And study economics, particularly of the labor market. Nothing has helped me make good decisions more than that. I wish I had done it ten years earlier
Ask HN: Messed up my education, now 30 and regretting it. What to do?
71–80 of 122 posts
Re: Ask HN: Messed up my education, now 30 and regretting it. What to do?
#72a lot of good tech people dropped out of uni to persue a much faster career.
maybe you did not mess up your education?
Re: Ask HN: Messed up my education, now 30 and regretting it. What to do?
#73Other than constantly thinking about it, have you had any actual negative consequences due to this?
I'm asking, because with only one exception, none of the employers I've worked at ever took a look at your education when making hiring decisions. It was maybe interesting as a talking point, if I went to the same school as the candidate I was interviewing, but that's it.
I think you should work on readjusting your thinking rather than figuring out how to get the degree.
Re: Ask HN: Messed up my education, now 30 and regretting it. What to do?
#74Hello Friend,
I too am using a throwaway, as my situation is / was similar to yours.
There are part time masters degree programs in CS / Software engineering from reputable schools that you can pursue while employed that do not require an undergraduate degree for admission.
I found that when I enrolled in one, my career prospects increased significantly; I added it immediately to my resume with the note that it was part-time and in progress.
Re: Ask HN: Messed up my education, now 30 and regretting it. What to do?
#75You don't need a degree to get a job in tech in your 30s with work history on your resume. You also don't need a degree to learn things. There are so many courses from top colleges online for free today, and other learning resources too. All you need is motivation.
In my experience, motivation comes from interesting work. If you need to learn to make progress on a project you care about, you will learn. So what you need is a project that requires you to learn the things you want to learn.
Re: Ask HN: Messed up my education, now 30 and regretting it. What to do?
#76I dropped out of undergrad to work in CS..and in my early 30s looked around at all the startups and said 'this is all crap, I want to try to do something real'
so I did manage to get into a PhD program at a good school. happy I did, I took all the graduate courses and filled in all kinds of gaps. but at the end of the day I looked at all the grad students putting together half-assed little projects on their own to try to get published and said 'this is all crap, I want to do something real'
I agree with everyone here who has said 'figure out why first'. you can do research on your own - and there are very few places left that would pay you to do it even if you did have the PhD.
edit: also don't underestimate how awkward it is to be older than your peers with a decade+ of industry experience. you really are coming in from a very different path and its not always appreciated. I found trying to talk about people about code to be particularly frustrating.
Re: Ask HN: Messed up my education, now 30 and regretting it. What to do?
#77Look at the requirements needed to get the job you want. Verify that they are correct and start by going back to school. You'll be surprise how much fun it is to go to school once you have a goal. Additionally, as an older student you'll have a bit more perspective so you'll be able to see how the classes you are taking will lead to the career you want. By the time you know it, you'll be done. You'll be doing it as a personal goal so make sure you keep that in mind.
You can also try to become an expert on your own. But you'll need to pick a field you are very passionate about since you'll need to grind thru some difficult patches as you learn the subject. It's very hard that's why you need a goal and a passion. Very few people can become competent this way but there are many people that have. All you need is the internet, textbooks, problems to solve and a high level of grit.
Also, pick an emerging field. Once you are competent in it employers will beg you to work for them. The one that comes to mind right away is crypto. People are hating on it but it reminds me of the start of the personal computer revolution. In the late 70's there were very few applications for personal computers but as you can see that's not the case now.
It takes a generation shift for useful technology to become common place. I give it another ten years before we see some killer applications.
Re: Ask HN: Messed up my education, now 30 and regretting it. What to do?
#78Your 30s are probably your peak earning years for IT related fields then you start to slow down and get shuffled into management. Some folk do hang on over-40s in hands on tech but it has a limited shelf life. Computer games design is a young person's gig, IMO. Zero family and work you to death are the mantra for that industry. Sometimes the best thing to do is stay put. My two cents.
Re: Ask HN: Messed up my education, now 30 and regretting it. What to do?
#79You don't need a graduate degree to work on 3D graphics, distributed systems, nor in ML. You just need the time to learn these things. There might be pre-requisite material. Just learn them steps by steps.
Re: Ask HN: Messed up my education, now 30 and regretting it. What to do?
#80Speaking as someone actively hiring here and having worked with top teams on the PhD + industry side: Pick an area, get dangerous over say 6-9mo on your own time through a mix of planned practice (vs random noodling) + projects, then get more dangerous via an employer with senior talent happy to train some junior talent over 2yrs. From there, you're firmly in. That's not an option for everyone (aging parents, needy k…
How is any amount of practice going to get past the ML filters that reject all "unworthy" submissions as determined by somebody in HR filling in some config settings?
don't apply through HR filter routes nor with a normal application. you need just one person on the team or senior on the decision path to advocate a look. stuff like DEI, veteran hiring, high energy, etc are real, and junior hires are all protected categories, so managers do care about non-unicorn hires and will bat for them .
-- startups, esp those scrappy (read: no $30M funding rounds) so aren't using HR recruiters, will do hiring directly through founders or later leads. in general, up to 100+ employees, a good CEO should be involved in every hire
-- everyone else: LinkedIn sleuthing -- identify the team you'd want to join and likely hiring lead
in both cases, direct reach out via LI/email to that person: ~2 sentences proving you are legit ready to provide value on week 1-2 (ex: impressive demo page/video link), leading to a coverpage of 3-4 paragraphs why youthem specifically (project, ROI, ...) + regular CV
ex: if you want to do GLSL JS at Graphistry, I'd jump on an email / LI msg that linked to a cool GLSL video/demo and a good GitHub behind it. normally we have to hunt to find that kind of thing, so A+ for candidates who show they already align on our mission and can do the legwork.
80%+ of applications we get could have been applying for any webdev job, not ours: if we were looking for that, our job search would have taken 1-3 days. so don't present yourself that way nor apply that way. Numbers wise, instead of below the bar on 100 jobs so ~0% chance, at least get a 5-10% chance on 10-20, giving you a 100% shot
heck, as someone senior, i'd still never apply through the front door, including for co's I don't know anyone at