

Should I go to college or keep working in Silicon Valley? - testerofwaters

I&#x27;m working at a startup as a Rails developer. I was hired straight out of high school, which meant being underpaid, though I&#x27;ve spent my time improving my skills. Long story short, the job market in Silicon Valley is really hot - I now have 2 outside offers in the $110-120k range (0-0.5% equity) at early to late-stage startups, and I might be able to bid the offers up to the 130k+ range. At the same time, I&#x27;m thinking about going back to college - a non-Ivy but top CS school (think Carnegie Mellon, UC Berkeley, UIUC).<p>One thought I have is that we&#x27;re possibly at the high point of the current tech boom and that I should take a job while the market is hot, then go back to school when there&#x27;s a cooldown. There&#x27;s also the fact that as a fresh CS grad, 4 years down the line, I would be making roughly the same, or maybe just slightly more, as I could make right now (100-120k).<p>But I wonder whether going back to school after being in the industry for 2-3 years will even make sense.<p>Ultimately, I don&#x27;t know how to weigh the social and educational experience of college against starting my career 4 years early. I&#x27;m not particularly concerned that a lack of a degree itself will hold me back in the future. Any thoughts?<p>Update: no college debt, parents thankfully have enough to pay for it.
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RogerL
What I learned at college: physics, chemistry, optics, lots of heavy duty math
- statistics, calculus, linear algebra, numeric computing, electrical
engineering (analog and digital), how to write and publish, accounting,
algorithms, a bit of management/business, and probably few other things I'm
forgetting at the moment.

In my career I have done: computed cancer statistics for NIH, worked on a
flight computer, done tons of avionics code, worked on a tank robot, computer
vision, machine learning, and so on. Almost none of that would have been
possible for me without at least a significant portion of the above skills.
Chemistry comes in lowest, but it was still somewhat useful for the cancer
stuff. And a tiny change in what jobs I had would have made the chemistry
highly relevant (say, computational chemistry - tons of that going on around
the beltway where I lived for a number of years). From here I can go most
anywhere - finance quant jobs at 250K+, machine learning/big data, more
computer vision, or what have you. You can .... write some more rails apps. If
you are really good, sure, write the next rails, but I would say your options
are far more limited than mine.

It's up to you and what you want to do, and what kind of potential you want to
have available to you. University is not for learning a trade (by and large,
medical school nonwithstanding); it's an opportunity to take in a lot of
subjects at a depth you will never achieve on the job or part time (unless you
have an ~170 IQ).

I'm sure people will post counterexamples to the above, and surely they exist;
I argue simply that education == opportunity. If you have any kind of mind, 5
years of writing yet another rails app will start to bore you to tears. So,
the question is, what will keep you from being bored? Inventing a new social
app or such? Maybe school is less relevant. Taking on difficult intellectual
challenges? It's pretty darn hard (not impossible, just very hard) to make
your way without a strong math/science foundation. Also of note is how many
people change their careers. Burn out in writing sw is pretty high. What
skills will you have if in 5-10 years you want to be management, that CFO job
starts to seem very interesting, and so on?

In short, I found my education exceptionally useful. You won't even be able to
get an interview for many jobs, not because of snobbery (as is often claimed),
but because there is no way you have the background to jump in and read
original research in a new topic and deal with the math and algorithms in a
sophisticated way. Only you can decide if that is of value to you or not.

~~~
caw
I agree with the opportunities, though in this case it sounds like the OP
wants to do both. In this case, maybe it makes sense to take the job, so long
as the OP really intends to go through college.

There's a lot of companies who will pay you to get your degree. Most of the
college degree reimbursement plans are for Bachelor's, though some are for
higher education. He can go to work now, then work, and go to school and have
someone else pay for it that's not his parents.

Very hard route to do both at the same time though. I know a few people who
did it, so it is possible.

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mswen
Take the money and practical experience. Give yourself solidly to whichever
job offer you except, but don't work 70+ hours a week. Work a highly
productive 50 to 55 and take the difference to learn new skills. Always have a
side project that is helping you master a new domain within CS and related
fields.

Spend less money than you make! Save and invest. Put some into a retirement
account but also build up a healthy fund for going to college. Set a start
date for college. Fall of 2016.

With your experience and proven skills working PT freelance/consulting while
going to college should be easy. Work your way through college freelancing
about 10-15 hours a week during the regular term. Travel internationally
during the summer while still working some remote projects.

Consider a double major combining CS with statistics or computational
linguistics or something in the liberal arts.

Also if you find that you really love university, then just keep going and get
a Masters.

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FurrBall
Math time! Lets assume you do not work during college and must pay with loans.
Here is where you could be in 4 years time with each path.

College: -50k (debt) and a degree in CS.

Work: 480k (cash) and 4 years experience.

There's 530k difference between these two options. The math is a bit off since
I didn't factor in tax, but I also did not factor in interest for the debt.

If you really have the skills to get a 120k job then there is no financial
reason to go to college. Go to college if you feel the experience is worth a
530k sway in 4 years.

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rdouble
I think you are right that we are at the high point of the current tech boom.
The emergence of dozens of pay-to-play "coding boot camps" is a good signal of
this. Milk it for a while, save money, and then go back to school.

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bookreader
I don't really have any advice here, because I'm in a somewhat similar
situation myself.

But I'm curious about what your skillset and CS knowledge are, since I'm
trying to decide whether I should go back to college or continue working (I'm
a little worried about how hard it might be to get a job in the future).

I'd definitely appreciate it if you could describe your skillset and CS
knowledge, so I can get an idea of how talented a programmer needs to be to
get jobs without a degree. Thanks!

~~~
testerofwaters
I know about basic data structures and know about order of growth. That (and
intelligence) will get you through most CS-y interview questions.

Otherwise, the reason I get these offers is because 1) I'm skilled in
something that is in particularly high demand (Ruby), so people are more
willing to excuse inexperience (but I get rejected often anyway), and 2) I
apply to a lot of companies/startups - you only need to have a good day once.

~~~
bookreader
Thanks for the response. That's interesting to know. What are these interview
questions like?

Are they basic questions about lists, stacks, trees, and graphs (and the
corresponding algorithms)? Or are they puzzle type questions that you're just
naturally good at?

Also, have you mostly had success with startup companies? I'm slightly worried
about a bubble in the startup space, though I really have little idea how
valid my worries are.

~~~
testerofwaters
There is a wide variety in the type and format of questions I'm asked.

Phone screen type questions might be stuff like fibonacci, find the min in an
array, or find the intersection (shared duplicates) of two arrays.

In-person stuff varies: some companies ask me more practical/specific stuff
like Ruby/CSS/JS implementation/coding/design/architectural questions. Others
ask puzzle type questions that require me to use data structures in clever
ways. Interestingly, hashes and trees are my go-to data structures. Do depth-
first search and breadth-first search and that'll get you pretty far with
trees. 90% of questions I'm asked require using hashes and/or trees in clever
ways.

I actually find interviewing gets more and more fun as you get into it.

~~~
bookreader
Interesting, thanks for the response. Have you mostly had job offers from
startups, or are medium / big companies also interested in you?

Also, what kind of software are these companies building?

Sorry for the many questions, I'm trying to get a better idea of what the
market is like for people without degrees.

------
auganov
Well do you want to? Will you enjoy it? Will you indeed build a network that
everyone is always talking about? Some people just thrive in an environment
like that and can use it to their advantage. It gives them leverage. They're
work it. If that kind of resonates with you then there's no doubt going to
college might make some great things happen.

Otherwise I'd just cut every corner possible and get the diploma in like 2
years.

Personally schools just make me feel sick. And truly sick too. Since leaving
school I've never been sick once. No need to skip school I guess. Oh and the
whole "college is nothing like HS, THIS IS THE REAL DEAL" crowd. Gosh. No!
They'd tell me the same stuff in primary school about middle-school. By the
first year of middle school I was begging my mom to let me home-school myself.
Wish had more courage to actually drop out of that.

Got no clue what's financially better. If you can thrive there do go! And
leverage the hell out of it.

But whether or not you go do continue academia-level self-studying. There's
little excuse not to.

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ktavera
This is just my personal experience but I was in a similar situation.

I dropped out of high school to do web application development. Tried going to
a technical college to get some kind of degree while working full time and I
eventually had to choose work or go to school.

I chose to work. I was making $100k+ by the time I was 19 and kept advancing
my career steadily. To this day probably 90% of the jobs I've applied to
haven't questioned the fact that I do not have a degree, it's all about
ability and what I have done. Startups make up that other 10% - even though I
now have 10 years (i'm 27) of professional, proven development experience I've
experienced a lot of apprehension in interviews because I didn't go to
college.

So there is definitely some upside financially, but also you may not be able
to land your dream job one day because you lack the college experience.

~~~
bookreader
I feel like it's a little odd when you say that startups make up the other 10%
that care about a degree.

Conventional advice on HN seems to be that startups are the kinds of companies
that don't care as much about the degree. What are the other 90% of jobs
you've applied to? Are they also at tech companies?

~~~
ktavera
Typically financial companies or IT consulting firms (IBM, CSC, etc) - the
exact type that you would expect would ask you about your education. Sometime
last year I interviewed with a startup, they loved my resume. Did a skype
interview and things were great. Then they put me on a call with their CTO,
first question - "Where did you go to school and when did you graduate?"... He
cut the interview short and I never heard back.

~~~
bookreader
That's interesting. Do you approach these financial companies and consulting
firms through a connection, or are you just sending a resume? I'd expect HR at
big companies to filter for degrees.

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shahed
I just graduated high school (2 months ago) and got a few offers right after I
graduated.

I'm currently doing a summer internship in Silicon Valley and plan on staying
here for at least a year and improve my skills as a designer.

I've been offered a few great full time offers already, but still exploring my
paths to make sure whichever decision I make, is the right one.

I plan on going to college (that's definitely something I want to do), but I'm
on the same boat right now, and want to take advantage of the offers on the
table right now that might not be there after I get out of college.

Any advice for me?

------
bitops
Go back to school - you can never be too educated, especially if you go to
Cal. Part of going to school is networking and making connections too. In a
place like Berkeley you can have one foot in the university and one foot in
the street.

~~~
kansface
I couldn't disagree more unless he wants to do it part time. University is
largely valuable for the piece of paper, not for learning. He is already
educated in his field as evidenced by his current level of success. He will
make just as many connections in the real world. Going to school just for
something to do is a huge waste, particularly when our field doesn't
particularly value degrees.

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tryitnow
I know a lot of people in their 30s and 40s who don't have a college degree.
They make no less and have no fewer job offers because of it.

Go to school because you enjoy learning something(1), not for better job
offers. In the technical realms nobody is going to care about that. It's more
important to show that you can do good work.

(1) and honestly even if you want to go to school just because you're curious
about a subject I'd recommend checking out MOOCs like Coursera and Udacity
first.

~~~
EliRivers
Conversely, I know lots of people in their 30s and 40s who don't have a
degree, clearly make a lot less and don't (and didn't when they were younger)
have access to many, many job opportunities because of it.

------
bookreader
I'm mostly wondering right now whether there is a bubble in the startup space.
I don't think I understand the market very well right now, and I'm not sure
whether most startups are profitable or just being funded.

Does anyone have insight into whether there's a significant bubble in parts of
the industry? Of course, this is hard to evaluate without some concrete data,
and I'm not sure if any such data exists.

~~~
testerofwaters
I don't think there is a bubble. What I mean is that there probably won't be a
huge crash or anything like that. But there may or may not be a gradual
cooldown coming.

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sredne
Recent UIUC Alum.

I'm not sure if this will sway your decision, but a lot of lower level CS
classes there have "proficiency exams". These exams allow you to test out of
certain classes, so if you don't want to take the intro to CS you can just get
the credit by passing the test. This could cut your time at school from 4
years to 3 and possibly even 2 if you're smart about it.

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nicholas73
Work now: high pay in a great market, great resume experience, open doors for
other opportunities

College: losing money, boring classes, possibly jobless upon graduation if
there is a bust in 4 years. But you get to meet a lot of girls.

Btw, save your money... it's not always easy to make it.

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livestyle
Do me a favor and read Andrew Chen's brillant piece on this topic.

[http://andrewchen.co/2013/06/03/new-college-grads-dont-
sell-...](http://andrewchen.co/2013/06/03/new-college-grads-dont-sell-your-
time-for-a-living/)

------
piratebroadcast
Make the money now while you can dude. School may also be cheaper in a few
years.

------
arjunnarayan
Take the money. You can always go to college. I still would go to college,
just after a while. And you can pay cash for tuition too, and never take out
any loans.

