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Comment by chrisseaton | Hacker News Reader

> In a Java class I took in college, it was standing room only for the first two sessions, after 3 weeks the class was 70% reduced, by the end of the class it was about 25% of its original size. CS is hard, lets be honest(for most people), to excel you have to love it or be mathematically inclined.

I don't understand how a college survives 75% of their students dropping out like that?

And do they not interview and assess people going in for aptitude?

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At my school, generally you would enroll in ~3-5 classes per semester. One or two of those classes would be your "main focus" for the semester, and then you might try to fill a breadth or take something that interests you. You would have a week or two at the beginning before your schedule is fixed to move around classes. So you're not dropping out - you're swapping an Intro to Programming class for something you think you'd get more value out of. I've dropped classes ~45 minutes in to the first lecture because I just... didn't need to take it and wasn't enjoying the professor speak.

Well it is 75% of a subset, computer science as oppossed to the whole college. That and they are largely a drop out of the class as opposed to the college. They mostly transfer to other easier "back up" majors.

Dropping the Java class =/= dropping out of college. At most it means dropping/switching their major.

> I don't understand how a college survives 75% of their students dropping out like that?

Students pay upfront.

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