Poll: What level of education have you reached | Hacker News Reader

Poll: What level of education have you reached

29 pointsthomsopw45 comments

(Repost from original thread)

High school drop out. Did pretty well in school, but fucking hated it. Don't regret dropping out for a second. I learned more during that time than I probably ever will again. Previous salaries in the last five years $120 - $200K. Currently founder of a startup with $1.25 million funding. Do not recommend anyone drop out of high school though. That it worked out okay for me is probably the exception rather than the rule.

seems masters, doctorate work should be represented. and homeschooled doesn't necessarily exclude higher education.

edit: ah, you can vote for more than one. wasn't clear.

True. I was homeschooled, then graduated uni, currently finishing an M.Sc. Do I pick all three options that apply, or just one?

All three.. Go on and live a little.

The question implies that the option you choose reflects your ultimate level of education, thus only one answer should be chosen. I picked three anyway, but I think your poll could be more carefully worded.

You can vote for both homeschooled and something else.

ya, but the numbers are meaningless since it's not clear. And some people are voting for multiple across everything they've graduated (including the author of the poll) which negates the implied highest reached of the poll. If you are meant to vote for multiple and not single ones, then the number of high school graduates should exceed the sum of all University numbers. Not everyone is doing it, but some are.

Multiple voting doesn't really solve the problem - unless any graduate work falls under "other".

As someone who has "graduated uni" more times than I'd like to admit, I vote in favor of a graduate school category as well.

Yes, I was homeschooled and went on to get a PhD, so this simple poll does not seem to be able to represent that!

Dropped out of high school and got my GED.

The full story is that I grew up in Belgium - I moved to the States during Sophomore year, and the schooling was so far behind that I wasn't engaged and quickly became bored. After a year I just couldn't take it anymore and dropped out.

I hate it that the first thing you got to experience in the US was our crummy education system. My condolences. :(

Well it gives me some perspective as what to expect when I send my own (future) kids off to school. Hopefully I will be able to teach them things to offset that.

Sophomore year, that's 2nd year of high school, right? What age was that? You had spend 2 years at a Belgian 'high school' (in the sense of 'secundair onderwijs', not 'hogeschool' :) ) ? Do you mind telling what program you followed in Belgium (I assume 'ASO', was it Latin-Mathematics, Latin-Greek, Economics, ...) ? Did you go to a public or private high school in the US? In a city or more rural?

(Sorry for the questioning, I have a strange abstract interest in comparing educational systems across borders :) )

You are correct in assuming Latin-Mathematics :) When I moved to the US I attended a public high school in Denver, CO (somewhat city), and back in Belgium I attended Atheneum van Deurne. I was 14/15 when I moved to the States.

I don't mind the questions :) A little hard to remember as it's been 16 years now, but would be happy to share.

Thanks. My understanding is that it's hard to compare US secondary education to European-style because in the US there is very little (maybe even no?) differentiation between students and material taught, out of an 'equality' social norm. (from what I hear even people who are mentally not very well developed and would in Europe be send to a 'special' school are mixed together with all other students in the US). Did you feel this difference? I suppose that in the Atheneum you had mostly fair to good students around you, from middle- and upper class families (I'm not familiar with the school itself, just extrapolating from similar ones). That may have been different in a public school in a more urban environment. If you would have gone to a 'beroepsschool' downtown Antwerp, the contrast maybe wouldn't have been so big :)

I'm not sure yet if one system is better than the other though. Empirically, it seems that somehow US universities come out on top in the end after all, considering that the quality and amount of research products is higher in the US than in Europe (even when restricted to EU-12 to account for the historical disadvantage Eastern Europe had and compared on a per-capita basis).

I also have no reason to believe (haven't read any research) that the quality of life or psychological development is better or worse (for any objective measure thereof) for US vs European high school students. 10 years ago when Slashdot had several 3000+ post threads on Jon Katz' essays on bullying of geeks in US high schools (after the Columbine shootings), a popular complaint there was that the US system somehow exacerbated bullying because of this mixing of people that put the future convict in the same class room as the future professor. Reading those stories however didn't seem worse than what my high school (in Belgium) was like.

Sorry for derailing the thread :)

It might not be completely on topic with the thread, but I (personally) don't think it's that far off.

I had a couple of friends from my lagere school (like middle school and elementary wrapped in to one) which I attended at Lagere school Prinsstraat in downtown Antwerp that went to a beroupsschool (like a career college but starting younger during high school years). So I know there was a big difference in their lives both during their school years, and I would even venture to say their current lives. I think the atmosphere of a beroupsschool would be a lot more like the high school I went to in Colorado.

Unfortunately I don't have any experience with universities from either side so I'm not sure how those would compare.

On the note of bullying; My father is American while my mom is Belgian; when I was younger (from age 1 through age 12) we moved around a lot - from country to country and then from state to state. When my parents separated, I moved back to Belgium with my mom and I experienced tons of discrimination for being the "American". When I moved to the States at the age of 14/15, I was discriminated for being the "Belgian". I don't think there was much difference in that aspect at least form my personal experience.

In the end I think the educational system in the US has a lot of room for improvement, and as it was 15 years ago, the material being taught was at least 2 years behind the material I was being taught back in Belgium.

Just to add on to my original post - even with a GED I have been quite successful as a developer and can't complain about where I am or the salary I make. I am pretty sure that it's pure luck that my hobby while growing up became an industry I could be good in - I'm not sure if my GED would have gotten me as far otherwise.

I have reached: "learning everyday".

I wonder how many PhDs are doing startups. I sense it's a big chunk of 'other' (+1 from me).

Other: Associate's degree, 2 different certificates (one the equivalent of master's level work), never finished my bachelor's. (This makes me both overqualified and underqualified for any job I could possibly apply to. :-/)

It is common in the UK to have a four year undergraduate course and end up with an MSc. Although this probably would not count as "graduate studies". A 3 year BSc + 1 year taught MSc is generally considered graduate level though.

This always confused me, as the fourth year of many undergrad MSc courses are rather tough. They are usually preceded by a third year with some 400 level prerequisites (also tough!). This is not the case for a 3 year BSc where students are generally taking whatever courses are available to bump up their grades.

I graduated High School, but just barely, and lack of funds and a poor GPA kept college out of the list of options, but luckily by 18, I had a pretty extensive set of coding skills, so I can't say it hasn't worked out for me.

I would very much like to go to college at some point, although I would prefer to go for something unrelated to computer programming, either something related to material sciences or alternative energies, or if I ever became independently wealthy, creative writing or film.

Eh, I guess the closest answer for me would be "Other." I'm not currently enrolled in any classes anywhere, and nothing else quite fits. I finished 3 Associate degrees, but never finished my Bachelors degree. But I still intend to go back and complete the B.S. "one day." And the material I ready/study/learn on my own goes beyond B.S. level in some areas anyway.

Which option I wonder should be chosen by a non-American who completed school to the required level, but didn't continue on to the level required to go straight into a university? (For example, those who left school after their GCSEs at 16 in the UK.)

Maybe the "Graduated High School" choice would be the closest for that.

But does "Graduated High School" imply "finished the standard education expected" (equivilent to GCSEs in the UK) or "finished the education required to move straight on to university" (equivilent to A Levels in the UK). If the latter, maybe "Dropped out of High School" is a better choice.

You're not alone there. In Ontario, Canada, we used to have a thirteenth grade as University prep, but Grade XII got you a high school diploma if you weren't Uni bound. (Grade XII would get you into a college of applied arts and technology or -- if anyone here is old enogh to remember those days -- straight into the workforce.) In Quebec, there is CEGEP (Collège d'enseignement général et professionnel) between high school and University, and it functions both as a trade school and as the equivalent of an A-level, depending on which track you choose to take. I'd say that if you were handed a diploma after completing elementary education but before graduating University, it's safe to say you graduated high school in your context.

I interpret "Graduated High School" as "completed standard education" (and I'm American).

I chose "graduated high school" as I left secondary school (increasingly being called "high school" in the UK, I notice) at 16 as that was the end of my mandatory education and no British person in their right mind would say I "dropped out of high school" since leaving at 16 is quite normal (even if only to go to "college" to do A levels which is not "high school").

It definitely implies the former.

These options are all about formal schooling, not education.

s/education/schooling/

'Some university' isn't the same as 'Dropped out of university'.

Until you go back, it kinda is.

There's a subtle semantic difference here, perhaps better illustrated in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club, where the proud immigrant mother refers to her daughter as a "college drop-off" as though she could "pick up" her studies again at any moment [1].

[1] http://books.google.com/books?id=2mgnEzzaJrIC&pg=PA37...

My brother has "some university". Though now that he's 37 and working as a cook I think it's safe to say he dropped out.

Dropped out of high school, currently in uiversity. Fun times.

Got crapped out by a broken school system around middle school, puttered around in "homeschool," then got a GED and an associates degree.

As I am currently working on an education-genre startup, I can't wait to see the results of this poll :)

Currently working on my masters, while employed full time, and learning other skills on my own..

Heavens, we have nearly as many Uni dropouts as current students. I never would have guessed.

University lasts 3–7 years. The state of having dropped out lasts much longer.

Though the ratio of "Dropped out" to "Graduated" is much higher than I thought it might be. As someone in the former group, almost reassuringly so.

Homeschooled, Dropped out of highschool

graduated uni

Reply on news.ycombinator.com