Ask HN: Do I need to go to college?

It depends on your goals - no one can give you advice on the path you should take if they don't know your destination.

Do you want to be an entrepreneur? Do you want to build a product and company, work for startups, or work in enterprise software development?

If you want to work in big business (a decent and potentially low-stress path if you want a good wage, despite what people here might tell you) you should probably go to college. If you don't know, you should probably go to college. If you know you

I did go to college, and I'm glad I have a significant understanding of philosophy, writing, and chemistry that I would not otherwise have discovered. That said, it was a complete waste of time and money for me. I could be making the same amount I am now, and I would have many thousands more in savings.

Degrees are filters for many low-level positions, but no one has asked me whether I have a degree in years. At this point, it's all about experience and skills. The exception might be Fortune 100 companies that still seem to care a great deal about your formal education. Despite having a degree, I wouldn't want to work for these companies anyway. It shows a type of hierarchical rigid thinking and structure that I would like to avoid.

If you do decide to skip college, I'd strongly advise you to work on CS theory AND the supplementary skills you would have learned in college. Pick up and read some textbooks on the basic subjects you would have studied. Learning more about programming and development is good, but I see value in diverse knowledge.

Both of my parents are professors so I've had a lot of pressure to choose to go to college but I really appreciate everyone's input on this. I think the best decision is to go to college while simultaneously building side projects, contributing to open source, doing freelance/remote work, etc.

I have a follow-up question, however:

With my qualifications, how likely is it that I could land an internship in San Francisco this coming summer?

I'm currently learning many new (to me) technologies, ramping up my open source activity, and writing a blog. Is there anything else I should to do increase my chances?

Thanks for the advice.

>Do you want to be an entrepreneur? Do you want to build a product and company, work for startups, or work in enterprise software development?

I want to be an entrepreneur, running my own company on organic growth rather than VC money. I don't have a problem with being acquired but I don't want to be using other peoples' money.

But before I attempt that I want to work as an employee of startups to gain business experience, making mistakes and learning from them while still earning a salary.

I disagree with points 1-3.

1- Undergrad college experience consists of homework and test, perhaps with the occassional group project or presentation thrown in. This is so far removed from what non-academics do at work that it's hilarious.

2- On what grounds do you say that college teaches you abstract thinking. In truth, studies have found that college does no such thing for most majors.[1] The problem is that most colleges and universities are more interested in graduate students and research. Almost every test I took in college was multiple choice - widely regarded as the least-effective way to teach critical thinking. There are so many people in your classes that the professors don't have time to do anything but put you through the degree mill, memorize-and-repeat style.

3- My college was basically a slightly more intense version of high school. See (1). I do agree that you learn about an intellectual environment, but many teachers have never worked in an actual professional non-academic environment in their lives. Your PhD in computer science knows computer science, but don't count on them being able to teach you how to overcome organizational obstacles.

[1] http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/01/18/study_finds_la... http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/20/studies-challe...

I left college early to start my career. In this market it's pretty easy to "make it" without a degree. However there are things a degree gives you that most people don't think about. Part of this might be because i'm on the East coast where education is a big part of who you are, but I've experienced a huge social stigma. There's an extra burden on you when you don't have a degree. That stigma will impact you professionally, but also socially. You'll want to hang out with people who you view as your peers. The thing is that most of those people went the standard route. I've found the easiest way to cope is to just not bring it up. When it does come up, I've had good friends change the way they talk to you. I'm always straight up with my bosses, but with friends and coworkers it depends.

Secondly, more important then what you learn (though what you learn is important) is the network you build. There's a saying, A players hire A players, B players hire C players and so on. Have you ever wondered who hired the B players? Usually its B players who got lucky. A lot of those B players are like us. You probably want to work with other A players, but they all met in college, and when one goes to a new company the rest of their posse follows. So that recruiter who's getting you a job is probably going to get you into a B role if you're good, but you're not going to be working with people who are at the top of their game. If your goal is to be the best you can be, you need to work with the people who are the best.

4 years is a big part of your life, but trust me. I wish i would have made the full investment. It would have made life easier.