Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree, So I’m Making My Own

blog.alyxandria.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 145 posts

Re: I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree, So I’m Making My Own

#91

Post by JasonFruit »

dmak wrote: post #26
chasing wrote: post #9

So. Instead of paying a bunch of money and spending a lot of time on something that didn't feel right, you struck out on your own and self-educated yourself. Own that decision! Having a fake Bachelor's degree from some fake accreditation system you invented will just make you seem like you're defensive about it or trying to pull one over on people or something. It just feels weird.

I don't think there is a need to be condescending here. I actually like this persons idea and I want to see how it pans out.

I don't read it as condescending. I read it as representative of the response of the average educated person to a degree whose accreditation is supported mostly by the opinion of recipients of the degree. If you educated yourself, say so, and provide evidence of your own knowledge. That way, you'll be one more person who shows the validity of self-education, and you'll make it easier for the next one.

Re: I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree, So I’m Making My Own

#92

Post by TheCoelacanth »

Amezarak wrote: post #88
ecocentrik wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's my understanding that a "good" college football team generates considerable sums of money for a univerity. You're probably thinking about the cost of starting a football program or maintaining an unsuccessful football team.

The last I read, only the top ten or so teams turned a profit. I am somewhat embittered though, as during my time at university, my tuition went up by $500 for the explicit purpose of funding the football team. And I was paying cash.

Only the top few athletics programs turn a profit. About half of D1 football teams turn a profit.

Re: I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree, So I’m Making My Own

#93

Post by matwood »

broodbucket wrote: post #47
ChuckMcM wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering that it is their first degree, I made the possible inaccurate assumption that this person was just getting out of the US equivalent of high school. My thoughts at that age were pretty jumbled too. Many of my peers didn't really have any idea why they were in college until maybe their third year. It wasn't until they had the benefit of having gone through such a program and looked back on it to appreciate…

High school graduation is a rite of passage, university is not, that's the difference.

Really? I was just happy it was done and I could go do something interesting and be treated like an adult. I still speak to exactly 1 person I knew from HS. For me, HS is already a mostly forgotten blip in my life.

Undergrad and then graduate school were a much bigger deal because it was up to me to complete them. I didn't have teachers or my parents or anything else making me finish, it was something I did on my own. They were also both interesting and challenging.

Re: I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree, So I’m Making My Own

#95

Post by aet »

Amezarak wrote: post #88
ecocentrik wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's my understanding that a "good" college football team generates considerable sums of money for a univerity. You're probably thinking about the cost of starting a football program or maintaining an unsuccessful football team.

The last I read, only the top ten or so teams turned a profit. I am somewhat embittered though, as during my time at university, my tuition went up by $500 for the explicit purpose of funding the football team. And I was paying cash.

ACC profit Virginia Tech $14,853,103.00 Clemson Univ. $14,688,975.00 North Carolina State $11,609,800.00 Georgia Tech $9,350,858.00 Univ. of North Carolina $7,289,263.00 Univ. of Miami $6,767,811.00 Univ. of Virginia $3,076,978.00 Florida State Univ. $2,613,485.00 Duke Univ. $1,796,461.00 Univ. of Maryland $1,676,620.00 Boston College $1,211,197.00 Wake Forest University -$2,289,583.00

Re: I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree, So I’m Making My Own

#96

Post by gobots »

bane wrote: post #84
prof_hobart wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>My response is that graduating from college is the first thing you can do where it's reasonably hard, takes a multi-year effort, and is completely optional That's not entirely true - taking a job also falls into that category. Not saying that college isn't a valid choice, but 3 years of work at the same point can be an equally valid choice.

Not nearly as valid. Generally, people have to have a job in order to survive.

I worked to teach myself how to program. Started at the age of 9, pursued it off and on until I was 21 then went hard at it. I dropped out of community college because I had to work – so you're correct, working is something you must do to make money sometimes. But I had other options available to me. The easiest path I could have taken was to continue working construction for my father or paint houses with my cousin. These were neither fulfilling lines of work nor would they allow me to accomplish the life I wanted.

I was forced to drop out of college due to lack of money, but I would hardly consider what I have done to be less of an accomplishment. Over the last decade I have learned PHP, Perl, Javascript, Node, Python, CSS, HTML, various databases and now I am trying to transition into video game design and development which is what my plan has been for the last 15 years.

I disagree that college is the highest form of validation one can receive.

Edit: Grammer, spelling and this: forgot to mention that I have worked for several well known companies in a major US city now, one of them for 2.5 years, another for 5. I have also maintained a steady stream of side projects and clients.

Re: I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree, So I’m Making My Own

#97

Post by peter303 »

I attended a technology school in the Boston area with the intention of liberalizing my education once I found the time. But I never really did, save a small hobby here and there. I still have great hopes with all the new internet self-education options out there.

Re: I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree, So I’m Making My Own

#98

Post by dragontamer »

steveklabnik wrote: post #52
voidlogic wrote: post #41

>>I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree That is very true for some degrees, but I laugh when potential C-S students say this. My first year of undergrad at well performing state university, I took loans and worked at the schools IT support center, 7.50/hr. The following summer I worked as a "Application Development Intern" and made $10/hr. For the following three years I worked part-time at a local software consulting f…

How long ago was this? It matters, a lot. Tuition doubled at my school while I was there. I ended up with ~$72k in debt. And it wasn't any Ivy-league school.

There's a "for profit" problem going on in the US. First of all, the Echo Boomers just went through college, and during that time period, there wasn't enough universities / colleges for everyone.

So unless you were a very top performer in your class, it was unlikely that you got into a state university. Instead, people got into for-profit universities they heard through internet ads or TV ads. (There is _always_ a spot for you in a for-profit university). For-profit universities were a bad deal, they manipulated their students and lied to them about their accreditation status. The problem didn't become known until maybe 2012 or so when the Obama Administration began to crack down on their shady practices.

The fact of the matter is, State Universities are the way to go, although they weren't an option for many people. Today, the average cost of an in-state university is $9000 / year. (This falls in line with my experience)

Even with books and stuff, that will only be ~$45k in loans for the average in-state university.

As the Echo Boomers leave college age, the college-age population is beginning to shrink again and it will be easier to get a degree now without resorting to overpriced out-of-state costs or for-profit schools.

Re: I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree, So I’m Making My Own

#99

Post by grayclhn »

majc2 wrote: post #59
grayclhn wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be fun if the general solution was making online classes absurdly hard . Unfortunately, it's hard enough to stop cheating on exams in physical lecture halls, so once a high grade guarantees students job interviews....

...we will know if they know the material or not? I don't think cheating on exams is that widespread, what are others experiences?

Companies already can choose to interview anyone who's taken relevant coursework, but usually can't commit that much time so they screen applicants first. If the grades in a few particular online courses become widely known for getting students interviews, I think most of us would expect cheating in those classes to rise and the classes' role as a screening mechanism would degrade.

I don't have data on cheating available, but anecdotally, I've TAed economics classes at UCSD where---routinely---over 100 students in a class would turn in word-for-word identical homework (this had nothing to do with whether students were allowed or prohibited from "working in groups" on homework, so it was definitely considered cheating in some of the classes). I suspect that cheating varies a lot from university to university and from major to major.

Re: I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree, So I’m Making My Own

#100

Post by smeyer »

chrisBob wrote: post #66
beloch wrote: post #61

1. Apprentice in a good trade and you can earn more than the average professor. Seriously, my plumber makes more than than the prof who taught me quantum physics. 2. If you're at all cut out for college, you can get scholarships. 3. Even if you're not brilliant and just persistent, you can get loans. University administrators and their associated bureaucracy have been expanding for quite some time now. It's actually…

In addition to scholarships, which are merit based, many schools also have good financial aid, which is need based. I think colleges advertise this poorly but it makes a huge difference. I am at Boston University now and while the sticker price is $55k/year the average american student pays about half of that. When my wife went to Princeton they used the FASA form to to calculate how much your family could afford and…

When you say that "the average american student pays about half of that", are you counting student loans towards the half the student pays or the half they don't? I've seen loans treated both of these ways before. I went to Harvard, and like your wife at Princeton, I found the financial aid incredibly generous. Their net price calculator online is a pretty good guide to their policies: https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculat... .
Post reply on HN