
I dropped out of MIT and started a new college in San Francisco, AMA - DesaiAshu
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/d9c1mg/i_dropped_out_of_mit_and_started_a_new_college_in/
======
educater
For anyone considering this, please know that it would be cheaper in the end
to go to an excellent California community college and transfer and pay two
years tuition vs. giving up 20% of your income for 5 years or paying $70K.

Anyone who seriously considers this doesn't know how much cheaper alternatives
are.

You can graduate with an associates from a community college pretty much
anywhere in the country (United States) for $5000. If you're so broke you'd
need an income sharing agreement you likely qualify for a Pell Grant so really
your associate's would be free.

Let's say you do poorly and can only get into the easiest public university in
your state. Using California as an example, UC Merced is about $15K a year. So
it would cost you $35K to get a legit bachelors in computer science from UC
Merced vs. $70K from a no name. The only way Make School would be cheaper is
if 20% of the sum if your income for 5 years is less than $35K. Needless to
say that's unlikely.

EDIT: And this is to say nothing of the fact that you can actually take other
classes other than computer science and live a more well rounded life.

~~~
DesaiAshu
We actually have a lot of transfers from community colleges, and they're
eligible to graduate faster / reduce their tuition burden.

I fully agree that the 2 years of community college + 2 years of UC is one of
the most cost effective ways to earn your degree. Though given that 2 years of
UCLA (where I went to school) would cost ~$30k in tuition and that you have 2
more years of salary if you graduate from Make School, it ends up being
comparable on an ROI basis.

~~~
alpha_squared
These types of educational programs seem just as a way to tap into Americans'
propensity for acquiring debt now with the hopes of a financial payout later.
It still seems like the much better deal is with a traditional university,
particularly in California where you're talking about the UC and CSU systems.

I'm from the very same demographic, to a T, you claim to be targeting. I've
been working long enough in tech that, looking back, there's no way I -- in
good conscience -- recommend your program over a traditional university's to
others who come from a similar background.

~~~
DesaiAshu
But if you don't make the financial payout, you don't pay for your education
or hold obligation to pay or take a hit to your credit. With our tuition
model, downside protection is baked into the contract, unlike at the UC
system.

I understand your gut reaction, most new colleges have not optimized for
student welfare. But it's not fair to bucket us into those when the whole
point of creating this college was to build a systemic solutions to exactly
those problems.

------
ThrowItAway2Day
There's a reason that the majority of student loan debt in the US is from for
profit colleges [1].

They are predatory, ill-regulated, and unstable. ITT Tech, WGU, and those all
algorithmicly target audiences that are likely to get approved for Federal
student loans: veterans, single-mothers, first-in-family to go to college.
They get them approved for these loans and the funds go directly to the school
whether they graduate or not. There's a very interesting chapter on this in
the book "Weapons of Math Destruction." Don't believe their non-sense ads
about being the future of education, the incentives just don't align. Go to
local community or state public schools if private is not affordable. Either
way, both public and private are not-for-profit.

[1] [https://phys.org/news/2019-06-for-profit-america-student-
deb...](https://phys.org/news/2019-06-for-profit-america-student-debt-
crisis.html)

~~~
forgingahead
Nothing in your cited article provides proof for the claim that majority of
student loan debt is from for-profit colleges. Is this even true? 1.5 trillion
of student loan debt, and the bulk comes from University of Phoenix and the
like?

Doesn't seem plausible, especially after your linked article claims that
University of Phoenix spent 400,000 a day on Google in 2012. Their source? A
Reuters article that used _SpyFu_ as its source.

This rabbit hole is insane -- is there any true information out there any
more?

~~~
ac29
Here's some real statistics, and there is a relatively small difference
between public colleges and private for-profit ones.

80.3% of public college students received aid in 2016-2017, with an average
loan amount of $6584.

85.2% of private for-profit college students received aid in 2016-2017, with
an average loan amount of $8048.

[https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_331.20.a...](https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_331.20.asp)

------
apta
It seems it's another "bootcamp" like initiative trying to make a quick buck
by treating computer science education as a trade. Naturally, people who end
up going to these programs end up working on web stuff or mobile apps. Maybe
there's demand for this kind of work, but what people may not realize is that
it's also diluting the value of people with a proper engineering education.

~~~
TallGuyShort
If a proper engineering education can't compete or find a niche against people
with a tradesman-style education, what's the value that a proper engineer
education (or people who have one) brings to the table? What's the benefit in
holding people back because they didn't go to school as long as you if they
can do the job sufficiently well?

~~~
pingyong
You have a point tbh. There are simply way more jobs for people to do simple
web programming and making UIs that are essentially just DB interfaces for
people who can't write SQL statements. It's boring, but it can still be hugely
profitable for small/medium sized business who do everything with Excel or by
hand currently. These businesses often have a huge need for relatively simple
automation tasks. And they simply don't need someone who can write that in
C++21 with intrinsics for absolute maximum performance - because even a badly
written php script on a normal desktop PC chews through the few thousand
database entries they have in 150 ms. But of course a human would need days
for that, if not weeks.

Do you get payed significantly more if you're in some sort of super high
performance or embedded field and you constantly need to re-invent the wheel
to squeeze out every bit of latency you can, plus you can spend an hour on
every line of code to make sure it absolutely never fails, ever? Or if you're
working as what is almost more of a mathematician on ground breaking ML
algorithms? Sure. But there are also way less jobs like that. Also if everyone
had the education for those jobs, it'd probably not be a healthy industry
anymore.

~~~
TallGuyShort
I think we also need to get away from the idea that the only reason there are
people excelling at squeezing every bit of latency out of an embedded system
is because they went to a 4-year school. There are so many people who go get
an associates because their career isn't going anywhere. So they go get a
bachelor's because their career isn't going anywhere. Then they go get an MBA
because their career isn't going anywhere. And then they're posting on
LinkedIn looking for better offers, covered in debt, and think we should make
degrees appear to be a costless decision. A degree doesn't change your
personality, and sometimes that's the problem. We think too highly of degrees
in too broad a context and think degrees === qualifications.

------
_delirium
Some bits of this are interesting. The numbers on the accelerated program seem
unrealistically ambitious though. In the Q&A, they say they teach a fully
accredited 124-credit-hour degree in 2-2.5 yrs. That seems pretty difficult,
at least under the official accreditation standards!

A standardized definition most accreditation agencies have settled on for a
"credit-hour" is approximately 45 hours of work total (so e.g. a 3-credit
course requires 135 hours over the semester). Originally that came from an
assumption that an N-credit class met for N hours a week, plus 2N hours of
homework per week, for a 14-week semester plus a 15th exam or final-project
week. But any split is ok under current standards as long as it adds up to
about the same (different semester lengths, no-lecture classes purely based on
videos, fully in-person lab-style classes, etc.). Either way though, a
124-credit-hour degree would end up at around 5580 hours of work. To do it in
2 calendar years, you'd need to average 54 hours/wk, with no vacations. Not
physically impossible, but...

~~~
Retric
First many students start collage with a significant number of AP credits. So,
I think it’s more 124/8 in 2.5 years.

Second, I pulled 23 credit hours at a regular collage in a normal semester.
Keeping that pace for 2 years without break would have caused burnout, but 20
credit semesters * 5 + 12 over summer break * 2 = 124 in 2.5 years.

Thus, doing this at a normal collage is viable assuming schedules work out.

PS: I kind of felt like a slacker at the time because a friend was pulling 18,
while keeping a full time job.

~~~
GavinMcG
> I pulled 23 credit hours at a regular collage in a normal semester.

Good for you. But that's not "viable" for most students in the first place –
18 is probably pushing it.

~~~
Retric
No need to design a school for most students. Many people regularly pull 18
credit hours with a job. If they don’t need to work a meaningless job then
bumping that to 20 seems extremely reasonable.

Really, an elite admittance process coupled with a school that focuses on
getting people out quickly vs ramping up course difficult seems like a viable
tradeoff. The biggest issue with early graduation is often a few rare required
classes. Design the schedule to avid that issue and you have a huge advantage.

------
eaenki
I don't know, feels like an airline trying to differentiate itself. It feels
just like any other random university, maybe worse because the name sounds
like a bootcamp. and it kinda feels like it is anyway. I would take the
founder's former university (MIT) any day over "Make School" lol.

~~~
DesaiAshu
Based on reputation it's tough for us to compete for students who are
considering MIT, Stanford, or Ivy's. We have a few students who transfer from
those schools because they want a more hands on education, but it's not the
norm.

Our outcomes set us apart from the next tier of universities. Average starting
salary is north of $100k (on par or higher than any other CS degree) with
strong placements at name brand companies. Unlike top universities with
comparable outcomes, we draw from a much more diverse socio-economic range.

We have struggled with the name a bit. On one hand we like that it sounds much
more humble than trying to pick a "prestigious" sounding university name (and
we don't like the ego involved with naming it after a person), but on the
other many people don't grok that it's a proper college on first glance.
Sticking with it for now...

~~~
eaenki
I feel like MIT wouldn’t be MIT if it was named Maker School

Just like Stripe and dev/payments

Also, idk AFAIK the prestige is built upon exclusion + top notch research +
beautiful place

When you don’t have that, it’s hard to sell someone on “a more hands on
experience and same salary prospects” imo

But it’s probably me, I’m such a school snob

------
Lukesys
Reminds me of my alma matter, South Harmon Institute of Technology.

~~~
ThrowItAway2Day
Watching Accepted all those years ago, would anyone have guessed that within
the next decade Jonah Hill would be twice Academy nominated for dramatic work?
That's motivational, anything is possible.

------
agigao
$70K for 2 years? No, thanks.

Community college for 2 years ~ 20-25K tuition, then "learning your heart out"
for those 2 years and transfer to a proper university with scholarship seems
far more plausible to me.

Classical CS education with high standards is a proper way to go, otherwise
you'll spend first 10 years your programming career "wishing you had known
that before", and you might never step into the depth of career, especially
into ML/AI field, without that prior knowledge of the theory.

Actually, such "new kind of school" done better is
[https://www.42.fr](https://www.42.fr)

Talking with my 7+ years of software/data engineering experience, last couple
of years spent in DS{ML/DL}.

~~~
DesaiAshu
Scholarships for traditional universities are pretty hard to get unless you
have really strong academics. And generally the odds are stacked against you
to go to a top tier university if you're coming from a low income background.

Keep in mind that if you graduate from Make School in 2-2.5 years, you'll
start earning earlier. So the ROI on the $70k is really strong!

Research Universities are definitely the way to go if you want to go into the
research focused ML/AI side of things. We're being explicit that this is an
Applied CS degree for that reason. But for most tech careers the traditional
CS degrees aren't as relevant, including for Data Science jobs (we have a few
recent alums making north of $150k as Data Scientists). And you can always go
back for a masters if you feel you need it.

Have you visited 42 or been through their curriculum? What parts do you feel
are better?

------
spodek
The description confuses innovation with effectiveness:

> _The tech industry was rapidly evolving and yet college curriculum was
> frozen in time. My high school CS teacher had been more innovative in
> offering a project-based education than my MIT professors were._

Project-based learning isn't new. What makes it valuable is that it works --
in particular, at developing skills useful for work and life more than
lecture-based and other mainstream university pedagogy for most fields.

~~~
DesaiAshu
"Project-based learning isn't new."

This! Research has shown it's more effective for 50 years or so, but few
educational environments have adopted it (except for Montessori schools, some
charter schools, and new age private schools like the one we went to). It's
ironic that most of this research originates in universities, and then somehow
it doesn't make it across campus...

Our high school teachers (Jeremy and I went to school together) were pretty
progressive and innovative in the ways they taught, and the types of projects
they had us undertake - but yes, project-based on it's own isn't a new
innovation.

------
dbcurtis
On hands-on versus math, how do you approach finding the magic balance?

For context: Let's agree that MIT and Olin are both great engineering schools.
One former coworker of mine is a senior Mech E who graduated from MIT, who
once said something along the lines: "I've never hired an MIT grad who could
not do the math, but sometimes they needed to learn good bench skills on the
job. I've never hired an Olin grad who didn't hit the ground running in the
lab on day 1, but sometimes they hit resistance with the math." So even with
four years and a demanding pace, it is still hard to do both well. What
grounds your thinking on this topic?

~~~
DesaiAshu
Good question! We're definitely leaning stronger on the hands on right now,
but are looking to build out more on the math side. Our Dean actually has a
PhD in Applied Math rather than CS, so it's in our wheelhouse. It's probably
still going to feel closer to Olin than MIT.

You're right that it's impossible to do both at sufficient depth. Ideally we
offer students flexibility to push in the direction they want to go.
Eventually we'll be working with students who want to go deeper in AI/ML, or
potentially other computational STEM fields - they may need stronger math.
While others may want to stay closer to product development.

Either way, it's most important to equip students with the mindset and
resources to keep learning. Learning should not stop in college, there's no
concrete reason why either the math or bench skills can't be picked up later
in life - apart from societal bias that tells us to stop learning.

------
TheAdamAndChe
I notice some comments about likely astroturfing on the post. I'm curious,
what are Hacker News's opinions on it? Is it just a necessary evil of using
the platform, or a plague that should be fought against?

~~~
DesaiAshu
I've been helping PM the AMA on our side. We've had multiple team members
support answering the questions but I explicitly asked people not to ask
questions.

We have a lot of students and alumni who see these posts and want to be
supportive, so usually there end up being comments or questions that feel
canned or overly enthusiastic. Not much we can do here :)

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
I understand. I'm not bashing you or saying it is definitely astroturfing, I
was just curious on how other people here view it. Many users on this site are
very pragmatic, others are idealistic. That dichotomy leads to interesting
conversations sometimes.

------
hackermailman
What's interesting about this school: Entire curriculum is open not hidden,
ability to get a real regionally accredited degree in just 2 years, no up
front tuition

What's bad about this school: Almost entirely web frameworks, the algorithms
slides are way too brief, heavily relies on Hackerank type resources, not to
mention possible mistakes in the slides, like describing 'THE upper bound'
when you can find another upper bound. No math so gradschool is going to be
difficult. Entirely imperative/OOP. Edit: You will owe them $100k
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18548001](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18548001)
and it's not clear on their site if there's a maximum level of gross income
deduction

Still can't beat that 2 years to official Bachelor's piece of paper for no up
front costs

~~~
DesaiAshu
We're starting to build out more math and deeper on algorithms, particularly
for people who want to go the AI/ML route or grad school. Currently if you're
keen on grad school it's probably better to go to a well ranked research
university.

On average you'll pay $100k, but it's a sliding scale based on your income so
we ensure it's affordable / there is downside protection. Given that you have
2 more years of earning than a traditional university you'll usually come out
well ahead.

------
dirtybird04
Kinda off-topic, but an interesting comment in response to a particularly
engaging thread:

"Usually AMA subjects ignore questions that aren't softballs. Props to you for
actually going through and answering. Thanks!"

Yeah, that's a really low bar. And sums up why I stopped paying attention to
AMAs a while back. It's mostly just fluff and PR with an occassional Snoop
Dogg gem.

------
Aaronstotle
I attend the summer academy (bootcamp) for iOS Development a few years ago. I
was thinking about going to the full program but I don't care for web
development nor iOS development. I hope they add a DevOps track because I
think there's a lot of people like myself who enjoy building systems/standing
up servers but not strictly programming per se.

~~~
DesaiAshu
Nice to hear from you and thanks for the feedback. I'll share this with our
Dean and instructional team as they consider more specializations to add!

------
guuz
I think I have a somewhat unpopular and romantic opinion: a tertiary education
is important not only for what you can learn in regular classes (or the
prospects this learning may give you), but the knowledge you can gain outside
of them if you are interested in doing so. I studied at a fairly big public
university in the third world, not very special by any standards, but the
experience of being inside an academic center, with access to people from a
myriad of backgrounds studying very different disciplines opened my mind
irrevocably. And, I believe, made me a much better engineer.

I recognise that very few people have an opportunity like the one I had and a
two year degree with an extreme focus is more suitable for some folks, mainly
because of the absurd tuition costs in the US (I studied for free). But it
seems the concept of the university serving as a knowledge hub is fading away
and giving way to a hyper capitalistic vision where only your future paychecks
matter thanks to a kind of social anxiety.

------
ykevinator
Ask a teen

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ArtWomb
Congrats! Wondering if you are considering an online component? Model I am
thinking of is something like Qwiklabs which provides hands on cloud training,
on real world data and infra. It appears they are generating serious revenue
at the scale of 10,000s trainees ;)

[https://www.qwiklabs.com/](https://www.qwiklabs.com/)

~~~
DesaiAshu
We're not considering an online only program, though we are making more and
more of our resources available online for free.

For a full degree program - given that it takes 2-2.5 years of full time work
to complete - it's not super feasible to expect people to get through it
without a strong social learning environment.

