
I barely graduated college, and that's okay - vikp
http://www.vikparuchuri.com/blog/i-barely-graduated-college/
======
brd
Is there any real take away here? Effectively it is "I floated through life
and got a few lucky breaks which led me into a relatively comfortable career
that I enjoy". I'm hard pressed to find something unique or interesting about
this long autobiographical read.

My story started out in a similar fashion:

I did terrible in HS, slept through most classes, aced most tests, and did no
homework. I finished with a 2.7 GPA. I decided early on it was okay for me to
go to community college because from there I could save money and still
transfer to a good school.

I deviated from the norm when I then focused on my career while going to
school, working for a consulting company at 18, then landing a job as an IT
security admin. I transferred to a state school because it was easy and cheap
and I had realized work experiences was far superior to college credentials.

I have since then had a mostly enjoyable and relatively lucrative career as a
programmer. The key take away from my story? Complete school because the piece
of paper is important but focus on work early if you want to stand out and get
ahead of the crowd.

~~~
vikp
I think the key takeaways that I take from it are (of course, I wrote it, so
ymmv):

If the system doesn't work for you, it doesn't mean you're not capable.

Follow your passions, not external dictates.

Try to get as many different perspectives on life as you can.

Coding is making credentialing and "proving" you can do something much easier.

As for luck, I have a bad habit of framing things as lucky, and to some extent
they are, but there was also hard work behind them.

You have an interesting story, thanks for sharing it.

~~~
wsxcde
Let me offer some (hopefully constructive) counterpoints:

> If the system doesn't work for you, it doesn't mean you're not capable.

Sure, but working with the system is a useful capability. Don't be lazy and
dismiss it as worthless just because you can't (or don't want to) figure it
out. I've made this mistake and regretted it.

> Follow your passions, not external dictates.

Following your passions is great, but doesn't always work out. Life is often
about finding a balance between something you really like doing and something
that society values enough to pay you for doing it.

> Try to get as many different perspectives on life as you can.

Yes, of course, but the challenge is weighing these perspectives
appropriately. Everybody's perspective is right from some particular
viewpoint, the trouble is figuring out what that viewpoint is, whether it
applies to you.

> Coding is making credentialing and "proving" you can do something much
> easier.

Completely agree.

> As for luck, I have a bad habit of framing things as lucky, and to some
> extent they are, but there was also hard work behind them.

Sure, you always need some hard work and talent to succeed but it's often not
sufficient, and luck is sometimes the necessary component that makes the
difference.

ed: One last meta point that occurred to me was that you became successful
when you took charge of your career. When you were just doing what others told
you, you seemed both unhappy and underperforming. The lesson I would take is
that we all need to take responsibility for our happiness and success.
Sometimes this means introspecting and figuring out what we ought to be doing
and not just drifting around listening to what we're told by society, our
peers or parents.

------
trevdarc
One thing I'm told has changed about the U.S. educational system over the last
20 years is that the amount of individual mentorship that students receive has
strongly declined.

When I transitioned into graduate school, one big surprise was that school
actually became easier in several senses: \- I had a clear role model (mentor)
\- I had several good sounding boards for ideas (professors had more time for
me than for undergrads, and graduate students were also closer friends) \-
More frequent communication with professors translated to better grades (if
they're aware of your thought processes, they can more clearly understand how
to interpret your work).

As a result, I felt much more involved in the work I was doing. That feeling
of involvement made me more invested (and more confident) in my work.

I know that some colleges are working on programs to supplement mentorship and
structure, and are finding great success. For example, in the ASAP program
([http://www1.cuny.edu/sites/asap/](http://www1.cuny.edu/sites/asap/)), the
graduation rate is more than three times the national three-year graduation
rate of 16% for urban community colleges. It would be interesting to see
whether life outcomes ("success") are any different for people who go through
this program.

------
onhopwood
I personally loved this article because it lets others in the same situation
know some risks that other people took to reach their ideal career.

I remember graduating college with a 2.9 but that's after being put on
academic probation twice because i was burning the candle at both ends.
Meaning i was working two jobs to pay for school, but was so tired I didn't do
well in school. Not until 2+ years in the military did I start prioritizing
what needed to be done. My GPA still wasn't high enough to show my worth, but
i was happy with what i accomplished and knew what I can do. This was only a
year ago, so I'm still not near my dream career, but my GPA won't stop me.
Just one thing checked off on my checklist

I realize after graduating that I only wanted to finish school at the time
because of society told me i couldn't have a career unless I did. So instead
of going to school for education and learning i just went through the motions.

The basic thing i got from this article was just his willing to share what he
went through. It might empower others to purse what they love or not, but one
can't be scared to take a risk because you are scared of failure or consider
yourself unworthy.

------
lectrick
I'll put it this way- My first job out of college was one of the few that DID
NOT want my GPA, and I ended up doing awesome, I'm fairly successful now.

~~~
ing33k
is it related to programming ?

~~~
lectrick
Absolutely. Startup developer :) I am (mostly) self-taught.

------
yardie
Hi Vik, you seem like a younger version of me. I worked QC testing in an
electronics factory between semesters. I graduated with a 2.1 GPA in the
middle of the recession. I took whatever job I could find. Work didn't pay
much but they did send me travelling.

In 2005 I applied to the foreign service as well. Instead of going to the
second interview I bought a last minute ticket and flew to Europe. After
traveling throughout Europe I based myself in France where I've been pretty
successful.

The point being is all I had was my hard work and moxy to help me get by. All
those rejection letters (sometimes not even that) had only emboldened me to
prove my capabilities. I wasn't going to let my GPA be my only defining value.

~~~
vikp
Thanks for sharing! Interesting how we went through a lot of similar steps.
I'm glad things worked out well.

------
cm2012
For myself - while in college for statistics, I focused much more on my side
jobs (in business and marketing) than college. I stopped going about a year
and a half ago with a semester left, simply because the job opportunities got
so good (opportunity/sanity cost of going to school was outweighed by
fulfillment/high salary/career track of working more).

Eventually, I suppose I'll take night classes and finish college. But its
quite low on my priority list. My work experience during college was by far
more valuable to my career than the actual college education (which I thought
was great, too).

------
blackbagboys
I'm a little curious as to how he managed to kind of waft into the Foreign
Service so easily. I have much stronger academic credentials, foreign language
skills, and relevant work experience, and I spent years and years trying to
get in to no avail, despite aceing the required tests each time.

I suppose its just down to fate, and I'm glad he found something he loved
doing, but man, it's disheartening to read about someone casually walking into
your dream job and just as casually walking away.

~~~
vikp
I didn't see this post pre-edit, so I'll assume that it wasn't too bad. If you
were suggesting some kind of affirmative action (as someone hinted), then that
really wasn't the case.

The reason I applied to the Foreign Service is because it is a meritocracy. It
all came down to how you did on the test, and later the interviews/case
studies.

It's unfortunate that it's your dream job and you didn't get it, and I
sympathize, but the Foreign Service admission process is one of the most
transparent ones I've seen. The first step is passing a test, and anyone above
a certain threshold moves to the next step. There are more tests, and anyone
above those thresholds gets on the list to be accepted.

~~~
blackbagboys
This is actually not the case; you take the first-round test, and then if if
you pass you submit a resume into a black box (the 'Qualifications Evaluations
Panel') which evaluates your qualifications 'holistically' and then you are
invited to the interview round. It's quite possible to achieve the highest
possible marks on the test and never be invited to the final round, as I can
attest.

Perhaps the system was different when you applied in 2008.

~~~
vikp
When I applied, you took the test. If you passed the test, you then had to go
online and submit ~10 short essays. If you passed that, you went on to the
oral assessments. There may have been a resume component involved when you
submitted the short essays.

------
Phlow
My story is similar to this. I, too, did poorly in school. There were so many
things working against me. I was constantly too tired in the mornings for my
brain to function, so I missed important concepts. Or, the pace of learning
was too slow, and my brain wanted to run with it. Or, the content was missing
important piece of information that help my brain connect the dots. My brain
doesn't assimilate information well when it's forced to take it for fact
without answering supporting questions.

The school system is not made for people like me, and we as a society are
absolutely terrible at guiding people into careers they would excel at. I'm
lucky that I guided myself to software development. Many others are not so
lucky.

One day, we'll figure out how to guide people to where they can excel, and
when that happens we'll be much better off as a society (post-scarcity, Star
Trek future).

------
nsxwolf
I also experienced a letter of anti-recommendation from a school administrator
once, which by total chance my mother intercepted and prevented from being
sent (and gave the woman quite an earful). Reading that detail makes me wonder
if this is actually a common practice.

Stunning to me that someone would think to do that to a kid.

~~~
enraged_camel
I'm not a lawyer, but it sounds risky from a legal perspective. People can sue
companies for giving them a bad reference, so can they not also sue schools
for these "letters of anti-recommendation"?

~~~
bradleyjg
The sophisticated version is to damn with faint praise. I imagine it is far
more common.

------
dgomez1092
I enjoyed reading your story, thanks for sharing. As for brd's comment just
disregard it. His generalization just means he's unwilling to get a deeper
understanding of where you are coming from. Thanks again.

------
dgomez1092
I enjoyed reading your story, as for brd below, diregard him. You published
your own words and he shouldn't be criticizing and generalizing your journey
to date> Thanks for sharing.

------
advicepleasehn
I need advice. Excuse me for how disorganized this all is, I'm just typing.
I'd like you guys to give it to me straight, tell me if I'm being a spoiled
brat who needs to grow up, or tell me if I should follow what seems right to
me. I've made a throw away because I don't want this tied to my name, and my
main account is my full name.

I'm not doing well in college. I just came from a midterm that I almost
certainly failed. I've not done well in any of my classes besides a bullshit
social science course that anyone can do well in. In my real courses,
statistics, calculus, and a theory CS course, I'm failing desperately. I don't
go to class anymore.

I can recognize that it's entirely my maturity and work ethic that is the
problem here. When I do find myself going to class, I comprehend fully. I
don't find it hard to catch up, even. When I leave class, I don't do homework
and I don't study.

This is the first time I'm admitting it to myself, but I don't believe I can
succeed in this system. I don't know if I'm lying to myself when I say I love
learning, or if I'm just much more subpar than I'm willing to recognize.

It's not that I'm an unmotivated individual, it's just that I've always been a
self-learner. I hate this whole system of, go to a class for 50 minutes and
study a subject, spend an hour later in the day doing some homework in the
same subject, and maybe do this every other day. When I learn, I'm much better
at spending 10 hours really consuming the material, flying through chapters,
and then doing that for 5-6 days in a row. Formal education doesn't cater to
me in this regard.

I love to program. The few hours in the day that I'm happy are when I'm
reading mailing lists and and working on personal projects. I truly believe
that if I was to drop out, I wouldn't waste my time doing anything else. I'd
be able to really embrace the style of learning that works best for me.

I think that a few years from now I would find myself more prepared for the
real world than most of my friends, although, I think they would similarly
find that they have an easier time finding work than I. But that doesn't worry
me a ton.

I've watched my father be an EE for his whole life, programming and managing
for a boring company that makes controllers. I don't want to enter that
ecosystem _at all_. I have watched him hate his life in exchange for a
paycheck, and I'd like to opt out from that system entirely. What best fits
that? The market for full stack engineers / web developers / app developers.
And alternatively, the start up scene.

I wonder if the reason I'm involved with coding at all is because it caters so
much to my preferred style of learning. Maybe that's why I latched onto it so
hard in late middle school.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Let me know what you guys think I should do, or if
there are any questions you think I should pose to myself to really figure
this out.

~~~
sliverstorm
_It 's not that I'm an unmotivated individual, it's just that I've always been
a self-learner._

Maybe _this_ is where you are fooling yourself. College was originally
_designed_ for self-learners. The most successful engineers I've seen are the
ones who are busy learning on their own, plus going to classes "on the side"
to supplement their own exploration with a bit of formal rigor. You are
standing in the middle of a bounty of resources for learning- forget about
classes, why aren't you seizing that opportunity to learn on your own from the
wealth of brilliant people & resources?

If you were falling behind and missing classes because you were so busy
learning something just as good, that's one thing. But if you are falling
behind and missing classes and not really doing much learning on your own
either, to say "I'm a motivated learner who the school just doesn't cater to"
is misleading yourself. If you are a motivated learner, _you would be out
there learning_ , as there is no better place to learn regardless the class
structure.

Does that mean you are a talentless hack? No. Looking at my own history, what
it means is you are lying _to yourself_ (which is the worst kind of lie)
because you don't want to put in the hard work. Once you can see through that
self-deception, you can get back on track.

~~~
advicepleasehn
This is exactly what I need to hear.

Thank you.

------
anthonymartinez
neat story, but i'm more fascinated on how he got into the foreign service-
something that is arguably more difficult to get into then med school.

------
blakeja
Thank you for posting this.

------
lookingup
He did graduate, though. That little sheepskin may seem only like a small
thing, but the difference between having it and not having it should not be
underestimated. He also had parental support, which, until you live without it
- in the US, it's many people's "safety net of first resort" \- you just
cannot imagine the benefits it gives you. You can fail in all sorts of ways
and still come back - you have a place to lay your head when it comes down to
it, and that counts for a lot. The difference between that and thinking "hm,
homelessness actually possible!" is so stark it's hard to overstate. The
poster "floated by" and is doing great; I can share some experiences on what
it's like on the opposite end of the spectrum.

I didn't go to college because I had to leave home early (was told I had to be
out at 16, was out by 17) to support myself, and received no parental support
when I left. I did, however, manage to work myself from a tech support hamster
at 17 to sysadmin, then junior developer, then finally senior developer. I
never lacked for work, and have made OK, but not amazing money. That all
sounds great, but it comes with serious costs, especially if you're just
"decent" or "pretty good." Here are my experiences:

\- You're probably going to have to work 2-3x as hard as an equivalently
skilled person to prove that you deserve to be there.

\- You may have to deal with much lower raises, or deal with simply being
passed up for them altogether. This one can be more subtle, so can be hard to
prove. So, you may be picked for the challenging work, asked to lead teams,
told you're the best on the team by the boss(es), and receive the company
awards, but when it comes to raise time, you wonder why you just went from 80
to 85k, and the people below you in rank went from 80 to 110 (and aren't happy
with that and leave anyway. Heh.) This one sucks the most, because it's the
one you have the least control over, and will ultimately impact the number of
choices available to you later on.

\- You may experience another subtle thing. This: "we know you're good, but
you don't have a degree, so we believe you're less likely to leave because the
hoops for you to change jobs is higher, so we can ask you for more than your
degreed peers - and we're probably right about it." You will be the person on-
call more often (if that applies to you - sysadmin/devops), you will be
"expected" to stay later, and just generally push harder to prove yourself.

\- You're going to spend a LOT of your free time teaching yourself knew
things, honing your skills, and brushing up on the theory you _never learned
in a setting that allowed you to immerse_. Now, maybe you have superior
learning capabilities and can just sponge this stuff up in just a couple of
your after-work learning sessions, but I don't think it's a stretch to say
that for those of us who aren't, we spend a lot of time making them stick over
the years. Now, we know that everyone needs to do this stuff these days, and
that it's becoming more necessary every day. No question about it. However,
you will have to do it _even more_ to make sure you're at the top of _your_
game. You may have annoying gaps in your knowledge, and will have to go back
(in some cases, WAY back) to fill that stuff in. (Now that there's
Khan/Udacity/MIT OCW/others, this is actually a LOT easier to do.) If you're
only decent/pretty good, you're going to have run significantly faster to stay
in place. Forget most of your social life. Again, this does not apply to you
if you happen to just be an superhumanly fast learner, but for the
decent/pretty good, it probably does.

\- Culturally, your degreed peers may have some trouble adjusting to you. Of
course this happens at every level (people who went to state school treated
differently than those who went to a top university, for example), but you'll
be the strangest of the bunch. People may wonder if you know anything at
all(!), not just about your field (which is easy enough to prove), but about
the world around you: politics, economics, sociology, literature, the lot of
it. Sometimes you may be looked at as a strange feral orphan child. They just
may not even have a baseline for what to expect from you. The software
world(s) may be more meritocratic and/or egalitarian, but it's not utopia.
Now, this sounds /all/ bad, but I actually have always liked this one; if you
are a dedicated self-learner, you can blow people away pretty easily. They
expect you to not be able to tie your shoes, but then you rattle off your
knowledge X, Y, and Z and show them your elegant, well-structured code and
they are agape. This one is fun!

\- Remember that the degree acts as a proxy. It's a way for organizations to
outsource not only judgment about your knowledge, but your socio-economic
background (in most cases), your "level of socialization", your ability to
"follow-through" (and your personal story about how you had to leave home
early and support yourself alone and spend all your free time learning
unfortunately will not count in many/most places. Sorry!), and how
"convincing" you are. You may not be listened to (even if you turn out to be
right, at least for a time), your opinions may be given less weight, people
may feel more comfortable cutting you off when you're talking, etc. This one
can be surmounted: if you are right enough times when others are wrong you may
start be taken _very_ seriously. Still, the bar is higher for you. Much
higher. This one is probably obvious, but is worth stating.

\- You may have to content yourself with smaller and/or less-respected
organizations. I know, I know meritocracy, etc. If you're amazing, you can
most certainly get into Google and friends, but again, if you're only
decent/pretty good, you /probably/ won't. For those of you who have ever
wondered "who works /would want to work at crappy place X?", it's not just CS
grads who couldn't hack it at Google or the 'printer guy' who got promoted to
LOB programming. Sometimes it's smart, pretty good devs who are either just
short of what's needed for the bigger players or are incredibly intimidated by
the interview processes/hiring filters. It's funny to think that these places
are (based on comments I've read here on HN) inundated with resumes from
people who are nowhere even close to qualified, but people who _are_
qualified, or at least could be with some knowledge gaps filled in/"senior-
level" mentoring don't even apply in the first place. Doesn't surprise me that
something like Starfighters now exists to (maybe?) try to reach these people
and mop them up. I would also say that you can be _very_ valued at startups.
You may be one of those great "get things off the ground" people, like many
self-starters, and if you are, your metaphorical phone will ring a lot. I
wouldn't say it evens things out, but it sure helps (and feels good to be real
a go-to person!)

\- Unless you really are one of the best, expect to always be questioned. You
probably will need to psych yourself up a lot, because it's very easy to get
disheartened and discouraged when you feel like you're never quite good
enough/people are always going to assume there's "a lot he/she probably just
doesn't know if we're honest" (even if you have been working for decades and
proven yourself with real work)/you don't ever quite fit in culturally because
you've never had the "college experience." You need to be tougher
(psychologically) than your degreed peers, because you will have to work much
harder to earn respect.

So this person floated, others swim upstream to get to where he is. It can be
done for people without degrees, but it actually is hard. You really can't
imagine what that little piece of paper - even if you just "barely" earned it
- can do you for you. It's not just about getting hired.

"I’m already starting to see some really smart high schoolers skip college to
get into the workforce because they know what they want, and good for them."

If these "smart high schoolers" have the ability to have someone else pay for
their education, I recommend that they go to school. If they have Zuckerberg-
parent level of support or are already mindblowingly skilled/knowledgeable,
OK, sure, don't bother. They're probably going to succeed no matter what. If
they are on the margin, though - parents wealthy enough to send them to a real
university, but not wealthy enough to Zuck them, tell them to go instead. Or
at least work for a couple of years, then go back. If someone gave me a few
hundred thousand to go to a great university, I'd still go in a heartbeat. You
cannot replace the _quality_ of networks you'll get there. You cannot replace
the _immersion._ You cannot replace the _prestige._ You just can't. The magic
of university is being surrounded by "brilliant, ambitious, well-connected
elites." I'm probably right in the sweet spot of the target of today's
alternative education: I couldn't go to college, I'm a regular user of MOOCs,
I do self-directed learning, I'm a devourer of books, I'm someone who does
coding challenges, I'm fairly smart, AND I've managed some level of success,
which proves it's possible, and yet I would _still_ tell these people to go to
college.

------
Dewie
tl;dr: all is well that ends well.

It seems we only hear from those who did poorly in school that also bounced
back and became successful later. I guess those that didn't don't have much
incentive to telegraph their presence and their achievements (or rather lack
thereof).

~~~
vikp
I debated whether or not to write this because, as I mentioned, I have a large
degree of impostor syndrome because of my experiences. It's hard to define
what "successful" is.

The process of "bouncing back" is also a process of slowly gaining confidence.
I'm not sure I would have been able to write this a year or two ago. It's
unfortunate that both sides of the issue aren't explored, but that may be due
to the confidence problem.

~~~
Dewie
> I debated whether or not to write this because, as I mentioned, I have a
> large degree of impostor syndrome because of my experiences.

I don't know if you need to feel like an imposter considering you sound like a
typical programmer type.

Just keep flaunting your stuff. It's the modern hacker way.

------
jes5199
life advice from people under thirty

~~~
iamcurious
Does that make it more or less relevant?

~~~
Lawtonfogle
Depends upon what it is about. For example, listening to 30 year olds about
college is probably more relevant than listening to 50 year olds, because
things changed in that 20 years between when they went to college and many of
the lessons and struggles are fresher in the minds of the 30 year olds. On the
other hand, I'd give more weight to marriage advice from a 50 year old who has
been married for 25 years compared to a 30 year old married for 5.

