Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Do I need College?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 77 posts

Re: Ask HN: Do I need College?

#41

Post by sliverstorm »

choxi wrote: post #20
sopooneo wrote: post #12

I can't speak to the position of the OP, however, I have a general point I don't think I've seen mentioned. For some individuals, a college degree may not serve much value, either financially or for it's own sake. However I feel that collectively, all else being equal, a world where most poeple have been exposed to a broad range of views and have learned the liberal arts and sciences from passionate thinkers is bette…

you're assuming that you wouldn't experience a broad range of views unless you went to college. what about working at a couple companies, and using that money to travel twice a year?

My life has been a series of "big fish, little pond", plus the in-between periods when I manage to find a bigger pond and grow. College was a bigger pond, and it eventually enabled me to find a still-bigger pond.

Experiences I had during (but not at) college make me feel like had I not gone, I would most likely have wound up hopping from tiny pond to barely-larger pond to barely-larger pond. At least for me, that would have been crushing.

Re: Ask HN: Do I need College?

#42

Post by aaroncray »

I've raised millions for my startups multiple times. Some of my pursuits have worked out but most have not. I don't regret dropping out but it is definitely held against me. Prepare for many people that needed to goto college to get a foot in the door to pre judge you and you may even miss opportunities to get in front of important people because of that prejudice. I'm lucky I had extraordinary circumstances which helps people psychologically get over their preconceptions of a dropout. To most that are thinking of dropping out I advise them not to.

Re: Ask HN: Do I need College?

#43

Post by jdelgado »

sincerelysleepy wrote: post #40

Fresh out of high school I wanted to develop software and petaled around the idea that only a genius could do it so I changed my major to Bio. After two semesters, I couldn't take how boring it was. Over the years in college, I found very few people who were actual developers. I met a senior level developer playing starcraft who I became really good buddies with and got a lot of insight to what it's really like to be…

Great story and right on key with my reasoning. Thank you for that insight, I agree completely!

Re: Ask HN: Do I need College?

#44

Post by coreyja »

Ok so as a student who never thought going to college wasn't an option, until about Freshman year of High School I never thought about the fact that some kids didn't go to college.

So I am now a Sophomore in college studying Computer Science, and I whole heatedly think that you can do perfectly fine in the software industry without a degree. I haven't taken any classes that I feel like made me a better programmer. I learned some interesting things and got to spend a semester hacking Lisp but that won't really be what I ever do in a job, so not too beneficial.

With all that said, I wouldn't even consider not going to college. I don't really care that much about getting my degree, obviously I will get it (or in fact a few majors) but that's not why I would recommend college. If you are only contemplating going to a CC then it might be different, but the experiences and fun that I have at school I wouldn't trade for anything. I'd pay the $40k a year to just hang out for four years of my life and have a great time, regardless of whether I was getting an education.

The friends I have made and the confidence I have gained simply by being at shcool and interacting with friends and people on a constant basis are the reasons I love going back to school.

I have a friend who asks me why I don't want to graduate early, I have the credits where I could, and it's simply because college is the most fun I've ever had and I don't know why you would want to give that up.

So that's my opinion, if you can go to a Four Year college and have that experience I think you should jump on the oppurtunity

Re: Ask HN: Do I need College?

#45

Post by hello_newman »

sliverstorm wrote: post #39
hello_newman wrote: post #31

I totally know what you are talking about dude, I am in the same boat. I was going to my local community college (over 26k students) to get an AA in Business and wanted to transfer. The college (like most in California) was impacted because of the sheer amount of students so getting the necessary classes was getting harder and harder. I am not sure about other CC's but this one (one of the biggest in Orange County) h…

don't worry about companies that hire based on education. Why would you want to work there if they wouldn't even talk to you without an education? It depends on what sort of company you want to work for. Any company large enough to have an HR department is probably going to look for a degree. Many will argue this is a bad policy, but IMO the HR department is not the most important part of a tech company!

It certainly does. In tech, which would probably be one of the few fields that is like this, it seems open. It seems like if you know what your doing, regardless of your degree, you should be fine. I am sure it varies by company, but with the given climate in the tech field...just go work for someone else.

Re: Ask HN: Do I need College?

#46

Post by sliverstorm »

hello_newman wrote: post #45
sliverstorm wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

don't worry about companies that hire based on education. Why would you want to work there if they wouldn't even talk to you without an education? It depends on what sort of company you want to work for. Any company large enough to have an HR department is probably going to look for a degree. Many will argue this is a bad policy, but IMO the HR department is not the most important part of a tech company!

It certainly does. In tech, which would probably be one of the few fields that is like this, it seems open. It seems like if you know what your doing, regardless of your degree, you should be fine. I am sure it varies by company, but with the given climate in the tech field...just go work for someone else.

Oh, I'm not saying you'll be SOL without a degree. Rather, you might not be able to work at what would otherwise be your top picks or best options.

Re: Ask HN: Do I need College?

#47

Post by jdelgado »

gcv wrote: post #27

Since you're smart enough to ask the question, then the answer is yes, you do. At 19, if all you've ever done is "IT" — maintaining servers and databases — then you need to broaden your perception of the world. A good college will help make you a well-rounded, much smarter person with a way better awareness of the world. That's what it did for me. Go to a good college. Don't cheap out. Don't play with computers too m…

Great advice, thank you for it.

I didn't really think about the actual rounding that college provides, I thought of it as simply an accessory to a career, which is exactly why I should follow your advice.

Thank you for that, I really appreciate it.

Re: Ask HN: Do I need College?

#48

Post by yukoncornelius »

edw519 wrote: post #30

Go to college. Take science to discover something you're good at. Take humanities to discover something you may love. Take at least one art or music class. Take at least one advanced math class. Join a fraternity. Learn how to play bridge (and play all night sometime). Learn how to play foosball. Get drunk. Learn how to play foosball while drunk. Get laid. Play an intramural team sport. Get a part time job. Eat somet…

Pass on the frat and join the rugby club. The beer is free and fitness is a by product of participation.

Re: Ask HN: Do I need College?

#49

Post by Deejahll »

edw519 wrote: post #30

Go to college. Take science to discover something you're good at. Take humanities to discover something you may love. Take at least one art or music class. Take at least one advanced math class. Join a fraternity. Learn how to play bridge (and play all night sometime). Learn how to play foosball. Get drunk. Learn how to play foosball while drunk. Get laid. Play an intramural team sport. Get a part time job. Eat somet…

Wow, I hate this advice.

OP, if you are, like I was, completely repulsed by the constant insistence from everyone that you should go to college so you can toke, drink, party, and fuck: take heart, you can get a lot out of college without ever associating with meatheads and frat houses. The idiot carnival is not as prevalent as popular culture would have you believe; you can invest yourself into a hugely rewarding intellectual field, have excellent roommates that don't make you shove strange objects up your ass, and never even learn the name of your school's sports team, if that's more your style.

Also: though it is certainly easy to do all of those things while racking up student loans or mooching the monetary equivalent of a new car off your parents, the implication that you can't do most of those things without (or after) college is simply wrong. I feel much more able to "do whatever I want" now that I'm out of college and successfully making money for a few years.

I think college is important for the fundamentals it provides: data structures, mathematics, a vocabulary that helps you reason about (programming) problems. Exposure to concepts that you wouldn't otherwise know are useful. I met my wife in college too. But at the same time there's a lot that I think was both unavoidable and completely wasteful.

On balance, I feel like I got a lot out of it, and I'm glad that I didn't let the people whose college experience was mainly about sex dissuade me from going. It is what you make of it.

Re: Ask HN: Do I need College?

#50

Post by jdelgado »

aaroncray wrote: post #42

I've raised millions for my startups multiple times. Some of my pursuits have worked out but most have not. I don't regret dropping out but it is definitely held against me. Prepare for many people that needed to goto college to get a foot in the door to pre judge you and you may even miss opportunities to get in front of important people because of that prejudice. I'm lucky I had extraordinary circumstances which he…

That's an excellent point and I appreciate the input!
Post reply on HN