Hacker News Reader

Comment by thewarrior | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure what parallel reality you're living in but what you're saying is not universally true. Here in India , it makes a huge difference where you went to college. Whether it comes to jobs , opportunities or even raising funding for your startup having that top college pedigree makes all the difference. Almost all the top startups are by alumni from the well known places.

Some companies won't even give you an interview if you're not from a top place. I myself sometimes regret not being able to get into a good place.

So , even I wish that what you said was true. But sadly it isn't.

Grades matter a lot , atleast as a signalling device if not anything else and kids are making the most logical choice among the options available to them and noone can blame them for it.

View on HN

My experience has been the same as OP. It's not a parallel reality, its the US. It definitely does not matter where you go. If you work hard and and keep pushing yourself into more challenging positions, you'll be a highly competitive candidate for employment no matter what school you went to. Some may argue that those who get into good schools have a greater propensity to push themselves and achieve regardless of their situation - we hope that's true. But I have never in my experience seen such blindness toward graduates of lesser schools.

That hasn't been my experience. Students at top CS schools have much more access to recruiters at well known companies, who assign recruiters to particular schools. It's a lot harder to get an internship at such a company from a school without an assigned recruiter. Good CS schools also help students to get internships earlier in college, after freshman year.

I asked a professor in charge of admissions for a graduate program about their desired gpa. His response- 'What school did you go to?'.

Students at good schools don't have some innate willpower to push themselves harder- they have better opportunities available to them. That isn't to say that students at other colleges don't do just as well, it's just takes more effort.

I guess I'm biased from my personal experience. I started working on internships in high school. By the time I was in college, the better internships found themselves. I went to a good, but not top!, LAC but I still did well. Had my choice of grad schools based on my work - not my school. But I decided to drop out for other reasons. I have since had no issues making the 6 figs... So to anyone who tells me you need a top-college degree to get somewhere or make good money, I'd say there are probably other things at play. Now maybe I won't get a CTO position without a degree, but that is not being addressed here.

Seriously, if you feel like you are in an unfair position or want to talk about this stuff, send me an email. I love talking about this stuff. It's not about the school you go to - it's about what you do (have done) with your time.

If it mattered that much, I would not have been able to find jobs in US (and I did, in big name ones). My university is a shitty, unknown (but state run and legitimate) school in ex-USSR.

I have heard this about India and other countries as well. I think the original article is mainly talking about the United States though, and as others have said, the University you attend here matters very little for most jobs. The main exception is your first job after graduation.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com