
Ask HN: Advice for a Student? - nerdwolf
Here&#x27;s my situation :<p>I&#x27;m 18 years old and where I come from, you have to take an exam (consisting of physics, chemistry &amp; math) to get into a tech&#x2F;engineering college. And your performance determines what college you get into. Since the last 2 years, I&#x27;ve been feeling extremely lost &amp; demotivated and I performed terribly on my exam so I could only get into very mediocre colleges. I decided to give it another shot so I took a gap year &amp; I will be trying again but I don&#x27;t think that results will be much different this time either. My preparation is in a really bad spot &amp; the mediocre colleges here are straight up garbage. The quality of teaching is abysmal. I feel like I&#x27;d be better off learning things on my own than going to such a college. There are so many amazing CS courses online that I can use to teach myself. But for most jobs here, a college degree is an essential requirement. Most of my friends went to any college they were getting into and I feel I&#x27;m wasting time every single moment. The regret is too much.<p>I just don&#x27;t know what to do. I&#x27;m feeling totally lost and directionless on where to go on in life.
Any advice would be deeply appreciated.<p>Thanks!
======
ColinWright
I know nothing more about you than what you have said here, so I am responding
only to this.

> _... exam ... determines what college you get into._

Noted.

> _I performed terribly on my exam so I could only get into very mediocre
> colleges._

Noted.

> _... will be trying again but I don 't think that results will be much
> different this time either._

So you are demotivated, and despite the gap year, you feel you won't do any
better.

> _... the mediocre colleges here are straight up garbage. The quality of
> teaching is abysmal._

Noted.

> _I feel like I 'd be better off learning things on my own than going to such
> a college._

If you are demotivated, why do you think you will do better studying on your
own? Will you be able to create and maintain the motivation? What is it that
motivates you?

> _There are so many amazing CS courses online that I can use to teach
> myself._

Yes there are, but the ones worth doing require significant amounts of work,
and maintaining that level of commitment is hard. Perhaps you need to work out
why your preparation for your exams is going poorly, try to get to the root
cause of your lack of motivation.

> _... for most jobs here, a college degree is an essential requirement._

Then you need a college degree.

> _Any advice would be deeply appreciated._

So:

* You need a college degree;

* The colleges you can get into are rubbish;

* You feel you could study on your own.

Based purely on that it would seem that you should go to one of the colleges,
meet their minimum attendance requirements, study on your own, making sure
that you cover all of the material that will be on the exam, ace the exams,
get your degree, and move on.

The fact that the teaching is rubbish will be irrelevant, and the existence of
the exams will help to give you focus on your study. You will be forced to
cover even those things you don't really like, which if you do solely self-
study is a danger.

Take control of your own learning, but allow it to be guided by the college's
curriculum. You will get your degree, be experienced at self-learning, and
have a complete and well-rounded education.

~~~
nerdwolf
> _If you are demotivated, why do you think you will do better studying on
> your own? Will you be able to create and maintain the motivation? What is it
> that motivates you?_

I've often wondered about this. Right now, I am studying for my exams. And its
mostly the stuff that I am not much interested in. I love studying math but I
suck at physics and chemistry which keeps bringing me down. I think that when
I'll be studying on my own, I'd be focusing on the stuff that I like and is
actually important for me. I've recently started doing MIT's introductory CS
course on python and I'm really liking it so far. I also enjoy working on the
problems after the lessons. So yeah, I think I may be able to do better when
I'm learning things that feel intriguing to me.

> _try to get to the root cause of your lack of motivation_

this sounds really important but I don't know how to figure that.

> _you should go to one of the colleges, meet their minimum attendance
> requirements, study on your own..._

You're right. This is probably the best course of action for me. It's just
that I feel if I had to go to a rubbish college, I should've already done that
but even on my second chance I'm not able to improve the situation. I really
regret that I wasted so much time. I think that if I study on my own I could
get probably quicken things but maybe I'm just trying to escape my problems.

And thanks a lot for your response. I really appreciate it!

~~~
deepaksurti
>> I love studying math but I suck at physics and chemistry

You need to figure a way out to do well in your P and C exams as well; simply
because even in your future career (full time job, freelancer, startup) there
will _always_ be elements that will suck. You could also use this as a test
parameter: if you don't give up when the sucky parts strike, that career
option could be one for the long haul.

>> I really regret that I wasted so much time

No point regretting, be careful to not make that a habit. Just figure out why
you couldn't do well even on the second chance; fix those. And losing a year
or two in life is a normal occurrence; every few years we will lose a year or
two but if you put in the effort to learn from those they may actually be the
pivotal years of your career.

If you think having someone to guide you offline can help; my email is in my
profile.

------
mzfr
Okay, I am just going to assume that you are from India(if not, situation in
India is very similar).

I took the Gap year and couldn't clear JEE, the most prestigious test in
India. So I took admission in some private college. Yes, education might not
be the best but going to college is a whole different life experience I mean
other than just studies. It might be difficult for you to just go to "any"
college or you might feel like "you wasted a year" but it's not like that
every day you learn something new and once you go to a college you'll realize
that gap year was actually very important(not just for study but for personal
development too.)

Also all these marks, who scored how much, how much you scored in high school
etc all these matters until you go to college, after that it won't matter at
all. Going to college will help you find a lot of different paths, different
"career options".If end up going to college you'll meet people from different
background having a different mindset that will help you a lot to develop your
thinking and to understand how things actually work in the "real world".

P.S: You are 18 worries less, enjoy more :-)

------
Lioda
Whichever college you'll go, you'll need to commit yourself and learn a lot by
yourself. The earlier you take the habit, the better you'll be. Don't wait
knowledge comes to you, grab it by all means.

In some countries, college degrees are mandatory to obtain jobs, and you'll
need one. But college is not only for learning (remember: learn by yourself
whatever you want, all is accessible) college is also to meet people, to
create a network in your field of interest. So use this time to achieve this,
meet the futures CTOs, coworkers or maybe your future cofounders ! This is far
more important than you think, and in fact, I would have liked I had this
advice more younger...

~~~
nerdwolf
> _...college is also to meet people, to create a network in your field of
> interest. So use this time to achieve this, meet the futures CTOs, coworkers
> or maybe your future cofounders !_

I totally agree with you on this. This sounds essential. But I wonder if there
will be any smart people worth hanging around in a rubbish college? I think
that the quality of students sharply declines at such colleges. Regardless,
you bring up a really noteworthy point. I will keep this is in mind.

And thanks for replying!

~~~
Lioda
Never forget: education and intelligence are note the same things.

Take a group of people, wherever it is, you'll find 80% of followers, 15% of
innovators and 5% of geniuses impossible to follow :) The college is no
exception, because of cost, accidents of life, etc. Even a genius can miss his
way in studies...

Use this time to learn all you can, meet the important people and be the
better in what you want to do. It will never be wasted time.

~~~
nerdwolf
I never looked at it this way. That is an interesting perspective to think
about it. I will definitely remember this.

Thanks a lot!

------
quaquaqua1
If college is extremely cheap, you should at least try to go to the ones you
can get into, because sometimes it is good to have "any degree" for
immigration/resume screening purposes.

If your goal is to find work as a programmer, putting 3 years of literally any
experience on your resume and passing some kind of technical interview is all
you need to get a job in the current industry. Good luck!

Source: I am a US citizen, I have a non-technical degree, I have 8 years of
""""professional"""" experience, and I passed a few technical interviews
ranging from leetcode problems to portfolio review to random questions about
SDLC

~~~
nerdwolf
Hey! Thanks for taking your time to reply.

I agree with you, getting a degree would probably ease up immigration among
other important processes. I didn't think about this previously.

>... _putting 3 years of literally any experience on your resume and passing
some kind of technical interview is all you need to get a job in the current
industry._

This makes me rather hopeful. Thanks!

If you don't mind me asking, how did you transition in to a technical career
and how were opportunities in the beginning when you didn't have much
experience?

Thanks again! I appreciate your response.

~~~
quaquaqua1
No problem my pleasure :)

I worked in sales for 5 years selling hard drives and etc to businesses. It
was the only job I could land, and the pay was decent, but I knew that I
wanted to be a developer because I enjoyed that work more, and obviously it's
way more secure and pays more than most sales jobs!

I was having trouble even getting interviews, let alone passing them, due to a
lack of experience on the resume and a lack of serious focus on logical
reasoning skills for solving algorithmic problems. This kind of stuff
absolutely does not come naturally, even if you have a computer science degree
and lots of achievements to put on your resume.

To pass most interviews these days, I learned that you absolutely, 100%, most
inflate the crap out of your resume with really fancy sounding words and
responsibilities and achievements. Be realistic, but don't hold back. Then,
you must send your resume out to 200 jobs sorted by most recent post, and
after that you'll get like 5 phone calls.

After that, you put on your most positive and outgoing personality to talk
about your passions and work and motvations. Then you hope that you catch 3 or
4 technical questions in a row that you have seen before in some shape or form
;).

Apply to literally every job title that sounds tangentially technical.
Software Developer, Fullstack, Front End, Technical Architect, Business
Analyst, Consultant, anything. The development job I landed was marketed as a
Business Analyst position and the interview was probably a lot easier than
other people face at the same company. On day one I was told I would be doing
node and react XD

Good luck and have fun with the process ;)

~~~
nerdwolf
Thanks a lot for writing this. It really gives me a lot of hope for the future
going forward. I'll keep this in mind!

Going by your experience, it looks like persistent efforts are key to breaking
in the industry. I'll just keep going on & hopefully things will pan out okay.

Thanks again for replying!

------
winniephan
hey, I went to one of the best uni in my country and that makes me regret too
as I picked that uni & major because my friend said it was very hard to come
and I have should pick the other. my advice to you is: you should ask yourself
which professional career you want to take & talk to professional people
working in that field to seek advice. Don't compare with your friends, they
may have reasons for their choices. You 'd better have deep understanding of
yourself first. If you want to be Software engineer you can pick online
courses & make your own products as your porfolio is more important than your
CS degree, but if your type is more about researching, think to take a degree.

