College was my biggest mistake • Hacker News Board

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#151

Post by hessenwolf » Fri, Aug 10, 2012, 11:56 AM UTC

It is possible to get by without documentation backing up your experience, but having an education doesn't close doors, and not having an education will close some doors.

Yes, fine, many times, in the right market, with the right skill set, you can rely on high demand and great ability to sell yourself, but my college education means that I can change country and get a cushy job at whim, even in a totally shitty economy, with very little effort (but the education took a lot of effort).

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#152

Post by tjr » Fri, Aug 10, 2012, 12:05 PM UTC

glenra wrote: post #118

sp332 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ta…

I took my humanities courses because I was required to. At the time, I would have been happy if all of my classes were math/CS. But afterwards, as in, a few years later, I realized that I probably would have learned most of the technical stuff on my own. It was being forced to study the non-technical that really taught me something new and interesting that I likely wouldn't have learned on my own.

This year marks ten years since I graduated. I cannot prove that college was a worthwhile thing, but I look back on that time very favorably.

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#153

Post by krschultz » Fri, Aug 10, 2012, 12:35 PM UTC

If you could teach yourself in an afternoon what was covered in a 10 week class, then you probably wouldn't have failed out.

The same points I make on every post like this.

1) College isn't for everyone.

2) The 'I'm so smart that college was a waste of time' people should have just gotten a scholarship and not paid for college. 5 out of the 5 schools I officially applied to offered me scholarships. All were in the top 50 schools for my chosen major (originally, aerospace engineering). If you are smart enough that college is a waste of time, then you are also smart enough to not have to pay for college.

3) Don't extrapolate the computer science major to others. There are better books, tutorials, and online communities for hacking than seemingly any other profession. Try to find the "O'Reilly Press" of aerospace engineering pumping out 100 books a year on every imaginable topic - it just isn't happening. Same for StackOverflow, HN, etc.

4) Don't extrapolate the software engineering profession to others. It's normal for non-CS majors to be getting software engineering jobs. I personally graduated with a mechanical engineering major and CS minor. I'm now working in software engineering. The company I just left (where I worked as a mechanical engineer) would never, ever, hire a computer science major to fill a mechanical engineering job. The only three possible majors other than ME that they would hire are math, physics, or aerospace engineering.

5) If you don't do well, college is a waste of time & money.

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#154

Post by viraptor » Fri, Aug 10, 2012, 12:41 PM UTC

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? :)

Actually they do. Write some interesting posts on tumblr, get it on LinkedIn, get high score on stackoverflow and you'll see the google recruiters writing to you at some point.

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#155

Post by lectrick » Fri, Aug 10, 2012, 12:44 PM UTC

It might not be for everyone, but a college with courses like "World of Business" and "Data Base Concepts" is laughable as all hell anyway. At least go to a real college.

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#156

Post by krschultz » Fri, Aug 10, 2012, 12:49 PM UTC

maigret wrote: post #141

chmike wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I am European, so I really don't get that. Why don't you try to make education cheaper? Why are you taking it as granted that university must cost x 10000's dollars a year? Out here outside of UK it is mostly around 1000 Eur max a year. Having free higher ed changes the picture. When you are from a middle class family it is your ticket to maintain or even climb the social ladder. Even if for some people, the educatio…

We don't know what the true cost of going to college is. There are plenty of prices, but there are few places in the world where the student pays 100% of the actual cost of their education. But I can tell you, the cost of a college education is NOT 1000 Eur, anywhere. That's heavily, almost completely, subsidized by the government.

1) Most tuition is posted at a higher sticker price with merit and need scholarships lowering the price for many.

2) Most state schools are government subsidized to some extent.

3) Most schools have some form of endowment (i.e. giant pot of cash donated by alumni) that they invest and sometimes pull cash out of for scholarships and capital projets.

4) The schools vary in price quite a bit based on their standing and whether or not you live on campus. The $35-55k numbers thrown around are top tier private schools including living on campus, i.e. the most you could possibly pay. Many people are getting solid college degrees from state schools (including room & board) around $30k per year. Many more are commuting and paying $20k per year. Community (2 year) colleges are on the order of hundreds or thousands of dollars a semester.

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#157

Post by srathbun » Fri, Aug 10, 2012, 12:49 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #86

aik wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that's exactly the part that is so hard to quantify -- the liberal arts component. The purpose of all gen eds is basically to "open your mind", ie. to refine you as a human being. But what high school student goes to college for this purpose? Or a better question, what high school student truly knows that, or understands what that means? The only thing ever discussed seems to be how job-ready you are at graduati…

I did, I had a rather high IQ, and solid high-school achievements so I could probably gone to MIT etc, instead I went to a small, local, and cheap liberal arts school. One of the things I realized in HS was being a slightly better programmer is not really that important and does not actually make you significantly more money etc. But, avoiding debt and actually having fun in collage is worth a hell of a lot. It took…

That's the way I looked at it. Get through it without a lot of debt and be a big fish in a little pond.

I'm smart enough to work on "hard" problems, but the stuff I do now is interesting, and while my gross income is lower, my net income is quite a bit higher.

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#158

Post by vonmoltke » Fri, Aug 10, 2012, 12:56 PM UTC

chmike wrote: post #136

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

My understanding is that being successful means reaching our life goal . If your goal is to make career in the academic or research domain, than a college degree is indeed a must have and a step closer to your success. Otherwise, it's not and a waste of time and money. Especially, if you think that a college degree provides you a guarantee to get and keep an employee job, or being successful in it, you are plain wron…

There is a world outside the software industry, a world in which a college education of some kind is necessary to get and keep a position or strike out on your own. Doctors, nurses, lawyers, accountants, and professional engineers are all required by law or regulation to obtain one or more accredited degrees. There are other fields, such as finance and some government-related positions (such as social work and child education and development) where degrees are not necessarily a legal requirement, but you will not be hired without one.

I know too many people get useless degrees. I know people get pressured go to college who should not be going. I know people have unrealistic expectations of what they are going to get out of it. However, software development is a unique case in the professional world in that you can develop significant skills and experience without a formal education, or even a formal job. That does not translate to other fields. Hell, it doesn't even translate to some parts of this field.

I found my undergrad to be a very valuable experience, despite not getting any of the "soft" experience. I was a commuter student at a public university in Florida who lived at home and did not spend any more time than necessary on campus. I did learn quite a bit once I got to my major classes (EE), and I got to experiment with multiple aspects of engineering in the presence of very knowledgeable people. I also had a $55k/year job on graduation in 2002. I would do things differently given hindsight, but I would still be going for an undergrad degree.

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#159

Post by Knighty » Fri, Aug 10, 2012, 1:00 PM UTC

There's something of a survivor bias to this story. That is to say, there are probably a lot more people who drop out of college and don't amount to very much. Those guys don't tend to shout from the rooftops very much. Which should mean applying his approach, to college, for our own situations it might not necessarily be wise.

Having said that, there are probably quite a lot of successful people who didn't amount to much in college. And I think being a free-thinking, rebel, hustler doesn't necessarily make a good student but might very well make a good captain of business. But how cool would it be to have/be both?

But he's right, if it's not for you it doesn't necessarily mean you've failed.

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#160

Post by theorique » Fri, Aug 10, 2012, 1:02 PM UTC

Crake wrote: post #127

lsc wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love how so many liberals that would never dream of insulting someone for being poor have this attitude that if you didn't go to college, you are some kind of uncultured hick. Somehow beneath all those baristas with hundreds of thousands of dollars of college debt. >The only thing ever discussed seems to be how job-ready you are at graduation time. This is the opposite of what I saw before the recession. Maybe I am…

Yeah, I tried to warn my friends, but they all looked down on the idea. Now that they're out of college, most of them are working retail. They have no idea how much they owe or when it might be paid off--math is scary, so they just defer and defer and make the minimum payment when necessary. Of course, given their relative inability to comprehend fiscal realities, almost all of them live with their parents. Any free…

treating me like shit for actually getting a worthwhile degree that'll lead to a career that can pay the bills

People treat you like shit for your choice of major? Hasn't happened to me (engineer) but if anybody did this to me I would choose to spend time around different people.