
College was my biggest mistake (2012) - hollerith
http://stevecorona.com/college-was-my-biggest-mistake/
======
stevencorona
Hey guys, author here- this is an older post that someone reposted. I get alot
of hate for this post, so let me sum it up here:

College was my biggest mistake. Not your biggest mistake. I'm not giving
advice, just being honest about my experience. You have to "pay to play". Who
knows if I would have been able to bootstrap myself without a year of college.
All I know is I can't imagine the ridiculous amount of debt I'd be in if I
finished.

It boils down to this: I wish that when I was 18 someone told me college
wasn't the only option.

~~~
notlisted
What worked in (y)our field, would not work elsewhere.

I'm the product of a Western-European system. Yearly tuition was like $2k.
Your 44k would have covered 4 years in college including housing, food and
ample beer.

IMHO, the real problem lies in the acceptance of the status quo in the
American educational system and the unwillingness to let government play a
role (through taxation, grants, etc). It's baffling to me that a first-world
country like the USA doesn't want to invest in education. If you don't pay for
the education, you'll pay for the unemployment benefits and/or lack of
innovation.

I make a good living, but still I worry greatly about my daughter's future.
Avg college tuition supposedly will reach 90k/yr by the time she's ready to
attend, unless something is done about this madness.

Bill Gates has the right idea with his 10K BA challenge and I like what I see:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/01/opinion/my-valuable-
cheap-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/01/opinion/my-valuable-cheap-
college-degree.html?_r=0)
[http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/335522/10000-degree-k...](http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/335522/10000-degree-
katrina-trinko)

~~~
Radim
The world's top universities are predominantly American. [1]

Please please please, don't let the government with its stinky paws turn them
into some mediocre Western-European institutions.

Let people (students AND employers) realize the value of education, or lack
thereof, on their own. Remove obstacles from competition (aka less
government), don't add more through regulation.

[1] [http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-
ranki...](http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-
rankings/2012-13/world-ranking)

~~~
vacri
Those rankings give a 60% weighting towards research rather than teaching. It
is unsurprising that the country with the only trillion-dollar GDP has the
highest number of top universities, since research runs on money.

Half of that 60% is citations in research. Hardly surprising again that the
Anglo universities get a guernsey there, given that English is the lingua
franca these days, particularly in science. If a university only publishes in
English, then it's going to get a wider citational audience as compared to
splitting its output between French and English.

Ultimately, in the context of the discussion here, the concern is the quality
of _teaching_ , not the quality of _research_. While there is an interaction
between the two, they are not synonymous.

~~~
temp453463343
The GDP and population of the EU is larger than that of the United States.

~~~
Volpe
erm... right... but the EU doesn't collect taxes from all of that... they are
individual countries.

~~~
tinco
Right, and individual universities that are supported by those countries.

What you should be argueing is that researchers are more densely distributed
in top universities in the US, because in Europe researchers are less likely
to jump to another country. Especially when they prefer to publish in their
own language.

This may or may not be true.

Truth is, I at least and I think we in general are rather envious of the
awesome top universities the US has.

But I think the US should be envious that we in Europe have our quality spread
over the universities, and no matter what your parents' income or background
is, or how much effort you put into highschool, you will always be able to
attend a quality university.

I think that's worth not having the world's top universities.

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

Yeah, no. This is the problem with so many of these anti-college diatribes:
legitimate criticisms such as increasingly abysmal professor-to-administrative
ratios are drowned out in complete hyperbole.

Or, taken another way: treat this article as an anecdote rather than a
prescription.

~~~
arethuza
Out of interest, are all classes in US universities 10 weeks?

~~~
derekerdmann
No, this is a feature of RIT and a few other schools. Even RIT is switching to
15-week semesters this fall.

~~~
evincarofautumn
The history of this is controversial. Student Government was charged with
polling the student body and making an official recommendation to President
Destler on that basis. The students voted to keep 10-week quarters, but SG
recommended against the popular vote. It wasn’t just their fault, of course,
but this kind of thing is part of the reason I left RIT. Nothing seemed to get
done, at least not right.

~~~
derekerdmann
Believe me, as a current student, I know how it happened. This really isn't
the place for this discussion.

------
up_and_up
> We were middle class, but not rich, so I had to borrow to afford a
> $44,000/year RIT tuition. It’s what everyone else does, right?

Sorry, not amongst myself and all my friends. 44K/year is an absurd amount of
money.

I just posted on how I got a BA degree in 2004 from UC Berkeley for 11K total.

See here: [<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5154095>]

I think your title should be: "Going to an expensive college with no game-plan
nor interest in working hard is the biggest mistake."

~~~
shiftpgdn
Sorry but your scenario is fallacious. Just because you got a scholarship does
not mean it is possible for everyone to get a scholarship. There are only so
many scholarships to go around and universities can only reduce their tuition
by so much.

Additionally you did not list living costs, books, or any other additional
charges you get hit with when going to school. Unfortunately the system
depends on the majority of students paying the full price for tuition and
housing. Don't try to pass off what happened to you as something that can
happen to everyone if they pull up on their bootstraps hard enough.

~~~
up_and_up
> Sorry but your scenario is fallacious

How so? Taking the scholarship out of the question for a moment, how does that
change my central argument? That still puts my degree around 15K (a reasonable
sum).

Community College => State school BA. I bet most people could do this for
under 20-25K depending on the school. Going to an expensive private school for
all 4 years is absurd unless you have a decent amount of grant/scholarships
etc.

~~~
toast0
I did 2 years of California Community College too (UCB wouldn't take me as a
transfer student though), but be aware that California Community College was
very inexpensive a few years ago (< $20/unit); and is still pretty inexpensive
at $46/unit compared to similar systems in other states. For example,
Wisconsin community college about $215/credit but if you pay for 12 credits,
you can take up to 18 (at 19 they start charging you again). Yes, it's still
less expensive than going to a state 4 year school, but it may still be too
expensive to avoid financing.

------
geuis
Lots and lots of negative responses here. I'm probably in the minority then,
on the same boat as the author that ran aground.

I never finished college. It was boring and just felt like an extension of
high school, an experience that was mostly mediocre and not due for
repetition.

It was just me, my sister, and my mom growing up. Not a lot of money from mom
for college, though she helped where she could. After a while, I was pretty
much doing what the author was. Side projects and self-education. Until I was
27, the most money I ever made in a year was $30k.

I went through a nasty breakup in 2007 and moved out to San Francisco. Within
2 weeks I had 2 offers for between $75-$85k. I thought getting $60k was going
to be awesome. Needless to say, I was floored. To be honest, I'm 10x the
engineer now than I was then.

I know that for a lot of people, your degrees were hard won and very valuable
to you. Hell, I'm jealous from time to time of you guys and regret I never
finished my computer engineering degree. I was scraping by and learning where
I could, but almost totally missed out on the college experiences that so many
other people have.

But I think what the author and I are saying is that there are multiple roads
to success. There's nothing wrong with getting a degree if you're the kind of
person that its good for. We just aren't those kinds of people. You don't have
to be defensive because we aren't criticizing. At least, I'm not.

If anyone is looking for a node.js/js engineer hit me up. I run jsonip.com
which is currently pushing almost 6 million requests per day. I can make
things scale.

------
nilkn
I have a feeling a lot of people on Hacker News went to top-ranked colleges
with full scholarships--Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, etc. These universities
provide completely different environments and experiences than the typical
college. They're also so well funded that they provide significantly better
financial aid and scholarships as well. Provided you can get accepted, it's
actually much, much harder to get a full ride at the University of Missouri
than it is at Harvard.

In short, if you're going to one of the best colleges in the nation for free
and you love classroom learning, _of course_ it's going to be a great
experience. That's a no brainer.

What if you don't like classroom learning? What if you went to a bad high
school, you disliked it from the beginning, and weren't motivated to get the
grades to get into one of the top colleges because of your prior experiences
with school?

Speaking as someone who started college at a state university, it was a very
mixed bag. All these brilliant peers you guys are talking about? Yeah, they
weren't there. I was taking classes as a freshman with seniors who were barely
passing and bad-mouthed the professors whenever they could. When I mentioned
functional programming to my advisor in the CS department, she didn't really
even know what I was talking about. They had a theory of programming
languages, which she "thought" would talk about them, but I wasn't allowed to
take it for another three years because of all these requirements on how you
progress through the courses. So instead I got to take a class on Java where
you'd have a three hour lab with TAs there to assist you, and your only task
would be to write FizzBuzz.

Now I eventually transferred to a much better school, and I had a much more
enriching experience. Suddenly I had peers who were interning at Google,
Facebook, etc. Suddenly I had an academic advisor who wanted me to push myself
rather than hold myself back. Suddenly I had really interesting homework
projects rather than a week to do FizzBuzz. And at that point I started to get
a lot more out of college.

------
pnathan
> We were middle class, but not rich, so I had to borrow to afford a
> $44,000/year RIT tuition. It’s what everyone else does, right?

Yeah, there's your problem. I didn't spend 44K on my _entire_ bachelor's
degree. Neither did anyone else I know... It's dang stupid to burn that kind
of money if you can choose not to.

edit & reading this after lunch: OK, I was a tad nasty there. Apologies for
being nasty. But I stand by my point that there are other options that are
considerably cheaper.

~~~
emddudley
Tuition at RIT in 2012-2013 is $32,784. It's only $44k if you include room and
board.

It was much lower when OP when to school as well.

------
mehrdadn
I have yet to see someone who actually did the work and was _successful_ in
college later regret having had his higher education. (Or, i.e., think that he
would've been off better without it.)

By contrast, I've definitely seen people who dropped out of college and became
successful in something, but who later regretted having not taken advantage of
their college education.

~~~
randomdata
I have on a few occasions, but it seems like a loaded perspective. To make it
through four years of blood, sweat, and tears and to do it successfully
requires significant investment in believing you are doing the right thing.
With that, you'll always find some way to justify that you did the right
thing, even if you somehow could prove it was a mistake.

It would be like a successful businessman who later regrets it all and wishes
he had lived on welfare. It doesn't happen because if he truly wanted to live
on welfare, he would not have built his business in the first place. On the
other hand, you are apt to find people on welfare who regret not starting a
business.

~~~
wfunction
And yet people who drop out of college do so because they think they're doing
the right thing, and yet they regret it much more frequently than the other
way around.

The fact that you think you're making a huge investment doesn't explain the
fact that some investments are more regrettable than others.

~~~
randomdata
I, unfortunately, am not sure I fully understand you are trying to add. Regret
doesn't magically appear later, it builds from doubts in the present.

College students noticing doubts about what they are doing, they are going to
drop out to figure out what is wrong. People who successfully graduate are
almost never going to have that problem just by making it to graduation. The
whole idea that college graduates have that kind of regret infrequently is
probably true, but it doesn't really tell us anything meaningful.

It is like noticing that college graduates are mostly hard working people.
Well, sure. The people who aren't hard working dropped out already. That,
however, doesn't also mean that all dropouts are not hard working. There are
many reasons why people need to drop out and those reasons sometimes come with
their own sets of doubt.

~~~
wfunction
> People who successfully graduate are almost never going to have that
> problem.

And yet many people who _successfully_ drop out of college to (say) pursue a
business (through their blood, sweat, and tears, arguably sometimes even more
so than their college-student counterparts), however, _do_ end up regretting
it.

("Fake" dropouts like Bill Gates notwithstanding; see my comment above if
you're not sure what I mean.)

The idea that the first group "almost never" going to have that problem,
whereas the second group is likely to, should make you wonder why that might
be the case. (It's not a tautology.)

~~~
randomdata
> whereas the second group is likely to, should make you wonder why that might
> be the case.

Not really. I've already explained it. To be in college in the first place
means that you have some reason to want to graduate. Often life gets in the
way, such as that great businesses opportunity you cannot pass up, but that
doesn't make your reasons for wanting to go to college magically disappear.

I also find the attempt to make it a binary issue for graduates interesting. A
successful business owner who regrets dropping out doesn't have to regret
starting that successful business, but a college graduate has to regret
dropping out if he wants to regret not starting a business, or whatever. Why
can't a college graduate be happy with his accomplishments _and_ regret not
starting a successful business during those years?

~~~
wfunction
> Why can't a college graduate be happy with his accomplishments and regret
> not starting a successful business during those years?

If you regret a choice, it means you wish you had made some other choice.

It doesn't make any sense to regret not making a business when you're happy
with your current accomplishments... unless you're asking why someone couldn't
have done both simultaneously, in which case the answer is: most people can't
run a successful business and a successful college career simultaneously. One
is already hard enough.

~~~
randomdata
> It doesn't make any sense to regret not making a business when you're happy
> with your current accomplishments...

So, you are saying someone who has a successful business and regrets not
finishing college must regret starting said business? I don't think it works
like that. It is quite possible to be happy with your business _and_ wish you
could have done other things at the same time.

Likewise, I expect many graduates do wish they could have done more during
that time of their life (just look at how many lament that they didn't get to
party because they were studying all the time), but that doesn't mean they
need to regret the accomplishment full stop.

~~~
wfunction
I just looked up "regret" and it says:

"to feel sorry and sad about something previously done or said that now
appears wrong, mistaken, or hurtful to others"

So, yes, if you regret something then, by definition, that means you wish you
hadn't done it. That's what calling an action "wrong" or "a mistake" /means/.

~~~
randomdata
I'm glad you were able to clear up any misconceptions you had. Hopefully this
has made what I was telling you more clear.

------
anExcitedBeast
This is not something you should be proud of. Anyone can ace a class they are
passionate about; the fact that you failed out of courses you were
intellectually capable of destroying says a lot about your character. Getting
a college degree is a sign of commitment and work ethic. If I can't trust you
to stay with my firm when the work isn't a roller coaster of stimulation, then
I can't count on you at all.

Full disclosure - I am an RIT grad.

------
deodorel
well, that's because your in us of a. I'am an european so i had my 5 years of
software eng. degree for free, plus i was able to do freelance work in the
same time. So, no debt, 5 extra years of partying, drinking with my mates
(many of them recruited in the same university), and a nice diploma which
really matters here over the pond :).

~~~
27182818284
I think you're getting downvoted because of the comment's tone, but it is
noteworthy to point out how different the college experience can be in Europe
vs the US in my opinion.

~~~
deodorel
Well, the article was in itself a bit anecdotical, as someone else put it, so
i tried to keep up. Yes the experience is quite different, and while i am very
passionate for what i'm doing (i'm programming a way or another since i was
12), i really think college is worth something, beside having fun: you learn
how to think, how to evaluate, how to apply what you know ... and how to
finish things you started - projects, jobs, assignements.

------
canterburry
I have several issues with posts/articles in this vain:

1\. The author assumes they wouldn't have done any better than they currently
are even if they did ace/complete college. They might in fact have been far
better off than they currently are, even if they consider themselves
successful.

2\. The author possibly discounts indirect skills which they picked up during
college. These are not necessarily taught but rather a by-product of the
college environment (i.e. public speaking, word choice in conversation, social
adaptation, ability to argue a point etc)

3\. Someone currently making a decision about going to college may think that
they too won't derive any value from college since famous/successful person X
didn't find it useful. There is an unfortunately amount of young people who
believe being successful is their undeniable destiny and don't have a plan B.
Most will at some point or another have to take a job and most likely that job
will ask for a college degree.

~~~
pacaro
2) ... indirect skills ...

I was thinking about this too. I studied an irrelevant[1] subject at a top
tier university. In a sense the _only_ benefits were indirect skills (a world
famous university does look good on a resume, but not if they ask for
transcripts (which only the INS/CIS has ever done)

I think that in the moment, once you have flipped the bit on college, you are
no longer getting any benefits, certainly not any net benefits at which point
pulling the rip-cord seems smart.

[1] History and Philosophy of Science - more relevant to software development
than I normally admit.

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

>The culmination of my second year was a 0.33 GPA.

------
overshard
I'm in the same boat as you brother, college was my biggest mistake. And, much
like you, every job I've had since college no one cared that I even went to
college, they just cared if I could do the job/saw my portfolio and hired me.
I've never been turned down for a job I wanted.

------
speeder
I still regret college.

I completed it.

But I wish I had dropped out.

Also I wish I did not had this stupid 20k loan to pay too.

Here in Brazil the best wage you can get as programmer, is still around 36k
(yes, I am not kidding).

I get right now 15k.

So I get 15k yearly, and I have a 20k loan =D How awesome is that?

~~~
igravious
Emigrate. You speak English, Portuguese and ... ? You've got tech skills,
there are tech visas for a lot of developed countries. Spend < 10 years
working abroad and pay off your loan and move back to Brazil with some
wonderful life experience. Also, in a native English-speaking (British Isles,
US, Canada, Oz and Kiwiland) country the second language is a total bonus a
lot of time ... If you've got commitments that tie you to Brazil see if they
can be loosened for a few years :)

~~~
speeder
I think a lot about that, but I am yet to figure where I should go, and how to
do it.

Emigrating sounds a lot easier when you find a job elsewhere and is invited.

~~~
fusiongyro
You hang out on HN long enough someone is bound to offer you one, but you
should probably fill out your profile some more (email address and name,
minimally). But even if they don't reach out to you, there are job
opportunities posted almost every day. If you have the skill (you're here...
it stands to reason) and put in the effort, you could be on a plane in a few
months.

------
sputknick
I wish I had your courage. I toughed it out and did the whole four years. I
would have been better off not going. I listened to people who told me I would
end up a loser working minimum wage. Well done sir.

------
arindone
I have to REALLY disagree here -- maybe it's because I just read Cal Newport's
"So Good They Can't Ignore You," but I have to believe that you have
significant career capital that others generally don't have.

Sure, it's easy to cash that in for a sweet job if you're a very hard worker
(note: not necessarily "passionate") and/or if you have some valuable skills
that would just deprecate if left to incubate in college for 4 years. Sure, if
you're going to college for a liberal arts degree or english lit then the 4
year investment of >$100k is not worth your time.

I do respect the fact that you somewhat avoid the maxim that "it was a waste
of time for ME therefore YOU shouldn't go to college." But I think the center
is displaced disingenuously -- university is for developing a skill set that
may not be there just yet. If I taught myself to cook and have been cooking
for a few years, but my friends can't and they're all going to cooking school
to learn to cook, I can't complain and say "Cooking school was a waste of time
to me -- in fact all you need is passion to just go do it!" as if that's a
meaningful statement or maxim to be sent out into the world. Because we know
that borders on BS.

I believe significantly in taking advantage of your strengths; however hard
work, regardless of the setting, is the true differentiator.

~~~
sopooneo
An english lit degree may not be worth the _money_ , but for the passionate,
it absolutely is worth the _time_.

------
jetti
My frame of mind is that going to college should be for the knowledge, not for
a job. If you want to go to school for a job, there are plenty of trade
schools you can go to. If college was just for jobs, the majority of majors
would be cut. If you are going to college just so you can get a job, then I
believe that it will most likely end up as a mistake, especially in the
software development field where it is possible to get a job without a CS
degree.

~~~
craigching
I like your comment, I think it's the most concise explanation of why you
should go to college, not for "job training" but to be educated and not simply
about computer science. I think good programmers should have a good basis in
general knowledge, and therefore college should make you a better person.

I say this as someone who hasn't finished his BS Computer Science degree. I
probably have a couple of credits of CS courses to finish and some liberal
arts (literally, some art classes) to finish my BS. I have been working in the
profession for over 20 years and I feel like not finishing my BS is a bit of
an albatross around my neck. Not because I feel it's holding me back, but
because if I hadn't taken the courses I have taken, I wouldn't be interested
in the broader subject of Computer Science. I never would have taken that
Scheme class (SICP) that some of the other students complained about because
it was in a language that "wasn't useful" (I was curious and thoroughly
enjoyed the class). I never would have been curious about writing a B tree
from scratch and learning about algorithms. I never would have been curious
about Derivatives, Integrals, and Differential Equations. All things that
don't generally directly apply to my day-to-day job, but because I have
knowledge of them, I am a better engineer and problem solver. Even my
philosophy credits help me with critical thinking. I could go on and on ...

------
Apreche
I also went to RIT. Was the education worth the price? I don't really know. I
did learn things, but I almost definitely could have learned them with some
other less expensive form of education.

Do I regret it? Not at all. If given the chance again, I would go to RIT again
every time. It was, and still is, the nerdiest school around. I froze my ass
off, but it was still worth it. The people I met there are basically my second
family. The times I had there are fondly remembered. What dollar amount can I
put on people who turned out to be lifelong friends?

If all I cared about was getting an education, a job, and making money, it
would have been a dumb idea. But the memories and awesome times that were had
are priceless. It is sad that the author went there and graduated, but did not
have that experience. Perhaps it is their attitude that prevented them from
having it. If you are in the library, you are doing college wrong. You should
have been at the hockey game instead.

Also, thanks to my CS degree and the RIT co-op program I was able to get a
well paying job immediately upon graduation. I have been basically constantly
employed since then, and all of my student loans were 100% paid off months
ago.

------
anuraj
For my undergraduate degree in India, I paid $100 per year in a government
owned college. Hostel room and food took $30 per month and all that money and
more came back in scholarships. So I paid less than 0 in the 90's to get an
engineering degree. Later I did my MS in US on a sabbatical, and my company
paid 90% tuition fees. So all in all I spent may be $5000. When it was time
for my MBA, again company paid 90% tuition fees, so I spent another $5000 out
of pocket. That is it - 3 degrees in $10,000- all from good schools - which
moulded me to what I am. Public education should be universal and free for the
deserving. The expense comes back as tax dollars to the government besides
ensuring good quality human resources for the country.

------
NetNinja
College isn't for everyone so repeat after me.

B students end up working for C students and A students end up going back to
college to teach.

I did 13 years in the Marine Corps, Got out during the technology boom. walked
into a low paying Tech support job and now making a strong 6 figures. No
College, Little bit of tech schools and no certifications.

If I had stayed in until retirement I would have missed the tech boom, Missed
out learning a marketable skill that I taught myself while I was in the
military, and My job prepared me for working on aircraft in the heat of summer
and the cold of winter. No thanks I love being an office IT tech dude.

------
gedrap
To be honest, I'm starting to get too much of those anti-college posts.

Many point out that they didn't learn anything from uni/college. Well, how
about studying in better one then? One person I know often mentions how
pointless the university is and that he dropped out on day 5 although it was
at most average university (UK).

Especially "didn't learn anything in year one". And you were not supposed,
really. The point of first year is 1) introduce you to many areas so you can
get a feeling of what do you want to do 2) not press too hard because some
(mainly international) students have difficulties in adapting.

------
jebblue
>> Hustling = passion + ability to sell yourself. No degree required

Wow, inspiring writing, I agree too with the footnote that was attached,
paraphrasing; this works in the computer industry. I think the reason why is
that it's easy for the human mind to comprehend being a doctor, lawyer,
scientist, etc. It's hard to contemplate wanting to actually do programming.
The general populace just doesn't get it; those who do, can't imagine doing
anything else. Even if it's not programming, just working with and through
computers to see ideas come to light.

------
derekerdmann
A lot of great discussion on this article popped up when it was first written:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4364370>

------
sakopov
He's absolutely right. You don't need a degree of any kind to be a software
developer. When i was in High School, I've been told that by devs at career
fairs just about every time i attended. I always thought it was odd that a
company rep at a career fair would tell me not to go to college. In all
honesty, if you don't think education is necessary, then don't go to school.
It's an absolutely legitimate claim. However, do the engineering world a favor
and never call yourself an engineer or pretend to be one.

~~~
liberatus
That's a new definition of "engineer" for me. Didn't realize that having a
degree was a prerequisite of the title, like getting a PhD gives you "Dr."

~~~
sakopov
Honestly, in this day and age the fact that you have an engineering degree is
a sign that you can get your ass off the couch and strive to become
something... not really any sign that you have something cooking in your head.
Although, if you get through any engineering major curriculum you're likely
not an complete idiot.

Engineering is a discipline. It's systematic, rigid, concise and if you fuck
up you're liable for your actions. Would you hire someone who claims to be a
self-taught electrical engineer, mechanical engineer? No. You know why?
Because these people work their asses off to become licensed. Your hiring
manager will probably lose people on his team if he hires someone who doesn't
even have a single college credit. It's a matter of discipline and respect for
your colleagues. In some areas it's regulated and you cannot hire an engineer
without a degree.

Would you hire a self-taught software engineer? You can. What's the end
result? All too often, your company on front-page news because this person
made a rookie security mistake. Is he or she going to be responsible for
leaking thousands of sensitive records to public? No. They might get fired,
but that's it. Take this same example to medical field where a software bug
can kill (and has before i.e. radiation treatments) and all of a sudden you
can't even prosecute this "engineer" for murder.

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benhebert
At 23, soon to be 24 I wish that I never went to college. Phone sales for a
summer at State Farm + #1 at e-commerce startup taught me more than I ever
learned in a classroom.

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f055
I like such posts for bringing up the fact that you have to follow your path
to be happy, not other's footsteps or society rules. On the other hand, some
imbeciles think of such posts as an argument against education, and that's
just a straight way to a society that breeds morons. So, if you are not
bright, you might wanna have a pass on this one. Yeah, but who am I kidding,
none of the slow ones will get my point anyway...

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obstacle1
Not to minimize anyone's strife, but... If spending one year in college is
actually your "biggest mistake" thus far, you've had a comparatively sweet
life.

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BenSS
I hope everyone remembers this when they have kids! Give them the option of
not going, rather than setting the expectation that it is expected. I plan to
encourage mine to take at least a gap year when applying, rather than jumping
in. (unless they are 100% certain of the field/direction, which is unlikely)

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cmbaus
I went to RIT in the 90s. My total student debt was something like $17k. In my
case I felt it was worth it, but if faced with $140k in debt for the same
education, I would seriously have my doubts and probably would have considered
alternatives.

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isdf
_$400 a week is hardly enough to live comfortably_

Is the cost of living in Rochester that high, or was the author living
somewhere else at this time?

~~~
stevencorona
400/week after taxes is something like 1200/mo.

    
    
        1200
        -500 (rent, 2 roommates)
        -200 (food/beer)
        -100 (car)
        -350 (min student loan payment)
    

50 left over.

~~~
isdf
_-350 (min student loan payment)_

Ah, there's the part I forgot about.

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Sindrome
Not getting into a good college is the biggest mistake I ever made.

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berlinbrown
0.33 nice...

