A huge amount of your future networking is done at uni. Also... you are more likely to marry somone you find at uni than most other institutions.
That being said, a PhD is probably only required if you wish to go into teaching.
Do I need to go to university?
51–60 of 279 posts
Re: Do I need to go to university?
#52I'm a senior in high school and decided to. I started a startup and got invited for a YC interview(got rejected) and am onto another startup which is raising soon. Despite how much success/failure/I learn I endure, college name matters... a lot. I snuck into Nuro's open house last year and found they exclusively invited Harvard/Stanford/MIT students (I can say this because I was a minor at the time of signing their N…
If you’re already decided you’re into startups the network and prestige of Y Combinator will help more than most any college. If you want the stamp of admission to the US ruling class sure, go to where the elite send their children to find someone to marry but otherwise you could do worse than committing to what you actually want instead of chasing a network.
YCombinator might well disappear in a few years. Universities tend to last much longer, some of them have been around for centuries. In 50 years something like YC might be a footnote in wikipedia, but I can assure you that most respectable universities will still be around to “guarantee” one’s worth.
I never graduated and I was an idiot. Stay in school, kids.
Re: Do I need to go to university?
#53I have a degree in Theoretical Physics. During my second year I started to realise that I don't want to stay in academia, and at the same time I started to do a lot programming. I finished my Bachelors and got a job as a backend dev.
The way I see it, altough I learned a lot in uni, it's basically a "VIP" token to get yourself a job. And that's sad. Lots of companies will hire physics and math grads _just because_. They think they have "problem solving skills" - let me tell you - there are a tonne of STEM grads that do not have these skills (putting it politely) but get hired anyway.
Re: Do I need to go to university?
#54The anti-university sentiment on HN is absolutely alien to me. Not only did I get a lot out of my university education, but it was a totally transformative experience for me. It also enables me to do my job, and I’ve never seen anyone without a good education do it well. Yes, I get that you can be a react developer without a university qualification. This may come as news to some, but most fields bear no resemblance…
My experience is the same.
I often hear people say that a university education teaches nothing useful, that it's just learning to take tests, that the course material is irrelevant, that it's just for networking and signalling, etc.
I suspect they both a) selected the wrong major and b) went to the wrong university.
Re: Do I need to go to university?
#55Can't speak for other professions but as a dev I've got no regrets in getting a CS degree. There's nothing you'll learn there that you couldn't maybe teach yourself but that's exactly the point. Unless you're a gifted autodidact you'll face considerable difficulty and will likely end up skipping through the important stuff coming away with a very flawed understanding indeed.
Re: Do I need to go to university?
#56The anti-university sentiment on HN is absolutely alien to me. Not only did I get a lot out of my university education, but it was a totally transformative experience for me. It also enables me to do my job, and I’ve never seen anyone without a good education do it well. Yes, I get that you can be a react developer without a university qualification. This may come as news to some, but most fields bear no resemblance…
> The anti-university sentiment on HN is absolutely alien to me.
I will explain why. Hint: you are the part of the problem.
> I've never seen anyone without a good education do it well.
This is your lived experience, so I respect it. On the other hand, a lot of people on HN's lived experience is that, they witnessed, first hand, people without a good education do it well, so very well, extremely wonderfully well. Please respect it too.
Re: Do I need to go to university?
#57[deleted]
Re: Do I need to go to university?
#58The anti-university sentiment on HN is absolutely alien to me. Not only did I get a lot out of my university education, but it was a totally transformative experience for me. It also enables me to do my job, and I’ve never seen anyone without a good education do it well. Yes, I get that you can be a react developer without a university qualification. This may come as news to some, but most fields bear no resemblance…
I did a CS degree in the 1980s which I'm still very happy that I did (the fact that it didn't cost me a penny probably helps) - but I do think that CS is irrelevant to 95% of development jobs.
Re: Do I need to go to university?
#59What’s missing from the conversation is the nature of the university. It makes this piece uniquely applicable to, say, the top 100 universities in the world. Let me throw in an African perspective, a hand grenade depending on who you ask.
I’d argue that in the current economy where global mobility should be an intentional goal of any education, they (most African universities) pay negative dividends in both power in their name and quality of education. I’d rather spend my tuition on online courses offered by MIT and Stanford. So, should I go to the university? In order to be able to answer, we should ask, which university. The answer is a definite yes for the top 100, maybe until the 1000th, and a no after that: there are non-university institutions that can give you the higher quality signal you need.
Re: Do I need to go to university?
#60I'm a senior in high school and decided to. I started a startup and got invited for a YC interview(got rejected) and am onto another startup which is raising soon. Despite how much success/failure/I learn I endure, college name matters... a lot. I snuck into Nuro's open house last year and found they exclusively invited Harvard/Stanford/MIT students (I can say this because I was a minor at the time of signing their N…
> college name matters
Nobody ever asks me what college I attended. Nobody cares.