Comment by philipkglass | Hacker News Reader

Comment by philipkglass | Hacker News Reader

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There are autodidacts who can go a long way with a big library (or nowadays: sci-hub, b-ok, MOOCs) and their own self-directed study. But if you haven't started on that path before finishing high school, it seems extremely risky to assume that you can start doing it instead of attending a university. Further, if you're already self-motivated and learning on your own, you're probably going to have a lot of (intellectual) fun attending one of the more rigorous institutions, learn faster with access to proper labs for experimental sciences, and fill in gaps that you might have tended to neglect with pure self-study. The credential will also be a big help later whether you want to go on deeper into research or find an "ordinary" full time job afterward. (College degrees are still economically worth it for those who complete the degree. If you can learn degree-material on your own you aren't going to be one of those sad cases who takes on student loan debt without graduating.)

I hated school before I reached the university level. I maintained good grades but I was usually bored and learned most interesting things on my own. A university was the first place I found a majority of fellow students who were straining forward to learn due to interest in what they were learning. It makes the experience far different from being with people who are just being goaded forward by a teacher or evaluating everything in light of "will this be on the test?"

You must have gone to a University with better students than the one I went to, because the majority of the people I went to University with just wanted a piece of paper, and so "will this be on the test" was essential to their well-being and learning was at best secondary.

I was a freshman in 1998 and received my BS 4 years later. Was your experience more recent? I wonder if my experience was better due to the respective schools we attended, the timeframe, or perhaps both. I get the impression that credentialism is still worsening over time.

Intensified credentialism has the effect of diluting classrooms that could be engaging with a bunch of people who are just XP-grinding to level up to a job in 4 years. I do feel bad for people who are there due to distorted economic incentives rather than genuine interest. I also resent them for polluting the intellectual environment of students who are actually interested in the material.

Not really. Freshman in 2001, though finally graduated in 2008 (took some time off in the middle to work).

> I also resent them This was the absolute biggest problem I had in University.

Obviously, everything you said is true. Manifestly, there also exist professional athletes. My advice to teenagers remains: you're not going to be one of them.

My advice to teenagers remains: you're not going to be one of them

This is not usually very hard to check, depending on the sport. Professional athletes at specific positions have fairly specific body types that enable them to succeed. Ask them what sport and position they want to play, and check their body types against the prototypical player at that position.

They'll always be able to point to exceptions - someone who had ridiculously high physical coordination or work ethic, but those traits are often more obvious than physical traits.

They'll always be able to point to exceptions - someone who had ridiculously high physical coordination or work ethic, but those traits are often more obvious than physical traits.

Yes, and my sort of utilitarian calculation is that you'll do more good in the world by discouraging a few would-be exceptions while not misleading a billion kids who obviously aren't going to be a professional athlete (or an extreme autodidact, or a Supreme Court Justice, or anything else like a handful of humans can do that the rest of us can't).

The truly odd thing about a forum like this one is that some of the people here actually are truly exceptional, one-in-a-million talents. I'm not talking to you :)

Anyway, my hypothesis (similar to yours, I think) is that those one-in-a-million talents receive a lot of reinforcement that they're one-in-a-million talents, already. They don't need it from me.

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