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College was my biggest mistake

stevecorona.com

181–190 of 192 posts

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#181

Classes didn’t hold my attention- I could teach myself more in an afternoon than I would learn in a 10-week class. If this were true then you would have spent four afternoons learning Calculus, Business, Communications, and Databases, and another four afternoons showing up for the finals, and you would have gotten a 3.0 instead of a 0.3.

Provide those subjects could hold his/her attention, which is really the qualifier there. OP taught themselves rails and bootstrapped themselves into a $70k+ job in a matter of months. I'd say that took as much effort as passing a few introductory courses in your average public college.

> taught themselves rails and bootstrapped themselves into a $70k+ job in a matter of months

Anectodal evidence is just that: anecdotal. I'd rather have more data before claiming that it was college that was a mistake.

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#182
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because many colleges cost like 200K nowadays. Fun's justifiable maybe when you're graduating with, I don't know, 0-10K in debt, but at 200K you've really gotta question whether or not it's worth it. A lot of people have their four years of fun and then end up slaving away as indentured servants to Sallie Mae for the rest of their lives.

It really doesn't need to cost that much though. I wouldn't be surprised if every state in the US has a public school that costs less than a quarter of that. (and obviously college is much cheaper in every other country). To clarify, I wasn't saying I thought that was the sole benefit of college - just one that never seems to get mentioned.

In my state it's about $80,000 for all four years. (including tuition & room and board--but not including where you live during the summer)

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#183
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A lot of people have looked down on me for it. Especially arts/liberal arts majors who have graduated and now make like...8-12K/year with their degree. They like to imply that they're the better person because they went to college for ~knowledge's sake~ or whatever. (Like I don't also love learning???)

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#184
post #137
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>I'm really sick of people treating me like shit for actually getting a worthwhile degree that'll lead to a career that can pay the bills. you've gotta choose your friends and your peers. I'm not saying you should always insist on friends that accept you for who you are, it can be good to have peers that challenge you, but you need friends that would admire you if you became the person you want to be. A whole lot of…

>It's not fun to be in a situation where you have to lower yourself in your own eyes to raise yourself in the eyes of your peers.

That's exactly how I feel all of the time. If I am who I am around normal people, they get all insecure about their intelligence. Technical people tend to accept me and make me feel so at home it's amazing, but they're a very small minority of the population where I'm at compared to the non-tech savvy. I wish I could learn how to interface with normal people better without compromising my identity and interests.

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#185
post #132
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I guess you could take a humanities class...or, you could, you know, get a library card. Believe it or not, there are actually sources of information outside of wikipedia and $1000000000/credit college courses. Amazing, right?

The big difference is the discussions with a group of other people (especially great: of different majors!) and a professor who knows what you're talking about and how to steer the conversation. Trying to understand a book and trying to understand people is very different. I had a great seminar this semester where we would talk about "knowledge" from a philosophical, historical, theological and physical point of view…

Here I feel that it's a lot more common to pay $20,000+ a year to have a professor read off a slide. Most professors I've had can't steer for shit. (Although I've had 2 philosophy professors who were very good at it! They are in the minority, unfortunately.)

You also have to keep in mind that colleges here will accept just about anyone (no matter how stupid) if they have the money to pay--from what I've heard, Europe's system is free for those who are smart enough to get in, and the entrance standards filter out a lot of the dumbasses who would otherwise just destroy the intellectual level of the class discussion.

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#186
post #164
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I guess you could take a humanities class...or, you could, you know, get a library card. Believe it or not, there are actually sources of information outside of wikipedia and $1000000000/credit college courses. Amazing, right?

I'm not talking about sources of information. I mean someone who knows what books in that library are worth reading. And honestly, I don't remember 90% of the "information" I learned in college, but I learned a ton of new ways of approaching information that I don't think I would have learned except by example.

You could listen to someone tell you what books are worth reading, or you could learn critical thinking by trying to work it out for yourself. In the real world, you often have to parse data from a variety of sources without much guidance from a higher authority as to what you should consider legitimate.

I'm not saying that college isn't helpful for some people--but it's certainly not the only way.

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#187
post #186
post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not talking about sources of information. I mean someone who knows what books in that library are worth reading. And honestly, I don't remember 90% of the "information" I learned in college, but I learned a ton of new ways of approaching information that I don't think I would have learned except by example.

You could listen to someone tell you what books are worth reading, or you could learn critical thinking by trying to work it out for yourself. In the real world, you often have to parse data from a variety of sources without much guidance from a higher authority as to what you should consider legitimate. I'm not saying that college isn't helpful for some people--but it's certainly not the only way.

Sorry but I think having a guide who knows things that have been passed down over centuries is much better than re-inventing the wheel every generation. It's like getting a 2,000+ year head start on understanding how to think. By all means get some experience in the actual territory but don't forget to take a map.

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#188
post #184
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm really sick of people treating me like shit for actually getting a worthwhile degree that'll lead to a career that can pay the bills. you've gotta choose your friends and your peers. I'm not saying you should always insist on friends that accept you for who you are, it can be good to have peers that challenge you, but you need friends that would admire you if you became the person you want to be. A whole lot of…

>It's not fun to be in a situation where you have to lower yourself in your own eyes to raise yourself in the eyes of your peers. That's exactly how I feel all of the time. If I am who I am around normal people, they get all insecure about their intelligence. Technical people tend to accept me and make me feel so at home it's amazing, but they're a very small minority of the population where I'm at compared to the no…

I think I've been there. My advice? put more effort into finding more of the sort of people you want to be around. You might need to move, too, but moving alone won't do it. The key is to initiate relationships. It's better (well, better for you) to be loud and slightly annoying than to be so quiet you don't have a chance of initiating relationships with people you meet. (I mean, by all means, desist when people tell you to go away. But don't be afraid of embarrassing yourself by initiating a conversation with a stranger.)

The thing is, most nerds (and most of the people that nerds get along with) are kinda introverted. Introverted people tend to not initiate new relationships. If you wait around for other people to initiate relationships, you will only be able to choose among the extroverts that like you, so practice going out of your way to initiate contact with people you think you might get along with. You don't have to be an extrovert; but you do have to initiate conversations, extrovert-style, at least until you find your group.

Moving to an area with more of your target person type helps a lot, too. I mean, I meet all sorts of interesting people, for instance, waiting in line for BBQ. Living in a higher-density area gives you more people to meet, and some high density areas have more of us than others. I'm in silicon valley, which is medium density, but you can't swing a cat without hitting a programmer.

If you are like me, learning to better interface with 'normal people' won't solve the problem. In fact, I suspect the real problem is that I see 'normal people' and I see 'my people' - but I haven't been able to overcome that.

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#189
US college education is increasingly demanded even for middle class jobs. new generations will have a tougher time landing decent gigs as even the manufacturing jobs become more and more complex.

while software engineering is something that can be learned by reading a book and hacking away at home until one can get through a jr programmer interview, or maybe even pick up programming on your own to a higher degree, not everyone can learn this way, and not lots of jobs will require formal training.

i don't like when this is painted in black and white colors .. i.e. "college education is a waste of time and money" or.. "college education is a must" .. but i do think it will be in higher demand as more jobs become high tech, and we can't all be Steve Corona smart :)

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#190
post #188
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's not fun to be in a situation where you have to lower yourself in your own eyes to raise yourself in the eyes of your peers. That's exactly how I feel all of the time. If I am who I am around normal people, they get all insecure about their intelligence. Technical people tend to accept me and make me feel so at home it's amazing, but they're a very small minority of the population where I'm at compared to the no…

I think I've been there. My advice? put more effort into finding more of the sort of people you want to be around. You might need to move, too, but moving alone won't do it. The key is to initiate relationships. It's better (well, better for you) to be loud and slightly annoying than to be so quiet you don't have a chance of initiating relationships with people you meet. (I mean, by all means, desist when people tell…

Thank you very much for your advice.
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