

Ask HN: Is there a point to school?  - sam191

Something I've been wondering about lately is the idea of school. And to be honest, I'm a bit lost right now.<p>Here is my situation. I am a senior in high school but go to the community college via the running start program here. I got accepted into the University of Washington and will be going there next year. And of course, I am interested in hacking and the start up culture. I've been reading Hacker News for quite a while now.<p>I'm confused about the whole purpose of school. To me, it seems that school is something one goes through to get a job and make money. But from what I've heard, to be successful I need to spend my time programming, and right now it feels as though I'm doing everything but that. I feel like I'm being dragged through this tedious system which will later prepare me for work at a company coding Blub, it's driving me nuts. Everyone around me keeps saying how important school is, but right now I'm having trouble seeing that. It's as if there are two paths that say they lead to the same thing, one of them being the right path while the other being the path we are supposed to believe is correct. At least that's what it feels like to me.<p>I have a lot of respect for everyone here at HN and I find many comments to be very valuable. I was hoping to gain a bit of insight from this great community.
======
patio11
Even if you think university will teach you absolutely nothing, you've got a
one-time offer from society that we're going to subsidize anything you do for
the next four years and not have any expectation that you'll work for a living
during that time. This offer is essentially only good once. Take it.

That said, you can learn an awful lot from school. You say it is tedious --
that suggests to me you're underchallenged. Have you tried learning a foreign
language yet? Like, _really_ learning a foreign language, rather than learning
to say "Yo quiero una cerveza" like I assume your high school Spanish has
taught you? It is incredibly rewarding, in all possible senses of the term
rewarding, and you'll never get a better opportunity than the next four years.
(Dedicated instructors, plenty of time not occupied by the demands of job and
family, social push to complete studies, possibility of study abroad
bankrolled by someone else and unrestricted by visa concerns, etc etc etc...)

You can also learn quite a bit about programming during college, even if
actually doing it is a much better teacher. (Although, again, we're
subsidizing all your activities for four years -- you show up for 3 hours of
classes 5 days a week, the rest of the time is yours, program as much as you
want to program.)

Incidentally, I hate to sound like An Official Adult, but just trust me on
this one: the job market for young Americans sucks right now, and you
absolutely do _not_ want to be facing it without a degree. Degrees are not
just for boring megacorps coding Blub: even cool companies which code Lisp
look for people who can carry tasks to completion, and not possessing a degree
when we hand them out like candy on Halloween suggests "I am insufficiently
motivated to do clearly beneficial things when they require non-trivial
amounts of actual work. Please employ me -- you will find me excellent at
everything you assign me to do, provided none of it is actual work."

~~~
sam191
Wow thanks, this really makes sense to me.

I'm already fluent in Russian, and I am learning my native language, Armenian,
at the moment.

And I wouldn't say that I'm under challenged. College seems like a lot of
work, but that thrill of a challenge is missing. It's also a tough time for my
family, so I'm also working as much as I can. I guess my main dilemma is the
lack of free time. It might have been unclear in my post, but I was thinking
that my time would be better spent coding than trying to be an overachiever in
school.

Nevertheless, I really appreciate the advice!

~~~
mechanical_fish
_that thrill of a challenge is missing_

It still sounds to me like you might not be studying the right stuff. If your
classes remind you of a tedious treadmill leading toward the Blub Factory you
_need better classes_.

Or a better major. Perhaps you're making the mistake of letting your chosen
career dictate your choice of classes. The universal secret to school is: Take
the best classes you can find, from the best people, regardless of subject. If
the local comp sci offerings remind you of Javaschool, _do something else_. I
have lots and lots of colleagues who can attest that you don't need a major in
comp sci, or even a single class, to spend your career working on software.

The best bang for the buck in college is the stuff that you can't get anywhere
else. Stuff that requires expensive facilities or hardware, for example. Take
lab courses -- unlike programming, these are things that are hard to self-
study. Biology, physics, chemistry, electronics, mechanical engineering, even
art and design (which I suspect is best done with physical materials and a
live teacher). Or be a productive dilettante: As I said above, find the best
professors in the university and take their courses, regardless of the field.
I discovered linguistics that way, and it turns out that intro-level
linguistics is a really nice thing to know if you're going to work with
languages all the time.

If I were to go back I'd probably still take a lot of physics and electronics,
which is what I did before, but I'd also be all over the biology and
biochemistry. Molecular biology is the ultimate machine language. And I
wouldn't neglect statistics: Study as much stats as you can stand.

Of course, nontechnical subjects are also important, because they make you
write essays. You'd be surprised how useful a skill essay-writing can be. I
had a minor in history, and I don't regret it.

~~~
jacoblyles
U Dub has one of the best Comp. Sci. departments in the nation, especially
when it comes to Operating Systems. I would sell half my soul to be 18 and
going to UW.

~~~
mechanical_fish
Well, you are _you_ , I am myself, and the OP is the OP. Everyone has
different tastes!

The good news is that if the OP finds that he doesn't enjoy comp sci, at least
he'll know that it isn't because the local department is objectively terrible.

------
maxwin
Another important reason to go to college is for personal growth. There are
experiences that are to be found only in college.

You might take a music or philosophy class just to fulfill credit requirements
but it turns out to greatly influence your world views or let you discover
your hidden passion. You might meet a professor who turns out to be life long
mentors.

You may join a study-abroad program to open yourself to a completely different
culture and society. You may get to know others who will become your best
friends in life. You may engage in intellectual conversations during
lunch/dinner or late night with your pals.

To relieve you stress, you might do some stupid things with your friends
during friday parties that you can laugh at 10 years later. The list goes on.

If you miss college, you are not just missing a degree, but much more. IMHO,
the most important thing about college is not diploma or lectures but the
college atmosphere, the people you meet, the connections you make with them
and the invaluable experiences you will have during the 4 years.

Just think about it, if you love coding, you will code for your whole life.So
there is really no rush.

And I highly recommend selective liberal arts colleges for better personal
experiences.

------
jasonlbaptiste
I took 18 months off to do a startup+moved to the valley and am now back
finishing college before doing another startup. Why? It shows that you're good
at finishing things and the degree is something you'd probably rather have
than not have. Some lessons learned I guess:

* don't try to do a full time startup AND college. By full time, I mean the serious i want to raise money, grow the company, big vision startup. It won't happen. If it somehow gets to the point that you think it can, take time off. Side projects are okay, and I'd encourage them. Keep making your own stuff. Not every project you build has to be the next facebook.

* you know the path youre going for (engineering/startup stuff). Go learn the things that interest you while you're at school that you know absolutely nothing about.

* meet as many people as you can.

* if you're not challenged like patio said, find something that will challenge you.

* you might take some business classes. everything they say to you will seem wrong because of the way we do things in a web startup. that's okay. you're not going to be able to all of a sudden make them see what you see.

* use your student discount for everything you can. conferences, software, research material access, ways to get people to listen to you (youd be surprised at how much the "im a college kid, can u help me" line gets people to respond),etc.

* keep in touch with the industry, but don't get pulled into the echo chamber+desire to social climb too much. for every kevin rose there are many many more like Ryan Allis or other successful entrepreneurs that have made millions + never graced techcrunch/techmeme. youll feel anxious seeing x company get funded y amount, 500 mentions of twitter, and google buying x company for obscene amount of money y. Youll somehow feel as if now is the only time this can ever happen and unless you jump in, you're screwed. this isn't true. Even though there are boom periods, there will always be new technology companies and market needs. I stopped using Twitter the other day and deleted my entire feed reader list. I only read what's on HN when it comes to tech. I'm already a happier person, because I'm less stressed.

My biggest mistake is that I really only got one year of the "real college
experience". that's when I was at boston college my freshman year. Somehow
when I transferred to UMiami, I just stumbled into entrepreneurship, which
meant the real world. If I could go back, I would have found a way to enjoy
more of just being a normal college kid, worked on fun projects, and then gone
balls to the walls with startup stuff.

------
morphir
Here is my hard learned lesson: DO NOT STUDY JUST TO GET AN DEGREE! It such a
waste of good time AND money (lost income) to study some random topic that you
could not care less about. MANY students fall into the trap of choosing a
study/career that brings them status. Unfortunately, they will either 1) most
likely drop out, or 2) Become average at doing what they do. Why? Because the
guy who always is curious and maybe even passionate about his domain will
always go to greater lengths to get there.

Study something because of your curiosity towards the subject.

The day your curiosity has dried out, you are finished with the topic. Its as
simple as that. Do not study something because its interesting; you got books
for that. University degrees are meant to prepare you for research and a
academic life, and ultimately become professor/PH.D. The degree aside, the
network one can establish during your study years is once in a lifetime
opportunity. But I repeat again, follow your curiosity. The story will write
it self.

------
starkfist
If you're a straight male, college is the easiest place to meet women in
America. For that reason alone, it's worth checking out for a couple
semesters.

~~~
Luff
Girls at a technology university? Then I'm envious of you, the m/f ratio at
mine is like 20-1.

~~~
sounddust
The OP is going to the University of Washington, The ratio is 52.4% women,
47.6% men (<http://admit.washington.edu/Numbers>).

------
phugoid
If you're not sure, then go to school.

One big problem with learning on your own is that you'll usually avoid doing
the hard boring stuff that seems pointless. For a lot of people, that includes
math. But doing that stuff gives you the strength and confidence to attack
difficult problems in the future.

I work in an engineering shop where about 25% of people have degrees, and they
are miles ahead of the rest. I think what sets them apart is the belief that
they will get to the bottom of a problem with logic and hard work, rather than
flipping opinions back and forth.

~~~
wdewind
I'll agree here. I was absolutely sure about leaving. If you're not sure, you
should definitely go (and honestly, I went for two years before I had enough -
you should at least go for a while if you can afford etc.)

------
carterschonwald
UW Seattle has a lot of really amazing computer scientists and mathematicians.
Even ignoring all the stuff you learn just from being around a huge number of
folks in your own age range, and intro/intermediate classes which you can
learn on your own if you have a "sufficiently good" textbook or lecture notes,
there is still a huge amount of physics, statistics, general mathematics,
combinatorics, probability theory, theoretical computer science, algorithms,
computer vison, and other cool things. UW Seattle has cool faculty in all
those areas, and if you take advantage of your school, you stand to learn from
them! (or do cool stuff like learn some mechanical engineering or take some
drawing classe)

Also, little/well known fact, most tech startups aren't that technically
interesting, and rarely does a startup leave its employees with much time to
do much else. (Yes, many counterexamples exist, but even at those, how many
roles are the interesting ones at even those places?)

there are other bits, but those are the broad points

~~~
Dove
I second this. I did undergrad and grad pure math at UW, and a lot of comp sci
electives. The faculty was phenomenal. I learned so much, and not just of the
subject material. I learned so much about how to think during some brilliant
lectures. You want some mental exercise that will make programming seem easy
by comparison? _Get a pure math degree at UW._ And take all the hard classes.

Nor was I bored in even the intro C Sci classes. There were typically other
experienced folks taking the classes with me, and some projects open-ended
enough to let them challenge themselves. I saw some guys build an animated 3D
vector projection from scratch in CSE 143, and in CSE 373, during a speed
competition, I remember someone taking apart and rewriting _scanf_.

------
Alex3917
"But from what I've heard, to be successful I need to spend my time
programming"

You've heard wrong then.

~~~
ytinas
If you want to be a really incredible programmer you need to spend time
programming, but that isn't remotely required to be successful, even in
programming. For example, I wouldn't consider any of the creators of the top 3
scripting languages good programmers. They're known, I'm not.

------
jseliger
_I feel like I'm being dragged through this tedious system which will later
prepare me for work at a company coding Blub, it's driving me nuts._

To some extent, this is true and will continue to be true. But, as others have
no doubt pointed out and will continue to point out, you'll learn more from
school than just coding Blub (or lisp, or haskell, or whatever); you'll be
learning how to learn, how to get along with others, how to live on your own,
and so forth.

The big advantage you'll have at UW is that you'll be hanging around a lot of
very smart people, especially in the CS department (I assume you're from
Washington; I actually went to Newport HS in Bellevue). The connections you
make, whether from demonstrating your skill or just from hanging out, will
probably serve you for the rest of your life. If you impress your professors,
you'll find research/internship opportunities you wouldn't elsewhere. And
don't underestimate the larger social aspect: you'll never be around so many
people in your own stage of life again. So go to the occasional party, hook up
here and there, and learn how to be a person too, which is more important than
you might imagine.

You should at least start college, although it'll be easy to get lost at UW.
Still, this advice: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1183085> seems good
to me; if this is you, don't go. But the weight should be on going; if you
really hate it, you can quit. But try to find challenging classes while not
underestimating the social potential. And don't get side-tracked by run-of-
the-mill jobs; the only way you should drop out is for a game-changing startup
opportunity.

You're probably reading variations on a lot of the advice above because it's
pretty good advice. It won't apply to everyone, but it will apply to
most—especially people as driven as you. A few more observations: read my post
about why laptops in class are often a distraction:
[http://jseliger.com/2008/12/28/laptops-students-
distraction-...](http://jseliger.com/2008/12/28/laptops-students-distraction-
hardly-a-surprise) and, as soon as you can, get a copy of Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi's _Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience_ :
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061339202?ie=UTF8&tag=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061339202?ie=UTF8&tag=thstsst-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0061339202)
as soon as you can. There's another thing you'll find in college: books that
are essential but that you don't currently know to read because you don't have
people around you who are sufficiently knowledgeable to recommend them.

Anyway, if you have other, specific questions for me, send an e-mail to the
link at <http://jseliger.com> , which is my blog, especially if you by chance
are going to Newport.

------
b-man
'There are a lot of things you can teach, but the most important ones must be
learned.'

One thing that I would love that someone else had shown to me when I has in
high school is what does it mean to learn, and how to learn. These are some
resources that really helped me understand the value of true learning
[1][2][3]

What I would recommend is that you wait some years to get into
university/college. You really have no reason to rush, and the whole
experience, if you later choose to live it, could be much more enjoyed if more
maturity. Go travel, study programming by yourself or doing projects, study
languages in other countries, take some telecommuting jobs, take some risks,
and above all else, learn what does it mean to learn.

[1] <http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/560>

[2] <http://www.papert.org/works.html>

[3] <http://ournature.org/~novembre/illich/1970_deschooling.html>

------
leif
I really like patio11's comment, so I won't repeat any of that.

I have two reasons for you to be cool and stay in school:

1\. If you want to be successful in the Hacker News sense of the word, which
seems to mean hacking on something interesting and getting something for it in
return, there are some things you really can't learn from just playing around
with your little toy projects. Rather, you need to have feedback and guidance
from someone more experienced, or just with a different perspective on your
work. Preferably several someones. The masturbation analogy is a surprisingly
good one in this respect, but I think I've pumped it for all it's worth. (ha
ha! lemmas.)

Seriously though, you aren't going to learn the more serious maths or
algorithms, nor will you learn how to really think about solving the sorts of
problems you'll see, unless you go to school. I'll grant that it's possible to
pick these things up while working, but getting a job where you can learn them
will be hard, and the learning process in that environment is _much_ slower.
These concepts don't seem important when you're writing your newest blog in
Fancy New Web Framework #628, but they will be important when you're working
on programs that lots of people use to do something interesting, and if you
don't have them, you'll likely fail to solve those problems, and whoever is
paying you won't want to anymore.

2\. The other big utility of a college education is the free time (as in beer)
that lets you decide if you actually like what you think you want to do. If
you spend 4 years working on a computer science degree, and can still stand
it, it's probably a good choice for you. On the other hand, if you get a year
and a half in, you can still decide that you hate it and want to switch to
biology, and your school will likely be pretty flexible with you about
changing your mind.

If you had gone out and tried to get a job right away --- either a decent
programming job, or a job flipping burgers while you practice coding at night
--- you aren't going to have that luxury. A programming job will let you know
whether you like it quickly, but switching from that to a career that strictly
requires an education is going to be tough, and an unrelated day job is never
going to let you find out whether you like programming.

epilogue. If you just want to do the startup thing, go for it. Go to school,
and while you're there, work on it as a side-project. You won't have to fight
to get investment just so you can pay rent and eat while you're coding,
instead, you get lodging, education, and free time for 4 years for at most a
very low-interest loan.

------
Xichekolas
High School can definitely be tedious, but it does leave a lot of free time to
tackle things on your own.

When you get to college, that time may diminish somewhat (coursework is a bit
more demanding), but the important thing to realize is that college is what
you make of it. If you view it as a four year hurdle to getting a job, then
it's going to feel like that. If you view it as an opportunity to have experts
direct your learning (which makes learning on your own much faster, having
someone telling you what is important), then it'll be much more pleasant.
Throw in the freedom to work on your own projects, and it'll be a great time
of your life.

It'll be hard to maintain that attitude though. >90% of students (and parents)
view college as the ticket to a good job. As an analogy, you could go to a
barbeque to please your boss, or you could go to have fun. It's the same
barbeque either way, but your outlook can determine whether it's enjoyable or
not.

------
eplanit
The way you describe your situation and outlook, I'm wondering whether you're
pursuing a career, or a lifestyle. I fear it's a lifestyle. That is, what
exactly do you mean by "interested in hacking and the start-up culture"?
Hacking is about application of talent and curiosity; start-ups are about
running a business (entrepreneurship, capitalism). Hacking, absent any purpose
or discipline, is really just a hobby. Entrepreneurship, itself, isn't a
"culture". It involves cleverness, creativity, pervasive optimism, and a lot
of perseverance.

Your analysis is telling: "it seems that school is something one goes through
to get a job and make money". And then you go on, "but to be successful...".
I'd stop there - how do you define success? If it's being happy at work
everyday, then I'd say you're seeking a 'job', a 'vocation'...you should seek
to be a skilled tradesman.

------
shadowz
Trust me, what you learn from high school will probably not help you at all.
In fact, you'll forget all of it after graduation. However, the point of high
school is to develop certain skills and to challenge you.

That being said, I'm in this situation as well. I'm a grade 12 student from
Canada. However, I've decided to join the hacking and start up culture. Being
in the technology industry, I, of course, started my own web design company
called Design Vetica. Sam, rather than waiting, why not do it now? Soon after,
we were covered in many articles. One of them, for example, is
[http://www.getharvest.com/blog/2010/01/design-vetica-the-
dou...](http://www.getharvest.com/blog/2010/01/design-vetica-the-double-lives-
of-high-school-entrepreneurs/) As of now, we are already looking into building
our first application

Shameless plug aside, I think school is great, but learning should not be
about getting a job. I love programming, that's why I'm going into Computer
Science in university. Again, Sam, if you truly want to accomplish something,
start today.

Two great links that talks about school:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P2PGGeTOA4>
[http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_crea...](http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html)

------
ErrantX
The problems with modern schools are manyfold. Highlights:

\- it's designed for the slightly-below-average student. Even the average
students get bored, but only the very brightest realise they can do their own
learning.

\- it's currently often treated as somewhere to dump your kids for 14-15 years

It's perfectly possible to work through the system, though, and not work at
company X. Some tips (from someone who managed it):

\- dont take anything too seriously

\- university is for fun, learning is incidental (assuming your competent
enough to get a degree) [seriously: treat it like this and you will learn a
_lot_ more]

\- ignore recruiters

And finally: it's fine to buck the trend. You either end up being a bit
radical and rebellious (yeh!) or certain people just roll their eyes at you.
Neither hurts too much (the first one just gets you laid more).

Quitting Uni to do a startup etc. is fine and make that choice if uni isn't
for you. However I'd seriously consider it - you develop a lot during the next
few years. You'll make contacts, learn a lot about how people interact and
probably make some really important friends. Most importantly your getting
away from "home" and fending for yourself.

Even if you end up doing the same thing in 4 years as you would do now (if
quitting) it's not always a waste of time :)

------
rdl
I actually wonder the same thing sometimes -- I'm 30, went to MIT from age
16-18 but dropped out due to lack of money, went to found a few startups, and
am now doing defense contracting (for another few months).

When I get back, I am trying to decide what to do -- mainly a startup full
time, or a startup/consulting part time plus going back to school (presumably
either MIT or UW, maybe Stanford). I'd probably do aero engineering at UW, or
nuke or biomed or mech eng at MIT, and then would do a startup in those
fields.

The main benefits I see for a degree at 30, when one is already pretty well
established in the work force, are access to grad school, and foreign visa
apps. While I could certainly learn useful CS in an academic program at this
point, I think I'm able to learn on my own about as efficiently by now --
however, that's less true for a new field.

From a purely financial standpoint it is probably a bad idea; 2-4 years of
lost earnings, plus direct costs.

At 18, I would almost definitely do college (actually, I'd probably take 1-2
years off and THEN do school, and try to do a program which had a lot of
coop/work experience).

If nothing else, avoiding going into the job market for 2010-2014 is worth it.

------
ziadbc
Think of university not only as a handful of classes a semester, but instead
as your personal research park. All the resources a hacker/entrepreneur needs
can be found on a college campus. Explore what it has to offer beyond the
track they set you up with each semester, get to know professors, meet your
cofounders. There will be lots of students who are just coasting, but there
are also plenty of those who are self directed like you.

------
zaidf
As someone who has been through both sides of this debate, I've realized that
school is what you make it. I went into school sure that I won't get much out
of it. And that's what happened for the first two years. Then I took a 3
semester break. I returned thinking there is stuff I can learn at school. And
I have learned a _shit load_ which I have been able to apply directly to my
new startup.

It is common for me to run into friends who claim a class is BS. It's hard for
me to agree. At the same time, I understand where they are coming from. The
class's professor might not be super interesting and he might be just running
through slides--but if you went into the class(says its on Sales Management)
hoping to learn about Sales Management, you can learn _despite_ the average
professor and class.

I encourage everyone who thinks school is crap to take some time off and test
out your hypothesis. Some will find it to be true and won't return. That's the
best case scenario! Vast majority will learn how much they suck at various
things and return to school a little humbled and more receptive to the
classroom.

------
kellishaver
College can be wonderful, but only if you approach it with the right attitude.
I went into college immediately after high school and attended for a year. I
enjoyed the social aspects, but overall hated it and felt like I was getting
nothing out of it. I was there because it was just what was expected of me and
really, the thought of not going had never entered my mind.

I took a couple of years off and then found myself wanting to go back, because
I wanted to learn and grow and do more, and when I returned to school, it was
so much more fun and rewarding, and I learned a ton.

I wish more people could go into it with the attitude I had the second time
around, because that's what made the experience great, but I think a lot of
people head off to college right after high school because it's just what they
assume they should do.

So if you are there because you want to learn and want to squeeze every last
useful drop out of it that you can, then you will do well. However, if your
head and your heart aren't into it, it will be a waste of time and money.

That said, a college degree is almost essential in landing any decent job
these days, and the fact that you have finished one, even if it's not related
to that job, does say a great deal about your character and ability to commit
to something big and see it through.

My advice: You're just finishing 12-15 years of school. If you're not excited
about college, give yourself a break. Take a semester or two to figure out
what it is that interests you, to work at your job and save up some money, to
just relax. But if you do that, give yourself a hard and firm deadline for
going back to school and stick to it. Hopefully by the time that deadline
rolls around, you'll have found something to be passionate about, or will have
sufficiently rested from school/study enough that you will be able to view it
as something other than a burden, because if you can go into it excited and
ready to work, ready to learn, you'll get a lot more out of it. And if you're
still not excited about it.... suck it up and do it anyway. You're going to
need it.

Don't let your time off go for too long, though, because while taking a break
can be rejuvenating and make going to college a lot more interesting and
bearable, a very prolonged break from the habit of going to class and studying
can also make it harder to go back. You have to find the balance there, and
that's largely dependant on you.

------
enum
UW has a terrific CS program. You will learn a lot.

------
ryanteo
Hi sam191,

I'm currently still in college, so I guess I understand a little about your
dilemma. However, I am not from the US (from Singapore), so my situation might
be slightly different.

Since I'm currently in my final year, I appreciate my education a lot more
than before. There are so many fundamentals that I wish I had spent more time
on, that are coming back to haunt me now. (P.S. I'm in engineering=))

School gives you an opportunity to meet smart people that forms your future
team. You'll be surprised how many projects get started in college. It's
pretty difficult to meet people like that randomly. School gives you a chance
to work with people so that you can find out what kind of team player you are,
your own personal strengths and weaknesses.

Study what you really like and try to be damn good at it.

I'm just starting to learn programming, but I think most people would
acknowledge that combining knowledge from other fields makes you better in the
field that you choose to specialize in. You also get access to teachers who
can guide you along the difficult parts when you get stuck. Find good
teachers, and you might not find school a waste of time. =)

School provides resources that are relatively freely available for you to take
advantage of. There are funding schemes, equipment, computers, a captive
audience to test on, an alumni network, overseas opportunities..

It's really up to you how you manage your time during those 4 years. If you
are as smart as I think you are, you would realise that school gives you a lot
of assets that you can leverage on easily. If you have been always under-
challenged, maybe you should try taking the advanced modules available.

School is not a direct path to a dull job at a large company. You still choose
what you want to do at every stage of your education/life.

Unfortunately, to be a founder, you need multiple skillsets which you can only
achieve either by being extremely multi-talented or by forming a team.

Lastly, you might end up not knowing what you don't know if you don't go to
school formally.

------
bokonist
Purposes of college:

a) having fun, making lifelong friends, getting laid

b) learning from peers and the environment (lectures, events, clubs, etc)

c) building a social network

If end up not liking your college classes,I recommend switching to an easy
major that takes no time to do. Then spend your free time either consulting or
doing a startup. This is the path I took, with good success, and I know other
people who got their first businesses off the ground while in college.

Here's another way to think of it. You might want to do a startup or start
working in programming. So why not do that while living at college? It's way
more fun than living in an apartment without a social network that you're
connected to.

------
roundsquare
College is not like high school. Take full advantage of it. Also, community
college (at least the one near my HS) is like HS with harder courses. College
where you live away from home is _completely_ different. Some other points:

1) You'll meet amazing people. Other students and professors. It maybe the
only time you can do this in such a casual environment.

2) You can ease into living alone, i.e. without your parents. Its not that
easy to get used to and during college can do it halfway. I.e. you have to buy
your own food but don't have to pay bills/taxes right away.

3) You will learn things you don't even know exist now.

4) Lots of people won't take you seriously without a college degree. You may
think that if you do good work you'll be fine, but sadly thats not true. As an
example, most HR people look at each resume for 7 - 10 seconds. If you don't
have a degree, they'll dump it. (Note: I know you are interested in startups,
but this is just an example).

5) You can learn non-CS things as well. Even if you don't care now, you'll
regret skipping the opportunity to do it later.

6) There's a reason people call it the best time of their lives.

7) Great place to meet girls (or guys, whatever).

I'd say go to college, find some great professors, let them know what your
interests are and they'll help you get into them. Also, learn everything you
can about CS and other topics, join a bunch of clubs, learn how to dance or
sing, go to frat parties, etc... You only get once chance to do this.

I was just talking to someone who regretted graduating a year early because of
the experiences she missed. You'll really regret this later if you don't go to
college. You mention elsewhere that you can join as a junior. Don't do that.
Instead, get a second major or two minors or something.

------
sthomps
Hi, It seems like everyone thus far has given good opinions, however they are
missing the real point. It is not about what they did or their experiences,
it's how school relates to you. With your extra credits and starting in a
junior year, that is an awesome advantage. However, you get out of school what
you want to put into it.

What are your goals when you get out? Just because someone is interested in
start-up culture/hacking doesn't mean they are meant to be an entrepreneur and
apply to a startup program. They are completely separate things. If you love
to hack, and are good at it, you can get a great job at a top
company/consult/join a startup. Maybe joining a startup for 2 years right now
would be great. It may take off and you won't need school. If not, you were
already two years ahead.

My situation is a little different, I'm 18 and graduated from high school this
past June. I chose to forgo university to start a company. I am a non-
technical founder and so I don't do the hacking, I do the biz dev. Best
decision I have ever made. But that is in my situation. I don't sit around and
just do charts. I read 4 books a week, trying to learn as much as I can. For
me, I am better at learning from myself than I am under a schedule over 4
years. I can absorb way more info at a faster rate this way.

The decision is completely personal and up to you. Just go with your gut, and
don't care about other people. When you are successful, no-one cares if you
have the letters beside your name. The better PR story is the kid with no
college. The downside is the average job force applications later on. It
doesn't sound like you are an average person, so I wouldn't worry about this.

Best of luck!

------
mburney
University is a good way to meet people with similar interests. You may also
have a couple professors that inspire you in some way.

But the other 80% of it is a waste of time.

It's like a job; you could learn things on your own much faster but you're
forced to go slower because of the way things are set up.

If I could advise my 18 year old self, I would probably take a couple part
time courses that seem interesting (and attend some extracurricular activities
around campus, and go to parties as well) and then spend the rest of my time
writing software and reading books on my own.

------
reader5000
School consists of sitting in a lecture hall with 100 other students listening
to a middle-aged lecturer talk about his interests for 50min, 3 times a week.
Unless you aspire to be a good listener / note-taker, no, there is no actual
point to school, unless both common sense and modern psychological learning
theory are both horribly wrong.

HOWEVER, when you get a degree what you are getting is a signal to potential
employers that you are of roughly the average intelligence of other people
with that degree. This signal is of varying importance in the real world.

~~~
boryas
I don't know what university you went to, but this is about as far from the
truth as statements come.

If you can't learn anything interesting/useful/mindblowing in a university
course, you are either not paying attention, or are taking the wrong course...

~~~
reader5000
Maybe this is just a generational thing, but when I entered my years of
intellectual curiosity I had access to the local university library,
bookstore, and the internet. Although I don't disagree there are mindblowing
concepts out there, I feel they are much more efficiently delivered in texts
written by practitioners with worldwide recognition in their fields rather
than from a powerpoint lecture made by average state U professor. It seems
rather absurd many students must pay thousands of dollars per semester for the
privilege to sit in on these lectures when one could purchase the definitive
treatment of the subject for $35 and read it in a month.

There are a lot of ways of interpreting the question. But to me, the main
interpretation is: is it at all cost-efficient to charge students $60k+ and 4
years of their lives to sit in on lectures in order to "learn" abstract bodies
of conceptual knowledge? To me the answer is no.

But of course the other aspect is the social signal. Many middle class wage
paying jobs will not consider uncredentialed people. For this reason acquiring
a degree is probably 'worth it'. And of course if you can go for free and
delay the real world for that long, hell yeah do it.

------
jarsj
"Dots connect in future". You are not the first one to not see any point in
going to school now. You will see the point 10 years down after \- having met
a co-founder of your very successful company. \- transforming a college
project into a billion dollar enterprise. \- making great business deals with
your college alumni. \- ... etc etc

School gives plenty of opportunities to be whoever-you-want-to-be. More than
that, the bonds you create in college are priceless. They motivate you to do
whatever big you are destined to do. Don't miss out on all that.

------
Zev
Personally, I don't go to school to learn or for the piece of paper at the
end. I'm smart (or arrogant) enough to think that I can learn anything I need
to pretty quickly. I go to school to find professors (and other students, for
that matter) who care about what they're doing and to interact with them.

I entered college as a CS major, picked up International Relations as a major
somewhere along the way in freshman year after taking a class to fill a req
that turned out to be surprisingly good. This semester? I'm taking 6 classes
in 5 different departments. Turns out that my least favorite class is my CS
class. And thats still a surprisingly good class (even if I'm not a huge fan
of how it's taught).

One of my favorite classes that I've taken (well, currently taking, in this
case) is an upper-level digital art class. Somehow, I'm half-decent at design,
but, I'm not an art student. I just emailed the professor and said that I was
interested in the class, that I wanted to see if there is any crossover that
could be done to combine the two fields. I stopped by and spoke to her one
afternoon and we spent the next few hours discussing possibilities. That sort
of thing just doesn't happen often enough. But thats why you go to college;
for the occasions that it _does_ happen.

------
andreshb
I found co-founders and first employees in my university (UF). Gates, Jobs,
Zuckerberg, Brin&Page, etc all started and found co-founders in school.
(whether you decide to drop out later or not)

I recommend something you have a personal interest with, not necessarily
something you think you may need for your career. I ended up with a political
science degree, but learned all the useful tech startup things by doing,
mentors and online (wikipedia and blogs)

------
sam191
I would love to respond to everyone but I think a follow up would be better. I
never expected getting this much feedback! Just wanted to start off with a big
thanks!

I've decided that the university route is the way to go. I was stressing over
getting a job or doing a startup so much that I forgot about how much I want
to learn. I think I will do whatever interests me and allow that to lead me,
instead of having a pre-determined mndset of what I think I'm supposed to be.
I won't stress out about grades or jobs and make the most of the next four
years.

And just to clarify, I've been going to the community college for two years
full time, not high school. I know the uni is a great place to meet girls but,
and I REALLY don't want to sound cocky, I've never had problems with girls.
I'm not lacking in social skills and I'm sure many here on HN aren't either.

I also never expected there to be so many people from UW here! The next four
years should be exciting, and I'm really looking forward to them and also
being more active in this community. Thanks again.

------
zweinz
I have a different perspective (though a few of the comments here have briefly
touched on it). College is not for meeting like-minded peers, and it's not for
learning about programming. Rather, it's for the _opposite_.

It's for meeting _diverse_ people that will give you new and unexpected
perspectives on life. It's for learning to work with humanities people,
meeting international students, etc. It's for learning how you fit in to
everything else.

I don't think it's too controversial anymore to say that most of the greatest
innovations come from multidisciplinary pursuits. You won't get this if you
sit at home and code.

IDEO, the Stanford d.school, and much of the Silicon Valley community looks
for T-Shaped people. A light working (horizontal) knowledge of many subjects,
and a deep knowledge of one subject.

You will inevitably get your depth of knowledge in coding whether or not you
go to college. But will you really learn how everything fits together?

Oh, and college is FUN, even if UW is a Pac-10 rival :)

------
jasonwilk
I have friends who are very smart, decided to Fore-go college and opted for a
career. They turned out weird.

Remember, College is not an all day, all night venture like High school is.
You can book your schedule to go to class only 2-3 days a week and the rest of
your days you can spend programming at a Startup or for yourself.

If you think college will be a waste of time, you should re-think how you are
approaching it. Don't major in CS and just take classes that generally
interest you. Get an edge on programmers in areas where they like such as
finance, communications, english, etc. Become well rounded, it's a better way
to live.

Lastly, college is an awesome place to meet girls. At the college i went to,
there is some crazy stat that 70% of the students end up marrying someone that
went to the school. It's a lot harder meeting girls in the real world. Let me
rephrase that, meeting quality girls. The best of the crop get picked off in
college. Seriously, it's true. Good luck Sam!

------
dlevine
I would say that college is a good time to learn how to socialize. Sure, you
won't learn anything in college that you couldn't teach yourself by reading a
book, but you will get four years of practice interacting with others. People
go from being kids to adults while they are in college, and the social
opportunities are one of the reasons why. College is an environment where it
is particularly easy to meet people.

Particularly if you're the hacker news type, your social skills are probably
below average for someone of your age. If you don't go to college, you will
likely suffer even more.

A lot of people I know who dropped out of college or graduated early have
significantly poorer social skills than those who finished school.

If you are smart enough, you may be able to compensate for the lack of social
skills. However, social skills are extremely important in the working world
and while starting a company.

------
lvecsey
It's one of those red pill blue pill deals, and perhaps at the heart it drives
at the current melt down of society (depending on your vantage point). If you
go with what you believe you risk having others say things like "you just
haven't applied yourself" to you, and they will forever remind you to go back
to school and hold it against you when you don't. It's really a world view
issue. Honestly, hacker news is not the best forum to ask about this. For the
most part the answers here will be one sided.

One thing to consider is the debt you will accumulate. You also don't want
those around you to be unhappy. Tough deal right? My hope for humanity and the
human condition has actually diminished in recent years, despite a lingering
optimism for well into the future. It's just been pushed a little further
along, I suppose, by a generation or two.

------
elblanco
If you don't understand the value of it right now, don't go.

I didn't go for about 5 years after high school. Then one day I had a Eureka
moment and totally got it. I signed up for school, and was straight A's until
graduation. There's really nothing that says you have to go now.

When you get tired of working dead end jobs, or watching people get promoted
faster than you, or make more money...even if you are materially, objectively
better than they are...someday you'll get sick of it and decide to fix it. You
can either go through the next 25 years pissed off as to why you can't seem to
make it through that glass ceiling, or you'll "get it" and go back to school
and get your sheep's skin and suddenly find yourself with an extra 20-30k in
the bank every year to start with.

------
richardburton
Dropping out to work on my business felt so right at the time. I was studying
politics and hated it. Now I'm living with students and watching them enjoy a
care-free life for a few years whilst I stress about wages, sales and tax-
returns. The grass, it seems, is always greener.

------
dejv
I was like you few years ago. I finished high school with strait As, working
full time on the side as a programmer and I decide to not continue in my
education and take job as a programmer and then product manager and I thought
that I know everything I need.

I am from very well educated familly and they always says that I should go to
the uni, otherwise I will regret this in my 50s and you can always make money
later. It takes me four years to discover that and I am in the half of the
undergraduate CS program right now (in my mid-20s) and I am happy with it.

Maybe you need more time to see benefits of the college education, but be
warned: comming back to the school "from-the-real-world" is very, very hard.

------
badave
College is the new high school. It's a requirement. Not having a college
degree will be a crutch for the rest of your life. To level the playing field,
its pretty much required to have a college degree.

~~~
Tangurena
Aye. And while most of our profession can succeed without one, the day is
coming when you'll need one just to get past HR.

------
olalonde
This article sums it up pretty well:
[http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2010/03/03/just-in-case-
versus...](http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2010/03/03/just-in-case-versus-just-
in-time/)

------
bavcyc
The point of school is to learn how to think in a certain way. If you study
engineering then you learn to think as an engineer. Ideally you will learn to
learn, but not everyone that finishes a degree is good at teaching their own
self new ideas and thoughts. Take classes outside your major to see other
methods of thinking and analysis.

I've been reading several of the 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' books which are
interesting as they ask what type of worker do you want to be. Find a cheap
used copy, it might provide food for thought.

------
ow
School is a time where you'll _have_ time. You'll have time to code, to
explore, and most importantly for some, time to get just a little older.
You'll be amazed how much you learn about yourself and your interests, and how
much you'll develop yourself and your interests. You don't have to take
classes that prepare you for Blub either – take art, math, science,
philosophy, or whatever tickles your fancy. All of this will lend some
relevancy to whatever self-motivated doings you wind up with down the road.

------
smutticus
If you only learn one thing at college learn to write. If you can learn to
distill complex concepts into straightforward language you will go places.

I've seen highly competent technical people struggle in their career due to a
lack of good writing skills. Take technical writing classes and work your ass
off in them. Take creative writing classes just to stretch your brain and
force yourself to think differently. Approach writing like you might approach
programming because it's just as important.

------
pook
University gives you two benefits:

1\. Free time. You will never have as much time to hack and experiment with
stuff as you do now.

2\. Other people who also have lots of free time and similar interests.

Honestly, the people you meet in all night hacking sessions, bull sessions and
such, are the biggest reason to stick with college.

My advice: regard the classes as ammunition for your real education that
occurs usually in the wee morning over pizza and a keyboard.

------
tigerthink
I agree. In fields other than computer programming like physics, school makes
sense because there genuinely are years of knowledge you need to acquire
before being useful. This isn't true in computer programming since you tap
into those years of knowledge by--get this--programming with libraries. And
using other peoples' software. Using someone else's web server means I don't
need to know how TCP/IP works, or even what it stands for.

------
apsec112
"Everyone around me keeps saying how important school is, but right now I'm
having trouble seeing that."

Most people are morons. 45% of Americans still believe that the Earth is less
than 10,000 years old. It's really as simple as that.

Now, if you're going to go into a field like finance, you really will want the
prestige from a name-brand university. But programming people generally care
much less about school prestige.

------
bricestacey
My advice: Be sure UW is right for you. If it's not, get out, and quick (to
another school). Since you don't seem to have any particular reason in mind to
go to school, you probably have very little to judge a school by.... this is a
problem. Figure out what you want out of school, reevaluate your school choice
(hopefully to confirm your choice), and you might actually anticipate
attending in the Fall.

------
chrischen
It may not be the most efficient method of learning for everyone, but you'll
probably learn something there. For a lot of people it's the perfect
environment. That being said, I think you should try it out and see if it
works out for you. If you're absolutely miserable, consider your options if
and only if that happens.

------
Mongoose
I'm currently a junior at UW, studying computer engineering. I don't know too
many fellow HNers from school, but there's definitely plenty of opportunities
here for a budding hacker. Feel free to email me if you ever want advice or
info on the CSE department: meagher@cs.washington.edu

------
sown
Think of it as a few years opportunity to teach yourself a bunch of new
things. College campuses for various reasons and externalities are a great
place to do this in.

However, you must apprentice yourself to learn the trade.

------
swombat
See also my article on the topic:

<http://danieltenner.com/posts/0004-college-vs-startup.html>

------
sage_joch
I agree that school can be tedious as all hell. But the UW CSE program didn't
feel like school at all; it was a blast.

------
marshallp
Unless you're planning to work on wall street, at google, or go to a top
med/law/business school, there's no point in worrying about school or grades
at all. It's a time to socialize with people and makes friends in a way you'll
never get to again. You and everyone else are naive little adults unspoilt by
the harsh realities of life. Even delaying college by two or more years will
destroy that, you'll be a 'mature' student and it won't be the same. Go to
college, party hard or just hang out, drop out in later years if you build a
million dollar startup, otherwise scrape through to finish.

------
anonjon
I have little doubt that one of the biggest advantages of going to college is
that you get to do a whole number of radically different things. You can join
(and administer) a half dozen clubs, take really hard and interesting classes,
and meet people who you probably wouldn't otherwise meet. You can stay up all
night studying and write long papers on strange things, and then step outside
your door and play frisbee.

Above and beyond the particular funding, as far as I can tell, you never get
those types of opportunities again either.

I hate to paint a bleak picture(1), but afterwards _you may end up working 8
hours every day, doing approximately the same thing every day, with people who
are 'colleagues' or 'work friends' (who don't want to get outside and play
some frisbee), where there is little sense of community, interaction,
challenge, or variety. (The majority of people do Blub all day, and not just
programmers)_

You'll be forced to submit to bizarre and draconian management practices where
it is tacitly assumed that you are not an adult, and can not be trusted to act
like one. You will have less autonomy than you ever did in college.

So yes, god yes, go to college. Don't put yourself in too much debt, but
certainly go. But please, don't go to college because it is the right path. Go
because it is an interesting path. If there is another more interesting path,
take it.

1.) a lie, desolation is my middle name

------
nlabs
Major in software engineering and build some cool stuff in the meantime,
sharpening your skills. Then apply to YC during your jr/sr year.

~~~
sam191
Because of my college credits, I will be entering the University as a Jr. What
I'm afraid of is that I will not have enough time to sharpen my skills in a
year or two, which is why I've had graduate school in the back of my mind. And
also why I feel like I should be coding as much as can now.

~~~
evgen
This gives you a couple of advantages over your peers. Take advantage of your
extra credits to take a light course load; enough to qualify as a full-time
student but with a bit more free time than others to work on pet projects or
take advantage of all of the other great things that you will be surrounded
with.

