
Why I decided to skip college, and how I've fared (10 months later) - joshmlewis
http://joshmlewis.posterous.com/why-i-decided-to-skip-college-and-how-ive-far
======
peterwwillis
First of all,

 _I'm not an idiot_

No, you are. Everyone is an idiot; it's a sliding scale. Some people are more
or less depending on their circumstances. And you become a little less of an
idiot the older you are and more mistakes you make. But that's beside the
point.

Skipping college has nothing to do with whether you're successful
professionally (unless you plan to work in a field where degrees are
prerequisites). Anyone can make something of themselves without that piece of
paper. You can be the next Bill goddamn Gates without going to a single
lecture. I think being successful is relatively straightforward, and that
achievements are just a product of how much effort you put into them.

On the other hand, college can give you all the weird shit that matters later
accidentally. For example: _[Steve] Jobs later said, "If I had never dropped
in on that single calligraphy course in college, the Mac would have never had
multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts."_

It's really like a really tiny specific version of the internet with walls and
faces and casual random interaction that you don't get if you're on your own.
People need outside stimuli that they would not normally obtain just by living
their life and trying to get a specific job or going after what they think
they're expected to. Jobs was a big proponent on experimenting and exploring
(not trying to suck Jobs' dick here, but he was right about how outside
influences are so... influential)

And it's also a great place to get laid.

~~~
joshmlewis
> I'm not an idiot.

Yes, I am an idiot in those terms. My point was, I'm not just making a
mindless decision. And to some my reasoning may be off by scores, but it's
still a choice that I have made after hours of thinking hard and research.

~~~
pron
You've made a decision to shut yourself off from knowledge and insight that
are hard to come by any other way. Spending a few years in college is the
easiest, shortest route to some pretty profound insights, and you say, "nah".

I'm not saying that you won't have a fulfilling life, and I'm certainly not
saying that going to college could influence its outcome. I'm just saying that
you've made your decisions based on some very stupid assumptions. It would
have been better to say, "I'm not going to college because I don't feel like
it, and I want to see where life takes me". I can actually respect that. But
making such a decision, or any decision for that matter, based on false
assumptions - actually, criminally negligent and outrageously stupid
assumptions - is just... dumb.

Actually, you know what? It probably wouldn't have made a difference. You look
at life from such a practical point of view - jobs, "achievements", "lessons"
etc. - that it would have been hard for you to really gain much at college,
and maybe most people are the same way, even if they do go to college. I can
only pity them, because successful as they may become, they lead a pitiful
life: the life of the willfully blind.

~~~
orangecat
_Spending a few years in college is the easiest, shortest route to some pretty
profound insights, and you say, "nah"._

I strongly disagree that this is a universal truth. As just one example, I'm
finding the Stanford and Udacity courses I'm taking more rewarding than any of
the courses I took in college, for a fraction of the time investment.

 _But making such a decision, or any decision for that matter, based on false
assumptions - actually, criminally negligent and outrageously stupid
assumptions - is just... dumb._

Really. So college apparently doesn't always effectively teach civility in
discourse.

~~~
sgrove
I felt your comment about civility in discourse to be spot on. What would some
of the denser communities of highly-educated people look like if this were
hammered on for the first two years of university?

I'm certain hn would benefit from it.

------
michaelpinto
As a fortysomething I can tell you that I had a few friends who did this back
in the day: Over the short run it didn't make a difference -- but in the long
run it did impact some people in a very bad way.

The lack of a degree often became a stumbling point mid-career: People without
degrees often wouldn't be trusted for mid-level management jobs. Now if you're
a solo act or working for a small company that isn't an issue -- but in a
larger company (you know the ones with benefits!) it becomes a dead end.

In fact I'm ashamed to admit it but I now feel at a disadvantage because I
lack a postgrad degree; and what makes that depressing is that I'm a creative
professional which should in theory be as "hands on" as you get in a career. I
also had to say that I've watched folks with ivy university degrees have doors
open to them which are often closed to others (look at the last four
Presidents of the United States).

Another thing for techies to think about is the fact that there's a ton of
ageism in tech that nobody talks about. So yes if you're a twentysomething who
can program you don't have to worry, but twenty years later even if you keep
up you may not get hired. And at that point having a college degree can open
up doors that might have been closed.

But you say that you're the next Zuck: Well one should also keep in mind is
that the natural state of startups is to fail. So even if you're brilliant,
your company may still fail. In fact even if your company does well there's
nothing that says that it can't go south after a few years. And if that is the
case having a degree won't hurt you.

Lastly I'd leave everyone with this thought: The value of an education isn't a
career unless you are studying business. The value of an education should be
to make you a better and more rounded person. And knowing more about the world
will make you better at everything that you touch. If you want an example
think about Steve Jobs learning about typography in college and how it shaped
the original Mac.

~~~
anonymous5421
No offense but I think your post is wrong in pretty much every respect (and I
say this as someone with an ivy league undergraduate degree and nearly done
with a Top 10 law degree).

You say people are harmed in their careers by lack of a college degree. This
may be true in some of the more traditional, salaryman-type career paths. But
there's lots of people who are harmed by college/graduate school! Tons of debt
and years wasted on useless degrees are a tremendous drag on people's
development and growth in their knowledge and careers. And if one has a
positive and open attitude, there's way better opportunities one can find than
the traditional salaryman type office jobs.

Also, as someone with an Ivy league degree I find your citation to "doors
opening" and the recent Presidents just kind of amusing. It's true that you
can go to an Ivy League school and do well and do things coming out of it. But
the people going into an Ivy League school are often either 1) hard-driving
people who'd do well in any setting, or 2) connected people whose families are
going to make their lives easy no matter what. So it's not the school doing
any of the heavy lifting in terms of these people's success. And on the flip
side, there's way more Ivy League barristas then Presidents!

Finally I've always found the "well-rounded person" thing to be a huge myth.
I've gotten way more out of the Internet -- reading forums, learning about
books, interacting with interesting people, doing online courses etc -- than I
ever did in college. And not like 50% more, but orders of magnitude more. The
"well-rounded person" thing is just some sort of conventional
meme/rationalization for school attendance that doesn't have much content.
They don't teach quality ideas in the humanities or social sciences (except
_maybe_ economics) -- so you don't really become a well-rounded person, and if
you're not in some hard sciences or math program you don't really learn
anything at all in general (for context, I was a social sciences major). You
just become a person who's been exposed to some weird mixture of stuff taught
because of Tradition, and whatever faddish developments are going on in your
field.

And yeah, Jobs took a typography class before dropping out. But if you want to
learn stuff, there's way more effective ways than college now.

Our culture has a very strong pro-school bias, though that's starting to break
down (LSAT takers were down 16% this year!!) People bucking the norm like OP
are a big step towards a better and more critical attitude towards education,
and one which I think would help lots of people be happier in their lives.

~~~
rgbrgb
>>> They don't teach quality ideas in the humanities or social sciences...

I stopped taking you seriously right here. That is really one of the silliest
things I've ever heard.

~~~
kiba
You should have asked him to explain why he think they don't teach quality
ideas instead.

------
ozataman
It is too soon to write articles like this. Let's talk again in 10-15 years.
Contrary to the recently frequent rhetoric, a good college education does much
more than getting you an interview.

It shapes your mind, teaches you to teach yourself, to research, to think
analytically about unknown problems. It matures your and gets you to think in
ways more "senior" and well balanced. It gives you the foundation to shine and
go from being an hourly contractor to a desired full-time employee after a few
months of work (and not the other way around as exemplified in the article).

It gives you a chance to meet and spend time with numerous interesting,
brilliant peers of your own age. It also puts you in an environment where you
can learn from smart, accomplished people much older than you.

If you go to college just to get the diploma at the end, you'll gain and learn
less than what otherwise would be optimal. Even so, it is not time wasted at
all.

------
aqrashik
College may not be required if you're sufficiently self motivated, however I
still feel that for the majority of ordinary people, college still makes
sense.

If you leave aside a field like tech, which has ample resources for those
willing to teach themselves, this is simply not true for most other skilled
professions

Regulations aside, would you go to a doctor who was self-taught or live in
buildings built by architects and engineers who didn't go to college?

Atleast for the STEM fields, I still feel that college should be an absolute
requirement.

Of course this is not meant to criticize your choice, just feel that the whole
'brilliant people don't need college' thing is taken a bit too far.

~~~
kappaknight
While I'm in the boat of not needing to graduate college, I do feel that going
to a good school is important. It's hard to make it on your own and meeting
equally motivated, and inspired roommates would do well for someone with an
entrepreneurial mind. Most of the stories about top CEO's starting their dorm
businesses instead of graduating college still went to great schools.

Of course, if you have plans to work for yourself, then college may or may not
be an issue. If however, you only plan on working for others, at some point
you WILL hear about positions that are only open to people with a college
degree. I have a friend who stepped out of school early to get a job, now he's
working nights and weekends to finish his degree so he can advance within his
own company, and field.

Again, if you plan on being judged by others, you need to play the game and
get the proper badges.

------
abalashov
I was a philosophy major, and dropped out after 2.5 years. My career had been
evolving throughout that entire time, and at some point I had to make a
choice. After my second job, of six or so, nobody was even remotely interested
in my education background, to the point where I deleted the entire section
out of my resume with no material consequences whatsoever.

In this profession (excluding academia and high R&D, or specialisations
requiring scientific background, or management layers that are still highly
credential-driven) , it's all about what you can do. It's amazingly
democratic. A degree is only used to differentiate a candidate from a random
person off the street, and only in the absence of any other information about
them, any meaningful experience, etc. The moment any of that comes into play,
the degree becomes vanishingly insignificant.

The caveat, of course, is that if your career path takes you in that direction
of doing something more than slinging code or running a small company, which
gets increasingly likely as you get older, conservatise, want to get married,
the works, you will be faced with severe barriers to entry in many places that
are highly credential-dependent, if only through sheer institutional inertia,
the force of custom, habit, and tradition, etc. While I do find it likely that
these barriers are likely to become less durable in the future, in keeping
with the general existential crisis of the received universal higher education
narrative and the tendency toward greater meritocratic transparency in many
professions (assisted by technology-fostered structural changes), there are
certain things you will almost certainly never be able to do without the piece
of paper, whether or not you'll ever need to use what you learned to get it.

------
ilaksh
That's amazing how well it worked out for you.

But after I dropped out of college in '98 things didn't work out nearly so
well for me, and it was many years before I was able to get some kind of
software development career going, even though I had useful skills before I
was in the 10th grade. Still not going great (OK though) and people always
hold the lack of a degree over my head.

If I could go back in time and put in those two more years of school I would.
Not because I think that college really makes a lot of sense, but in the
context of our dated society it is still a better choice I think if you can
put up with it.

------
jacalata
I don't actually see any reasoning for why you haven't gone to college. It
sounds like you're doing cool stuff, but I hope you're not trying to argue 'at
18, without college, I'm doing cool stuff, therefore college is unnecessary
for people'. Have you heard of the 'gap year' idea, which is common in
England/Australia? (maybe other places too, but that's where I'm familiar with
it). Many people argue that there are cool things you can do at 18 before you
go to college, which will then give you some more experience in the world to
decide whether you need college, and how you could most gain from it.
Personally I'm a big fan of all high school grads being able to take at least
a year off before college to learn a bit more about life, it's great that you
have taken this opportunity. I'd love to see some more discussion of 'why I
decided to do this, and where I think it'll take me'.

[edit: word choice]

~~~
gebe
The "gap year(s)" idea is very common where I am from as well (Sweden) and I
am a strong proponent of it. Traditionally you squeeze(d) in half a year to a
year of military service (not as common anymore as it is now voluntarily), one
or two years of some shitty job, and maybe half a year of traveling.
Personally I traveled the world as a musician in a band for a while, then I
worked two years at an airport throwing bags and then I traveled some more!
This way I got both perspective, experience, money and maybe most important of
all, I got a strong motivation to take on higher studies. I was longing for
the world of academia after standing on the "factory floor".

With that said, I have friends who went directly from high school to
university and I have friends who skipped it all together. All of them are
doing brilliantly and work with things they are passionate about. Things tend
to work themselves out if you have a burning passion for something.

------
mattchew
Congratulations.

I'm surprised to see so much negative feedback here for someone who is hacking
our (messed up) education system.

It's true that not having college credentials will be a hassle or an outright
barrier for a lot of things. You sound capable of dealing with or working
around the hassles.

It's not as if you can't get a college degree later if you decide you want
one. (I do recommend making that decision before starting a family though.)

~~~
gvb
He did not hack the education system, he _opted out_ of it. Hacking something
is using it for a purpose the the providers of the system/item did not intend
it to be used for.

------
__float
As an 18 year old and soon-to-be-graduated senior, I am nearly at a loss of
words in response to this article. He left high school with little practical
knowledge ("HTML/CSS and some Photoshop skills"). To think of jumping into the
real world with no experience and no skills? It just doesn't seem wise to me.

I'm going to college next year, and I'm glad. I'm in five AP classes this
year, and I've taken four already. To think that I am educated enough to end
my formal education here...well, it seems insane. I have much more to learn,
and I can learn it in college without worrying about deadlines for jobs that
will allow me just barely to make ends meet.

~~~
joshmlewis
Interesting.

I have guts and determination. And disclaimer: unless you have money or want
to split your time working, don't expect to be living in a nice apartment with
a nice car your first year or two. It's not that I'm broke, I live decently,
it's just in the real world I've realized there are things called bills :o.

I have crazy determination and I've come a long way. I had the guts as a 15
year old to walk into a business with a contract, all dressed up and get my
first web design client. I was 17 when I drove to DC by myself to do the
internship.

You and I are different sorts of people. You chose to take AP classes and get
ahead, which is great by the way, and I chose to spend my time learning real
world working skills in preparation for jumping right in.

------
niklas_a
The fact that you think you can understand the outcome of such a huge decision
in just 10 months is telling. Come back in 10 years.

~~~
fungi
so i'm basically that kid in 10 years.

all i wanted to do is code, code and code some more for ethical orgs and thats
all i've done for the past 10 years.

but now (literally now, i'm procrastinating while i should be doing an
assignment) i am back doing a degree via distance ed to get a piece of
paper... and the only reason i'm doing that is i want to work in japan which
is a bit hard without a piece of paper.

anyway, if you want to code and have the skills and opportunities infront of
you then take them, uni will be there waiting for you whenever you want.

~~~
DanWaterworth
> uni will be there waiting whenever you want.

Exactly! I decided not to go to university and got a job at a small company
instead. For me this was the best option. I was bored with formal education, I
much prefer to teach myself. Opting out of university has not prevented me
from revisiting that decision if ever/whenever I see fit.

------
cmos
Friends. The best friends of my life were all in my all male dorm at an
engineering school. We would geek out in the computer lab on friday nights,
having the time of our lives. The bonding that can happen in an environment
where you can just relax and let your mind wander is hard to duplicate. Start
a company with someone and at best your lucky to be amicable, because there is
no way you can both always be in agreement with such large stakes. Staying up
all night to finish a school project? True bonding.

The person with the most friends at the end truly is the winner. And now is
the time to find them, so that when your 60 you'll have 40 years of awesome
memories to share together. It's far to easy to start a company and slide away
from being with or making friends.. that's time you'll never get back.

High school friends are a completely different category. In highschool you
meet people because they happen to live near you, but then you go home for
dinner and to sleep. In college you are smushed together with a couple hundred
18 year olds with no parental supervision who all chose the same school as
you. And your together 24/7, so you find stupid and highly memorable ways to
entertain each other, creating epic lifelong memories, so that even if you
don't see each other for 5-10 years you pick up right where you left off.
That's bonding.

You can always drop out if it's really not for you. Either way, make sure you
have really good friends around you at all times.

~~~
abalashov
I made those same friends at work, though admittedly, work did consist mostly
of college kids at that time. Still, college isn't the only way to form those
kinds of connections and experiences.

------
fruchtose
It sounds like you've had a great post-education career! Keep it up! That
said, as a current senior undergraduate computer science major, I still think
that college is an invaluable resource, or at the very least post-secondary
classes. Working is great--it teaches you skills for working with others, how
to use tools, and how to live in the real world. But education is not
necessarily those things.

Go to college if you want not just a technical background, but theoretical
grounding in ideas. I'm not going to college because I want to learn how to
write code in JavaScript. (I learned that on my own time.) Introductory
classes may do that (Arizona State gives you Introduction to Java as a
freshman CS course), but nearly all my other computer science classes have
been about just that--computer science. Computer science is not programming.
It's applied mathematics. Computer science teaches you not only what is
possible through computing, but how to judge ideas about computing and how to
apply computing through computers.

Again, college is not a necessity. If you don't need it for your career, I
have absolutely no objection to that. However, I'm incredibly grateful for the
education college has provided me. (Make all the Arizona State jokes you want,
but we have a fine CS department.) Computer science gives students an
engineering toolset. Programming is not engineering; rather, programming is
accomplished through engineering. This is why I believe in college for
programmers; good programmers are engineers, first and foremost.

------
HiroshiSan
Hey man, great job. Wonderful blog post, the only thing that bothered me about
it was this part "I chose not to have much of a social life. That's because I
want to go somewhere." As if to say that people with a social life aren't
successful. Aside from that, great blog post, and good luck on the journey.

Can you explain the open government intern a bit more in detail? How was it
that you were able to acquire it...I too would like to do something similar
and I have felt an inclination to abandon post-secondary education.

~~~
joshmlewis
Haha, I'm an introvert. I think if I had any more friends than I have now, it
would take away from what I do. And hey, if you like having friends, you can
figure a way to fit it in, but I like keeping things lean and simple.

The open government internship was actually found on HN through a link to a
networking, chat roulette of sorts. It had something to do with Brazen
Careerist and DCTech? (maybe, I forgot the exact name.) I would higly
recommend finding somewhere where you can stay for a few months and have a
solid experience and reference.

------
hellokhoaphan
First off, I wanted to say congratulations to your fast growth and
determination to succeed. I've personally decided to skip college myself and
have never looked back. I'm going to share my thoughts with you, feel free to
let me know what you think:

Three years have past and I've gone from having a $700 limit on my credit card
to a 7-figure/yr marketing business. I'm not saying this to show off, but to
show you that it doesn't take a college education to become "successful" in
this lifetime. However, I'm not saying that you can sit pretty without a
degree and still become a success; you've seriously gotta work your ass off.
It's probably a lot harder for us, since we're not accepted in society as a
person with a Bachelor's would be, but this is where resourcefulness and
persistence kicks in.

There's a certain stigma around dropping out, as I've seen the past three
years. People look at you differently and treat you differently, until you
prove to them otherwise. I suppose it could be due to the fact that we've been
encouraged and pushed to do well in school and to graduate; it's the "normal"
way of doing things. I look at all of the YC founders and most are graduates
or undergraduates of prestigious universities like Stanford or MIT. This
didn't faze me one bit. I'm used to this kind of competition and I'm ready to
prove to PG that I'm worth his attention. Come with this attitude and you
can't lose, most people don't expect this from someone who has dropped out. Be
unexpected.

Good luck to you and your ventures, looking forward to seeing some more good
things from you soon, Josh.

~~~
jarek
> a 7-figure/yr marketing business

Revenue or profit?

~~~
hellokhoaphan
Last year it was all revenue, but we'll be approaching the 7-figure profit
mark this year.

------
chiurox
Two years ago I had to make a similar decision compared to what the OP did. I
was about halfway through a top US university degree as an international
student but suddenly excrement hit the fan, in the financial sense. I was
faced with the choice of finding work in my home country, or spending another
year trying to get enrolled at a university in my country that is worth going
to (there aren't that many around here). Out of a whim and despite my lack of
real world experience in software development, I posted my resume around and
got a temporary job. It led to a better job, which led to another better one
and another better one.

While my classmates are graduating this semester, I got to do real world
software development, most of the stuff had to be learned on the spot. I
frankly don't know if the outcome should I have sticked with college would be
better than the path I took, but my choice certainly has been worthwhile. In
terms of theoretical foundations, I admit that I'm lacking some, but I
constantly supplement it with reading (and this recent wave of online courses
has been great!) and self-studying on the side, most of which I try to apply
immediately at work. I hardly think enrolled college students get to do that
and get feedback from real users (instead of professors/TAs).

On the other hand, most prize the concept of college-life, dorm-life etc,
which is great. I did have the opportunity to experience some of that. The
problem is when people think that getting into significant debt and the
uncertainty of not being able to be employed upon graduation is worth more
than doing something else just because society dictates everyone should go to
college, then something is wrong.

------
bconway
_10 months later_

I'd be interested in seeing the same evaluation 10 years in. I think that's
where it makes more of a difference, not in the short term.

------
eta_carinae
Here's another aspect of what you might miss if you don't go to college.

Everywhere I have worked (including Google), I've been surrounded with great
developers, some of which who came from college, others who dropped out early
and just learned on their own because they were passionate about software.

Both types of engineers are doing a great job, but when it comes to being
involved in important decisions, or choices that will impact the company or
the infrastructure for a long time, either the non-college people have very
little to contribute or they are simply not invited to the meetings.
Practically, they are good at getting things done based on what they are told
but not much more beyond that.

Our profession needs both types of backgrounds, but you are vastly, vastly
underestimating the amount of opportunities that will just never present
themselves because of your choice of not going to college.

------
evoxed
As long as you stay busy, that's the key. I left high school after one year to
do my own thing and since then have had some pretty extraordinary experiences.
I recently left the institution where I had a full scholarship and will
instead be getting my second degree (first bachelor's) within a year somewhere
else– because the other things paused. I wish you the best of luck, but make
sure that you don't let anything that happens close your mind. To stay on top
of your game you have to be able to see when the game changes. If work ever
dries up and you find yourself idling, don't be afraid to go back and do some
of the things you didn't need before.

This message has been brought to you by Clonazepam and too much late-night
circuit analysis... (I'll save the regret for not waiting to write later until
the morning)

~~~
joshmlewis
I definitely think that's a key point in all of this. And really I'm just 18.
That's the really, really cool part. If I totally :facepalm: fail in two
years, I can say, "Ok, college might not be a bad idea."

~~~
iamchrisle
Unfortunately, you won't have the time to go back in 2-3 years. You'll be too
busy trying to pay your bills, keep the apartment, deal with your psycho
girlfriend, have some semblance of a social life, and deal with that stupid
used car that needs to pass inspection. Oh, and dont forget about that crap
client who won't leave you alone. Good luck dude.

------
jinfiesto
Kudos to you. I tried to go down this path, and ended up going back to school
after I ended up dealing with an unfortunate amount of ageism and related
flack for being young and not having a degree (I graduated HS at 16 and
dropped out of college at 18. At 21, I've returned to school full time.)
Additionally, in retrospect, I wasn't mature enough to make the plunge. You
seem to be.

If I may presume to dispense a little advice. Work on your writing skills. I
read your blog and lots of little errors jumped out at me. Strunk and White is
invaluable. I find myself consulting it daily. While I have a fairly large
skill set, writing is the most useful.

------
beatpanda
I don't think any of what you wrote justifies not going to college. You could
have easily done all the same things you did in the last ten months while
taking classes at the same time. That's what I've been doing my entire college
career, and I've had well-paying jobs, great internships, networking
opportunities, travel for cool conferences and hackathons, and all the rest,
all while earning a degree.

It's great that you're making all these things happen in your life, but it
doesn't make sense to think of it in terms of "this is what I'm doing
_instead_ of college." You can easily do both.

------
netcan
First of all, congratulations Josh and thanks for posting. It's great to hear
a young person taking such a deliberate path and I'm sure it will be valuable
to other to hear about. Please keep posting.

Slightly tangental, the reason college is/will be so hard to replace is that
we are not sure or can't agree what it's even for. If we had a thread about it
everyone would have very different opinions. In some sense it feels like
trying to replace parents or peers. You can't really break down what they're
for and try to replace it.

------
galdosd
I went to college for four years but didn't graduate. Today I'm having a great
time coding and sys adminning in nyc. I enjoyed college times, but there's no
way you could con me today into thinking it was at all necessary from an
economic perspective. I think of college as a luxury good spot, not as an
economic investment. So I kind of agree with you on one hand, even though I
have a softspot for college. Point is this: college has positives, but an
efficient way to spend 4yrs developing skills is not it.

~~~
megablast
Well, since you didn't graduate, you are missing an important part of college.
As others have mentioned, this may be a problem later in life. I would agree
with your main point.

Also, I am not sure how you could go to college for 4 years (my comp sci *
maths courses were 3 years), and not graduate?

~~~
caw
Some colleges have longer plans of study. My school (Georgia Institute of
Technology) was ~120 semester-based credit hours, and if you took 17-18 credit
hours a semester you could graduate in 4 years. After freshman or sophomore
year you really didn't take more than 13-16, which automatically puts you on a
5 year plan. That's also assuming you didn't fail any courses, which was
extremely possible in some programs of study. Aerospace Engineering was a 5-6
year major for most, and it wasn't uncommon to see 7th year Aerospace majors.

------
joshmlewis
For clarifications sake, I consider myself a front-end dev and user experience
guy. I like to stay between full fledge designing and full fledge programming.
I understand the difference between fairy tell design, and what stuff can
actually do. I think that's an important mindset to have.

If you plan on doing hardcore engineering, college is the way to go. I would
also say if you are fortunate enough to get into a really good school, and get
good scholarships, go for it if you feel it's what you want to do.

~~~
disgruntledphd2
You know, there's an awful lot of psychology in interface design. Its not
taught in very many places either. It might be worth investigating if you
could start learning this kind of stuff on a distance basis so that you could
future-proof yourselves to a certain degree.

~~~
joshmlewis
Yeah, I have looked into some new-agey type of degrees for interaction. I'm
very intrigued by such.

------
biesnecker
I think it's fantastic that things are going well for you. I wish you the
absolute best.

I do, however, wonder how much of the backlash against college is coming from
liberal arts majors that ran up crazy debt while earning a degree that doesn't
immediately lead to high paying work. I did a lot of the same sort of things
the OP is talking about when I was his age (it was 14 years ago, though, so
there were some differences, but it was similar), and I managed a college
course load. I graduated in 2003 without debt (state school, didn't go crazy
on the weekends, worked hard), and while I would have loved to have the extra
time that you have now, over the last decade having a degree (even a silly BA
Political Science like I have) has been really, _really_ useful. Most of the
jobs I've had since graduation wouldn't have even looked at my resume without
that degree on it.

Things are changing and it's becoming easier to show off your skills without a
piece of paper proving that you meet some university's curriculum
requirements, but given the relatively low real costs of a college education,
I'd be hard pressed to recommend anyone not get one.

------
dskang
Keep on writing and working on your writing skills. There were times at which
I felt that your writing got in the way of the ideas you were trying to
express. One other thing that stuck out to me was that it seems like
discouragements from others have really gotten to you despite your insistence
that they don't matter. Don't mind the haters and keep on working hard! Good
luck.

------
mtoddh
I had friends back in college in the 90s who did this. Their rational being
"the job market is so hot, why bother getting a degree when I can start making
money right now." Back then it seemed like anyone with a CCNA could start
making 60k a year. Then the bubble burst, and suddenly it wasn't so easy to
get a job anymore.

It's during the down times that I think more weight gets put on degrees. Not
necessarily because they're the best metric, but because they're one more
metric you can use to filter against when you have a vast pool of candidates.
Of course, any decent engineer is unlikely to be competing against a 'vast
pool of candidates' right now, because the competition for talent is so
fierce. But just because that's the state of the job market today, doesn't
mean it will be that way tomorrow.

All that being said, some of the best programmers I've known were self-taught
and had no degree. Either way, I wish the OP best of luck.

~~~
nekojima
Most of the best programmers I've known were initially self-taught, but also
have university degrees. Which after they are 30-35 is crucial if they want to
move up the ladder to executive within a corporate environment.

Having spent the last few months back in Toronto, I'm quite surprised by the
number of people I meet (some old friends) who have MBA (from a top school),
CA/CMA/CPA, CFA, CSI* courses and ten plus years of good quality work
experience who are unemployed or significantly under-employed. Luck, or lack
of it, has played a part for some of them not currently having a job, with
companies they joined cutting teams or closing down.

There is an 'arms race' here for more advanced degrees & designations that
makes it really tough to either keep up or get back into the race if you fall
out of it.

* CSI = Canadian Securities Institute, CFA = Chartered Financial Analyst, CA/CMA/CPA = Accounting designations

------
japhyr
A good college experience is better than a bad college experience or no
college experience. No college experience is better than a bad college
experience.

What is a good college experience? One that opens doors; one that provides
specific knowledge and skills; one that gives you a background of knowledge
and skills that you can build upon; one that leads you to a strong network of
like-minded professionals; one that leaves you with debt that you can manage
reasonably in the profession that you have been prepared for.

What is a bad college experience? One that does not lead to meaningful skills
and knowledge; one that does not give you a foundation you can build upon; one
that leaves you a debt that is not manageable within the profession you have
prepared for.

I support people going to college when it is set up to be a good experience. I
support people avoiding college when they are headed for a bad college
experience.

------
commanderkeen08
GREAT decision. I just recently graduated with a BA in English. I loved it,
but it was ultimately a waste of time. My biggest qualm with higher education
is that there's not enough DOING encouraged.

Having said that, two months after graduated in English, I taught myself web
development and UI and now work at an SEO agency.

------
bitserf
This was me in 1998.

I ended up halfway around the world, in New Zealand. Getting paid well,
enjoying what I'm working on.

You won't really have more free time than you have now, your life starts
filling up with things that demand your time. So studying will be harder to
pick up later.

But doable, I'm studying on the side, inching my way to finishing my degree.

I don't earn less than college graduated peers.

And in the job, if anything, I'm probably more inclined to delve deeper and
get a more in-depth understanding because I'm curious as hell and have always
had a bit of an inclination to try prove myself vs those who had the benefit
of a college education :)

I just lucked out that I was able to get a job doing this, and that
programming as a career is so amenable to self-learning, otherwise I'd
probably have ended up a lawyer or accountant, or some other job requiring
degree study.

Good luck!

------
pinchyfingers
Right on Josh! Engaging in the real world is a bit scarier that sticking with
your peers and remaining institutionalized, but your growing the most vital
asset any of us can have in this world... BALLS!

I hope you continue to kick ass and maybe inspire some more people to pursue a
similar route.

------
budgetperson
As a high school student, the article was engaging and inspiring, as I have
been also debating whether not to go, take an off year, or just go.

One thing I worry about for people who don't go is the lack of fundamentals
that going to college can give you - about algorithms, low level languages,
etc. The only way I've thought to solve that problem is to take (religiously)
MIT OpenCourseWare courses, coursera, or some equivalent for 2 to 3 years.

But like others have said, you can always learn as you go and then go to
college later if you feel like you need it. There are so many options -- it's
a fascinating and difficult decision (and I've even left out the problem of
societal pressure).

------
shad0wfax
It is an impressive list of items that you have been able to do. It is very
practical and something a college/univ education might not provide.

At some point in life (there is still a lot of time for you) you will have to
make a decision, whether there is some benefit going to school to improve your
theoretical knowledge. The hard part is knowing if that is useful for you :-).
It is becoming irrelevant each day with initiatives like coursera/udacity.

Wishing you all the best for a great future ahead.

~~~
joshmlewis
Yeah, I have heard this. I come from a more design background, I don't plan to
get into hardcore programming too deep. As someone said, without a CS degree
you probably can't design the next Javascript, or up-and-coming language. This
is probably true, but not something I plan on doing anyway.

~~~
shad0wfax
True, if you intend to work on creating applications (rather than say systems
programming), it makes more sense to hone skills with how to work with
frameworks/tools.

Obviously having the gift to design as well will put in you in an elite league
:).

------
semyfore
Well done. I am in the same boat that you find yourself. I've made great
success for myself basically doing what I love (writing code) without a
college degree.

It's very much as the second commenter (on your site) said, (though I've used
this phrase all along and have never heard anyone say it's equivalent):

"Education gets you the interview, skill and experience get you the job."

------
adrianbye
what people generally miss about dropping out of college is that guys like
bill gates, mark zuckerberg, etc drop out because they are working on
something that is turning out to be absolutely massive.

ie the alternative of staying in college was a small opportunity by
comparison.

------
shashashasha
This is a really brave thing you're doing, I'm glad it seems to be working out
for you.

A nitpick on spelling/word usage (sorry): I think instead of "in times of
desparity" you want "in times of desperation". "In times of disparity" would
be applied to something like a country.

~~~
joshmlewis
Fixed. Thanks. Not the best writer in the world.

~~~
zht
it's still "desparation"

you should change it to desperation

~~~
joshmlewis
Fixed. Now it's just getting late. heh.

------
snowpolar
What if he live in a country where hacker news is hardly known and the society
values a degree very highly and no matter how well you perform and that there
is always a glass ceiling to block non degree holders from rising up.

Will he be as successful?

------
mackyinc
It really depends on your motivation to be successful. If you make a mistake
learn from it.

------
MrBlue
Congrats Josh. You are DEBT FREE! Just that puts you light years ahead of most
your age.

------
goggles99
If you are a computer geek, you don't NEED a degree if you are properly
motivated, but good luck job hunting for a lot of careers (accountant, civil
engineer, teacher, historian, psychologist, ETC). I personally think that
technical schools are great. Skip all the elective and arts garbage that you
have to take in college.

BTW, I was just talking to a civil engineer last night at the gym (after a
game of basketball). He said that he (and other civil engineers) learned the
majority of his skills on the job, and not during college (I have found this
to be true in software dev as well). The problem with many of the jobs that I
listed though is that you can't even get your foot in the door to those
careers without a degree.

~~~
jarek
> He said that he (and other civil engineers) learned the majority of his
> skills on the job, and not during college (I have found this to be true in
> software dev as well).

That may well be the case, but these skills often build on material that _was_
learned in college.

------
leon_
> I started out just knowing the basics: HTML/CSS and some Photoshop skills.
> Hardly any knowledge of JS or any programming language.

What did you do during your high school years? Why didn't you learn to code
then?

