

Ask HN: I live near a awesome university, what I do with that fact? - speeder

Currently I live a 10 minute walk of the main gate of University of São Paulo ( known as USP ), it is a huge public university with lots of stuff and very hard entry requirements for a bachelor degree ( because it is free and ranked among the best of the world, thus on average there are 30 applicants for each spot ).<p>I wonder, how I take advantage of that?
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thifm
It's not so hard as you think to get into USP. Actually, it's kinda easy if
your family paid you a good education by brazilian terms, which basically
means you studied in ETAPA or Objetivo and can't reason about more important
matters but have over 9000 test exercises under your belt.

I advise you to not give a shit about it because you can learn way more at
home, unless you want a degree. If you do want that piece of paper with their
name, study and get inside.

99,9999% of research there is shit, if you are serious about it, try to find a
way to move and study abroad(depends highly on your family's social status,
hehe).

~~~
speeder
I already have a degree and don't have patience to get another. I am wondering
what to do with a university beside trying to get a degree.

~~~
thifm
nothing.

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yolesaber
Host your own hackathons and make them open to students. This way not only do
you build a camaraderie with the student body, but you now also have a talent
pool to draw from if you say, want to do a large project or found a startup.

~~~
speeder
I like the idea :)

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alt_f4
See if you can sneak into lectures that interest you.

Join clubs/societies to meet new people and try out new things.

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shankar1221989
lot of researchers are looking for students bubbling with energy. Identify
what you like and walk into that prof's cabin. Profs like such people.

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Mz
You might be able to start a geek business.

I was a military wife for a lot of years. I have lived near a few big
universities. They tend to foster used book stores, certain kinds of hobby
stores (comic stores, gaming stores, etc), museums and other "intellectual
elite" things that you often cannot find in other towns of similar size or
cannot find at all elsewhere or cannot find the same quality thus people will
drive farther to go there.

I lived in Manhattan Kansas at one time. It was about 50k population with
about 11k students and 5k faculty and staff. It was awesome. It had used book
stores, two art stores at the mall (one of which sold the works of local
artists so they could make a living), and two "children's museums" to give the
kids an intellectually enriching alternative to Chuck E Cheese. People who
lived in the state capital an hour away (a much larger city) would book
birthday parties and the like at the children's museum. We also had a small
zoo which was in many ways better than the larger zoo in the capital.

A big university attracts people who will spend time and money on intellectual
activities. This is a business opportunity if you want to take advantage of
it.

