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College Was the Biggest Mistake of My Life

americandreaming.substack.com

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Re: College Was the Biggest Mistake of My Life

#171

Post by the_only_law »

brimble wrote: post #99
jrochkind1 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What year did you graduate?

I had a similar experience, and this was way into the era of "OMG college is unaffordable". College can still be affordable. The specific college you want , the one that other people have heard of outside an eight-county radius, dorm living the whole time, out-of-state tuition, famous professors, guest lecturers whose names are well-known... well, probably not. Just checked, the one I went to is about $18k/yr now, in…

> College can still be affordable. The specific college you want, the one that other people have heard of outside an eight-county radius, dorm living the whole time, out-of-state tuition, famous professors, guest lecturers whose names are well-known... well, probably not.

This is purely from a software development context and obviously doesn’t apply outside, but Given that choice is almost just eschew college period. I have not seen good quality programs at a small schools and I imagine you also lose out in quality of employer sourcing, networking etc.

The time cost alone would make it seem that it’s better just to break into the field without education. It’s not easy, but it’s not particularly difficult either.

Re: College Was the Biggest Mistake of My Life

#172

Post by the_only_law »

drnonsense42 wrote: post #90
shortstuffsushi wrote: post #16

I'll offer one anecdote of counter-college hate. I went to a local state school, graduated in three years with winter and summer classes, commuted for the second and third, worked the whole time, and came out with a very small amount of debt (maybe 5-10k, been a while now and I don't remember). I made friends in college, I was able to get into a great job via an internship that I got from the school job fair, and got…

Getting a STEM degree at a state school and getting out as quickly as possible is arguably the smartest way to use college. Unfortunately, many 18 year olds and frankly many adults do not have the decision making skills to do this. Just because it’s technically possible to use the system beneficially doesn’t mean it’s working well.

Agreed completely. I’m looking at going back, but I have a very meticulous plan for what, where, when and why. It’s almost certain that I’d get more value than I would have had I gone at 17-18.

On the flip side, it’d be straw that broke the camels back for my social life. I’d go from being one of the youngest people everywhere I go go probably one of the oldest.

Re: College Was the Biggest Mistake of My Life

#173

Post by [deleted] »

akamia wrote: post #170
riazrizvi wrote: post #162

> A degree in film is absolutely worthless for obtaining work in the film industry. What matters are connections, professional experience, and the ability to raise large sums of money. Those aren’t things film school can teach you. Well you're very unlikely to get a job with any degree without writing a resume, attending job fairs, networking etc., the degree is helpful but not sufficient. Film school is a place wher…

This is a really great point. My brother-in-law went to film school and did exactly what you described. He networked with his professors and peers, worked on lots of projects, used the software and equipment available through the school, and graduated with a strong portfolio. He has been consistently working in the field since graduating. Obviously this is just a single anecdote but I think it does show that it is po…

[deleted]

Re: College Was the Biggest Mistake of My Life

#174

Post by taylodl »

shortstuffsushi wrote: post #16

I'll offer one anecdote of counter-college hate. I went to a local state school, graduated in three years with winter and summer classes, commuted for the second and third, worked the whole time, and came out with a very small amount of debt (maybe 5-10k, been a while now and I don't remember). I made friends in college, I was able to get into a great job via an internship that I got from the school job fair, and got…

I was one of those "whiz kids" who was "good with computers" and got a job programming straight out of high school. I went to college, Ohio State, but left after a couple of semesters because it was boring.

Fast-forward a few years into the economic downturn of the early 1990's and the company I worked at for my third job collapsed overnight. The market was flooded and I had a really difficult time finding another job because I didn't have a college degree.

I finally got another job and even better, they paid for me to go back to school. I went back to Ohio State year-round taking a couple courses per quarter (they were still on the quarter system back then). By that time I was married, into my mid-to-late twenties and able to avoid all the student life BS. I knew exactly the weaknesses in my knowledge, tested out of as many of the basic courses as they'd let me, and learned a lot.

One of the benefits I got from testing out of so many courses was I still needed hours - they cleared prerequisites but I maxed-out the hours. That means I was eligible to take a lot of graduate-level courses. I took all the core courses comprising their Masters program. Like, I said, I learned a lot.

And my employer paid for it all! The most shocking thing is after I graduated my employer gave me a 50% raise! I even said, hey!, my job hasn't changed I'm doing the same thing now as I was doing a month before I graduated. Their response? Your market rate is different, you're more valuable now. You're a Staff Engineer with a degree.

College paid off great for me!

Re: College Was the Biggest Mistake of My Life

#175

Post by ac29 »

tomrod wrote: post #98
TimPC wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$47K for the degree itself leads to much larger debt if you're in the sizeable contingent of students that also needs to pay for things like a place to live and meals rather than relying on parents. You're paying $12K/year for the degree and likely $18K/year for rent and another $18K or so for other expenses. If you're making $30K/year from a part time job and paying $4K of that to taxes. you end up with a $22K/year…

Is $1,500 /month rent with roommates common? I'd think that can be reduced somewhat, if needed? I'll admit, I don't watch the college town apartment cost trends.

I'd assume $1500/month is to live alone. With a roommate that would imply a $3k/month 2 bedroom apartment, which certainly exist, but only in the most expensive cities.

Re: College Was the Biggest Mistake of My Life

#176

Post by xhkkffbf »

dragonwriter wrote: post #150
xhkkffbf wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point seems kind of circular. CS can't be dated because you have a list of what is considered CS and your list is a single source of truth. But I wasn't arguing about terminology. I was just pointing out that many of the big, required courses in CS aren't that useful. Or maybe not as useful as the professors might imagine them to be. So call it whatever you like. I'm just agreeing that the curriculum is dated.

> Your point seems kind of circular. It's not. > CS can't be dated because you have a list of what is considered CS and your list is a single source of truth. CS curriculum can be dated, if it doesn't keep up with progress in the domain. It doesn't become dated just because you want to do something other than CS. (It may be the case that the percentage of working programmers in jobs where a CS degree is a particularl…

You're missing my point. I wasn't saying compilers aren't what I want. Indeed, I said I liked learning about them. I said that very few people build compilers any more, a big change from the 1970s when they found their place in the curriculum. No one parses anything anymore. The data formats like JSON were designed to piggyback on the built-in parsers.

The same goes for theory. It's fun to learn but the reality is that none of the machines have infinite tape and the interesting Turing machine diagonalization proofs pretty much depend upon this feature. Many of the hierarchies collapse without assuming infinite RAM.

Again, you're waving your hands and saying they're useful. Maybe you can find the use for them. Good for you. But I don't see it that often. When I learned that Apple, one of the richest companies in the world, didn't create their own compiler for Swift, I knew that studying compilers was like studying buggy whips. There are a few folks at Colonial Williamsburg that want to understand buggy whip science. They can say with a straight face that it's useful. But it's not for 99% of the CS graduates.

Re: College Was the Biggest Mistake of My Life

#177

Post by ac29 »

koheripbal wrote: post #42
omarhaneef wrote: post #9

One point of view arguing for a non-stem degree is that it teaches you to read, write and think. And there is some logic to that thought. Even if you spend 4 years just learning about, say, Sociology, you have to read up on a debate, summarize the background, have an opinion, be challenged and so forth. And you are on your way to 10k hours. Now film school might have a component of that, or maybe it is teaching you h…

"it teaches you to read, write and think." Most people learn that by grade 10. College should be for highly specialized skill learning.

I went to a decent state school and I distinctly remember being told over half of admitted new students tested into remedial level classes in English and/or math.

Re: College Was the Biggest Mistake of My Life

#178

Post by em-bee »

browningstreet wrote: post #32
omarhaneef wrote: post #9

One point of view arguing for a non-stem degree is that it teaches you to read, write and think. And there is some logic to that thought. Even if you spend 4 years just learning about, say, Sociology, you have to read up on a debate, summarize the background, have an opinion, be challenged and so forth. And you are on your way to 10k hours. Now film school might have a component of that, or maybe it is teaching you h…

> "A degree in film is absolutely worthless for obtaining work in the film industry. What matters are connections, professional experience, and the ability to raise large sums of money. Those aren’t things film school can teach you." > Perhaps the film school should add some courses on networking, fund raising and an internship at film shoots? If you go to film school not knowing the quoted hot take above, you've wat…

how much do you expect a high-school student to research if that information is not provided by career counseling?

i did a film project in high school, and i am involved in one now. if i were to go to college now i might think, hey this is fun. i would not even consider the idea that film-school would not help me get a job in the film industry. that's totally counter intuitive.

the only way to address that is to put picking a career onto the high school curriculum, and make the necessary research a class assignment. and once the students have made some potential choices bring in veterans from those industries to talk to the students about their choices.

Re: College Was the Biggest Mistake of My Life

#179

Post by t0bia_s »

I have similar story. Studied film animation at university for 4 years, last year working in game industry... Most skills I learned that last year at work. At uni first 3 semesters was actually for learning something new - mostly in working with software, but the rest not worth it.

In art industry diploma doesn't mean much. Portfolio and contacts are everything you need.

Re: College Was the Biggest Mistake of My Life

#180

Post by beej71 »

xhkkffbf wrote: post #176
dragonwriter wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your point seems kind of circular. It's not. > CS can't be dated because you have a list of what is considered CS and your list is a single source of truth. CS curriculum can be dated, if it doesn't keep up with progress in the domain. It doesn't become dated just because you want to do something other than CS. (It may be the case that the percentage of working programmers in jobs where a CS degree is a particularl…

You're missing my point. I wasn't saying compilers aren't what I want. Indeed, I said I liked learning about them. I said that very few people build compilers any more, a big change from the 1970s when they found their place in the curriculum. No one parses anything anymore. The data formats like JSON were designed to piggyback on the built-in parsers. The same goes for theory. It's fun to learn but the reality is th…

How do you know when learning a piece of theoretical knowledge was useful or not in your day-to-day life?

For me, it's all connected in a big web, and it's very difficult to find a piece of knowledge that wasn't applicable at some point. I feel like I'd be lying if I said my career were not helped by taking compiler theory, even though I never was hired to write a compiler. It's all part of my knowledge base that I bring to bear to solve any problem.

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