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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

#21

Post by snow_mac »

RappingBoomer wrote: post #5

if you read around on the internet, in various and sundry forums, there is a rising acknowledgement among people that maybe their friends who accidentally got their girlfriend pregnant in high school and then got married and started working right away were the lucky ones... at the time it seemed as if those friends had messed up royally, but in hindsight, looking back over time and it seems as if the ones who got a g…

"Best outcomes" by what metric? My dad did that in college and dropped out, joined the military. We were always poor growing up. Every person I know who did not go to college and got someone pregnant is very poor. Trailer park poor. I was trailer park poor growing up...

I'm the lucky one. I went to college, graduated at the bottom of my class because I was working 40 hours a week trying to stay afloat. I was the first of my class to get a job, the only one with a job before graduation. After about 2 years, I was making six figures and have for the last 8 years.

I'm lucky. Today I'm closing on my second house. The first one I bought 6 years ago with only $9,000 down on a 3% conventional loan has ballooned in value to give us a home 2.5x the space with over $240,000 down. $9000 into $240,000 in 6 years. Magic.

I have a wife and a kid. Lucky. Waited until I was 30 to have a kid. He's almost 3 now. The best outcomes? If I had a kid at 18, he'd be 12 and I'd be poor, never had gone to college. I would have either worked a full time job, retail or restaurants only in my small colorado town and never had the opportunity to go to college, to get internships and work part time. After community college, I went to state school and started working 40-50 hours a week. Multiple internships to reduce the debt.

Re: College Was the Biggest Mistake of My Life

#22

Post by paulpauper »

I don't agree with this article but I thought it would be good food for thought

The college wage premium is still wider than ever even after accounting for inflation and student loan debt and despite Covid and online learning.

Most grads major in 'actionable' subjects, like business or nursing, econ, or STEM subjects, not the humanities or film.

It’s worth taking a moment to reflect on the fathomless insanity of expecting teenagers to hatch decade-spanning plans intended to shape the course of their lives, while their brain’s prefrontal cortex, responsible for long-term planning, is seven years away from being fully developed.

I don't buy the underdeveloped brain theory either. I don't think it's well understood what it means for a brain to be fully developed, and if so, what age or how this is related to impulse control or decision making. Plenty of older people, such as boomers, go into debt and are bad with money.

Re: College Was the Biggest Mistake of My Life

#23

Post by jonahrd »

There's something extremely depressing about how popular this attitude of "college is a bad ROI, do something else with your time" is.

For sure, in the US currently there aren't many alternatives, so this might be practical advice for the current situation. But that isn't how this argument is framed most of the time. Instead, it's often more akin to "poor suckers going to college, haha I beat the system!" as if skipping higher education altogether is something to be proud of.

In other countries in the world, university is cheap or free, has flexible time commitments, and isn't necessarily pushed as something you have to do at 18 or you will miss out. But there still IS widespread access to higher education.

I just find it depressing that we are turning to the idea of less education, not more, because the system sucks so bad that we can't envision change.

(I'm an American who moved to Quebec for college-- where university is $2700/year and there is a growing movement to make it free for all-- and then stayed here)

Re: College Was the Biggest Mistake of My Life

#24

Post by Traubenfuchs »

The only problem I see is how in the USA, no one is stopping young adults from taking ruinous loans for worthless degrees.

Why do people keep doing this to themselves and why don‘t peers, parents and teachers advise them better.

Many of them then start screaming for the government (=tax payers) to bail them out, which is absurd to me.

Re: College Was the Biggest Mistake of My Life

#25

Post by coldpie »

ncmncm wrote: post #10
coldpie wrote: post #7

Biggest mistake of my life, too, but I got off easy. I attended a community college for 2 years, then transferred to a state university, to get a 4-year Computer Science degree in 2011. Complete waste of time and money. I made no friends; I knew more about programming than most of my teachers; and it turns out I hate computer science (enjoy programming, though!). Mercifully, I was already employed in software before…

Learn O(f(n)) notation and caches, and you're good to go. Judging by interviews, they don't teach the caches part in CS.

Turns out DFAs and Turing machines don't have caches. Wow, what incredibly useful models to spend several semesters examining /s

Re: College Was the Biggest Mistake of My Life

#26

Post by m348e912 »

>> The truth is, college isn’t for everyone. It’s a virtual requirement for fields like STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), medicine, academia, and law.

I would say it's true for academia and some other fields that a college degree is required. It has not been true in my experience with technology. Experience and demonstrable skills trump education. Certification also helps. This does vary from company to company, so I am sure there are some people on here that disagree with me based on their own experience.

Re: College Was the Biggest Mistake of My Life

#27

Post by fayten »

I know in parts of the US there are community colleges starting to offer Bachelor's Degrees. I wonder how much that will add to the cost of those schools. Hopefully it will lower the barrier of entry for thousands of students.

Also I am curious what HN's thoughts are on general education requirements in the US. It was something put in place in the 60's[1] in an attempt to prevent specialization[2] in education. I am wondering if it's time to reduce that requirement and go with more focused degrees similar to the UK.

Also Gen Ed courses seem like a real money makers for US Universities since there is not scaled tuition. A human lit class costs the same as a STEM course that could require very expressive lab equipment. I am not trying to down play the importance of human literature in this scenario. It just seems odd that it would cost the same as a organic chemistry class that requires a multi million dollar lab, a wide assortment of chemicals, and a staff equipped to maintain it throughout the day.

[1]. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1090127 [2]. https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/encyclopedias-almanac...

Re: College Was the Biggest Mistake of My Life

#28

Post by gilbetron »

College is ridiculously expensive because of government backed student loans, and that's a problem needing fixed. However, beyond that, it is the expectations students have (created from a variety of sources) that really are the crux of the problem. The expectation is that if I study X in college I get to do X professionally after that. Which is utterly untrue. It is the fantasy the colleges sell you on, and it is important to help high school students understand this.

Go study film in college if you want to know about film. Same with many, many other fields. It will transform your understanding of yourself and the world, and that is amazing. But just don't do it with the belief that you can study some obscure corner of history and then go make a living with that knowledge. If you want to get a job and support your life financially, then go into college with a different mindset. Be mercenary, figure out what you are good at that you can stand doing, and then compare that to the needs in the world, then develop the knowledge and skills in college that help you do that. And don't forget, it might be that college doesn't have what you need! Or only specific colleges.

Notice I don't say "follow your passion" - I think that's generally cruddy advice. Most people will be far happier finding what they are good at that society values. Passion for it will come later. Being good at something feels really good, when that something is rewarded by our culture.

If you are truly a "follow your passion" kind of person - you'll figure that out, because those kind of people can't not follow their passion. Their passion drives them, but they are exceedingly rare. Don't worry about it if you aren't that kind of person - many that I know that are like that often feel trapped by their passion. Especially if it is a passion that doesn't align with society's values.

College is a tool, find out if it is a tool that matches your life, and find that out by talking to people that have been through it, not by consuming media and university propaganda!

To be clear: I think going to college is awesome, and if you can afford it, study something you love, but with the understanding that you are doing it to make yourself a better human, not because of a financial benefit. I'd much rather work with someone that went to film school, and then learned coding online and is now a software developer and finds enjoyment in software where possible, and then uses the money to enjoy film in their own personal, idiosyncratic way. Then someone that went to school for CS, but really has no interest in the field, and is just another dull, unhappy drone.

Re: College Was the Biggest Mistake of My Life

#30

Post by anonymoushn »

ncmncm wrote: post #10
coldpie wrote: post #7

Biggest mistake of my life, too, but I got off easy. I attended a community college for 2 years, then transferred to a state university, to get a 4-year Computer Science degree in 2011. Complete waste of time and money. I made no friends; I knew more about programming than most of my teachers; and it turns out I hate computer science (enjoy programming, though!). Mercifully, I was already employed in software before…

Learn O(f(n)) notation and caches, and you're good to go. Judging by interviews, they don't teach the caches part in CS.

Is that about memoization, software fixed-size caches, physical caches on CPU dies, or caches that you can put in front of HTTP servers?
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