11–20 of 61 posts
Would love to hear more about entrepreneurs who live on the edge and try to start a business while also needing to make rent and student loan payments.
I didn't learn any of those things in college. Maybe you just picked up the wrong things or are you just ignorant of what you really learned? I learned a good basis in information theory, maths and software engineering. Besides that I learned to analyze, research, work together on and write about software development processes. I also met many people who were interested in the same things as I am, and many people who…
I get the feeling you're just saying you picked the wrong major, it has nothing to do with wether college is right for you.
Anyway to answer your question, I am a recent college graduate and I think I can answer most of those questions and could even if I didn't work at a startup or read HN daily because I have a major in computer science and a minor in entrepreneurship that in my opinion taught me pretty well.
Apparently I went to the wrong college. Note, I still _am_ in college, but nonetheless part of our learning was independent readiness. In my first non-basic programming class, my professor taught us alongside our Operating System class how he built computer kits and sold them. We were taught legalese in the field, and the power of performance. My school is very small, and our department is even smaller. We have very…
I'm certain there are outliers to what I wrote, but I feel the majority of schools are just creating employees, and that's....sad.
This article was light on details, but I thought it was important to address at least the first point, which has a fundamental misunderstanding right off the bat: "1. Plagiarism is bad. Wrong! If the licensing is right, copy to your heart's content. If you're not in violation of copyright, trademark, or patent, you can do whatever you want with someone else's creation. Sometimes they even give you permission. Did you…
Most open source licensing requires 0 citation. If I copy your formula or recipe, I don't need to cite a thing - you don't own the copyright to your own formula. I could sell your work if I wanted to do so. Plagiarism, as it affected my grading, was copying without attribution. Attribution is rarely required for most licensing, except where it is. These sorts of distinctions are lost in the collegiate machine.
"Redistribution and use in source and binary forms are permitted provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are duplicated in all such forms and that any documentation, advertising materials, and other materials related to such distribution and use acknowledge that the software was developed by the ."
Whew. So maybe the third popular might be The Apache License, but this states:
"You must retain, in the Source form of any Derivative Works that You distribute, all copyright, patent, trademark, and attribution notices from the Source form of the Work, excluding those notices that do not pertain to..."
And so on. I am unaware of, but would be interested in knowing about, licenses that would allow you to verbatim take code and also claim it as your own work.
If you want to go to college to learn to be an entrepreneur, get a degree in entrepreneurship. Colleges should teach the core competencies of your degree that can then be applied in any number of ways.
[Edited for spelling]
I would like to add more than just a snarky comment like that, but the post is high on bitterness and low on content. It's a curious flip side to the "college doesn't teach people how to work on a team in a company, it just teaches a bunch of theory nonsense" cliche, though. And I think both of those views are way off the mark with the disregard for theory. I'd rather work with (or start a company with) the guy who knows what his code does, and why it does it, any day over the guy who is more proficient at a certain set of tools, or knows more about the details of starting a business.
I'm happy with how my career has gone since then, but it would be absolute hubris to declare that it was due to my astounding foresight or careful assessment. I was a) motivated b) lucky and c) relatively free of responsibility.
Maybe I've had a more skewed career than most, but I've spent my career working with complex and busy systems. I never had a "freelance web developer" period. I've never just spat out web app after web app for clients. To take your specific example, I missed out on a chunk of algorithmic complexity in college (which I have since picked up) that sheds light on real world problems that might otherwise seem confusing or unconnected.
I understand your frustration, believe me, but be careful not to mix up the knowledge with the institution, or the message with the messenger, as it were.