[ask hn]How many of you are dropouts?

I never recommend skipping college to anyone. If you have a unique opportunity that can't wait, you have a solid plan, AND you have unique skills, then it might make sense. Or maybe if you have a very strange combination of strengths and weaknesses such that you are mature enough to succeed on your own, but not capable of making school work for you. Or if you can't find a way to get to a school where you will be with a good set of intellectual peers.

I know quite a few people who have dropped out of or skipped college, and in all but one or two cases I think they're worse off for it, or at least, they spend many years struggling to replace or replicate the college experience.

There are three big things you have to replace if you skip college: The social experience (learning how to exist both socially and intellectually in a group of peers). The material (in some hypothetical sense you can learn it all on OpenCourseWare, but in practice, most people find this to be a serious grind). The intellectual discipline (learning to think clearly and maturely, filing down your rough edges).

Your best bet is to find a group of really smart people who will be absolutely merciless in instilling intellectual discipline in you (constantly challenging you be rigorous, to know your field, to fully back up your ideas), and that will also be your close friends and romantic interests, and then find a way to have lots of spare time to hunker down and work through OCW or your favorite MOOC or textbooks. I know several brilliant people who have created these situations for themselves, and I think they've all found that it takes a huge input of energy to even approximately replicate what is readily available at top colleges, even for people that are smart enough to breeze through or basically intuit/rederive the course material.

Logistically, dropping out will close some doors forever. People with degrees can switch fields later in life by going to grad school; it is harder to switch fields if you don't have a degree. Immigration situations are far more difficult without a degree. There are ways around the closed doors but you will have to fight very very hard for them and become the top in your field. On the other hand, you also have a huge advantage (at least if you skip college entirely) which is that you don't have student loans and that may significantly increase your freedom during a period of your life when freedom is critical. In my own life I think these logistical factors came out about even.

In the end, I think it was right for me to leave in '99 and dive into startups, but, like, I made that decision in Stockholm, at the Nobel prize ceremony, where the establishment sent me after winning the top prize at world science fair, so I had every possible advantage and it was still a very difficult road. Do it only if you really don't see a future for you at college.

I chose Electronic Engineering at college, mostly because they said getting a job was easier.

After 4 years of Maths, and never ever having SEEN a lab, I kissed them goodbye and went to the freshly opened CS course.

After another 4 years of mostly bad teachers, I decided that my thirst for learning was better satisfied working.

And here I am, not (yet) successful, but knowing WAY more than any of my then college mates.

That said, I am not a proponent of the "college for everyone" theory. Some people aren't cut out for college, and that doesn't make them people of lesser intrinsic worth.

When I was pondering putting college on hold, my dad gave me this advice: Do the thing now that gives you the most opportunities later. Finishing my bachelor's would give me more opportunities than not doing so.

Over the years, I've added my own corollary to dad's advice: Do the hardest thing you're capable of. For example, if you can handle advanced math courses, you should take them, and get a "mathy" degree (engineering, comp sci, mathematics, etc.) If you really like Art History you can minor in it, but do the hard thing as your major.

Can you succeed as a dropout? Absolutely. Will it be harder? Yes it will. And the success rate is a lot lower, for most definitions of success.