
What mistakes of yours do you really regret. Why? - juwo

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bmck
Wow! The last comment really resonated with me. I actually went the route of
getting the PhD when I ended up in cubicle hxll. Only then, and with a good
bit of consulting and time working for someone else, did it dawn on me to
start my own gig.

To back up, I'm now almost 40; I finished my PhD when I was 30 after working
on-and-off for several years. (I didn't get married until a few weeks ago,
actually -- so I didn't have family issues holding me back.) When I did get
into the ivory tower and started teaching, I became disgusted with the
academic mentality and was fortunate enough to find my way out into my own
startup with a "good" problem, and contacts to customers.

The CS/CmpE degrees taught me irreplaceable critical thinking skills. I regret
not having even thought about the possibility of starting my own gig. I also
regret not having developed or appreciated developing a network of contacts
until I was in my 30s; I have found access to investors, entrepreneurs, etc.
as not only wonderful from a pragmatic perspective, but also (and more
importantly) for vetting out ideas.

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cwilbur
Sometimes I really regret the computer science major. The things I learned
were right, but the credential was wrong -- it basically certified me as
sufficiently trained to work in IT cubicle hell. (It was really a math degree
at its core, and it made me a problem-solving generalist, which is not what
Industry wants.) I considered dropping it, but it was so easy to do what I
needed for the additional credential -- it was a matter of two classes I
wouldn't otherwise have taken.

I regret not recognizing the intensely political nature of my masters' degree
program before it was too late to do anything about it. I've thought about
going back to a different school, getting the PhD, and trying to scale the
ivory tower, but I don't think the payoff I can realistically expect is worth
the investment. It's not like a PhD in Renaissance music theory makes you any
more employable in the "real world," and academic positions are few and far
between, and there is so much of a surplus of good professors that some of the
best are eking out a living teaching as adjuncts at community college.

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nandan
I regret having waited until I m 26 before I took concrete/tangible steps
towards my own start-up. A large part of the blame goes towards thinking that
there will be a "right-time" for all this and a "right-idea". :)

But, now that I have taken the steps, I feel __liberated__. And I m not
worried so much about failing. And that owes a great deal to the people behind
this site, and the content posted here, and the interactions that happen here.

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sripanyam
Not communicating and collaborating with other "geeks" in Uni, especially
being one myself. I had always been interested in doing my own projects at
Uni, but never had it struck me that it would be very beneficial to form a
group and start something (like a startup?).

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kul
Not learning to code the moment I thought about starting an internet company.

