Why I'm dropping out of college and you should too. | Hacker News Reader

Why I'm dropping out of college and you should too.

justintallant.com

9 pointsjtallant11 comments

>The internet has more than ample information for a man to become a genius if he desires to spend enough time.

No one denies the amount of information available. But it is the careful mentoring, vibrant environment, constant testing, presenting your ideas, convincing people that you are correct, discovering newer ideas with your colleagues and discovering more about yourself that made my college life amazing.

For example, I could list you 10 good operating systems book, point you to the projects that we did, exam papers that we had and even video recordings of our classes. I did all of that too. Actually I had read most of the books and I thought was well prepared for the course. BUT I cannot even begin to enumerate the things that I learned from the 3 months of the OS course that I took last sem. I am a LOT better system designer because of the professor and his guidance. I am a lot better team player because of the stressful project that we had to complete. I am a better problem solver because of the constant examinations.

Yes you could probably learn these things at your job and in your weekend. But wouldn't you rather just take some time off and really get into the fundamentals? Wouldn't you want to hear opinion of a concept from someone who actually discovered it? Wouldn't you rather learn the "art" and the "intuition" from someone who has been doing it for his entire life? Wouldn't you rather spend your time surrounded by people who are smarter than you anyone who you have met? Wouldn't you want to be surrounded by ideas and challenges?

Dude go to a good engineering school. I stress that go to a GOOD school. You will not regret it.

I appreciate the insights and I think you bring up some really good points. I think you're right about the environment and being around the professors who are obviously seasoned in their field and that's not something you're going to get on your own unless you're lucky enough to have close friends with that kind of knowledge. Personally I might reconsider if I had the kind of funding to get into a truly great tech school. Of course if you have Stanford like resources, you're going to think twice before going it alone.

What school are you dropping out of?

Indiana University, and I am not trashing the school. I respect the school, the professors there, etc. No doubt there are very bright faculty and students there, my argument is more along the lines of education in general is out dated and overpriced. I don't like that you have to get buried in debt to gain credibility and I just don't think it's necessary. I think if you are a hard worker and you use your mind you can find other ways to do it that are cheaper and possibly more effective than the college route. When I say out dated I do realize I am not on the west coast or any kind of top tech school and that does make a big difference and part of the reason why I am dropping out is so I can get out there where people are a lot more passionate about technology.

Isn't Dan Friedman and other PL gods at Indiana? Didn't Dan revamp the PL education and bring about a new perspective in learning about interpreters?

I read his book but I personally would kill to study under him and hang around with the students under him.

>education in general is out dated and overpriced. You will be in debt if what the college doesn't find you bright enough and worthy of investment. Most of these schools have immense amount of funding, but they are very wise in who they give it to. I was denied funding in my early semester but I proved to them that I was worth their money. I got it. Now that I am working, I feel it is the same. Unless I prove to them that I am worth their investment, not many bother.

>I think if you are a hard worker and you use your mind you can find other ways to do it that are cheaper and possibly more effective than the college route.

No. If you are all that and you can PROVE it, colleges are the cheapest way to get educated in that amount of time. You do have to take time to consideration. You dont want to spend a year doing Analysis if you could take the hardcore route in college.

>I am dropping out is so I can get out there where people are a lot more passionate about technology.

You should have looked for schools that had better programs. You should have tried to get some research experience so that you could work on hard problems in those schools. You should have developed a credential and ability that would make the school of your dream fund you without a blink of an eye.

>No. If you are all that and you can PROVE it, colleges are the cheapest way to get educated in that amount of time. You do have to take time to consideration. You dont want to spend a year doing Analysis if you could take the hardcore route in college.

I still disagree that colleges are the cheapest way to get educated in that amount of time. Due to the structure of the curriculum it's impossible to avoid taking in unnecessary amounts of useless information. So I guess agree to disagree in that aspect.

If I wasn't ignorant high school I might agree with you here. I didn't even have the sense to think about proving myself then and now I just don't see the sense in wasting the time to prove to an educational organization that I am worthy when I can just go about making myself worthy on my own and start getting paid.

>You should have looked for schools that had better programs. You should have tried to get some research experience so that you could work on hard problems in those schools. You should have developed a credential and ability that would make the school of your dream fund you without a blink of an eye.

You are absolutely right I should have and wish I did. But again, now that I didn't do that stuff in high school I still feel at this point the best thing to do is cut my losses, stop the inefficiency and the accumulation of debt and start putting those specific skills for which I am most likely to get paid for.

"I might reconsider if I had the kind of funding to get into a truly great tech school"

I don't know if I misunderstood your point, but financial aid at all great tech schools is beyond amazing. In my opinion, money should not be an issue.

I don't think you misunderstood, I wasn't being specific enough. There is aid but what I mean is I am not comfortable with that kind of debt and in my opinion if someone is driven enough they can learn as much and more than a university graduate without paying for the education. They are just giving up the credibility which in my situation, in my opinion, isn't necessary either. I think there are ways to build credibility other than a college degree and if you put the work in and you really did build the skills and you are building the right relationships, hustling, and making the right connections you will be successful. Of course I haven't pulled all of this off and become massively successful or anything, this is in theory. Part of what I was saying in the blog post was that the debt students are getting in can be crippling and many of them don't understand the full weight of that, and I do not agree that one has to go through the government to receive a certificate of credibility. When information is free, credibility can be free too and the government doesn't have to have a near monopoly on "paper" credibility. An alternate system could be created there is nothing magic about the ones handed down through the government and yes there are private institutions but I'm talking more along the lines of a free system which in my opinion is achievable with current technology.

Dropping out of school is the easy way out. Way overrated.

College is not perfect, but it certainly has lots of merits. If not only proving the world that you can actually follow through with something...

In my opinion whether or not it's the easy way out really depends. I took a good hard look at the value I was getting and the money I was spending and I just couldn't justify it. There certainly are many students who drop out just to get away and give up. To me it's not about giving up and I'm not attempting to talk myself up just speaking honestly when I say that when I look around, I just don't see the students in my area working hard at all. I see a lot of slackers that have a sense of entitlement that don't do any self education. They rely entirely on what they are taught in school and that's just not enough. I'm not generalizing, there are many amazing students out there taking full advantage of their university and working their but off in their spare time and I respect that.

If it's really the case, it seems like your problem is that you're at a lousy school. College is the best time to meet smart people with whom you'll want to work with later in life. Don't underestimate this.

This is something I didn't do and regret. I should have made more connections with smart people back then. Instead, I was working on startups, which wasn't such a bad thing at all actually. I just wish I had managed my time a bit better.

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