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Comment by needmoney | Hacker News Reader

I like this route. I can write well and I'm well-educated, so I feel like I have information that MUST be valuable. I just don't know how to identify / sell it. I know it's probably hard to give specifics without knowing what I want to sell, but can you give me any advice on how long generating such a product might take (how long it took you in the beginning, perhaps?) and how you might pick such a product?

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"I feel like I have information that MUST be valuable"

I dunna about that, information is pretty FREE these days

But people will pay copious amounts of money to not have to read that information themselves, in other words; teaching and coaching that information can certainly be valuable.

Only some types of information.

"I dunna about that, information is pretty FREE these days"

Yet, it's pretty expensive. The most used resources of information are schools/uni and they are the most expensive.

Books, videos, tutorials, Seminars... are also paying. There are free valuable information, but it's rare.

Universities sell credentials, not information.

To prove this, go to your local university and ask how much it costs to take a class by examination (no classtime, simply take the final exam).

Well, they also sell the class itself... go to your local university and ask how much it costs to sit in on a class for no credit. It's not going to be free, if there is even such an option.

It usually is free if space is available and you don't annoy the professor. I've had several non-paying students; the only time I ever kicked one out of class was because we ran out of seats.

MIT is actually well known for making information free, but the credential is expensive.

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm

That's interesting because I wanted to sit in on the computational photography course at NYU and the registrar said it was impossible. Maybe I should have avoided talking to the administration? However, I did email the instructor and he did not return any of my email.

How do you even get into the buildings without an ID?

You walk up just behind someone with an ID, and then you walk in before the door closes.

It's hard/impossible to do this at NYU.

At MIT the doors are unlocked. People just walk in and sit in on a class, the speak to the professor before class starts and say "Hey can I sit in on this class" and unless the class is full they can normally sit in.

At my university (Carnegie Mellon) the buildings are unlocked during the day. Just walk in.

Getting into the buildings is a trickier matter, but only at NYU (every other college I've been to doesn't check ID).

My suggestion: photoshop something that looks vaguely like an NYU ID, then stick it in your wallet behind a clear window. Flash it at guards when you come in, they don't care enough to look closely.

It usually is free if space is available and you don't annoy the professor. I've had several non-paying students; the only time I ever kicked one out of class was because we ran out of seats.

+1 to this - when I was in school, I was never denied a seat in a class that I wasn't officially enrolled in (I took maybe 6 or 7 extra courses that way - oddly enough, I was kicked out of some classes I enrolled in, for space/seniority/in-major reasons), and I always asked the professor before sitting in (I probably could have gotten away with not doing that, since in the math/science departments half the professors don't bother to learn names anyhow, but asking seemed like the polite thing to do).

Some of the most interesting stuff I learned was in those classes, and it's actually how I ended up getting back into programming (I hadn't programmed since middle school)...it's a great way to sample stuff outside your major without needing to worry about doing badly in the classes.

I know people that do this sometimes even as non-students, and they've told me that most professors don't usually mind, though occasionally they'll say no.

I wish this were possible everywhere. Most of my final exams were worth somewhere between 30-50%. Taking this will only guarantee a maximum of failing the class.

If you truly feel that way then you should question the quality of the information you're consuming. Information is categorically not free; the people who are paying for it are the ones who need it before everyone else. They are also the people who are making money by having that information first.

Being that we live in an information age, it's the new currency. If you think that it's free, then you're only seeing the castoffs.

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