
Dropping out is probably not for you - vijaydev
http://jacquesmattheij.com/Dropping+out+is+probably+not+for+you
======
edw519
_The simplest test of whether or not you should drop out is this one: If you
have to ask someone if you should then you shouldn't._

I think I have a simpler test: Do you have a customer?

Of all the things that you need to do to start a successful business, I think
that getting someone to pay you for your work is the hardest. Deceptively
hard.

I've seen it all too often: Good technical skills. Check. Good design skills.
Check. Work well together. Check. Building cool stuff. Check. Have passion and
in the groove. Check. Sell something. Oh shit.

Let's not overlook the single biggest common thread to all those successful
startups founded by college dropouts: they already had huge demand, often
accompanied by people with checkbooks.

Don't forget the story of Bill Gates' parents telling him that if he dropped
out of Harvard, he was on his own. By this point Micro-soft already had
several $100K CDs in the bank and he said, "I don't think that'll be a
problem."

That would be about the only way I would want to do it.

~~~
matwood
I agree with you. Students have more disposable time than any other segment of
the population except the unemployed/out of school. If a person in school
cannot build and sell something while still in school, then dropping out isn't
likely to help.

Getting an MVP build and finding those first critical customers (if they even
exist) should be perfectly feasible while still going to class.

~~~
nostrademons
Time is rarely the limiting resource for a startup - attention is. Students
(at least ones who want to somewhat keep up with their schoolwork) do not have
more disposable attention than most working people. As a student, you need to
balance your attention between 4-5 different courses, all of which have their
own deadlines and assignments and new concepts to learn, and you'll probably
be distracted by parties and girls and campus events and a social life. As an
entry-level worker, you will probably be given a well-defined task to do and
can focus on it, and once you go home, you don't need to worry about it.

I found it _much_ easier to launch side projects once I got out of school,
because I could leave my work at work and didn't really care about it anyway.
I don't think I reached a level of distractedness equal to my college career
until I made senior engineer (and hence have everyone asking me for advice)
and started dating, 5 years later.

------
adbge
I dropped out of school last semester, so I think I can add some (unique)
perspective. Maybe I will flesh these thoughts out into a blog post later.

When considering dropping out of college, you're the one who is ultimately
responsible for that decision, you're the one who will live with the
consequences, and you're the one who has the best information for making that
decision. It's all on you. You have to ask yourself if you _really_ believe
that you can live with the consequences and, if so, take the plunge.

Now, I've only been a drop out for 3 months, so it's impossible for me to
comment on the long term effects, but -- if there's one thing you need to
realize before dropping out -- _being a drop out is hard._

For one thing, everyone thinks that kids between the ages of 18 and 22 should
be attending college, and they'll be happy to tell you so. Lots of people
attended college and, since it worked for them, they will believe that the
system can work for you. Further, these people have a vested interest in
telling you how important college is and what a worthwhile experience it is
because, frankly, they are trying to justify spending however many years
attending college and paying off their student loans

Basically, don't expect a whole lot of support.

In addition, being a drop out in today's climate is a little bit more
difficult than it was in the past. Computer Science is now an established
discipline and schools actually teach it, so being self-taught is less of a
necessity and more of an oddity. Further, while the common wisdom seems to be
that the current economic climate is not so bad for programmers, it's
certainly harder to get a job now than it was during the dot-com boom.

The final, and hardest part of being a drop out, is that it's incredibly
lonely and incredibly difficult to stay motivated when you're on your own. I
imagine that it's similar to being a solo founder. There are days when it's
hard to find the strength to get out of bed, when you'll be filled with self-
doubt, when you'll wonder if dropping out was the right decision. Hacking on
your own for four years and building a portfolio, instead of attending school,
might sound great on paper, but without your peers to support and motivate
you, it's very hard.

~~~
9085
I also dropped out and I have quite a different experience. My experience with
CS in school was that it was boring. The teachers did not teach it well and I
was better off learning on my own. I think this is highly dependent on your
own personal learning style. College is not for everyone.

If you're smart, you have support. I don't know what people were around you
but generally the right people can tell if you'll make it in this world. Their
support means a lot. Find those people to surround yourself with.

I think being a dropout is easier now than ever. There is a large collective
who understand college is not what it use to be. You can definitely do well
without it, and they know.

"Computer Science is now an established discipline and schools actually teach
it, so being self-taught is less of a necessity and more of an oddity." I
disagree. Computer Science is established for Computer Science. It gives you
almost zero introduction into the industry. If you want to be a software
engineer for a living then it's the experience of work and your personal drive
that outweighs a degree.

This industry has gotten to a point where we realize skill outweighs paper
trails. If you can prove that you can do the work and do it well, you will get
hired. I rather hire and work with someone who does not have a CS degree and
knows what they are doing versus the opposite. It's the only way to hire --
skill.

~~~
adbge
We're mostly in agreement.

My point is that dropping out isn't a particularly easy path to choose. It's
not a good default for most people.

I'm not trying to say that you can't be successful as a drop out. If I
believed that, I wouldn't have dropped out myself.

------
mml
As a dropout, I can tell you this: if you do drop out, you are choosing the
hard way. Later on, even if you're wildly successful, you will wonder how much
more successful you could have been if you'd finished. You'll also suffer from
the impostor syndrome, and it will likely haunt you for the rest of your life,
regardless of the outcome.

Young smartasses have a way of becoming old maintenance programmers ;)

~~~
Eliezer
As an autodidact (I never dropped out of anything, I just didn't go to high
school after 8th grade) allow me to say that I have never, ever wondered how
successful I could've been if I'd gone to college, nor yet suffered from
impostor syndrome.

~~~
FD3SA
I would go as far as to say that, to an autodidact, structured education is
akin to Chinese water torture. A Steady, predictable flow of bland facts
hammered into your skull, while you cannot change flow rate, the subject or
the scope. Also, you cannot escape.

I avoided the natural sciences throughout my entire secondary and post-
secondary career, as I feared the catastrophic effects structured learning
would have on my inherent passion for those subjects. The joy of reading
Darwin and Hawking, and the resultant awe of the universe, could not have been
manufactured in a structured learning environment.

------
ctdonath
Notice that all the lauded examples of "well, X dropped out and made it big!"
entail X starting the business during schools and being so wildly successful
at it that school was just in the way. Michael Dell was spending all his
waking hours building PCs in his dorm. Gates was well on his way to selling
DOS to IBM. Each had already gotten to where college helps you go.

Remember Gladwell's "10,000 hours" rule of thumb for success? THAT is what
college is. 50 hours per week for 50 weeks per year for 4 years is 10,000
hours. You graduate from high school, and realize you haven't mastered a
marketable skill[1] - so you sign up for a four-year boot-camp that will drag
you, kicking and screaming, through your obligatory 10,000 hours.

Thing is, most the successful dropouts were already "practicing" well before
they started college. Gladwell notes that Gates was putting in hours a day,
for years, of programming before getting to college (at a time that
programming required connections and money, being a motivated kid he was
allowed free use at 4am). By the time they dropped out (perhaps long before),
they already had their 10,000 hours in. A grade-school kid has opportunity for
about 5,000 hours of "practice" available...and most use that time throwing
balls or acting, building unmarketable skills.

~~~
cperciva
_50 hours per week for 50 weeks per year for 4 years is 10,000 hours_

Or for most students, 40 hours per week for 16 weeks per term for 2 terms per
year for 4 years is 5,120 hours.

Which might just explain why students coming out of college tend to be at most
_half_ good at something.

~~~
hugh3
40 hours per week? Sure, maybe if you're a total conch.

For me, undergrad was more like eighteen hours a week for fourteen weeks, then
fifty hours a week for one week. And that was with a heavy physics/maths
courseload.

~~~
cperciva
I was trying to be generous. Some students come out of college nowhere near to
being half-good at anything. ;-)

------
vsl2
Why do most of the commenters seem to dislike college? Those were the best
four years of my life, taught me real skills, programming and otherwise, that
I use every day, and granted me that all-important degree which has come in
handy for me and probably will for the vast majority of people who don't build
the next Facebook or Apple.

Unless you're in situation #5 that the article talks about, spend a few years
to get the degree (graduate early if you can because that saves time and
money) while working on your projects on the side. And maybe have some college
fun in the process.

~~~
randomdata
I reached a hypothesis in yesterday's discussion about college being a
substitute upbringing for those who may not have had many opportunities
growing up: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3150390>

The dislike comes form it being pointless busywork. It may not have been
pointless busywork to you, depending on your upbringing. And that is just
fine. Everyone comes with different experiences. College is just not for
everyone, plain and simple.

~~~
hugh3
_The dislike comes form it being pointless busywork. It may not have been
pointless busywork to you, depending on your upbringing._

Or from what university you're at, and what you're studying.

My advice to programmer types who come into university thinking they already
know all about programming: forget CS and take as much mathematics as you can.
That stuff is _hard_ and you can't learn it anywhere else.

~~~
randomdata
_Or from what university you're at, and what you're studying._

I should clarify that it is pointless busywork with respect to a career.
There's definitely something to be said about learning for the sake of
learning and personal growth. Not having world class knowledge of mathematics
is not going to hinder your wallet in any way though.

~~~
vsl2
I think focusing only on programming skills and what will help you in your
first jobs out of college is short-sighted. Being a college dropout
entrepreneur may be some sort of badge of honor in your 20's, but unless you
do something extraordinary or make FU money, its not something that will help
you later in life. Will having that MIT CS degree help you get that lucrative
job when you're 40 years old with a family, mortgage and other
responsibilities (i.e. not so easy to do risky startups)?

You also learn other skills that come in useful in your career, though I agree
some can be worthless. I hated some of my classes in college, particularly the
writing class requirements, but even those are helping me today because almost
everything requires some sort of clear and coherent writing.

Its only 2-3 years if you work hard to graduate early, during which you'll
have many opportunities to try out various ideas and meet many of your
lifelong friends and likely, cofounders. If you don't have much money, excel
at a state school and graduate with a manageable amount of debt, or better
yet, work hard and get a scholarship.

~~~
randomdata
_I think focusing only on programming skills and what will help you in your
first jobs out of college is short-sighted._

I'm not sure this is even about programming, per-say. If your goal is success
as rated by monetary gains, it seems short sighted to focus your learning on
any specific subject ahead of time. You might find riches in programming, but
you might instead find riches in producing a set of short Youtube videos, or
maybe writing a how-to book about getting rich without going to college. Who
knows what opportunities will arise? If your vision is narrow, you're going to
miss them, that is for sure.

If you have a very specific goal of programming for a top corporation at the
age of 40, maybe a degree will help you out. Again, who knows? You cannot
prepare yourself for success. You might decide you hate programming when you
reach 40. Who knows? Following in the footsteps of others will not lead you to
success. That is one thing we do know.

I'm not arguing against going to college. I see that it comes with many merits
with respect to personal growth and a is generally an enjoyable time for most
people. I just do not see how it relates to business and why anyone would want
to pressure someone else to go to college. Who cares what other people do with
their lives? Whether or not one should go to college is a very personal
decision and it is one that should not be clouded by misguided notions of
future fortunes.

------
keiferski
I think there's definitely some value in taking time off to figure out where
you're going (and where you want to be.)

Keeping your head down and finishing for the sake of finishing is probably not
going to end well; you'll be in debt, you will have lost the opportunity cost
of your time in school, and you still might not know what you want to do.

Don't be the guy who's in debt from a degree in a field he doesn't want to
work in.

~~~
jackgavigan
> I think there's definitely some value in taking time off to figure out where
> you're going (and where you want to be.)

Do you really have to take time off to do that? Does college take up so many
hours a week that it simply leaves zero time for you to "figure out where
you're going"?

Seriously?

~~~
ctdonath
A lot of students spend 2-4 years "trying to figure out where I'm going and
what I want to be". Insofar as they haven't figured it out, and won't figure
it out in that time, perhaps best if they take some time off and stop spending
huge piles of money they don't have getting to where they don't want to go.

To wit: the First Law Of Holes is "stop digging".

------
jmj4
> _4) You're in your last or next-to-last year and you're fed up with the
> system, you want your freedom and you want it now.

Don't do it. Why? Because dropping out is easy, getting back in later is hard.
Sure, the system sucks, but you are this close to bagging that piece of paper,
you might as well go all the way._

I fundamentally disagree with you on this one. Getting that piece of paper
give you a quick escape plan for when things get tough. Lets say you graduate,
and start your startup. In the back of your mind you'll be saying "If this
doesn't work out, I'll just go get a regular, decent paying job". And then
things start to head south. You can't raise money, or you have no traction,
ect. That decent paying job starts to look more and more attractive.

If you drop out, you're burning your bridges and forcing yourself to stay
committed when shit hits the fan. Graduating leaves open an easy retreat
strategy; it makes it much easier to quit.

------
yummyfajitas
I don't think (2) is correct:

 _You don't like to learn, and you need more money...Don't do it. Why? Because
that stuff you learn you will need later on, and you will need it badly._

Of all the stuff I learned in college, I needed very little of it. This
includes many classes I enjoyed. Most of it I've forgotten already. Not only
that, I didn't even take the traditional college -> job route - I stayed in
academia for 8 years after college.

Some of the many classes I took: medieval literature, women's studies,
chemistry (3 semesters), population dynamics for environmental engineering, 2
semesters of economics, optics, and all of this is just the stuff I can think
of. Most of my college experience was spent learning stuff I don't need to
know and have now forgotten.

Stay in school for the sheepskin so that you can signal conscientiousness to
the world. But focus on networking, not learning. Most of what you learn is a
waste of time.

~~~
conductrics
Isn't this kinda like looking back after running a search algorithm and saying
"look at all of those branches that were explored that had nothing of value in
them, what a useless waste." You have to explore in order to learn. College
helps one learn both how your actions affect the external environment but also
the internal one - your goals, utility function whatever you want to call it.
What is 'needed' will be a function of what you decide will be needed.

~~~
yummyfajitas
No, because there is no reason to search through all the branches beforehand.
A lot of things can be learned later on, as you need them.

Even if there was a need to search through the branches early on, I could
reasonably predict that medieval literature was a waste of time. But 9
semesters of humanities were required by my college, so I crammed for exams
and forgot about it after the fact.

~~~
conductrics
I guess it all depends on one's discount rate. Now that I am older I wish I
had taken a few more 'waste of time' classes - esp in the arts.

------
TheloniusPhunk
I'd just like to say that if you're too lazy for University, then you're
fucked either way.

------
tintin
Lately a lot of people think they can earn a lot of money without working
hard. I'm not sure why people think this way. Maybe TV told them you can get
whatever you want whenever you want.

~~~
zerostar07
Not TV, The Social Network (seriously, how many of you had friends asking you
about their "billion dollar" startup idea after seeing the movie?)

~~~
randomdata
Having just watched it two days ago, the Social Network shows Zuckerberg
working all hours of the day, every day. If that doesn't give people the idea
that it requires _hard_ work, I don't know what will.

~~~
jtbigwoo
The words were all about hard work, but the context was not. I bet the
Zuckerberg character was drunk and/or at a party in a majority of the scenes
he appeared in. Especially if we exclude the scenes where drinking would have
resulted in punishment (e.g. during depositions.)

~~~
randomdata
_The words were all about hard work, but the context was not._

I'm not sure I agree. They made a point on more than occasion to show
Zuckerberg at home on his computer while everyone else was at a party. Even at
the depositions, he was working during every available moment. In the one
scene he was falling asleep in the lab, so, instead of sleeping, he went home
to work on Facebook for the remainder of the night.

I believe he was drinking alcohol during some of the work scenes, but there's
nothing particularly abnormal about having a few drinks while coding. I even
know of legitimate and profitable businesses who support the occasional
drinking while coding days.

------
padobson
"Don't do it. Why? Because if that's your character you need every bit of
structure that your school or university is providing you. Before you can even
think of starting your own business you will have to learn self-discipline."

OR you can drop out and get a lousy, physical job - get the same structure you
get from school, gain better appreciation for mental skills and abilities that
university teaches you, and add to your bankroll (albeit, slowly) instead of
your debt load.

This, instead of coasting through school with lousy character and no
discipline and getting less out of it then if you appreciate it more.

~~~
hugh3
Yeah, going to university in the hopes of learning discipline is like going to
_[some place not commonly associated with X]_ to learn _[X]_. [1]

If it's discipline you need, you'd be better off spending four years in the
military. Perhaps you'll say that this is "discipline provided by others"
rather than "self-discipline", but in practice I'm not sure there's much of a
difference based on the ex-military folks I've met.

[1] Sorry, the metaphor subsystem of my brain is broken today. Insert your own
metaphor here.

------
JupiterJazz
The only reason the idea of dropping out is getting so much traction is
because of the debt that's now required to get a degree. I haven't seen anyone
defending college reconcile this fact.

The point is that a degree is now extremely expensive and is getting more so
all the time. Id like to make the point that holding all that debt is a lot
scarier than the successful people with decent jobs trying to persuade us to
start or stay in school think it is.

------
peterwwillis
There's a lot more positive benefit to staying in school than dropping out.
For one thing, making money is something you'll do _for the rest of your life_
(unless you're the kind of fiscally-responsible freak that can save enough to
retire by 30).

You have all the time in the world to start a company or join one. But right
now, while you're young and have the time and resources available, you're at
the best possible position to acquire the experiences and knowledge you'll
need for _the rest of your life_. Yes there's debt; you'll pay it off. Yes
it's tiring; you'll get used to it.

Is it easy to drop out? Yes. Can you make money (assuming you're smart enough
and have learned enough to get a job now)? Yes. Does it make sense to cripple
yourself for the future just to get a couple years ahead of your peers? Hell
no.

Do whatever you have to do to finish school and try hard to enjoy yourself
while you're there. Life isn't going anywhere that you need to drop out to get
there.

------
invalidOrTaken
No one will read this because I'm posting so late, but I'll describe my
experience:

I was a stats major, emphasis actuarial science. On paper, I was set to go
work for some insurance company and make bank.

Except...I couldn't make myself care about it. Done purely for money, that
stuff is pretty boring.

No, I didn't drop out. The university did that for me as my grades plummeted.

I'd learned a bit of java, so I applied for a job out of the student paper and
ended up working on an application for...wait for it...insurance agents.
Exactly what I couldn't make myself care about in school. In Visual Basic.

Having read enough of pg's essays to somehow acquire the impression that I was
a Great Hacker destined for startup greatness because I had played around with
CL, I quit the insurance software gig to build....video conferencing software!
I even found a customer willing to pay me for it. I was clueless and so was
he, so we ended up negotiating a fixed-price contract. Cue the tragic cycle of
I-didn't-realize-it-would-take-this-long-and-I'm-not-getting-paid enough on
the developer's part, and it became a nightmare project that dragged on four
months longer than it should have.

Cue some more inexperienced-at-software-and-inexperienced-at-contracting
horror stories, and I was kind of sick of being on my own. I found the one
cool company in my area and bravado'd my way into an interview. They were
everything awesome the insurance company hadn't been: smart people. Great
conditions. Clojure and Ruby as main languages. Tufte's _Visual Display of
Quantitative Information_ on the coffee table in reception. An engineer
cofounder (vs. an insurance agent founder).

And...I wasn't qualified. I'd plugged some libraries together for the
videoconferencing thing, and the Rails stuff I'd done on contract was pretty
basic. Any my stats knowledge was poor. I'd dropped out!

So I decided to go back to school. Part of the reason I failed so badly in
school is because I had a really hard time getting motivated when I could see
how sucky most of higher-education is for actual education---many things are
quietly optimized toward extracting money from the student's parents, or
measuring things for future employers, or compensating for a model with many
students and few professors. This is all true, but I can get a loan to attend
school, while I can't get a loan to grab a bunch of textbooks and start
cranking.

So if someone were thinking of dropping out, I'd say---do it. Absolutely do
it. If you're sick of school and can't get motivated, no inspirational talk
will cure that, and you'll stumble through half-caring, graduating with either
a useless degree (because you didn't learn anything) or failing out like I
did.

The only thing that will cure you of that is experience outside of school.
That will be what tells you how off-base (or on!) you are. Since I left school
my opinions on some portions of it being B.S. have only strengthened. But I
have also gained an appreciation for certain parts that I took for granted. So
if you leave, be cold-blooded about it. You may hate the system (it deserves
it), but it might be useful to you later, so don't burn that bridge if you can
help it.

~~~
tedkalaw
I wanted to reply to this because my experience was somewhat similar to yours.
I dropped out of school to do a startup and realized that I actually WANTED to
learn my major (CS stuff). I also missed the academic environment. Luckily for
me, I was far enough ahead with credit hours that the time I took off didn't
mess up my graduation time.

------
bozho
Agreed. But I'll just add one option that worked for me. I dropped out after
the first semester. Then I found a job as a software engineer. In 4 years I'm
a valuable senior java developer that everyone is trying to hire. Have I
graduated? Yes, from the school of real-world software projects. I didn't have
a startup business (well, I had one which failed, and I'm having one right
now, on the side), but it was still a better option to drop out.

Btw, I signed up for a external program at the University of London so that I
could still get a BSc without actually doing anything academic - so now I'm 24
with 4 years of real-life work experience and a BSc (not that I need it, but
it's there)

So, perhaps it is better to summarize it that way: if you clearly see
opportunities for yourself that are better than staying in university - drop
out.

~~~
super_mario
Yeah, and you will also NEVER be a computer scientist. You will never be hired
by a team building a compiler, or a team building a database engine. You
condemned yourself to a programmer title for the rest of your life, doing mind
numbing business logic for the rest of your life (unless you decide to go back
to school that it).

Besides higher education is NOT about learning skills immediately useful for
employment. It's about so much more. It's about mental gymnastics, about
stretching your mind, it's about dedicating 5 years of your life to nothing
but bettering yourself, reading and learning anything you can get your hands
on, exchanging ideas with other great minds, and becoming better you.

This is a unique time, that can't be reproduced otherwise simply because you
never will have the time (unless you are a millionaire and don't have to work)
to do that any more, and when you become older you become less plastic and
more set in your ways.

Dropping out of school is a tragedy really for any young mind. So is choosing
easy school. If you are going to study anything, study hard things (Math vs
English). They change you more.

~~~
hack_edu
While I fully agree with your point, the guarantee of developing software for
a living and NOT building compilers or such sounds actually more attractive.
Solving problems and designing systems is amazing but what you idealize sounds
myopic and tedious to plenty of amazing and well-educated computer scientists.
We don't need to get into the Scientist vs. Programmer debate but software can
mean or be most anything. That too is a conversation left for the classroom.

There are plenty of amazing, rewarding, lucrative, and challenging projects
out there besides the poles of Hard CS and bland Enterprise work.

~~~
vbtemp
I agree with both of you. As in politics, the two sides are talking past each
other.

I think the dropouts look at people like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, etc, and
want to say "Look! You can be rich and successful and influential without
requiring some silly piece of paper and a goofy hat!". Therefore, I don't need
it!

The PhDs and Computer Science grad students are likely to look up to people
like Turing, Church, Von Neumann, John McCarthy (as he's been in the news)
etc.., and be satisfied pondering The Secrets Of The Universe and be
stimulated by working on extremely pure intellectual challenges.

To the dropout entrepreneur/hacker, the prospect of working in an office
proving the lower bound of a routing problem over ad-hoc networks is about as
bland as you can get.

To the computer science professor, post-doc, whatever, the prospect of working
as some web-app developer or "java engineer" and hustling for customers is
completely vapid.

I tend to slightly side with the academic CS types, since many people can
teach themselves to be successful hackers independently, few college dropouts
are architecting the next generation of internet protocols, contributing much
to computational complexity theory, producing the next RSA cryptosystem or
homomorphic encryption, or contributing to the algorithms to make higher-
resolution images from MRI scans. On the other hand, if you drop out of
college, this isn't probably the kind of stuff that would interest your blood
pumping anyway.

------
eof
Surprised by the lack of support for dropping out.

Is a 4 year education and a degree valuable? Of course.

Is it worth $xx,000 in student debt and 4 year opportunity cost of doing
something else? Rarely. Especially for this crowd.

If you are a 19 year old with some programming skills, and you are paying for
your own college (via loans or with cash) dropping out is a GREAT idea. Spend
the next three years working on your own projects, open source projects,
crappy little free lance whatever.. you are going to be in a much better spot
than if you spent the next three years going to classes and coming out with
50k in student loan debt.

If college is free, then yeah, you are crazy not to go. But if you are smart
and willing to work hard anyway.. education is _FREE_ these days. Save the
cost of the house and the years.

~~~
abyssknight
I have to disagree. A college education costs about $26,000 for Florida
residents here in Orlando for a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science.
Compare that to my first year's salary which was roughly double that, and the
cost begins to look minimal.

The opportunity cost is relative, since the people you meet in college may
very well be the best resources you have for maintaining your drive,
innovative spirit, and will to keep on. Just the discipline of finishing
something is worth the time and money spent. That said, it depends on _you_
and your situation.

Personally, I wouldn't be who I am today without suffering with my peers
through classes like CS1, Discrete Structures, and Computer Architecture. My
first piece of real consulting work, the first proposal I ever wrote, was for
an ad on our local university's job board.

Disclaimer: The total cost of my education was paid by scholarships, so I do
not have first hand knowledge of how this works, just providing my anecdote.
$26,000 figure was calculated using my in state invoices from 2003-2007 so
they may need adjusting for inflation.

~~~
keiferski
Unfortunately Florida is much, much less expensive than almost anywhere else.
A college education from a decent university in Pennsylvania will run you
about 15k a year (University of Pittsburgh or Penn State). Throw in living
costs and tuition increases, and you're looking at 80-100k easily for 4 years.

~~~
chollida1
> Throw in living costs

I see the point you're trying to make, but I don't see why you'd calculate
living costs into the cost of school.

If I'm working I'm likely to have higher living costs as most universities
have subsidized housing and meals, not to mention most students live with room
mates once they move off campus. I'd guess working people have far fewer room
mates and much nicer/expensive accommodations :)

Anecdotally that's how it's been for pretty much everyone I know

------
mannicken
I'm 20. I dropped out of high school, studied for a couple of years in
community college and am taking classes and workshops at an art school right
now (no accredited degree). For me this provides a solid compromise between
the extremes of fascist discipline and anarchist chaos.

The first extreme relies completely on papers, degrees, and the value of
adderalled-up memorization of facts and focusing your life on passing the
tests. Life isn't about passing tests and I didn't want to go that route. So I
dropped out of high school.

The second extreme is an anarchist, 'fuck the power' immature, spontaneous
chaos. It disregards discipline, it ignores the beautiful life-rhythm of doing
something everyday. It glorifies chaos and disorder, and ultimately for me it
would probably lead to jail and homelessness. I decided to ignore that, since
I realized the value of discipline and the value of education in a classroom
(but not for a degree).

I have very little interest in the opiatish dream of a 'start-up that will
make me filthy rich' too. Hence why I avoid startups. In fact I am skeptical
of everything that alludes to 'becoming filthy rich'.

I am not a typical successful dropout like Bill Gates (yet) nor do I think I
will be, and I'm not a stereotypical dumb lazy fry-flipping dropout (yet). As
an experiment to test my discipline and knowledge, I decided to spend a year
working in a full-time IT job, and I have spent exactly one year there.

So yeah, I'm that other guy :) Your mileage may vary.

------
ChuckMcM
All this talk of dropping out or not reminded me of a characteristic I've come
to recognize in folks with Phds. There is an assumption that if you don't have
a Phd like they do its because you could not get one, not that you chose not
to get one.

I think some of that flings back on people who drop out of college. Work,
regardless of company size, is, to put it simply, work. That sounds circular
of course but really the key is that if you can't find the motivation to get
you through college then where are you going to find the motivation to get you
through the 'last 10%' of a project which is what takes 90% of the effort?

As pg pointed out, and Jacques does too, if you're wondering if you should
drop out then you shouldn't. You've got bigger problems and you need to deal
with those. If on the other hand getting school stuff done is hard because
your business is growing in leaps and bounds and you don't have time for both,
that is a completely different story.

Work can suck at times, that is why you don't see travel agents advertising
"Bankok Work Vacations." But getting stuff done rocks. You have to see the
goal, if only in your minds eye, to get past the stuff that is lame and
irritating.

------
danielrhodes
"If those three conditions are not met, please ignore the rest of this post,
you have already made some bad decisions and the question of staying in or
dropping out is the least of your problems."

Jacques appears to have a very shallow knowledge into the value of liberal
arts. It has nothing to do with a marketable skill (if you want that, go to a
vocational school), and everything to do with refining the quality if your
thought and mind.

~~~
wanorris
I have a Philosophy degree, and there was definitely an opportunity cost
associated with getting it. If my goal were to optimize my life in terms of
income generation, it would have been a mistake.

Happily, that hasn't been my goal in life, and I wouldn't trade my philosophy
degree in for the world. There turned out to be plenty of time to go back to
school and learn the technical skills I needed after I figured out that
programming was what I wanted to do with my life.

Having said that, I would be somewhat reluctant to counsel anyone to take a
career-path-agnostic approach to college in the current climate. Times are
tough, decent jobs for people without demonstrable technical skills are
scarce, and college is even more breathtakingly expensive than it was 20 years
ago.

------
Ryanmf
Going to keep most of my crazy opinions to myself on this one, but a few
points:

1\. If someone dropped several thousand dollars in seed money in my lap today
and said "Hire some people, establish a profitable business," I would feel
more enthusiastic about an interview with someone who'd dropped out of
CalTech, MIT, OTIS, Art Center, RISD, or Parsons than one with a graduate from
_anywhere_.

2\. Not that it necessarily matters, but whenever I encounter the argument
that a university education is or should be considered a required component of
"success" or "learning" my opinion of the person making the argument drops
significantly. Specifically, I find myself treating their judgment of what
constitutes "success" or a "learned" person with complete disregard. These
feelings are especially strong when they're directed toward someone older than
me. (Is there a fake formula to measure how forgivable someone's stupidity is,
given their age?)

3\. If you're between the ages of 16 and 24 and have convinced yourself that
you must be "successful" by the time you're 25, you'll probably feel like a
failure whether you drop out or not. In the event that you
matriculate/graduate, you'll just be more likely to have picked up a lot of
debt, and maybe a nasty alcohol and/or adderall habit. Worse case scenario:
you'll be 21-23 with a fancy piece of paper, the false impression that you
"get it," and not much else.

(To be fair, I met my best friends in college—which is now a huge pain in the
ass since everyone's scattered across the country—and the majority of my
favorite memories are from that time. But after meeting those people my
freshman year, I could have dropped out, done enough design work to cover
food, gas, and rent in Pacific Beach—I went to school in San Diego–and had
largely the same experience.)

------
gaoshan
Definitely not for me. I need a good project manager AND a good business
manager on hand. Learned this after some lean, depression filled, years.

Once I admitted this to myself and acted accordingly my income shot up from
poverty levels to middle class levels. Now that I have kids and all of the
uncertainty and financial hardship that can impose, I'll take what I've got.
I'll never be rich but I'll still be happy.

------
mklappstuhl
This is interesting. I just read four points and was completely like: "Not me,
not me, not me, not me."

Then I read the fifth point and just thought: "This more likely me. Except for
the savings and the acing of exams without learning."

I was a little confused about the "Do it" since all other points ended with
"Don't do it" but it has been fun.

Thanks for this article.

PS. I am about to pause studying for half a year to one year and than continue
to study. I am 19.

------
radagaisus
Here is my plan: in a year I'm finishing my army service. I'll be 21. Instead
of going to the university I'll take three years off.

Right now I practice my software development skills. I practice BDD, pick up
new mainstream languages, practice writing good and concise code, working with
people, etc.

When I'll finish the army I'll have three years experience in software
development. I've worked at a couple of start ups already, I'm lead dev in the
army and we are pushing a new project every month or so, I have my own start
up and hopefully by the time I'll finish I'll have the elusive paying
customers.

And then I'll learn whatever I want for three years. All the math I want, all
the algorithms I'm interested at. I'll design a language, I'll write my own
compiler, I'll meditate on data structures and work on large open source
projects.

That's far better than university. And it's gonna be fun.

~~~
marquis
Would army service not be similar to getting a degree, in that you are focused
on a daily bases on core learning? It sounds as if your service experience has
been as valuable as some schools.

~~~
radagaisus
I think it it good for my career. I think it's better to learn theory after a
good practice, not before. Otherwise you don't have the context, and you fly
into to the clouds without keeping your feed on the ground of I Can Build
Stuff With This.

------
navs
I've been struggling in Uni for close to 5 years now. If I don't dropout then
I'll just end up wasting more and more money. It looks like this semester my
University may make the decision for me and kick me out for my low grades.

I know University is supposed to teach me dedication, perseverance, hard work
etc but it seems all it does is make me doubt myself which makes me depressed
and lazy.

I make reasonable money as a freelance web developer. I figure by dropping out
of Uni completely, I can take on more jobs and focus on personal projects.
This is what I want. This is what gives me excitement so why shouldn't I drop
out if the only reason I'm in Uni is to finish a degree I don't even care for.

~~~
brudgers
> _"I figure by dropping out of Uni completely, I can take on more jobs and
> focus on personal projects."_

I figure that if you graduate Uni, you can take on more jobs and focus on
personal projects.

It's a false dichotomy.

After you graduate, the jobs will be better and the personal projects more
deeply informed.

------
conductrics
Why did you go in the first place? If you don't care about the 'system' why
apply to college and waste a year or two on tuition? Or is it more about
nurturing a chip? "yeah, I can get into your school, but here is what I think
of it." Look, if you are trying to find an optimal policy in an unknown
environment (w/drift) you are going to need to make the
exploration/exploitation tradeoff. How you do it is your call, but if you
think that the act of 'dropping out' is, in of itself, of positive value as
signaling mechanism you are sadly mistaken.

------
aik
"If those three conditions are not met, please ignore the rest of this post,
you have already made some bad decisions and the question of staying in or
dropping out is the least of your problems."

I could be mistaken, but I'm convinced that over 80% of people in college
would not qualify.

If I'm mistaken, then I am saddened even more due to the existence of so many
that could put forth so little effort for something they truly wanted to do.
When I attended college I would not have qualified.

------
amandalim89
Peter Thiel doesn't seem to think dropping out is such a bad idea. He set up
The Thiel Fellowship to give 20 students Under 20 $100,000 to get their
business ideas off the ground and quit school.

[http://venturebeat.com/2011/05/25/peter-thiel-pays-
kids-100k...](http://venturebeat.com/2011/05/25/peter-thiel-pays-kids-100k-to-
drop-out-of-college/)

~~~
0x12
That's a common misconception about the Thiel foundation.

Their main point is that they think that going into a multi-year debt in order
to get an education is a losing proposition for many people and that _because
of that_ you might be better of dropping out.

The 20 under 20 program is for exceptional people, see #5 in the linked
article.

~~~
amandalim89
No doubt Peter Thiel means well. Thiel Foundation is a non-profit
organization. Today it announced Breakout Labs which aims to fund very nascent
research proposals — opportunities that are too early stage or radical to
attract dollars from VCs or government grants.

------
ricardobeat
_the success rate of the average first-time start-up is so low that it makes
playing the lottery look like a good investment_

People love lines like this, but a 20% chance is a million times better than
any kind of lottery. Even here in Brazil, where it sucks to be a business
owner, recent data shows that +50% of small business survive for over 2 years.

~~~
0x12
Yes, but that's not 'small businesses started by drop-outs'.

If it were then the odds would be substantially less. People start businesses
at all points in their life, and the failures skew significantly towards
inexperience.

------
brador
My take on this is pretty much the same. Drop out if you have something else
to do. Do not drop out to sit at home smoking, drinking and playing Xbox. or
in more words: [http://nerdr.com/should-i-drop-out-of-college-and-start-a-
bu...](http://nerdr.com/should-i-drop-out-of-college-and-start-a-business-
startup/)

------
schleyfox
I psuedo-dropped out* a week ago. I think the thing that really stuck out in
my case was that all of my family and friends responded with a sincere
"congratulations!" when I told them about it.

* I've scraped enough credits together to collect my CS degree in May with my peers, though I do miss the english lit classes I was taking.

------
jacoblyles
Let's not forget the happy medium: going on leave. Stanford lets students take
3 quarters off and many other universities offer a similar program. A few
months may be enough time to decide if your side business is viable.

------
TDL
Much has been said about whether or not to drop out of school (or whether to
go college at all.) How about those w/ limited technical skills going back to
school to pick up a CS degree?

Regards, TDL

------
JesseAldridge
I don't think it really matters much either way. I dropped out and spent a few
years doing a couple startup type things that didn't end up going anywhere. I
ran out of money and got a job. The stuff I had put together + my various
online profiles (Stack Overflow, Hacker News, etc.) seemed to be enough to get
employers interested. No regrets here. I think Jacques' advice may be somewhat
outdated. There are better ways to get educated and prove your competence
these days.

------
compman775
"If those three conditions are not met . . ."

There are four conditions there, not three.

------
melvinng
wow, amazing I wish I had a flow chart like this 2 years ago when my startup
was making money..

------
jorangreef
Sage words.

------
michaelochurch
Thank you. Excellent article that needs to be read by everyone who's
considering dropping out for "a startup".

Let's ignore the complexities and focus on crude market value. A smart person
with no college degree can probably earn $25,000 per year at 18. We're
assuming a middle to upper-middle class background-- no special family
connections-- and a reasonable work ethic. With a CS, math, or science degree
from a good college, that jumps to about $80,000 at 22. That's a 34% annual
growth rate in one's earning potential! (I'm ignoring the career prospects of
Communications majors; a startup is much harder than getting 3.0+ in a CS
program.) Typical income growth in the work world is 5-7% for average people
and 10-20% (with ups and downs) for very ambitious people. I've been running
at 17%/year since I left school, but that's likely to slow down as I trade off
income acceleration for more interesting work and autonomy. My point is: being
able to grow your earning potential at 34%/year, and probably have fun and
learn a lot, while surrounded by intelligent people, over 4 years... is not
something to walk away from.

Yes, everyone hates college sometimes. The lowest of the lows truly suck.
Sleep deprivation. Drunk people. Final exam stress. Realizing that some idiots
get in no matter how elite a college you attend. On the whole, though, if you
struggle with college the problem is probably with you-- or more specifically,
your level of maturity, and college is a great place to improve that.

Mark Zuckerberg could grow (in wealth and earning potential) much faster than
34%/year. College was slowing him down. Same with Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, etc.
Most of us are not in that league-- not yet, anyway.

That's _just_ discussing market value. Here's another factor. Forget about the
startup dream and focus on the reality (for the middle 90%) of the work world.
College is more fun, interesting, and educational than the first 5 years of
the work world for most people. Don't throw that opportunity away lightly.

~~~
padobson
I graduated with honors from a top 10% university and it cost a heck of a lot
more than $25k AND I've now been working for 3.5 years and I haven't hit the
$80k mark yet. Only a small subset of the skills that I'm marketing right now
did I learn in college.

Furthermore, I'm doing better than a lot of my peers. Your numbers are suspect
at best.

$25k x 4 = $100,000 opportunity cost for college.

$20k x 4 = $100,000 college debt load (if you're lucky).

8% over 10 years for interest payments = ~$45k.

$245,000 total cost to go to school.

If you figure a $55,000 starting salary after school and do $8,000 yearly
increases because you're clever and smart, it will take you 4 complete years
to make up the difference AND that's still assuming the same clever and smart
person has been working without a degree for 8 years and is still only making
$25k/year. (For the curious, the two cross path around $350k total salary
earned)

ALSO, that same clever and smart person could have been accruing a whole host
of assets with the money they were making every year and could be well north
of net worth $250k by the time the college grad gets to net worth $0. That
clever and smart person with 8 years experience in the real world could use
those assets to do all sorts of things our college grad is still going to have
to wait some years to do.

The financial benefit for a smart person going to school and not going to
school, in my mind, is irrelevant. When you factor in opportunity cost and
debt, that same smart person will have grayed the difference between a college
grad and a non-college grad by the time the college grad gets to net worth $0.

And as college tuition inflation continues to outpace all other expenditures
in society, I would move more firmly into the drop-out camp.

~~~
krschultz
1) I like that you include the oppurtunity cost because people often ignore it
(especially when it comes to graduate school), but you can go to school at
night and that vanishes.

2) $25k x 4 is both high and low. It's low for 4 years at an expensive school,
it is high for compared to going to a community college for 2 years and then
graduating from more expensive 4 year place. My girlfriend went to a state
school for a year and then a private school for 3, she definitely saved $15k
in one year. That wasn't the plan at the outset but it was a result of the
path she took.

3) 8% is way too high of an interest rate. Our loans are between 2 and 6.8%.
I'm paying down the 6.8% fast, but at 2 or 3% it's almost free money once you
include inflation and the tax rebate.

4) It shouldn't take 10 years to pay back

5) If you are making $25k and living outside of your parents house, you have
no money left over to invest. Frankly the difference between $25k and $55k is
the difference between sustaining yourself and building up wealth. No matter
how frugal you are, it's nearly impossible to get ahead on $25k a year.

~~~
padobson
All points taken, except 5). In major urban centers, $25k is too little to
save up. But in many other parts of the US (especially where I live in NE
Ohio), a single person could save a good amount making 25k a year. People
around here raise families on that.

------
rick_bc
Neither John McCarthy nor Dennis Ritchie was college dropout. Steve Job sort-
of was.

2 vs 1! Don't dropout!

------
vaksel
frankly I think dropping out is retarded.

1\. You get your food paid for, you get your housing paid for, you have 0
expenses.

2\. Schoolwork doesn't take up a lot of effort...hell you can throw it to the
wind, and coast by to get all Cs, and still graduate with a decent GPA...it
might not be stellar, but at least you'll have something to fall back on

3\. Dropping out is fine if you are profitable and the startup is paying for
itself. But if you are still at the idea stage, or aren't making serious
coin...then you are frankly an idiot for dropping out when you aren't ready.

4\. Startups are a case of hurry up and wait, you can launch, and 99% of the
chance, a month in, you'll be getting a few hundred hits a month. Don't throw
away your backup plan for nothing.

~~~
gnaritas
And where does this magical free food, housing, and lack of bills come from?

