
College was my biggest mistake   - sachitgupta
http://stevecorona.com/college-was-my-biggest-mistake
======
jmduke
Most articles and comments about higher education commit the gravest sin of
thought: they assume what is right for one person (namely, the author) must be
right for everyone.

I'm enrolled in a public institution pursuing a double major, working two jobs
because I'm also middle class. I have a good -- not great -- GPA, and I get to
do amazing and interesting things every day; I got into programming after
volunteering with a CS major -- I learned about HN, ironically, from my
Finance professor. After drudging through a K-12 curricula which routinely
belittled the entire point of academia, I get to be surrounded by people who
are just as hungry and passionate and brilliant as I am (often, they're more
so.) It's unequivocally been the best three years of my life.

A lot of people are realizing college isn't a universal gateway to a better
life, and that's good -- I don't particularly think it was meant to be one.
I'm happy that the author made his way.

"College was my biggest mistake?" I'm glad you got out, then. But it sure as
hell isn't mine.

~~~
aik
I'm glad this has been said -- this is very true.

I have two comments:

>> "College was my biggest mistake?" ...it sure as hell isn't mine.

How do you know it's not yours? Or rather, how can you be so sure? Firstly,
opportunity cost is an impossible thing to calculate with certainty,
especially when dealing with something so incredibly costly both in terms of
time and money.

If you find yourself reasonably discerning, and learning efficiently what you
are out to learn, and enjoying it and life, then great, you're likely in a
good place.

"Double majoring", having an OK GPA, working two jobs and being middle class
-- these all say absolutely nothing about whether you're making a mistake or
not.

>> I get to be surrounded by people who are just as hungry and passionate and
brilliant as I am (often, they're more so.)

Now that means a lot, and congrats for finding a place that has such an
unusual but hugely beneficial atmosphere!

~~~
sp332
The job lead I got from my college advisor _alone_ was worth the opportunity
cost. And the humanities classes opened my mind up in ways wikipedia just
can't dream of.

~~~
aik
Yeah that's exactly the part that is so hard to quantify -- the liberal arts
component. The purpose of all gen eds is basically to "open your mind", ie. to
refine you as a human being. But what high school student goes to college for
this purpose? Or a better question, what high school student truly knows that,
or understands what that means? The only thing ever discussed seems to be how
job-ready you are at graduation time.

~~~
lsc
I love how so many liberals that would never dream of insulting someone for
being poor have this attitude that if you didn't go to college, you are some
kind of uncultured hick. Somehow beneath all those baristas with hundreds of
thousands of dollars of college debt.

>The only thing ever discussed seems to be how job-ready you are at graduation
time.

This is the opposite of what I saw before the recession. Maybe I am hanging
out with wealthier people than you are? or maybe you are just too young to
remember a time before the recession. I don't know. As far as I can tell, at
least until the recession hit, considering how much money you'd make when you
got out of college was considered extremely déclassé. College was all about
finding yourself and becoming a better-educated person. Only the uneducated,
uncouth hicks actually thought about money. How gauche!

Of course, now with the recession on, a whole lot more people find it
impossible to pretend to not be poor, and actually taking steps to see to it
that you can feed yourself later in life are gaining some social acceptance.

Personally, I'd say that I learned a very similar lesson to the barista when I
bought a BMW during the first dot-com. You see, pretending to be rich is
really expensive.

~~~
Crake
Yeah, I tried to warn my friends, but they all looked down on the idea. Now
that they're out of college, most of them are working retail. They have no
idea how much they owe or when it might be paid off--math is scary, so they
just defer and defer and make the minimum payment when necessary.

Of course, given their relative inability to comprehend fiscal realities,
almost all of them live with their parents. Any free money they have they
immediately blow on unnecessary things (trips, designer clothing, etc) instead
of even trying to get out from under their loan debt.

I really hope that people come around some day, because I'm really sick of
people treating me like shit for actually getting a worthwhile degree that'll
lead to a career that can pay the bills. Not all of us have parents we can
move back in with, you know? But even that concept is offensive to them.

People spending money they don't have on useless status signifiers just pisses
me off. So irresponsible.

~~~
lsc
>I'm really sick of people treating me like shit for actually getting a
worthwhile degree that'll lead to a career that can pay the bills.

you've gotta choose your friends and your peers. I'm not saying you should
always insist on friends that accept you for who you are, it can be good to
have peers that challenge you, but you need friends that would admire you if
you became the person you want to be.

A whole lot of the misery of my younger life can be traced back to that. It's
not fun to be in a situation where you have to lower yourself in your own eyes
to raise yourself in the eyes of your peers.

>People spending money they don't have on useless status signifiers just
pisses me off. So irresponsible.

but... that's a lesson that needs to be learned through experience. Really,
that's a big part of why I think the fact you can't get out of student loans
the usual way is such a big problem; I mean, when I was that age, making my
own stupid decisions, no bank would be idiotic to loan me hundreds of
thousands of dollars. And if they were, I'd have ended up bankrupt and the
bank would have had to take the hit, as they should, for making such a
boneheaded loan.

~~~
Crake
>It's not fun to be in a situation where you have to lower yourself in your
own eyes to raise yourself in the eyes of your peers.

That's exactly how I feel all of the time. If I am who I am around normal
people, they get all insecure about their intelligence. Technical people tend
to accept me and make me feel so at home it's amazing, but they're a very
small minority of the population where I'm at compared to the non-tech savvy.
I wish I could learn how to interface with normal people better without
compromising my identity and interests.

~~~
lsc
I think I've been there. My advice? put more effort into finding more of the
sort of people you want to be around. You might need to move, too, but moving
alone won't do it. The key is to initiate relationships. It's better (well,
better for you) to be loud and slightly annoying than to be so quiet you don't
have a chance of initiating relationships with people you meet. (I mean, by
all means, desist when people tell you to go away. But don't be afraid of
embarrassing yourself by initiating a conversation with a stranger.)

The thing is, most nerds (and most of the people that nerds get along with)
are kinda introverted. Introverted people tend to not initiate new
relationships. If you wait around for other people to initiate relationships,
you will only be able to choose among the extroverts that like you, so
practice going out of your way to initiate contact with people you think you
might get along with. You don't have to be an extrovert; but you do have to
initiate conversations, extrovert-style, at least until you find your group.

Moving to an area with more of your target person type helps a lot, too. I
mean, I meet all sorts of interesting people, for instance, waiting in line
for BBQ. Living in a higher-density area gives you more people to meet, and
some high density areas have more of us than others. I'm in silicon valley,
which is medium density, but you can't swing a cat without hitting a
programmer.

If you are like me, learning to better interface with 'normal people' won't
solve the problem. In fact, I suspect the real problem is that I see 'normal
people' and I see 'my people' - but I haven't been able to overcome that.

~~~
Crake
Thank you very much for your advice.

------
dinkumthinkum
Oh come on. I just feel like this is another in a series of "let's indict
education" posts. I take issue with everything in here.

$44,000 a year for tuition, why? Why did you choose that school if you had no
intention of studying? You can teach yourself more in an afternoon than in a
10-week class? Really, let's prove it. I want to see it.

You made basically all Fs but yet you can teach yourself more in an afternoon
... because you're better than others or something?

You happen to have chosen a field in which it is very easy to make a modest
income, $60K, without actually having very much knowledge (not saying you
didn't have _x_ knowledge).

I mean, sure anyone that is not slobbering on themselves can probably follow a
RoR YouTube and make a blog engine and then know enough to convince _someone_
to pay them >$50K. I don't know how long this is going to last though. But
this is not much a real recipe for success in my opinion.

The idea that everyone can just teach themselves everything and that no one is
actually learning any _content_ in college, at best they are just learning
"life skills" is just completely ridiculous.

I don't know, not to make another anecdote and I don't have hard data, but I
have probably "self-taught" a lot more subjects than most that claim actually
have and I wouldn't say I didn't learn any content from CS in college, not
even close. In fact, _I_ don't know any PhDs that would say they didn't learn
any content (not just this life skills stuff) in college; I think it is just a
fanciful notion and probably makes people feel better about themselves: "I'm
Srinivasa Ramanujan, I don't need college to teach me anything."

~~~
chmike
The autor is clearly talking of his own experience. He is not generalizing and
trying to convince everybody to drop out of college.

My experience is that after 5 years of professionnal activity college is not
relevant anymore as long as one kept learning and gaining experience.

It is what you've done and accomplished that will make the difference and get
you closer to success.

Beside 44k$/year + interests is far too expensive for what cellege gives you.
I fully agree with the OP. This puts you in the rat race from the start. It
will be very hard to get out of it. That's not a path to success.

The idea that a college degre is a step closer to success is plain wrong.

~~~
maigret
I am European, so I really don't get that. Why don't you try to make education
cheaper? Why are you taking it as granted that university must cost x 10000's
dollars a year? Out here outside of UK it is mostly around 1000 Eur _max_ a
year.

Having free higher ed changes the picture. When you are from a middle class
family it is your ticket to maintain or even climb the social ladder. Even if
for some people, the education content is less useful, then you get a huge
lots of social interactions that you don't get elsewhere, and probably not out
of a online learning offering.

~~~
ninguem2
European universities are cheap because they are government subsidized. The US
has state schools that, once upon a time, were partially subsidized and
cheaper, but not quite free. State governments have stopped giving money to
these universities forcing them to raise tuition. This is a political
decision, is what the voters want, even though it might not be in their best
interest. It would be nice to have low cost universities in the US but is not
going to happen in the near future.

~~~
peapicker
That's true... and at least in my area (Colorado/New Mexico) that cost for a
resident is currently between ~3.1k and 5.2k per semester, a far cry from the
22k per at RIT. And that is without scholarships. A full four years at that
price is about one year at the original article's cost at RIT.

Not free, but not outrageous.

------
krschultz
If you could teach yourself in an afternoon what was covered in a 10 week
class, then you probably wouldn't have failed out.

The same points I make on every post like this.

1) College isn't for everyone.

2) The 'I'm so smart that college was a waste of time' people should have just
gotten a scholarship and not paid for college. 5 out of the 5 schools I
officially applied to offered me scholarships. All were in the top 50 schools
for my chosen major (originally, aerospace engineering). If you are smart
enough that college is a waste of time, then you are also smart enough to not
have to pay for college.

3) Don't extrapolate the computer science major to others. There are better
books, tutorials, and online communities for hacking than seemingly any other
profession. Try to find the "O'Reilly Press" of aerospace engineering pumping
out 100 books a year on every imaginable topic - it just isn't happening. Same
for StackOverflow, HN, etc.

4) Don't extrapolate the software engineering profession to others. It's
normal for non-CS majors to be getting software engineering jobs. I personally
graduated with a mechanical engineering major and CS minor. I'm now working in
software engineering. The company I just left (where I worked as a mechanical
engineer) would never, ever, hire a computer science major to fill a
mechanical engineering job. The only three possible majors other than ME that
they would hire are math, physics, or aerospace engineering.

5) If you don't do well, college is a waste of time & money.

~~~
sunwooz
He didn't fail out because he's an idiot, he failed out because the classes
were mind-numbingly boring.

------
magicalist
Paying $44k a year to not go to any of your classes was indeed a big mistake.

I could tell you another story about how I decided to take on a stupid amount
of debt for school, but -- in the face of a lifetime of certain poverty -- the
people I grew to know and the projects I actively pursued and worked hard on
led me to a fulfilling life and a job that I love that covers my loans with
ease.

There is a point in this post somewhere: asking 18 year olds to decide whether
or not taking on crushing debt to attend classes they aren't sure they want to
take (or even which ones they should take) is not a great thing to bet our
economy and our children on. I don't really have an answer for communicating
to someone just leaving home that the amount of money they're paying isn't
worth it, though. Several people said it to me, but it was so abstract to me
it was easy not to care.

In any case, anecdotes can give us guidance in our own lives (and crucially,
they can provide us hope as we walk into an interview or open a late payment
notice from sallie mae), but they're a pretty poor decision basis if we're
aiming toward a societal optimum here.

~~~
warfangle
Should they have to acquire such burdening debt to come to this realization,
though?

~~~
jtmcmc
No, perhaps if education was better subsidized in the US they wouldn't have
to.

------
chasing
Sorry -- I don't like these kinds of posts. They just incite the same sort of
college-vs-no-college debate I've heard a million times. I think there's some
kind of "hacker" pride that makes people act as if not attending college is
"bucking the system" or circumventing some dumb thing the Man tells you that
you have to do in order to succeed. It's not.

One size doesn't fit all. If not going to college works better -- do that. If
going to college works better -- do that. I did both, sort of: I went to
college but studied literature and philosophy as an undergraduate while
working tech jobs to pay the bills. I loved my classes but also self-taught
myself the skills I used for work. And I got exposed to a lot of stuff that I
never would have learned if I had just worked and not taken those classes.
That worked for me.

I'm not sure what we're supposed to get out of some single anecdotal
experience that this guy didn't go to college and turned out okay. Except to
say: I'm happy that's the case! Self-education rules.

Also: Can we please stop acting like college _has_ to cost $44k/yr. It
doesn't. State schools. They rule. They're relatively cheap. If you're unsure
about college then, yes, going $200k in debt over something you're not sure
you want is dumb. Especially when there are cheaper options.

Thank you. Drive safe.

~~~
gorloth
I completely agree with the sentiment about high college costs, the state
school I went to cost ~44k for all four years, add in various scholarships
(some of which I got as I'm pretty sure I was the only person to apply for
them) and internships and I graduated college with no debt and more money than
I started. Going to college does not necessitate taking on crushing debt, it
just requires some extra legwork and picking a school that more fits your
budget.

------
suresk
Not getting a CS education was my biggest mistake.

I got most of a Finance degree, then dropped out when I ran out of money and
found out people would pay decent money to a relatively inexperienced
programmer. I'm happy with the way things have turned out for me career-wise -
I think I'm a pretty competent developer and have a decent income and good
future prospects - but I feel like there are opportunities that I'm much less
likely to be able to take advantage of because I've mostly learned things as
I've needed them.

Yes, I can (and am) independently learn everything you would in a CS program,
but it is much more difficult, and the piece of paper is sometimes useful,
too. Yes, plenty of folks get by without one, but I hope people don't get the
idea that because they can teach themselves to throw together a website, they
won't learn anything from a CS program - when I was 18, I had this idea that
CS degrees taught outdated and relatively useless information, which I now
believe to be false.

Even beyond the core CS curriculum, there are a lot of benefits to attending
college - I feel like I at least got some of those by completing most of a
degree.

It is certainly valid for some people to skip college, and that's fine, I just
hope that all of this anti-college sentiment we've seen recently isn't just
going to create another generation of people like me who regret thinking they
didn't need the formal CS education.

~~~
marknutter
I'm fine with anti-college sentiment as long as it's not anti-learning
sentiment. College and structured, traditional, classroom based learning works
for some people and it slows others down. All of the material learn in a CS
degree can't be learned independently outside of college. Any benefit college
gives to a person is going to be subjective and highly anecdotal, like
"professor interaction" or being around like-minded peers as though people
can't learn from others without being at college. Often times, if those
concepts are learned outside of college they are learned out of necessity and
immediately applied, rather than pushed to the back of one's mind on the off
chance they might come in handy sometime down the road.

The OP's beef wasn't with college - it was with the _false_ belief that
college is the only way to become successful in life.

~~~
slurgfest
I don't know that anyone says it is the "only" way. The real claim is that
college offers a significant advantage which it would be foolish to turn down.

Hard to say how most High School students would be able to accurately gauge
that college would be useless for them ahead of time, except if they already
couldn't handle academics.

~~~
marknutter
"The real claim is that college offers a significant advantage which it would
be foolish to turn down."

That sure makes it sound like it's the only way.

~~~
slurgfest
Of course not, because it is not implied that it is impossible to do without,
only that it is an advantage and that it is prudent to take all the advantages
you can afford.

------
rmk2
The most interesting thing about this is the feedback loop. These kind of
stories seem to strike a chord and in turn more people will post about this.

Yet the discussion always goes along the same lines. The problem is that all
of these are unavoidably anecdotal in nature and thus something that is
basically impossible to discuss.

Sure, it might have worked out for some and might not have worked out for
others. The problem is that everyone has their own experience with this, which
basically confirms or denies other anecdotal evidence.

These posts pop on HN a lot, yet I find them useless. Sure it worked out (or
didn't), but nobody is able to tell how things would have been if the poster
had stayed in college (or in other cases, if he had left college).

All these submissions seem to do is get the "anti-college" crowd on here
happy, giving them more anecdotal evidence that _really, see, all I ever said
is right because that dude had a similar experience_ while at the same time
bringing out everyone for whom college did do something to scream at those who
disagrees.

Repeat ad infinitum...

~~~
marknutter
I think these types of posts are becoming popular because we _all_ grew up
under the belief that college was the only way to become successful, and it's
becoming increasingly clear that not only is that not true, it can be harmful
in some cases. This is a big shift from the thinking of previous generations
and probably amplified by the current looming student loan crisis and poor
economy.

Yes, college works for some and not for others, but only recently has the
suggestion that maybe college isn't a golden ticket to success started to
sound pretty reasonable.

~~~
re_todd
I think you have a good point. I grew up never hearing anything negative about
college, only positive things. All the adults I knew, when I was young, who
went to college had nice houses, cars, vacations, etc. Then me and some
friends went to college, and many of us were not so fortunate. Bearing large
debt that keeps us close to poverty, seeing people that have almost half our
IQ, half our discipline, half our ethics making more money than us ... it was
a shockingly rude awakening. And when people have such a shift in thinking, we
are drawn to articles that try to explain and make sense of our shattered
perceptions (kind of like a Phillip K. Dick novel).

------
scottjad
_Classes didn’t hold my attention- I could teach myself more in an afternoon
than I would learn in a 10-week class._

If this were true then you would have spent four afternoons learning Calculus,
Business, Communications, and Databases, and another four afternoons showing
up for the finals, and you would have gotten a 3.0 instead of a 0.3.

~~~
marknutter
Provide those subjects could hold his/her attention, which is really the
qualifier there. OP taught themselves rails and bootstrapped themselves into a
$70k+ job in a matter of months. I'd say that took as much effort as passing a
few introductory courses in your average public college.

~~~
dinkumthinkum
Yeah but that's probably just a purely theoretical concept; let's be honest.
It's like saying "I could be Einstein or Newton if I just found physics
_interesting_." It's just kind of self-serving. I don't think learning RoR to
get a $60K job is that much effort. There are many "programmers" that make six
figures that don't know anything ... and then this is like something is unique
to our industry and may not hold for so long. I mean, good for him, no ill
will, but let's be honest.

------
hotshothenry
I feel like everything I read nowadays on this topic has had the tone of
"don't go to college it's a waste of time" etc etc. While I agree it's
definitely not for everybody, I don't agree with it being a waste of time or
that nobody should go to school (even if you're not pursue a career a
law/medicine/etc).

I have self-taught myself everything I've learned in software engineering,
beginning in middle school when I picked up a VB6 book. Then through high
school/college with some C++, Delphi, and then eventually moving to the LAMP
stack and beyond. Although even before getting into college I knew exactly
what I wanted to do (I was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug early in my high
school years) and knew college wasn't going to do much in helping me achieve
my dreams, I was still excited for those 4 years.

I wanted to have that college experience rather than looking back years later
in life and saying "man I wish I got to see what that was like." But more
importantly than the experience of college, I wanted to learn things I knew
I'd seldom get the chance to later on in life, such as philosophy, art,
history, astronomy, finance, theology, etc. While many argue that you can
learn those things on your own without having to go to college, and yes I
agree anyone can order an eBook or go to your locally library and pick up a
bunch of books on those various topics, but it won't be the same as getting
taught by a professor who has spent a great part of their life learning,
teaching, researching and working in those various fields.

My goals in life have been not only to be a successful entrepreneur and a
great engineer, but to also be a knowledgable man overall, one who is well
versed in a number of topics. And while college won't give you all of that in
4 years, it'll definitely help you get started on your journey.

~~~
sunwooz
I believe that going to college is worth it if you're being selectively taught
by the top 1%. The rest of the 99%? Forget about it-- you can learn more with
an internet connection.

~~~
GFKjunior
Yes I came in to say something similar. I would of absolutely loved to attend
MIT or Stanford but went a shoddy 3rd tier state school. All this talk about
research opportunities and connections with renown professors does not apply
to students in universities not in the top ~50. Modern universities are
extended high schools with more parties and social events than actual
studying.

I think if you can get into a Carnegie Melon or Harvard then you should
definitely attend, but there are over 2500 universities in the US. I, like
many others, did not have any direction in high school and ended up attending
a local state school where most of the professors were grad students more
preoccupied with their own course load than with their students being able to
understand the material.

~~~
UK-AL
Heh. Usually that criticism is even worse at higher ranked universities since
they're research focused.

Lower ranked ones tend to be teaching focussed.

------
danielrm26
I often wonder how many people who write these kinds of posts actually
benefitted greatly from college in ways they don't understand. For example,
most people who didn't go to college can't write a blog post like this one.

In short, I think most people who can write great posts about how college
didn't help them actually gained a lot of their most valuable (if intangible)
skills from their college experience.

~~~
tkahn6
> For example, most people who didn't go to college can't write a blog post
> like yours.

I'm fairly certain this has more to do with the average type of person that
doesn't go to college rather than any causal link between Freshman Composition
and good writing skills.

~~~
enjo
Do you really believe that a collegiate level composition class doesn't
improve writing skills at least a little bit?

~~~
tkahn6
That's somewhat of a straw man. I have no doubt it improves writing skills at
least a little bit on average. I contend that it doesn't make a difference in
any absolute sense.

I received AP credit and thus passed out of Freshman Composition so my
experience is slightly different. In my AP class, everyone's writing skills
improved but no one who was a bad writer became a good writer.

If you ask any author the most effective way to become a better writer they'll
tell you to read. Most people don't like to read and thus (I believe there is
a causal link here) most people are bad writers. It takes much more than two
semesters of Freshman Comp. to radically improve ones writing skills. Quality
writing is something that you internalize over many years.

~~~
Crake
Yeah, I agree with this. My English skills have always been top of the line
(99% on standardized tests, 5s on APs, etc), and I fully accredit this to the
fact that I have been reading CONSTANTLY since I was little. You have to
develop an ability to hear the written word inside your head as your eyes move
across the page--a lot of lower functioning people don't seem to have this, as
indicated by the bizarre sentence constructions they vomit all over their word
processor.

A knack for sentence flow isn't practiced, it is absorbed. Want to be a good
writer? You need a vocabulary to match. Those of us who acquired extensive
vocabularies through osmosis can tell when a lesser person has whipped out the
thesaurus in an attempt to sound "smart." (usually, the fancy words they try
to insert just end up hilariously misused, since they don't understand the
different shades of meaning attached to them. You can only get that through
observation of the word in its natural setting.)

As anecdata, I know someone with an English degree from our flagship state
school who can't manage to comprehend the difference between "its" and "it's,"
"your" and "you're," and routinely mangles grammar in a manner absolutely
horrifying even before you take into account the fact they studied English for
OVER FOUR YEARS and still never managed to grasp the proper use of the
possessive.

------
bithive123
It seems like most of the people who complain about college received poor
education or were not receptive to education in the first place.

College isn't for everyone but there are a great number of us whose lives have
been greatly enriched by our years at good liberal arts colleges. If you're
evaluating college through the lens of some kind of personal business plan
then it's not a clear win but if you care about the life of the mind there are
few substitutes to studying with your peers under passionate dedicated
professors.

Whether or not someone should go to *IT or get a CS degree so that they can
pursue a technical career is mostly a function of the person and their
capacity to engage in self-directed learning.

~~~
technology
+1

I live in asia and I'm a dropout. And now after some years of reading great
books I found on amazon and other courses from the teaching company, I regret
gotten a bad education. In my country the quality of teachers is not very
good, plus the teaching is not holistic. The books they use to teach is just
plain bad. The people you hang out with or befriend also influence your
attitude and worldview. I find here in my country bad schools and colleges
have students with either bad attitude or worldview. They were not smart.

Also I was also stuck in a kind of catch-22, I too had a bad worldview and
lived in a bad neighborhood which further got worse when I tried to hang with
not so smart people. How do you change yourself when your whole neighborhood
and peer group have weird beliefs and worldview, its like hanging out with
people from Afghanistan/Iraq or something.

It is my firm belief that everyone should study philosophy or humanities. Just
to learn critical thinking and "how to think" part of it, without it all the
other STEM subjects(science, tech, engineering, math) just doesn't connect
well. Checking the beliefs and assumptions you hold dear to yourself is very
important. Systems thinking is very important. Every subject interconnected to
each other. Plus the type of people you hang out with is very important.

------
ipince
"I could teach myself more in an afternoon than I would learn in a 10-week
class."

This is either outright bullshit, or your college was complete crap. Most
likely the former.

Don't do this. You think you're gaining respect or credibility, but in
actuality you're losing it.

~~~
luu
This thread is full of people who think this is impossible, but it's not. I
pretty much did that when I was in school, and I had about a 60% chance of an
A and a 30% chance of a B, according to my GPA.

I wasn't quite as quick as the poster -- the total amount of effort I put into
a course probably amounted to 2-3 days of work, including time spent in
classes and exams. But, I knew people who were easily an order of magnitude
more productive than I was; for them, it would have been an afternoon of work.
If you read quickly, you can finish reading a textbook in an afternoon. The
extra time I burned was the time it took to work through enough exercises to
convince myself that I really got the material. For some really easy classes,
I only had to do one exercise per section to convince myself that I knew it,
so it ended up being just one afternoon. There are plenty of people who are
smarter than I am, who could do every class that way. I don't know if the
writer of the original article is one of those people, but it doesn't sound
implausible to me.

Just for reference, I went to Wisconsin, which is approximately as rigorous as
RIT, and I double majored in math and computer engineering, which are both
comparable to CS. But, I graduated in three years and my tuition was a few
thousand a year, so the total was was easily covered by an engineering
internship. At a place like Wisconsin, you might as well stick around and get
the degree -- after all, it's only a month or two of total effort, and you can
easily make enough to cover the degree from doing internships, or working as
an RA on campus or even at Starbucks. If the price tag were $44k a year, I
probably would have dropped out, too.

~~~
dinkumthinkum
I'm just going to do what most people won't and just say I don't believe it.
Sure it is possible. But is it likely that you're the one? Now what you're
talking about is an _extreme outlier_.

I don't believe you spent 2 days worth work on a non-trivial course and
produce A or near A level work.

People are promoting this anti-college line with utter propaganda and lies.
It's one thing to debate whether college is for everyone ... But come on guys,
don't lie.

Now, yes I admit it is possible that you are like Ramanujan so I'm not going
to commit 100% to this, but I'm going to commit 99.999%

 _Even if it were true_ , your ability would be astronomically beyond the vast
majority of even highly educated people. Therefore, this would be the most
statistically insignificant data point ever, which makes me further question
this ability -- how could such an error be committed????

Why is this anti-college view of so many built on such a weird foundation?

~~~
easong
I don't really think this is as weird as you think it is. The key part is
"non-trivial." Speaking as a current university student, the vast majority
(>90%) of _required_ coursework is trivial and can be easily summed up within
a page or two of text per class. The ability to figure out what couple
paragraphs are going to be tested on and to regurgitate them on demand is
really all you need to get a passing grade for a significant percentage of
your college career. Figuring that out over a period of a few days doesn't
exactly require a superhuman effort, and is (in my experience) quite common.
Cramming isn't a new phenomenon, and computers make it significantly easier to
find a bunch of information and memorize it for a few days (before forgetting
everything.)

Of course, that is not to say that there are not courses that require greater
diligence - but they're often avoidable, and a student can compensate by
putting effort into those specific classes. Or simply cheating.

------
ek
I am currently receiving an education in computer science with the intent to
pursue a Ph.D. following graduation. I grow somewhat tired of all this anti-
college talk - at the bike shop a while back, the worker asked what I was
majoring in, I told him CS, and he asked if getting a college degree was
really worth it, as if he thought it wasn't. Yes, it's worth it if what you
plan to do is go to grad school or enter academia. It's worth it because it's
the only feasible way to do this. It's worth it because my current presence on
a university campus gives me opportunities for research and for invaluable
interactions with faculty and fellow students.

I understand that the backlash is mostly driven by the observation that
increasingly, people are pursuing expensive college degrees only to end up
working at Starbucks, simply because they have been made to believe that it is
in some way "the thing to do". But college is still worth it and a good idea
for a great many types of people, not the least of which are programmers (as
distinct from computer scientists). An education in CS is almost certainly one
of the best things someone who hopes to be a programmer can obtain.

~~~
dinkumthinkum
Why do Google, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, etc keep coming over to universities if
it's so outdated and useless. Why aren't they out on Tumblr or photo sharing
sites trying to work on problems and recruit? They could save a lot of money
on these plane trips by just looking at blogs! Don't they know any better? :)

~~~
viraptor
Actually they do. Write some interesting posts on tumblr, get it on LinkedIn,
get high score on stackoverflow and you'll see the google recruiters writing
to you at some point.

~~~
dinkumthinkum
Exactly, but the mystery is why they are wasting time at those useless
universities! :)

------
patdennis
_Success is sitting right infront of you._

But if he'd finished college, he'd know that "infront" is two words!

But in all honesty, I also dropped out of college and I agree with the
sentiment of this post wholeheartedly.

In fact, I might go a step further and say that the fear and uncertainty that
came with not having a degree actually pushed me to hustle harder than I think
I would've otherwise.

~~~
danielrm26
> In fact, I might go a step further and say that the fear and uncertainty
> that came with not having a degree actually pushed me to hustle harder than
> I think I would've otherwise.

Stress caused by feeling behind is not a strong endorsement in my opinion.

~~~
mattdeboard
How is this any different than going to college because you're afraid you
won't be able to get a job without a degree?

------
bradleyjg
It could be worse, you could have started law school circa 2006.

3 years completely wasted, vis-a-vis programming and arguably just about the
whole tech universe, $150,000 in tuition. After that you get a degree that
serves as an entrance to a profession that is extremely economically
depressed, near universally reviled, and the few jobs there are have terrible
working conditions and are filled with unhappy people.

Live, learn, and try and pass on some hard won lessons.

~~~
jbronn
As someone who started law school in 2005, this hits close to home -- and is
unfortunately true. Unless you were an engineer beforehand and went into IP
law, probably the only field in the profession that's still hiring now. But
then you'd end up writing patents, which sucks your soul and why I still work
in tech at a startup now.

This brings me to my new motto I tell those considering the profession: "law
school is never the answer."

------
amirmansour
Sounds like one lazy and irresponsible student to me. It's great that you made
it. More power to you for that. But why did you waste your money if you were
not gonna do the work? Doesn't matter how scared you were from your parents.
You dropped out and then decided to grow up. I'm a guy that does NOT believe
college is for everyone.

------
thmcmahon
The problem with this line of argument is that it is anecdotal. Yes, it’s
great that this guy has gone on to earn a lot of money, but that result is not
typical.

This is the data from Australia:

Over the working lifetime of a university graduate the financial gain
generated from income is more than $1.5 million or 70 per cent more than those
whose highest qualification is Year 12, even after taking into account the
foregone earnings of students while they study.
([http://www.youth.nsw.gov.au/__data/page/1165/whatpricethecle...](http://www.youth.nsw.gov.au/__data/page/1165/whatpricetheclevercountry.pdf))

Bruce Chapman, the designer of Australia's income contingent education loan
system, found that the Return on Investment of higher education in Australia
is between 10 and 6 per cent.
([http://vital.new.voced.edu.au/vital/access/services/Download...](http://vital.new.voced.edu.au/vital/access/services/Download/ngv:25834/SOURCE2))

~~~
pitt1980
different viewpoint on ROI calculations:

The average tuition cost is approximately $16,000 per year. Plus assume
another $10,000 in living costs, books, etc. $26,000 in total for a complete
cost of $104,000 in a 4 year period. Some people choose to go more expensive
by going to a private college and some people choose to go a little cheaper by
going public but this is an average. Also, a huge assumption is that its just
for a 4 year period. According to the Department of Education, only 54% of
undergraduates graduate within 6 years. So for the 46% that don’t graduate, or
take 10 years to graduate, this is a horrible investment. But lets assume your
children are in the brilliant first half who finish within six years (and
hopefully within four). Is it worth it? First, let’s look at it completely
from a monetary perspective. Over the course of a lifetime, according to
CollegeBoard, a college graduate can be expected to earn $800,000 more than
his counterpart that didn’t go to college. $800,000 is a big spread and it
could potentially separate the haves from the have-nots. But who has and who
doesn’t? If I took that $104,000 and I chose to invest it in a savings account
that had interest income of 5% per year I’d end up with an extra $1.4 million
dollars over a 50 year period. A full $600,000 more. That $600,000 is a lot of
extra money an 18 year old could look forward to in her retirement. I also
think the $800,000 quoted above is too high. Right now most motivated kids who
have the interest and resources to go to college think it’s the only way to go
if they want a good job. If those same kids decided to not go to college my
guess is they would quickly close the gap on that $800,000 spread. There are
other factors as well. I won’t be spending $104,000 per child when my
children, ages 10 and 7, decide to go to college. College costs have
historically gone up much faster than inflation. Since 1978, cost of living
has gone up three-fold. Medical costs, much to the horror of everyone in
Congress, has gone up six-fold. And college education has gone up a whopping
tenfold. This is beyond the housing bubble, the stock market bubble, any
bubble you can think of. So how can people afford college? Well, how has the
US consumer afforded anything? They borrow it, of course. The average student
now graduates with a $23,000 debt burden. Up from $13,000 12 years ago. Last
year, student borrowings totaled $75 billion, up 25% from the year before. If
students go on to graduate degrees such as law degrees they can see their debt
burden soar to $200,000 or more. And the easy borrowing convinces colleges
that they can raise prices even more.
<http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2010/02/dont-send-your-kids-to-...>.
<http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/01/10-more-reasons-why-par...>.
<http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/01/8-alternatives-to-colle...>.

------
calciphus
College was actually exactly what this guy needed. He found his passion,
discovered what did and did not work for him in terms of learning, and managed
to enter the job market at a time where people with his level of experience
and expertise could demand salary like what he has now. Offsetting a few years
in either direction and he likely would have entered the job market at a very
BAD time for people without college degrees.

"I'm in the middle of college but like work a lot better, I'll finish someday"
is very different than "I never went to college, and spent the last few years
making ends meat. I programed at home, and I'm great. Give me $100k."
Pretending those are the same is just intellectually dishonest.

If he thinks college was his biggest mistake and he's doing really well after
doing some college (and still trading on college acceptance/progress as part
of his contract negotiation), well that's just a poor understanding of cause
and effect.

~~~
sunwooz
A lot of people assume that college is this magical place where people find
their passions... People usually don't change too much and stick to their
passions well past highschool/college(meaning that they would've come to a
similar conclusion with or without college). Many people cite all these CEOs
and CTOs who left college and did amazing things, but these people are merely
finding out that they can't learn in a classroom setting(neither can i) and
pursued a different path.

------
leoedin
I studied aerospace engineering at college. I think it was great.

When faced with a large amount of work to do, it's easy to dismiss it. It's
not so easy to actually do it. When I realised that (unlike high school) I
actually had to do work to pass (and letting down extended family by failing
wasn't really an option), I managed to work out how to apply myself to things
that I didn't necessarily enjoy. Interestingly, when you actually apply
yourself to a course what once seemed like a pile of uninteresting work to
slog through starts to become interesting.

I've had plenty of courses that I wouldn't have learnt about myself. It's not
until you force yourself to spend a semester studying something that you
realise just how useful it can be in other areas of your life.

It was only really the last two years of my degree that I went from sort-of
enjoying it to truly enjoying it. Sometimes there's a bit of a slog to get
through before you can do interesting things. Engineering degrees (and
probably computer science degrees) are like that. You have to learn the (often
dull) basics before you learn the interesting things. The author makes the
mistake of assuming that their experience (one year of OK performance followed
by a year of not going to classes) is indicative of the college experience.
That's not necessarily true.

Beyond academics, I got so much out of college in many ways. The ability to
spend a year studying in another country, the wide range of people I met, the
opportunities that I had to work with lots of people on interesting projects.
College isn't just about going to classes and doing exams.

My degree didn't cost nearly as much as the authors one would have. I don't
think I would have paid $40,000/year for my degree. However, there's plenty of
options that don't cost that much that offer the same (or similar) teaching
experience. I completely agree that college isn't for everyone, but I don't
think the author really addresses why. What the article really says is that
they didn't apply themselves very well to hard topics that they weren't
interested in. Unfortunately not everything is instantly fun.

------
RealGeek
I commend Steve's effort and hard work.

I am a dropout; and we have recruited dropouts, engineering graduates, MBAs
and students pursuing a degree distance a learning program at our startup. The
best recruits were actually the distance learning students and dropouts by
far.

I always recommend young hackers to take a year or two off before going to
college and figure out what they want to do. For most jobs in Internet, a
University degree is hardly helpful.

In fact, you can actually learn more by working at start for a year than you
would learn in 4 years in college. An undergraduate programmer who can network
his way to a job can get salary similar to graduates. The only challenge will
be to network and demonstrate your skills because recruiters won't be selling
you.

~~~
danielrm26
I think even great programmers who get solid on-the-job training doing a
startup job will have major gaps as they progress. There is something to be
said for learning fundamentals.

~~~
RealGeek
Is there anything we can't learn from Internet?

Give a kid access to computer and Internet, and he will find his way out. This
was experimented with kids in Indian slums, who never went to school and can
not even read/write.

[http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/india/thestory.htm...](http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/india/thestory.html)

~~~
dinkumthinkum
Oh poppycock. This was Carnegie's line, only it was about libraries. Without
the Internet, libraries were there for everyone to use. How are kids that
can't read going ... Oh come on, can we stop with this "The Internet solves
all of our education problems" nonsense?

I know it is, because this well educated populace doesn't exist and yet the
Internet does.

I submit to you that there is very little you need to use the Internet to
learn and I also submit that by your reasoning about how easy it is for people
to learn then if if they were to purchase physical books, all they would need
would be the "canon" of Penguin Press books. But yet people have never done
this en masse or even in any significant other than ... wait for it ..
outliers. :)

So, basically, the whole view is just one big unproven naked assertion.

~~~
RealGeek
See
[http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_t...](http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html)
and
[http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/india/thestory.htm...](http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/india/thestory.html)

> How are kids that can't read going

A picture is worth a thousand words.

~~~
dinkumthinkum
No. :) That's interesting and wonderful but does not prove anything about this
discussion. I haven't watched the whole but I saw the description, learn to
use a PC. OK, there is a big difference between learning to use something and
that designed with "usability" in mind and learning CS, physics, chemistry,
law, medicine, whatever.

~~~
RealGeek
I learned most of what I know from Internet. Not just programming; but arts,
science, mathematics etc.

I agree, basic schooling is very important; there is no replacement for it.
College / University education is nice to have, but it is not must.

------
tsahyt
As a European I find that the sheer amount of money required to get higher
education in the US is absolutely crazy. In most (if not all) of Europe,
universities are paid from tax payers money and are basically free for all who
have the necessary qualification to attend them.

That shows though. I have the impression that you can make rather decent money
in the US without ever going to college but there's not a glimpse of hope for
you to do that in Europe. Without at least a minor in something you'll top out
at about 2.5k€/month (that's an annual salary of abour 35000$) being employed
anywhere. So, all in all, you're _expected_ to go to university.

Oh and btw, going to university was in fact a great idea for me, personally.

------
hnruss
$44k a year for tuition is ridiculous and entirely not worth it if your
primary goal is to get a job that does not require a college degree.

However, paying a reasonable amount for tuition with the goal of personal
enrichment and/or getting a job that requires a college degree is certainly
worth it.

As a current college student and part-time developer, I feel like college was
a great choice for me-- even though I could've landed a full-time programming
job without it. Although the curriculum can be monotonous at times, just
having the chance to talk and work with other computer science students on a
daily basis has been enlightening.

Yes, you can teach yourself programming-- but college can help (really!).

~~~
sunwooz
You can talk to smart people without having to go to college. If you live in
the city, you can attend a number of meetups chock full of ridiculously smart
people, some willing to teach you/work with you.

------
DIVx0
Going to college (as an adult) was by far the best thing I have ever done for
myself.

I already had a career and thought I knew it all but the experience of working
on theory and mixing in with some seriously smart people really pushed me to
places that I would never have gotten to on my own.

Also I owe much of my current success to the relationships I formed during my
time at university.

------
sunwooz
I'm in the same boat as the OP: I've been in school for 3 years but everything
I know comes from teaching myself. I dropped out and started teaching myself
rails/html/css and I'm currently looking for a programming gig(hopefully in a
startup). I agree with the OP's sentiment that you shouldn't go for a college
degree unless you're looking to work in something that requires
credibility(law, medical, etc) and I always tell Highschool graduates about
the many options they can pursue without having to waste money paying for a
diluted and meaningless education.

------
jval
This article is awesome.

If people don't want it to be advice, then don't take it as advice. It's just
another anecdote to put inside your little book of anecdotes.

The thing is, the OP is targeting his advice at people who are in similar
situations to him - people who know that university is moving too slowly, is
too expensive, and not right for them.

His advice clearly isn't prescriptive to everyone. It is worth noting his
circumstances. He may not have had the opportunity to attend a university that
stimulated him. Attending a State College may have been cheaper, but even
worse from a quality perspective.

Nobody knows. Point is, instead of judging the guy, why don't you read the
piece for what it is - a story about how, for some people (and an increasing
number of people at that), college is their biggest mistake. And you will
notice that the title reads 'College is _my_ biggest mistake' - not
necessarily _yours_.

ps Statistics about populations of people who don't graduate are useless, as
it clearly includes all sorts of idiots, drug addicts and fools who are on the
wrong side of the bell curve. Show me statistics on people who drop out of
degrees two years in to pursue entrepreneurial opportunities vs the graduating
population and I might pay attention.

------
kyberias
It's kinda sad that you have to pay that much for an education. In other
countries, for example in Scandinavia, higher education is free (with the cost
of higher taxes of course). Although, some people in IT still choose to skip
it. It shows.

------
FaceKicker
Not that this is a particularly insightful point, but I keep wondering, why
does it never come up in these discussions that college is FUN? Regardless of
its financial value or lack thereof, it really is an experience like no other.

~~~
Crake
Probably because many colleges cost like 200K nowadays. Fun's justifiable
maybe when you're graduating with, I don't know, 0-10K in debt, but at 200K
you've really gotta question whether or not it's worth it. A lot of people
have their four years of fun and then end up slaving away as indentured
servants to Sallie Mae for the rest of their lives.

~~~
FaceKicker
It really doesn't need to cost that much though. I wouldn't be surprised if
every state in the US has a public school that costs less than a quarter of
that. (and obviously college is much cheaper in every other country). To
clarify, I wasn't saying I thought that was the sole benefit of college - just
one that never seems to get mentioned.

~~~
Crake
In my state it's about $80,000 for all four years. (including tuition & room
and board--but not including where you live during the summer)

------
DigitalSea
As someone who failed every aspect of my education in high school with
exception for music, English and the boringly easy to pass computer classes
this resonates with me so much. I had always shared an interest in computers
and electronics as a kid, but never went to college or undertook any secondary
education whatsoever.

I went from having nothing to living comfortably and I'm still in my early
20's without a college education and don't plan on getting one. I work
alongside people who spent 4 to 6 years studying to work where they are now
and it feels nice knowing I didn't have to get in large amounts of debt to get
to the same place as they did.

You definitely need to be able to sell yourself though. Every employer I've
ever worked with has been impressed when I tell what got me into development
was building a gaming clan website for a Tony Hawks Underground 2 game clan
and I kept learning from then on.

This has inspired me to share my story which I'll write a blog post about
shortly as well.

------
will_work4tears
The only thing I feel I got from college is meeting my wife. Oh, well that and
85k in debt. I did graduate, with a 3.0, but the sentiment is the same.
College hasn't done anything for my career so far.

That said, the whole "I can learn more in one afternoon vs a semester" is just
dribble. Total BS. And turns me off to the whole message, sorry.

------
factorialboy
The real moral of the story: make most of the NOW.

You didn't do that in college, and failed.

You did that afterwards, and succeeded.

------
smsm42
In my experience, I almost never look into "education" part of the CV when
interviewing. I do ask questions which are taught in decent CS courses, but I
couldn't care less, if the answer is right, about where it came from. Degree
is just a piece of paper, it is knowledge and skills that matter.

I have a CS degree and I think it gave me a lot and helped a lot in my
professional advancement. However, this way of learning is not for everybody,
and I do see how somebody could have acquired the same knowledge and skills
without any formal framework. I probably could not - and I know that if I join
any formal framework, even free no-commitment one like Coursera - I learn much
more effectively than if I just try to do it by myself. But for many people it
is the opposite, and these people can be and often are more successful than I
am.

So formal education is _very_ useful - for some. For some it is not, so I
completely understand why OP thinks it was his biggest mistake and I think he
has made the right decision for him. I'd suggest him to try some free
education though - like Coursera or many other major colleges have now free
online course. You don't get the degree, but you do get the knowledge, and
that's IMHO much more valuable.

OTOH, the formal degree may also be usable for some big companies and some
other things (e.g. immigration, for those that want to live in different
country than they were born in) - but one can do without it too.

------
gruseom
The article seems to suppose that the purpose of education is a job. The
purpose of education is not a job.

------
technotony
If you want to hustle, create great internet products and live a creative
free, independent life then college and it's massive debt may not be right for
you.

But if you want a lower risk, stable life with good long term prospects then
college may not be such a bad idea.

One of the things college (actually my masters degree) taught me is that the
answer to most important questions is 'it depends'. There is no one size fits
all approach to most big decisions in life - that I think is wonderful because
it leads to such diversity.

------
egillie
Of course "find your passion and the rest will follow" works great if your
passion is for something that has a great market salary. What if your passion
is sculpturing, or gardening?

------
junto
For me personally, college wasn't about academic learning. It was about
personal growth and making a lot of mistakes (and learning from them).

Before university I programmed for the love of coding. My four years at
university ripped the programming soul out of me. A year after university I
regained that love again and started learning on the job as an apprentice
programmer.

Everything since then has been learnt off my own back, via the internet, or
from my peers and work colleagues.

Education, especially learning how to develop software applications, is not
taught well in traditional "red-brick" British universities. That may well
have changed since my days some 20 years ago, but back then it was all
theoretical lectures and very little practice. I was not inspired by anyone
nor aspired to become anything better during those four years (from an
academic perspective).

Don't get me wrong, university isn't a place where you get you should expect
to be hand held through your studies. Personal drive is absolutely required.
College isn't high school where you get hassled for your home work
submissions. However, good mentors and inspirational tutors would have made
the whole thing much more attractive.

That aside, there is one thing I have learnt that I would happily pass on; it
is to never assume someone that didn't go to college isn't as smart as you
are. I work with several very smart people. Regarding two in particular, one
went to Oxford and the other didn't go to university at all. Both amaze me
every day with their abilities to tackle hard technical problems.

------
wccrawford
I ended up paying $23k for a piece of paper that I'm pretty sure hasn't done
me any good. I learned a little, but not much, and I could have learned it on
my own anyhow. Most of it I already knew.

Yet I'm still not willing to say I wasted that time and money. There's still
some chance that it'll turn out to be really valuable, and getting through the
system helped with some of my issues with valuation of my own abilities.

When I eventually got a job, they didn't care about my paperwork. In fact, my
resume was worse than the other candidate's, and they said so. What got me the
job was the BrainBench tests they put me through. Without those, I would not
have gotten that first job. (Actually, it was the second, but the first was
rather non-traditional and _before_ college.)

Anyhow, I think the value of these anecdotes is to let people know that there
are alternatives to traditional education. It's not right for everyone, or
even most people, but you shouldn't feel railroaded into it. If you have the
skills to do the job already, you should _consider_ just going and getting a
job, instead.

------
evilissimo
I actually have never been in college nor in 'high school'. I have attended a
secondary school in germany and continued with being chef. Later I started
learning to program on my own, because computers have been always fascinating
to me, especially writing software. By the age of 24 I applied for a free
lance job. The company I have been working for has employed me after two
months and let go all other freelancers :D Now 6 years later I am team leader
in the development department of AVG Technologies. However now going to RedHat
to pursue new paths :)

I can second that it is not really necessary to have a degree in computer
science, maths or physics or anything to get a job. If you are good and you
show passion you might get a job easier than you might think :-)

A little advice to Recruiters/HR people: Stop filtering out people based on
their degrees, you're missing out on good opportunities by doing so.

------
ZanderEarth32
I am astounded at the cost of college, just some 10 years after I started
school. My first semester at a decent State university cost me something like
$900. I even had a scholarship for enough to cover that semester from doing
well on some standardized test. By the time I finished school a few years
later It was about $1700 a semester (maybe not exactly, but close to double).

I can't imagine paying $44k for a bachelors degree in any subject. If that
$44k only covers tuition, not books or cost of living, it is insane.

Why is going to a community college for the first one or two years of your
higher education experience never promoted? It gives you a chance to see if
you'll enjoy that 'college experience', you'll get to sit in a wide range of
classes or relatively little money and if you want to continue you can then
transfer out. I didn't take this path, but if I had to do it again I would.

------
silves89
The value of a university education does not principally lie in how much money
you can make afterwards. Many people go to university to learn, to build a
philosophy for life, to meet and engage with other engaged people.

But I paid orders of magnitude less so maybe that gives me the freedom to be
more contemplative.

------
SonicSoul
US college education is increasingly demanded even for middle class jobs. new
generations will have a tougher time landing decent gigs as even the
manufacturing jobs become more and more complex.

while software engineering is something that can be learned by reading a book
and hacking away at home until one can get through a jr programmer interview,
or maybe even pick up programming on your own to a higher degree, not everyone
can learn this way, and not lots of jobs will require formal training.

i don't like when this is painted in black and white colors .. i.e. "college
education is a waste of time and money" or.. "college education is a must" ..
but i do think it will be in higher demand as more jobs become high tech, and
we can't all be Steve Corona smart :)

------
lallysingh
Good God man.

I wasn't born in the US, but came over young. The whole college evaluation,
application, and selection process was one giant set of mysteries to me. Yet,
this is all about exactly those questions. At least I feel better, apparently
I could've done a _lot_ worse.

Cost - debt or opportunity cost of cash. Treat it as exactly that, a risk
you're taking for some expected gain. A high-ranked, expensive school is only
worth it if you're going to get something out of it. Your ability to withstand
debt (or cash burned) is runway you can use for other things. I'm sorry this
guy spent a mercedes benz on stuff he didn't want. But he shouldn't have spent
a mercedes benz. My highest undergrad tuition over 4 years was $4k (after
fees) per semester. Without a strong interest in a particular field that the
school's well-known for, I don't see why it's worth it. And if you're not
sure, there's always grad school. People tend to look only at the school of
your last degree.

Specialization - I can't understand how people choose majors without looking
_hard_ at the ease of getting a job in the field, the effort spent in the
degree, how much they like the topic, and the amount you can expect to make.
Somehow it turned into a "what's your calling?" question, which is an asshole
question to ask anyone, much less some poor 18 year old coming out of 12 years
of highly homogenizing k-12.

Frankly, if I had supreme fascist control over a school, departments with poor
(say, <85% after 3 months of searching) hiring likelihood should charge double
tuition, and require field-specific talent auditions like a good music school
to get in. Waivers if it's a second degree, or a written letter of intent to
go to law school after.

Finally, what happened to trade school? Les time, higher per-class-hour
relevance to the primary goal, and it's a job you can explain to your friends.
My CS dept had a 90% drop rate over 4 years (300 freshman, 30 graduating
seniors). A lot of those kids would've been happier in trade school, instead
of hopping over to business (or business IT). Paid at least as well, and with
less debt.

------
Knighty
There's something of a survivor bias to this story. That is to say, there are
probably a lot more people who drop out of college and don't amount to very
much. Those guys don't tend to shout from the rooftops very much. Which should
mean applying his approach, to college, for our own situations it might not
necessarily be wise.

Having said that, there are probably quite a lot of successful people who
didn't amount to much in college. And I think being a free-thinking, rebel,
hustler doesn't necessarily make a good student but might very well make a
good captain of business. But how cool would it be to have/be both?

But he's right, if it's not for you it doesn't necessarily mean you've failed.

------
knova
You people had to spend 100k+ on a college education to learn "humanities" and
how to be social?!? You don't think you would have "grown as a person" if you
hadn't gone to college?! This.is.horrifying. If you do anything Please do one
of the following: Talk to a real life person, visit a library, read a book
about something other than vampires, and most importantly- GET OUT AND SEE THE
WORLD! The author is challenging you to take a good look at your path in life
and make the best choice for YOU. He's not saying all of us degree carrying
people are idiots. He even acknowledges that plenty of careers need a degree.
Maybe some of you SHOULD stay in school...

------
benthumb
Mac OS X: Avadis Tevanian - B.A. in Mathematics from the University of
Rochester, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in computer science from Carnegie
Mellon University

Python: Guido van Rossum - masters degree in mathematics and computer science
from the University of Amsterdam

Ruby on Rails: David Heinemeier Hansson - bachelor's degree in Computer
Science

Ruby: Yukihiro Matsumoto - He graduated with an information science degree
from University of Tsukuba

Linux: Linus Torvalds - master's degree in computer science from NODES
research group

SpaceX: Elon Musk - From the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania,
he received an undergraduate degree in Economics, and stayed on another year
to finish a second bachelor's degree in physics.

...I could go on

------
dfc
I think this link started out as a post here on hn[1]. I'm not sure why the
author insists on using $175k in debt as a strawman for the discussion. In the
earlier thread on HN he stated that $100k, not $175k, was the actual debt
figure he was confronted with. It is unfortunate because the discussion of
higher-ed/debt is an important topic (I dropped out of law school for similar
reasons) and the inflated debt figure needlessly cheapens the discussion.

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4332885>

~~~
stevencorona
because I dropped out after two years. if i finished all four, it'd be way
more.

~~~
dfc
You: _"Luckily, I left after my 2nd year and only walked away with $50k in
student loans."_

Me: _"Why did two years cost $50k but four years costs $175k? (2/4 !=
50/175)"_

You: _"No one really pays sticker price for college. I had some grants,
financial aid, and (like someone else mentioned), the co-op program helped pay
for some of my tuition."_

Me: _"If nobody pays sticker price for college why did you use the sticker
price when discussing how much debt you chose not to accept?"_

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4332885>

------
hessenwolf
It is possible to get by without documentation backing up your experience, but
having an education doesn't close doors, and not having an education will
close some doors.

Yes, fine, many times, in the right market, with the right skill set, you can
rely on high demand and great ability to sell yourself, but my college
education means that I can change country and get a cushy job at whim, even in
a totally shitty economy, with very little effort (but the education took a
lot of effort).

------
lectrick
It might not be for everyone, but a college with courses like "World of
Business" and "Data Base Concepts" is laughable as all hell anyway. At least
go to a real college.

------
agibsonccc
There is always an opportunity cost. I did a startup over last summer and
dropped out to focus on it, and I have learned exponentially more since being
out. I still advocate an education, because I wouldn't have had the base to
learn on my own after that. Being a self funded scientist rather than a
student has been more more interesting/beneficial. I still learn every day
(business and tech side..)

------
jetti
Like most things, you get what you put into college. If you aren't going into
it with the idea that you want to be there, chances are you won't come away
with as positive an outlook as somebody who did want to be there. With that in
mind, I think the title should be "Don't spend money on things you don't want
to do" but then, I guess nobody would click on the link...

------
therandomguy
"I could teach myself more in an afternoon than I would learn in a 10-week
class"... depends on what you consider "learning". Of course you don't need to
go to any class to learn Rails and get a pay check. To learn hundred other
life skills you need to go to class. You are equating "success" with size of
pay check. That might not be the measure for many.

------
akoncius
i both agree and disagree.

if IT sector wouldn't be so hungry for developers, author of this article
would be called at minimum insane when he asked 100k salary. and it isn't some
constant thing. i think that if now would be bubble burst in IT sector, this
author would continue to work for 10$ per hour.

i agree with main idea, that college should not be mandatory thing in
everybody's life - all job market should be in balance : somebody must work
lower-level work, somebody has to do programming, managing, financing. if
everybody would be with Professor-level education, who would clean toilets in
restaurants?

------
njharman
Yup. Go 1-2 years, take as many higher level classes as you can, meet people,
begin to learn world != high school, hustle for that first job.

It also helps if economy isn't in shitter like it has been for many years.

------
css771
OP, you are my inspiration from now on. I'm in a very similar situation. And
you've just given me some hope. And thanks for that. I'll strive to teach
myself more stuff.

------
codeonfire
I really wish people the best in their careers. As far as attending college, I
know the things that you don't and won't and that is good enough for me.

------
adamgb
Just because you fail at something doesn't mean you didn't learn or gain
something from it.

Failing college could be the reason why he is so successful.

------
pinaceae
just goes to show how over-inflated salaries for programmers are. it is not
rocket science anymore.

actual rocket science though? good luck without an actual education.

and i sure hope as hell that this mindset doesn't reach the medical field.
studying to be a surgeon? i taught myself...yeah, sure...

------
alexconway
Does anyone know if this blog is a Tumblr? I just like the layout. Thanks.

------
greesil
College rocked! I dorked out with some really smart people, learned a fuckton,
got laid somehow, and after paying teh dues got a fabulous job. At the time,
state school didn't cost so much, so no debt! Blah dee blah, good for you no-
college man.

------
phmagic
I'm less likely to use twitpic now from the tone of this article.

------
bazookaBen
it's all a question of : did you learn the _right thing, or meet the_ right
people.

i did both outside of college, while attending it. So it's not my biggest
mistake.

------
taskstrike
More challenging colleges teach you far more than you can teach yourselves.

A top 5 computer science school churns out a much more capable and
knowledgeable computer science major who is both well versed in theory and
knows how computers actually works down to the bytes.

Kudos to the writer, his ability to hustle is strong. There is more than one
kind of talent.

~~~
sillysaurus
I am well versed in theory and know how computers work down to the
semiconductor level. (An aside: I am eternally grateful to Feynman for his
wonderful book on that subject.)

Incidentally, I dropped out of high school my Junior year after I landed a
programming internship at a local game studio. I have a GED.

I would say I'm capable of being put to work on any software project in any
domain and in short order attain a high degree of productivity.

I spend my days researching optics and color theory. I'm the process of
building a graphics research lab in my basement, and my purpose in life is to
one day write a program which generates images that appear so real and so
detailed that the observer would be convinced they were captured by a digital
camcorder, rather than output from a 3D renderer.

Computers have been my life and passion for well over a decade. I'm 24.

~~~
ulyssesgrant
Like many people have said, this is very anecdotal. Not all drop outs are as
motivated or as capable as you seem to be. At the same time, neither are all
college graduates. However, graduating from a top 5 cs program will at least
ensure that you have learned a good deal of information from a wide variety of
topics in computer science.

~~~
sillysaurus
_Graduating from a top 5 cs program will at least ensure that you have learned
a good deal of information from a wide variety of topics in computer science._

As will books: <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/315/books/list.html>

It's been my experience that the most capable members of a team have all
shared a passion for learning combined with open mind. The fact that the top
schools tend to select for those traits have led people to conflate
credentials with excellence.

------
maeon3
I'd like to see some of the code that this guy has written. He said he can
learn more in an afternoon than a whole class? HA! He's confidant I'll grant
him that. But also a deceiver. But perhaps the good kind of deceiver. Press
him to cut some code, and in an instant will get some other poor programmer to
do it for him. There are plenty of good rule-following programmers out there
to purchase... For a salary.

I respect people like this because without them, there would be no companies
to work for. Someone has to get pissed off with the way things are, and go out
and BUILD something great. But he doesn't come across as a rule following
person. We need their charisma and confidence, but without someone to cut the
code and do the job, it will be like the cure for cancer, constant vaporware.
The substance of venture capitalist's nightmares.

We need people like him, but we have to understand he isn't the generative
force in the world, he's the scrappy leader. Hopefully his defiant vision for
the world is good. Else he'll get his big bubble popped and end up looking for
a job without a degree. And I don't wish that on any passionate-for-learning
people.

------
heretohelp
He has a story very similar to mine, but I don't really use my personal
anecdotes to give other people advice.

And yeah, that first job where I started making decent money after years of
minimum wage?

Just like winning the powerball.

I'm very happy and grateful for what I have, but I'm even more grateful I
joined a startup of such great people.

------
scoith
Lol! "I could teach myself more in an afternoon than I would learn in a
10-week class." Really genius? "Calculus B: F" Any it says _repeated_! Why
didn't you take five afternoons and graduate then?

It is a well-known fact that becoming a "high-level" web programmer doesn't
require brains or a degree. Now this post makes it clear that, even such
people who miserably fail to get a degree can write PHP programs and
Javascript.

~~~
UK-AL
Yeah thats the thing. There's so much more to cs than learning rails or
whatever.

Learning the fundamentals of cs theory, machine learning so forth, make you a
better developer indirectly. Yet a lot of this stuff is not covered in detail
on web, sure there plenty of web tutorials, but a lot are superficial,
following a "how to" format for HTML Php etc. Only now with edx and coursea
are decent courses coming out.

~~~
crander
Accountability is what school offers you. You are forced to work the homework
problems and then you really learn. You can do this on your own but without
the social motivation it is much less likely. Udacity, etc. are solving this
problem for online education now in CS.

------
drivebyacct2
I'm so tired of these articles from people that didn't even make it in college
who are so proud to proclaim what a waste college is. Or that having skills
means getting a job.

I knew rails and linux and a half a dozen other things and had built a product
for a client before graduating highschool. I also lived in the middle of no-
where in the Midwest.

