. Kudos to the writer, his ability to hustle is strong. There is more than one kind of talent.

I am well versed in theory and know how computers work down to the semiconductor level. (An aside: I am eternally grateful to Feynman for his wonderful book on that subject.) Incidentally, I dropped out of high school my Junior year after I landed a programming internship at a local game studio. I have a GED. I would say I'm capable of being put to work on any software project in any domain and in short order attain…

That's great, very impressive. No one denies brilliant computer scientists with no formal education exist. But just because Ramanujans exist, doesn't mean the other 99.99% of people don't need an education. :)

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#117

Post by fruchtose »

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #115
ek wrote: post #64

I am currently receiving an education in computer science with the intent to pursue a Ph.D. following graduation. I grow somewhat tired of all this anti-college talk - at the bike shop a while back, the worker asked what I was majoring in, I told him CS, and he asked if getting a college degree was really worth it, as if he thought it wasn't. Yes, it's worth it if what you plan to do is go to grad school or enter aca…

Why do Google, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, etc keep coming over to universities if it's so outdated and useless. Why aren't they out on Tumblr or photo sharing sites trying to work on problems and recruit? They could save a lot of money on these plane trips by just looking at blogs! Don't they know any better? :)

Haven't you heard? All of these companies are dead/dying/about to be obsolete. Of course they recruit at universities!

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#118

Post by glenra »

sp332 wrote: post #72
aik wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad this has been said -- this is very true. I have two comments: >> "College was my biggest mistake?" ...it sure as hell isn't mine. How do you know it's not yours? Or rather, how can you be so sure? Firstly, opportunity cost is an impossible thing to calculate with certainty, especially when dealing with something so incredibly costly both in terms of time and money. If you find yourself reasonably discerning,…

The job lead I got from my college advisor alone was worth the opportunity cost. And the humanities classes opened my mind up in ways wikipedia just can't dream of.

If you hadn't gone to college you would have been doing something else during those years and you could have gotten job leads from somebody else somewhere else. You can know that the job lead you got was good, but you have no way of knowing that your lead was better than you might have gotten by going to a jobs fair or some sort of special-interest convention or local community center.

And note that you could have taken humanities courses at a community college or audited them for free at a private college or done self-study. You don't have to be paying full college tuition to "open your mind" that way.

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#119

Post by easong »

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #112
luu wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This thread is full of people who think this is impossible, but it's not. I pretty much did that when I was in school, and I had about a 60% chance of an A and a 30% chance of a B, according to my GPA. I wasn't quite as quick as the poster -- the total amount of effort I put into a course probably amounted to 2-3 days of work, including time spent in classes and exams. But, I knew people who were easily an order of m…

I'm just going to do what most people won't and just say I don't believe it. Sure it is possible. But is it likely that you're the one? Now what you're talking about is an extreme outlier . I don't believe you spent 2 days worth work on a non-trivial course and produce A or near A level work. People are promoting this anti-college line with utter propaganda and lies. It's one thing to debate whether college is for ev…

I don't really think this is as weird as you think it is. The key part is "non-trivial." Speaking as a current university student, the vast majority (>90%) of required coursework is trivial and can be easily summed up within a page or two of text per class. The ability to figure out what couple paragraphs are going to be tested on and to regurgitate them on demand is really all you need to get a passing grade for a significant percentage of your college career. Figuring that out over a period of a few days doesn't exactly require a superhuman effort, and is (in my experience) quite common. Cramming isn't a new phenomenon, and computers make it significantly easier to find a bunch of information and memorize it for a few days (before forgetting everything.)

Of course, that is not to say that there are not courses that require greater diligence - but they're often avoidable, and a student can compensate by putting effort into those specific classes. Or simply cheating.

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#120

Post by tsahyt »

As a European I find that the sheer amount of money required to get higher education in the US is absolutely crazy. In most (if not all) of Europe, universities are paid from tax payers money and are basically free for all who have the necessary qualification to attend them.

That shows though. I have the impression that you can make rather decent money in the US without ever going to college but there's not a glimpse of hope for you to do that in Europe. Without at least a minor in something you'll top out at about 2.5k€/month (that's an annual salary of abour 35000$) being employed anywhere. So, all in all, you're expected to go to university.

Oh and btw, going to university was in fact a great idea for me, personally.

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