How to game the U.S. higher-education system | Hacker News Reader

How to game the U.S. higher-education system

kuro5hin.org

31 pointswallflower31 comments

So.. gaming the system equates to studying well and working hard? That's.. not what's usually meant by "gaming"..

"Congrats: you're a Princeton grad. For $60K. You gamed the system: you got the pedigree for just one years' tuition, at a school you probably couldn't have been admission to for undergrad."

Emphasis mine.

I don't really see anything in the article that I would call "gaming" the higher-education system. Maybe you could argue that the concept of going to a cheaper school for undergrad and attending a prestigious grad school is gaming the system, but that's not exactly a secret.

Achieve straight A's in high school, do well on standardized tests, suck up to professors, study absurd amounts... This is more a guide of how to fall victim to the higher-education system.

From TFA: > that's why profs shy away from foreign students: they can't contribute to discussions.

In a field like computer science, or indeed any engineering, I haven't known a single professor to "shy away" from foreign students. To put it bluntly, they wouldn't have much choice if they did.

The author prefaces his comment with "I don't mean to be a bigot", but unfortunately, just saying that doesn't mean what you say isn't bigotry. Lumping all "foreign students" into the same category sounds pretty bigoted to me. And I speak as a foreign student who is perfectly able to "contribute to discussions".

FFS, "foreign" != "can't speak English"

Most technical terms are English regardless of the language. When I was an undergrad we had a bunch of Greeks on my course, and when talking amongst themselves it sounded like malaga malaga second differential malaga malaga surface area... You could understand them perfectly.

(malaga IIRC translates as "loser", the Greeks insult each other a lot).

I'm not sure you can generalise: for example Math can be done 100% in French (and is usually taught like that in France, at least up to the undergraduate level). I've no doubt in other languages too. Computer science is a little harder, but also doable. But I would say most people deeply engaged in the field of computer science also know the English terms regardless of their mother tongue.

He completely misses that graduate programs are known for their specialization.

" 3.Grad school is more important. Particularly, whether you're moving up or down: consider (a) undergrad at Penn State, grad at Harvard, vs. (b) undergrad at Harvard, grad at Penn State. Option (a) is universally considered better, and costs much less."

Not exactly. Harvard is nowhere near the top of the mechanical engineering graduate program list. I'd be better off at the University of Illinois than Harvard if that is what I am doing. More importantly, what the hell do you want to do in your major? Some schools are great at fuel cells but not robotics. Some schools are great at AI and computer vision but not other CS disciplines. That is what you need to know.

I think people are focusing too much on examples he gives, assuming he's recommending those specific schools to everyone, no matter what their actual interest is.

I just want to note, as Brown grad (he specifically points to Brown rather randomly), that unless your parents are "rich" but won't give you any money, you will never have 100k in debt from Brown or any "elite" school. That's just not how it works. Now I'm not saying you don't leave with debt--most of my friends have 20k or so in debt. I have about 9k, but that not the radically high number that is being quoting. The only person I know who has a huge amount of debt is from a family who has the money to pay full tuition (retirement funds, home equity, savings, etc) but would not pay a dime for their child's education. Now, maybe that's their right, but that friend (and former roommate) is the only person I know who graduated with such serious debt that they'd go to San Jose state for grad school (although he ended up with the mindset that what's the difference between 100k in debt and 250k and is getting a masters in Great Britain before likely going on to to law school).

The problem is not the ultra-elite schools--Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Dartmouth, Williams, Brown, etc--with large endowments and need-based financial aid. The problem is the private schools in the middle, places that charge 50k a year but don't have generous aid programs. If your choice is between your state's university and Lehigh or GWU and you don't have money, by all means take his advice. But if you don't have money, and you can get in to Brown et al, then go. It is a deal. I grew up in an incredible working class family, and I had to pay Brown $650 a semester, my father had to pay about the same amount, and I graduated with 10k in debt...I did alright and hadn't won any fancy college scholarships.

As for his larger claim that graduate school trumps undergraduate in employers minds, I think that is true only up to a point. The rankings of graduate schools across subject are radically different, and graduate school can have a lot more to do with circumstance. My wife is working at X, so I had to go to Y, I choose to do Y part-time because I love my job, I wanted to be a lawyer in Iowa so I went to Iowa state even though I got in to Harvard (know someone who did this), etc. But, the signal of what undergraduate school you went to is pretty clear and strong in most employers mind. I'm not under the delusion that Brown taught me much, that I could not have learned anywhere else, but the school you go to sends a strong economic signal about your abilities merely due to the admissions gateway itself. Now, there are special cases where you find yourself in your 20s and all that, but to many employers, being organized and "smart" enough high school so that Brown, Yale, Williams, UChicago accept you, is a relative indication of your abilities, even if you went somewhere less prestigious for grad school.

Most importantly, though, on this second thought, is that the cases are not as clear cut as the author suggests. Signaling and employment are complicated, and they don't boil down to any simple formula like undergraduate reputation < graduate reputation or vice versa.

If I started a business and someone in their late 20s is still talking about how they went to Harvard rather than how they've used their time since graduating, I wouldn't hire them. The only thing the degree does is get you an interview you should have got through networking.

> The only thing the degree does is get you an interview > you should have got through networking.

And maybe you also gained some useful skills.

I used a similar idea for my YC application answer to the non-computer hack question. Basically, I hacked the traditional education experience and graduated in 2.5 years, with ~$8500 of loans (without any scholarships/reduced tuition), and with lots of great work experience (I worked full time during school). Although I wouldn't advise this route for everyone, it worked out extremely well for me. Here are a few tips towards hacking the undergraduate experience:

1) As the author says, attend a high quality, low cost state school. If you're going to get a masters, undergrad institution doesn't matter beyond being able to get you into the masters program of your choosing. If you aren't going to get a masters, I would wager it doesn't truly matter what undergrad school you choose.

2) Determine your major before your first semester begins.

3) Plan your courses out meticulously, and don't take courses you don't need to.

4) Take as many classes online as you can.

5) Many professors lectures are fairly useless as they just regurgitate their powerpoint slides. Use this to your advantage -- do homework, work on your online classes, do freelance/telecommuting work.

6) Use a service like RateMyProfessors to find sensible professors - there are huge variances in amount of homework, number of tests, etc. between professors for the same course.

7) Night classes are generally easier and have less homework, because they are designed for non-traditional students with full time jobs during the day.

8) Take as many credits per semester as possible - for most majors, 15 is pretty easy for smart/dedicated people, even with working a part/full-time job. I took 24 my last semester, while working full time. It was basically hell, but you can do anything for 3-4 months of your life. (I probably wouldn't have done that, except an older guy I worked with said he had done 24 in his last semester of his masters program, working full time, and with a pregnant wife.)

9) Go year round, but take less classes in summer and get great internships/work more.

10) Books:

a) Make sure you need to buy the book. Lots of classes don't really require buying the book.

b) Make sure you really need the most recent edition, 95%+ of the time, the last edition or two editions ago was fine for me.

c) If you have to buy a book, get used on Amazon marketplace, half.com, etc. and resell them there after the class is over.

11) Get a job. This will help pay bills and reduce the amount of debt you take. Ideally, get one which will benefit your career path and allows you to work on homework. (I was a systems administrator in a generally not very busy swing shift - among other jobs.)

12) Change jobs as often as you can find something that looks better on your resume or pays more. Every job I took paid $10k+ more than the previous, except when I took a pay cut to do a summer internship at Goldman Sachs ($50k to $40k).

These points all individually look like good advance, but I can't stress #8 enough.

GET. A. JOB.

I'm a full-time college student attending a relatively cheap state school. I work nearly full-time as a software developer (full-time summers, every chance I get during school). I can afford to live on my own and pay my own tuition.

Though I can't tell you where I'll be five years from now, I'm sure that having zero debt and years of work experience won't hinder me.

All of this raises the obvious question: what thing of lasting value did you gain from doing this?

I'm not sure if you're referring to getting a degree, or approaching it in the way that I did. I won't try too hard to convince you that a degree is important, but it introduces you to think about things in different ways than you otherwise would, lets you meet people you wouldn't otherwise meet (girls, networking opportunities, etc), provides opportunities for internships or jobs you wouldn't have otherwise, forces you to live in a place you might not have lived otherwise, etc.

Doing it in the way I did taught me a lot of incredibly valuable lessons -- probably more than I actually learned in class. I really learned time management and how to prioritize. I gained a lot of work experience, which translates into increased skills and income. Perhaps most importantly (although this will sound very cliche..), I realized that I can achieve anything I truly want, even if it seems physically impossible.

I have a degree in philosophy, so I'll use a story from that field to relate what I'm getting at.

The usual lead contender for the title of "first philosopher in western history" is Thales of Miletus. There are a bunch of probably-apocryphal stories about Thales; for example, it's said that he once was gazing so intently at the stars that he failed to look where he was walking, and fell into a well.

For this and other similar incidents, Thales was ridiculed by some of his fellow Milesians, who felt he never did anything productive. So, using his observations of the weather as a guide, he predicted an unusually good season and bought up all of the island's olive presses, making a fortune when the harvest came. Having proved his point, he went back to the things which actually interested him.

The above is a utilitarian approach: what's the path from here to the degree that costs least in $ and time. I'm not wired that way -- but I have to respect that bobf is making choices right for him.

As I get farther away from university, I get more glad that I spent a lot of time in out-of-discipline coursework. I foresee that feeling deepening with age, because it's a fact that it's hard for many reasons to have a wanderjahr once you have a spouse, a house, a kid, a hard job, a history of acting a certain way.

I fear that the utilitarian approach might, for some, become akin to the concept of technical debt, except for your life and philosophy. You can consider those hard questions now, or you can wait til later. But later, it might be much harder.

That's why I majored in business, instead of CS/IS/etc :)

Did you have fun? Did you still have time to chase girls, take part in any clubs/intramurals, or pursue hobbies? Not that it's awful it you didn't have time - I just want to understand the trade offs required with this strategy.

Those are all quite reasonable questions. The biggest difference was in not living the carefree life many people seem to think college should be -- but I suspect people on Hacker News don't necessarily fall into that mindset to the same extent the general population might. As part of that, I had to actually consciously decide how to spend my time. Also, I chose a major (Business Administration) that interested me but was certainly easier to accommodate the tips I gave than something like an engineering degree would have been.

I chased girls enough to find one I wanted to marry, planned a wedding, and got married before graduating. I played golf, skiied, went to concerts/movies, watched TV (usually while doing homework), played video games (TF2!), did programming/development for fun, etc.

"Here's what I view to be the optimal path: Go to a cheap (but flagship) state school (e.g., Penn State), enroll in the Honors program (due to great high school grades), pay virtually nothing, and then (marginally) get into an incredible Master's program at a school like Princeton; "

What? Penn State for non-residents is $35-40k.

I agree with his sentiment but Penn State is not a cheap school unless you live in PA, it is another example of a marquee program that is almost as expensive than a private school. (Actually it is more expensive than some very good private schools).

Better advice is to go to the best state school in your own state, then go to the graduate program that is excellent in your field (which may or may not be Ivy).

I figured that the example given was a generic case, for people living in PA.

"flagship state school". He means your state, "Penn State" was just an example.

Great post.

"Grad schools is shorter." Author may want to fix the grammar here.

I'm amazed and shocked.

I'm amazed and shocked that kuro5hin.org is still around.

"In most careers, a Master's degree is required". Really?

That's what I've heard from my professors. Bachelor level gets you working in the lower levels with the possibility to move up fairly small. Masters get working making more money and are the ones considered for promotions over any others barring PhDs.

But... The professoriat generally knows very little about industry and also have a built-in bias to pushing people towards more education.

Wow 2009 called and wanted your shitty irrelevant website back.

  user:    tiber
  created: 23 days ago
  karma:   1
  about:   Former K5er, /.er, digger

Too bad you didn't put your phone number in there, or I'd give you a call and ask for advice about how I can stay on the cutting edge of the Internet like you.

At least he didn't taint the reddit name too. :)

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