

Ask HN: Do you feel like your potential is being wasted? - lookingup

Do you feel that what you&#x27;re currently doing is a waste of your potential, and that if you had the proper opportunities, you could do much greater things? Are you in one of the &quot;thinking about how to make people click ads&quot; jobs, and you hate it? Or that because you have to work (to pay your rent and buy food), that you can&#x27;t explore bigger and better opportunities (because they&#x27;d require a lot of domain expertise or specific knowledge that you don&#x27;t have time to acquire - after work self-study being insufficient&#x2F;you&#x27;re just too exhausted&#x2F;whatever)?<p>In my case, I would love to go to a university (Stanford, MIT, Columbia, or other well-respected school) to do an undergrad (had to leave home to work as a teen since my family died young) to just immerse myself in full-time learning rather than working on unexciting web dev work and doing fragmented self-learning in my free time (which is what I&#x27;ve been doing for years, and it&#x27;s terribly inferior to full-time, uninterrupted learning.) I&#x27;ve saved money, but not nearly enough to go to any of those without going into an incredible amount of debt, which, at nearly 40, seems like a terrible idea. If I hit the startup lottery, I&#x27;d use that money to go right back to school.<p>Those of you who have been able to attend these prestigious schools with the financial and logistical help of parents&#x2F;relatives (living rent-free while going to school is unbeatable): cherish the amazing gift you have been given. All the grit and persistence in the world does not beat someone else paying for your education, no matter what some people say.<p>Anyone else wish they had a road with better opportunities available to them?
======
stegosaurus
I don't wish I had a road with better opportunities; I wish everyone had
greater access to those opportunities.

I feel guilty fighting with my fellow man. I feel guilty for out-doing my
neighbour.

I feel... confused. Knowing that the key to monetary success in this world
would require I turn into a person I could no longer be proud of. So I'd win,
but I'd lose.

I feel angry, knowing that there are people in this world who knowingly work
to make things harder for others.

But that's the world we live in.

I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that the only true success in life is that
which you create for yourself. Doing something you believe in. Providing for
your family; contributing towards the community; making the world a better
place. Everything else is just a proxy for that.

I am currently between jobs with nothing on the horizon, because I chose to
leave a place, a career, that I felt was abhorrent. I don't know how it'll
work out. I could end up as one of those statistics; an unemployed or
underemployed graduate. But there's no other option but to keep on trucking -
if you think you have potential, anything else is a waste.

------
coralreef
\- Why do you want to go to Stanford, MIT, Columbia, etc.? There are probably
tons of great options that are cheaper and more accessible to you if you want
to get educated. Don't make that dream an impossibility by creating artificial
barriers. Do you just want to go there because it seems sexy and it'll make
you look cooler? Be careful not to value status over substance.

\- Life is short, you should do what you want to do. The transition probably
won't be as painful as you think it is.

\- The grass is always greener on the other side. Right now someone in some
dirt poor country is wishing he was you and had the opportunities you had.
They may not have the opportunity to change things, but you probably do.

~~~
lookingup
The "dream" is to immerse in learning while being surrounded by a critical
mass of intelligent, driven, and most importantly _well-connected_ people.
There's a reason a large majority of the top entrepreneurs seem to have come
from the same set of schools.

Sam Altman - Stanford Paul Graham - Harvard, Cornell Jeff Bezos - Princeton
Larry Page - Stanford Peter Thiel, who despite his current ideological stance,
also went to Stanford

We all know about the exceptions, sure - but they are exceptions. Most of the
top ones (Google your favorite entrepreneurs aside from the well known ones
like Zuck, Jobs, and Gates) - most of them have prestigious backgrounds, and
those without do much worse:

[http://www.sfgate.com/technology/article/Entrepreneurs-do-
be...](http://www.sfgate.com/technology/article/Entrepreneurs-do-better-with-
college-studies-4094677.php)

Now, I've read Graham's
([http://www.paulgraham.com/colleges.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/colleges.html))
essay about this, which is interesting for the subset of people who happen to
apply to YC, but it doesn't touch on the main point: that a top-tier
institution where you can be completely immersed, be surrounded by incredible
people you can network with, and not think about paying rent gives you
astronomical advantages. I don't think there's really any credible debate
around this particular point. You can't do that while you're working;
immersion happens only when you can truly focus. If you're thinking about
rent, food, bills, etc. you're not focusing. You're also not going to get the
kind of network at a state school - you might get lucky, but for spending 4-6
years of your life, that's a huge gamble on top of the money you're spending.
I've tried to work while going to school once, and it ended in disaster (it
can wreck your physical health, mental health, and knowledge retention. It's
awful, and those of you you have done it, I applaud you, but not everyone has
what it takes to do that.)

To your third point: that's the excuse we use to tell everyone they should
suck it up and be happy with what they have, and it's awful. You go down that
ladder, and you're telling people who "only" get beat up once a week that they
should be happy not getting shot. The benchmark we should be using is the
world we'd like to create, not "at least you can eat." Come on.

That all said, I appreciate your comment even I disagree with you. I know you
don't have answers, nor does anyone else here (but if someone does, of course
I'd love to hear about it!) I certainly don't expect that. I know the state of
things. I came here to vent and commiserate. I'm angry, and I'm envious.
That's all.

~~~
trcollinson
"The "dream" is to immerse in learning while being surrounded by a critical
mass of intelligent, driven, and most importantly well-connected people.
There's a reason a large majority of the top entrepreneurs seem to have come
from the same set of schools."

One thing I am having a hard time grasping with your description of your
desire is, what is the end goal? Do you want to learn amazing things about an
academic area that you really enjoy? Do you want to meet well connected
people? Do you want to be a fantastic top entrepreneur? Because these are all
pretty mutually exclusive. I did not go to a top university but I do know well
connected people and I am a relatively successful entrepreneur (not a top
entrepreneur by any means). I will try to give my background as an example.

As I youth, due in large part to my fathers mathematics background, I gained a
love of theoretical mathematics. I was top of my class in high school and
graduated early. I went to college and got scared about an academic career,
due again mostly to my father who was an entrepreneur and engineer. So I
switched majors a few times and landed on law. I dropped out of law school to
be an entrepreneur and engineer myself, with the ultimate goal to support my
rapidly growing family.

By worldly standards I was raised relatively well off in Southern California
but I am no Bezos, Graham, nor Page. I went to state schools and have a non-
technical degree. I have started and been successful in two companies, work
for myself as a consultant now, and all things considered do exceptionally
well. But a few years ago my goal of supporting my family became easier
(success in business helps a lot) I got the itch to get back into academia. I
have been doing "amateur" theoretical mathematics research for fun for years,
and I haven't felt fulfilled in business or engineering in quite a while. So I
came up with a plan.

Step one, while I would love to go to MIT or Cal Tech, I don't see that ever
happening. So, go back to a state school and become very familiar with the
staff there. I found that most of them DID go to those prestigious schools and
studied under phenomenal professors and have amazing knowledge and interesting
theoretical mathematician and physics. They also have amazing contacts to
share. So I am working on receiving a bachelors in mathematics, then a
masters, then a PhD from those folks, and really enjoy the experience.

Second step (concurrent to first), continue to do well in my business areas
(mostly B2B application development consulting as well as some recurring
revenue products). Will I get Graham/Bezos/Gates rich? Heck no! But I can get
enough to make my third step and ultimate goal possible.

Step three, through the local university fund my own theoretical mathematics
research. Why? Because I really enjoy mathematics research. And funding for
theoretical mathematics research is REALLY hard to obtain, there isn't much of
it, and there are some really brilliant minds in the field who deserve it. So,
I use step two to fund step three.

The point is, I saw what I wanted and I found a way to get to it. I have very
specific steps around each of those steps (step two, for example, is far more
complex than I have written out here, and has milestones and subgoals). But it
is working and I can pursue my academic dreams while also supporting my family
and myself well.

That all being said, I understand my steps might not work specifically for
you. As you mention, you need focus for academic discovery. All of our brains
work differently and I have been blessed to be able to do these things
concurrently. But the more important point is, if you have a goal, make steps
and work to get to it. You may find that by making steps to get to your
ultimate goal, you have to change that goal slightly (as with me, I will never
work at MIT or Cal Tech). But you'll still find the satisfaction of making it,
lose the anger and the envy, and ultimately be happier than you are.

~~~
lookingup
My goals would be for getting deep knowledge in an area of study, more than
I'm able to do on my own. After becoming an expert in that area, I would like
to apply that to business. Examples: MIT robotics->start robotics company /
work with roboticists at an existing company or Columbia Computer Science and
Logistics and Supply Chain Optimization->start a company optimizing
delivery/pickup routes for delivery drivers and providing 'deep' dashboards to
monitor and reroute as needed. Also, I would invite everyone to look at this
comment from Clare Corthell from Mattermark for something closely related, and
important:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8445607](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8445607)

The thing that spurred me to write this was the realization that there are
probably hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people in this country
that could be making incredible contributions to science, technology,
business, and society in general, but don't have the ability to realize that
potential. It's one of those funny things where understanding you have a
problem, even at a detailed level, does not imbue you with the tools to fix
it. I think that's what makes me the angriest. Society should be falling over
trying to help people push things ahead, contribute to the advancement of
society (I read that some countries pay people to go to college), but instead
it tells you 'have rich parents, go into incredible debt, be a lucky unicorn,
or tough luck.' How many other people are sitting around doing some dreary job
that does little (like the ad clicks example), who, if given the resources,
would provide society (and themselves) with so much more? It's a colossal
waste.

Hammerbacher's quote resonated with me when I first read it, but now it really
hits home: "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make
people click ads," Hammerbacher once said. "That sucks."

I really appreciate your comment. That's the sort of response I was hoping
for. Other people who have experienced this, and what they did/are doing.
Thank you.

------
chatmasta
Woah woah, cheer up bro.

I'm probably exactly who you're talking to in this post, but man, lose the
self-hating melodrama. You're just making excuses for yourself.

Pick what you want to do. Imagine you did it, and everything went wrong.
Imagine the absolute _worse case scenario._ Is it that bad? I bet it's not. So
go for it.

~~~
bhousel
Well.. The OP did say that he is "nearly 40" so I'm assuming the "absolute
worst case scenario" involves driving his family into financial ruin.

At least, that's my excuse for not pursuing more fulfilling work.

~~~
playlist
Financial ruin is okay if your family still loves and supports you. Financial
success is not okay if you stepped on everyone to get there, and your family
hates you.

Just a thought.

------
sholanozie
Forgive me for bringing some political thoughts with me into this thread, but
your post really resonated with me and I think you are a perfect example of
why we should work towards a basic income. Imagine how many people there are
who are just like you, who can't afford to pursue their ideas due to financial
or social constraints, yet have the potential to solve global problems (or at
least contribute to their solutions). We are wasting so many brilliant minds
by forcing them to grind from 9 to 5 in order to support themselves and their
families.

------
bbcbasic
> Just immerse myself in full-time learning rather than working on unexciting
> web dev work and doing fragmented self-learning in my free time (which is
> what I've been doing for years, and it's terribly inferior to full-time,
> uninterrupted learning.)

The advantage however of self-learning is you choose what you want to learn,
how you want to learn it and the pace. You don't need to jump through the
hoops of writing essays or passing exams.

I am not sure what university is like in US but my experience is you get a lot
of core topics you have to cover whether you like it or not. The pace is set
for you. I found most of the time it was too slow but then sometimes too fast.

Someone else mentioned ITT a list of famous successful (as in money) people
and said they had been to top universities. The question is do you want to
build a $10 Billion dollar business and all of the responsibility and
sacrifice that comes with that?

Or maybe you would prefer to be something like the anonymous creator of
Bitcoin. No certificate required for something like that. Or create something
to help lots of people for little profit. Or maybe simply doing a PhD and
enjoying the subject is enough.

What does fulfilling your potential mean to you?

------
Gyonka
To me it sounds like you don't like the work you do, and going to university
to do an undergrad won't get you a better job (assuming you still want to work
in tech?). The best way to get a job you might like more is to learn some new
skills and pivot your career.

I'd also like to mention that going to a prestigious university has generally
no bearing on the jobs you get, it's the people. As a result hiring companies
(in the tech sector) don't really care where you came from as long as you can
prove your value.

------
winslow
Yes I definitely feel I'm not being utilized properly. However, I've been
making strides to correct that. My current work went from full software dev
with cool new tech like WebGL to having to repeat data entry work (3 or 4
times) because of incompetence within corporate. To get myself out of this I
work on side projects and currently attending grad school via OMSCS at Georgia
Tech.

------
kohanz
Any time I find myself thinking something remotely close to that, I realize
that I won the lottery of growing up in and being able to call North America
(or more broadly, Westernized civilization) home. I certainly have more
control over my path here than I would almost anywhere else.

------
isilya
You could do undergrad online (e.g. Open University) while working, then go to
a graduate school full time.

