Ask YC: What should I be doing at age 19?

[epall]

I'm just about finished with my first year here at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and I'm coming to the realization that this is not the place for a software entrepreneur who grew up on the west coast. I've got a few summers of experience working for startups under my belt, and I'm trying my best to live vicariously through YC News and other sites as I slog through high school and college. It gets old.

My question is this: Where should I go from here? I've been unable to find cofounders I can mesh with here, but I've got the experience and competency to be a productive member of a startup. Should I transfer? If so, where? Should I even be in college? What's the cost/benefit being in college in the first place? I'm fairly committed to leaving RPI, but I don't know what direction to take from here.

[makecheck]

Start or become a key contributor to at least one open-source project. For one, this gives you experience and a good base for answering interview questions. Two, this makes you more "Googleable" (I have my current job because my employer found me, through a site that wouldn't have existed if not for my open-source project!).

College is important, not just for tuition. For example, I was able to teach myself HTML and aspects of Unix about 10 years ago while I was a student, primarily because I had a student Unix account with 'net access (still not that common off-campus). This turned out to be at least as important for landing the job "meant for my degree" (computer engineering), even though I'd taken no courses for the extra skills I'd acquired.

[wallflower]

>I've got a few summers of experience working for startups under my belt

You can always go back to school...

Have you considered working for a startup in Europe? (broaden your worldview - old cliche: if the world is a book and you don't travel, you've only read a couple pages..)

Read the "4-hour Work Week". It might give you some good ideas.

Kolbe personality test - Slightly expensive and comprehensive - may give you insight into yourself (http://www.kolbe.com)

[epall → wallflower]

>You can always go back to school...

Yeah, I've been thinking that. However, a lot of schools I've looked at are looking for Junior-year transfer students. If I take a break now, I'm basically looking at a full 4 years. Granted, I've only lost one, but it seems like a bit of a waste.

>Have you considered working for a startup in Europe? (broaden your worldview - old cliche: if the world is a book and you don't travel, you've only read a couple pages..)

Absolutely! I fully intend to spend some of my earlier years in Europe, and I've already visited Amsterdam twice. I'm actually in the process of talking to a small robotics company there, but how else do you make the connections to get the VISA and stuff?

>Read the "4-hour Work Week". It might give you some good ideas.

Will do!

[amrithk]

This advice might sound a bit "old-school". I would recommend you stick with college for at least another year or two. Being a recent graduate myself, I can understand how the stuff you learn in college seems pointless and may not be applicable to what you really want to do/accomplish. However, college really helped me learn how to learn things fast. And that, is a valuable skill to have.

[epall → amrithk]

Yes, learning is most definitely a critical skill! Fortunately, my early education (pre-high school) placed a huge emphasis on learning to love learning, and I spent a great deal of my free time learning from textbooks etc. I've actually realized that Comp Sci isn't as unrelated to industry as I thought, but CS at RPI is worse than a joke. So I might actually want to stay in college specifically _for_ the curriculum.

[ALee]

This PG essay should help:

http://www.paulgraham.com/mit.html

[epall → ALee]

Wow...I really don't remember reading that, but I swear I've read all of PG's essays, at least for the past five years or so. I feel like the biggest thing missing here at RPI is cofounders. There are plenty of smart people, but the mentality here is all wrong for starting companies.

[sama]

want a job at a cool startup?

[brentr → sama]

If you are offering the chance to work at a startup, I would have to answer yes. If you could bear with someone who learns quickly, but is not quite up to full coding power yet, I would be a great candidate.