111–118 of 118 posts
Three spring to mind: Michael Dell, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates
An article by Bill Gates about dropping out: http://www.gatesnotes.com/Education/11-Million-College-Grads "Although I dropped out of college and got lucky pursuing a career in software, getting a degree is a much surer path to success"
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There success is more related with their superior IQ than their college attendance.
They're probably not all that smart. They're persistent, dedicated, hardworking. But I've seen Bill Gate's code, and its bad. Typically its B students that run the world.
Gates = 1590 SAT (out of than 1600), Zuckerberg = 1590 SAT, Drew Houston = 1600 SAT, Travis Kalanick = 1580 SAT, Chris Sacca = Doing college grade math in 6th grade. Look into Steve Jurvetson, Patrick Collison, John Collison, Roelof Botha, and many more I am definitely forgetting of the top of my head.
>"Typically its B students that run the world."
I disagree. Any examples?
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" it means that MIT/Stanford's primary value (to investors) is to act as an unspoken IQ test. " IQ is one of the greatest corollaries to success, and from the research I've seen it's unlikely to change dramatically from age 8 till death. This is a topic I rarely see discussed. A lot of people like to mention Gates, Jobs and Zuckerberg as examples of college dropout success, but fail to notice that those who succeed t…
Have you ever heard of Emotional Intelligence? EQ is increasingly being seen has a higher determinant for success than IQ.
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" it means that MIT/Stanford's primary value (to investors) is to act as an unspoken IQ test. " IQ is one of the greatest corollaries to success, and from the research I've seen it's unlikely to change dramatically from age 8 till death. This is a topic I rarely see discussed. A lot of people like to mention Gates, Jobs and Zuckerberg as examples of college dropout success, but fail to notice that those who succeed t…
Have you ever heard of Emotional Intelligence? EQ is increasingly being seen has a higher determinant for success than IQ.
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The debt is my major issue with portraying college as something everyone should (or worse, needs to) do, no matter how you want to sell the benefit. It's not just the number itself, it's about training young people that being tens of thousands of dollars in undischargable debt without capital collateral to back it up is a normal thing.
Its my understanding (someone feel free to correct me) that the cost of a local community college is still perfectly reasonable and you're still getting a decent education. I don't know what the difference is between those and Stanford from a quality of education standpoint but, anecdotally, one of the most brilliant programmers I've ever met went to the local community college.
The four year equivalent would be a state university, which have the same issue for quality. They're definitely cheaper than the private universities, though.
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They're probably not all that smart. They're persistent, dedicated, hardworking. But I've seen Bill Gate's code, and its bad. Typically its B students that run the world.
>"They're persistent, dedicated, hardworking" And intelligent. Those qualities are not independent of intelligence. Gates = 1590 SAT (out of than 1600), Zuckerberg = 1590 SAT, Drew Houston = 1600 SAT, Travis Kalanick = 1580 SAT, Chris Sacca = Doing college grade math in 6th grade. Look into Steve Jurvetson, Patrick Collison, John Collison, Roelof Botha, and many more I am definitely forgetting of the top of my head.…
“It’s almost a bigger risk to stay in school and let people like me drop out and start things before you have a chance,” he says. That says it all, for me. It's an incredibly shortsighted view that there are real opportunity costs to time spend in college, as if you'll only have one good idea in your lifetime. It's kind of a lottery ticket mindset. College is absolutely a luxury good, and you can get by without it. B…
> I had a job in tech for a few years out of high school before I went to college. Can you speak about what your experience was like? I'm currently working as a backend developer in new york and I'm planning on starting a CS degree at CUNY Hunter this fall, so I'm curious to hear about other people's experiences with working and going to school at the same time.
I was a Linux support guy at 18, moved into sysadmin roles for a couple years, then quit my job to go to college. I was supported by my parents so I did not work my way through college the way you likely envision.
I did, however, work part-time as a sysadmin all 4 years (20 hours a week), but it only funded some living expenses, not my education.
Also not what you're looking for, but, while I was still young at 21, I thought I'd have a huge leg up on all of them 18 year old youngins. Turns out we all liked pretty much the same music and the cool kids were still cooler than me, and the guys good with the ladies were still better at it than me!
I majored in information systems and am still doing the same work today, 10 years later, but I love it and wouldn't change a thing. I wasn't ready for college at 18, and I got a lot more out of it and was more sure of myself at 21 when I enrolled.
I rarely think of college as improving my career, but of course my degree from a relatively prestigious 2nd-tier private school doesn't hurt my resume.
I pursued a professional services track upon graduation and it took me about 1 week to say "fuck this", and 2 months to quit and go back to sysadmin/ops work. If I had no previous work background I wouldn't have known that my new role wasn't right for me -- at least, not so quickly.
Few notes about Gates and Zuck: I don't know why people (media in particular) made such a big deal out of dropping out or rather taking a leave of absence/gap year).
They could've always go back if things didn't work out. Dropping out of college is not akin to jumping out of a plane with no parachute. It is just NOT
Also: The both came from money. It is easy to say I want to whatever-I-wanna-do when you have a trust fund ready for you. Having very successful parents/families -just in case you were wondering helps...
Jobs is a more peculiar case because he didn't have anything. But he got lucky and came upon the other Steve who was/is a genius-mastermind.
Third: why the measure of success in tech so extreme? Why do you have to make billions of dollars to be considered successful? In the world today, if you have just a couple thousand dollars in the bank you are living the dream of some six billion other people. I personally would consider anyone who has made more than 1mil out of a business (in profit) to be successful. The rest of it is just the lust for having more for sake of having more.
Last: College is supposed to get people ready for life. its not supposed to be a vocational school or diploma mill. It is sad that colleges today have became both. Denying the personal gain that university provides for pupils and the spirit of college amd liberal arts education itself is no worse than denying global warming or evolution.
You can become a programmer and make a buck without going to college but chances are you will not be an enlightened individual without attending a decent higher-ed institution.
(and of course we have people like Ted Cruz to the contrary but I'm speaking for the majority of population)