I would love to do this, but in my country it is impossible to get a (decent) job without a degree. How do you get at least an internship as, say, a high school graduate with mediocre grades and nothing to your name? You show them your open-source projects? I think HR is technically illiterate and will be more impressed by any degrees you have.
Schools Out, Forever
11–20 of 50 posts
Re: Schools Out, Forever
#12Degrees are overrated to some extent. Not all university graduates are successful, competent and motivated, but there is a correlation.
Re: Schools Out, Forever
#13I think this post's argument really needs to be turned on its head. So what if your degree(s) are irrelevant to the activity that pays your bills. Even if you count starting from kindergarten, an American of no more than average life expectancy is going to spend way more years out of school than in school in his or her life. In other words, no matter what you do, chances are excellent the years you spent in school will eventually become more or less irrelevant to the entire rest of your life.
Re: Schools Out, Forever
#14Thank's Avand, your article is really hip and all. I'd really like to agree with it, and then go about back behind the school yard and smoke a cigarette and tell The Man go to hell.
However, I really can't do that.
Let's start with your high school experience. Going to a prep school in Boston means you (most likely, not assuredly) come from a privileged background. I went to a high school prep school too, and like you, I wanted to have the "too cool for school" attitude.
That didn't really happen though, instead of being bored, I got something that was challenging (athletics, which I sucked at). Yea, it was way cool at the time to pretend that all those classes I was acing (well almost, shouldn't have slept through AP Chem as much as I did), didn't matter and that I knew what I wanted to do as a jock 17 year old. Looking back, I was damned lucky to have such good classes and not be in some (unfortunately) underfunded public school. And also, it turns out now that I'm glad someone forced me to take French, I'm heading to France next month to work with a client. Didn't see that one coming as a 17 year old either.
Avand, likewise your take on college is quaint. I understand now that you've been successful with no college degree it's cool to keep rolling with the same theme of "skoolz lame!" It's actually kinda shame you're so biased though that you think college is just about increasing the number of facts you know, otherwise I'd bet you'd do well at the real point of college- giving you the tools to think about difficult problems in a number of different ways.
But that's cool, I've met plenty of intelligent/motivated/successful people who didn't go to or complete college (or went all the way and got a PhD). However, if you really were the intelligent person, motivated person you claim to be, I don't think you'd be half-assing it just taking night classes and then writing with such supposed authority on how college is worthless.
Here's what it really comes down to- you seem to be doing well marching to your own song, Avand, and that's great, keep it up! However, don't confuse your half-finished experiences as showing that school is worthless and expensive. You simply don't have any real authority to talk on the subject.
Re: Schools Out, Forever
#15My experience: I'm a college dropout. I have 96 credit hour and am one class shy of my associates degree. I feel like I did get a lot of value from the liberal arts portion of my education. I was exposed to a lot of different ideas and disciplines that I may never have studied in any other setting.
My major was computer science, and that was the rub. I came to college already somewhat accomplished as a developer. I had published a small shareware game on one of those value-ware CD's you would pick up at the register at WalMart. I knew the basics and had already learned some very hard lessons. I suffered through the introductory course material largely doing independent study projects (thanks Dr. Forbes!).
My moment of crisis came in a computer org. class. I was really looking forward to taking this particular class. It was supposed to give me some more detailed exposure to the hardware side of things. Instead we spent literally half of the semester counting in different number systems. At that point I had enough. I wanted to actually solve real problems and do real things.
Thankfully I had my opportunity. I took a job with the local behemoth tech. company. I was given the opportunity to write a book on basic game programming (I didn't execute on this very well... I just wasn't responsible enough at 21 to do it properly). That book opened the door to my first real job at a very small startup. Quickoffice was my first chance to shine, and over the 6 years I was there I feel like I took full advantage of it. Now I'm an entrepreneur, and things have gone well so far.
The point being: I never completed my degree, but I do feel like I got what I needed out of college. I learned how to learn. I learned to appreciate classic literature and to more completely examine the culture of the world around me. I became a scientist with a deep understanding of the scientific method. Those are all invaluable assets to me today.
However, my lack of a degree has not proven to be much of hindrance thus far. I hope it never is:)
Re: Schools Out, Forever
#16Some of the things you point out are largely true, in your 20's, if your only concerns are "getting a job" and making money. However, a good liberal arts degree confers a number of benefits in many areas of knowledge, and provides a foundation of education and articulateness that is quite helpful throughout one's lifetime. There are, of course, many bad liberal arts programs that confer little of these benefits.
I have a couple of friends who forwent college for similar reasons, and they did make more money early on. However, as time passes, they find that there is a pay and advancement ceiling that is lower for them than for their higher educated coworkers. They are also more fearful of losing the income they have painstakingly built up, are more rooted in their company, generally have not saved and don't have a lot of equity (especially with the current housing market), and don't use their monetary head start to now get the education that would help them. They then complain to me that they've hit the pay ceiling and are watching their (always less qualified) over-educated co-workers advance and make more money for doing less. I am sympathetic but skeptical.
There is also a smugness in posts like these that rub people like me the wrong way. It is easy when things are going well for you to look around and say everyone else is doing something wrong. I encourage you to look deeper.
Re: Schools Out, Forever
#17I would love to do this, but in my country it is impossible to get a (decent) job without a degree. How do you get at least an internship as, say, a high school graduate with mediocre grades and nothing to your name? You show them your open-source projects? I think HR is technically illiterate and will be more impressed by any degrees you have.
Exactly. How do you get that internship as a high school dropout? Thinking back to high school, I couldn't even get a job at McDonalds (probably deemed too nerdy for customer service). My parents aren't computer programmers, and did not know anyone in the field.
I also had a similar attitude for the first half of my university studies. I figured I could already program quite well, thank you very much, and classes were a waste of time. So, after failing a bunch of classes, I decided to go work for a year. Got a job hacking on an awful mess of PHP code.
Then I actually got interested in school. It turns out just because something is hard doesn't mean it's a waste of time. Hardware is actually interesting, as is theoretical CS. Now that I want to learn more, I can't get into grad school because of my too cool for school attitude earlier.
Re: Schools Out, Forever
#18I went to a school that taught me, among other things, how to use apostrophes, how to make web sites with readable text, how to avoid phrases like "kitchen of education", and how to make a poll that shows results when I vote instead of thanking me for voting. If you're some sort of mindless soulless fuck who equates everything in life to "will this help me get a job?", then skip school. It won't teach you what you wa…
This is the type of post that is contributing to the decline of HN. It's mean spirited and inflamatory, veiled by a thin layer of actual argument. You critize the author for a lack of credentials, yet claim that no one knows better than you how to create a brand online? Let's see your credentials then, because apparently you are God's gift to earth. Quite frankly no one had the credentials to write a post like yours.…
I also don't agree with the tone of the reply; however, I sympathize with his irritation. I share it. I agree with you that the reply should be re-thought: one shouldn't post on HN with anger, but with a contribution to the conversation that is likely to generate intelligent discussion.
Edit: "re-through" to "re-thought"
Re: Schools Out, Forever
#19Yet another helpful individual mistaking university for some kind of career training centre... Universities are not there to get you a career, a high paying job, etc. I'll grant you that they've been mis-represented to many people, often by greedy people who wanted to boost the ranks of students to make money (another good reason why universities shouldn't be for-profit). There are many purposes served by universitie…
Universities are there to get you a job. In fact, it's part of their marketing strategy. In technical curricula, nearly every decision they make is based around predictions of future job growth. It is a very real problem right now, because technical jobs are changing so fast. The universities don't know what to teach kids. Corporations aren't hiring people to write Fortran or C++. They hire them to write .NET and Jav…
This is true, otherwise why would the first thing taught be Java? (what happens at my uni). The ordering that follows seems to much more promote churning out a Java/C++ programmer who knows how to use and create detailed UML documentation.
You don't do any assembly or VHDL type close to the metal stuff unless your doing a 4 year degree that incorporates EE classes. There is a class called computer systems architecture that's in 3rd year I think. I've seen people in this class just not get it, so in a sense they have been learning to program for years in an abstract way and don't have a clue what the computer does with their program.
Thankfully there isn't to much .NET which I feel would be even more of a specialization than java, especially if it were VB.NET
Re: Schools Out, Forever
#20Thank's Avand, your article is really hip and all. I'd really like to agree with it, and then go about back behind the school yard and smoke a cigarette and tell The Man go to hell. However, I really can't do that. Let's start with your high school experience. Going to a prep school in Boston means you (most likely, not assuredly) come from a privileged background. I went to a high school prep school too, and like yo…
> Thank's Avand, your article is really hip and all. I'd really like to agree with it, and then go about back behind the school yard and smoke a cigarette and tell The Man go to hell.
I almost didn't read the post because you made it sound like mindless rebellion. The tone of discussion was a bit higher than you made it out to be.
> Here's what it really comes down to- you seem to be doing well marching to your own song, Avand, and that's great, keep it up!
In all seriousness - can you cut this out? You've got valid and good points, but adding snark/sarcasm doesn't help them. I've seen more of this lately here on HN, and I don't think it's a good trend. There's a lot of valid critique/counterexamples of the author's post, and I'd really enjoy hearing more of your perspective and others who disagree, but the sarcasm/snark takes away from the point more than adds.