Go on a gap year when you can backpack around the world. This is literally the worst time to have a gap year. If you're stuck at home you might as well study.
Can we get into Canada?
EDIT: I mean that I thought Canada won't allow entry to people from the US? Is that just a rumor?
https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/201...
There are also tons of productive uses of time that can be done during the pandemic. Now is a great time to volunteer.
(OK maybe I'm wrong)
My local food bank certainly requests volunteers, and they're recommending that seniors or those with health conditions cancel their shifts...further reducing their volunteer pool.
We have to be cognizant of the fact that, by all indications, October will be a very stressful time for a lot of people.
Many of my prospects disappeared as COVID hit - and it made me feel some self worth trying to help others. I learned a ton too.
When the volunteer work is truly doing something for the community, I find it more valuable than paid work (even barely scraping by) - just knowing that I did SOMETHING to attempt to help others.
Just my 2 cents.
The "just take a gap year" crew are living on a different planet than me. No, a different universe. How do you afford to eat and have a roof over your head while you're learning python from Wikipedia full time?
Let's be clear here: student loans are not income. If you're going into debt to pay for college, that's even more reason that you should wait to go to college.
If your reason for staying in school this year is that you need funds to survive, you'd be much better off trying to find a job. Jobs pay in actual money, not debt. If you're college age and able-bodied, the delivery companies are all understaffed to the point that if you can fill out an application you're probably hired. It's not glamorous but it's better than many situations right now. When my business was floundering last year, I used my truck to haul recycling for local businesses. Sometimes the best option is not very good.
Obviously you know your situation better than I do, and it may be that there are some other reasons why going to school is a better option. But nothing you have said so far indicates that to me.
However, if you go too long, prerequisites start to change, credits start to expire, etc., so even if you're readmitted that can be problematic.
And there's the caveat that Covid may have all sorts of effects in the coming years.
Exactly. It's a good opportunity for self directed study.
I would spend time doing something productive, not traveling.
One of the biggest advantages of college for me was realizing how much there was to learn and how easy it was to do it (after skating through all of my schooling with straight As), and I only really refined my autodidactic abilities in my mid-20s.
Fair point, but that's because students are not encouraged to learn what they are interested in.
I went into computer science as a major because I was interested in computers. College was literally the only way I was able to learn because I didn't know anything about getting started - I didn't know what a programming language was, for example, so I wouldn't know to learn to program.
I grew up poor and my public education was very substandard. College allowed me to get past that, I couldn't imagine trying to do it myself with literally zero guidance.
I know some of you are just so smart you don't need college - but please consider there's a vast about of us plebs that do.
As has been discussed here at length before, for better or worse, good university computer science curricula tend to assume you know your way around a computer and can program--or you have to get up to speed very quickly on the side.
Someone coming from a community where there are literally zero engineers or programmers will be very lucky if they even know what words to look for. We can't search for what we don't even know exists. On the flip side people don't know what they do know, in the sense that assumed common knowledge might not actually be common.
I was lucky that I had a parent who was a teacher, at a time when textbooks started including simple BASIC programs to demonstrate concepts. I was also lucky to have access to a safe and clean public library as a kid, that happened to have a couple of shelves with computer books.
Searching for information online and separating the wheat from the chaff is a skill - one I largely learned in college. I don't take that skill for granted, I see my husband and parents struggling greatly searching for information that's trivial to find (you just gotta know how to find it). Yet I don't tell them they have "learned helplessness" and its just so easy.
You have to understand, I literally didn't know a single person who even knew how to use a computer - it took me months of playing around with the computer to even figure out how to access the world wide web at first. I knew it existed, I knew we had internet and a computer so I should be able to access it, but didn't know anything else. I was so excited when I finally figured it out.
>college doesn't really prepare you for these jobs anyway
Yes it absolutely does, mine did.
Lets crank this up a notch: there are 14 year olds that built a fusion reactor with instructions from the internet (just fusors, no net power), or people that learned how to conduct medical procedures with no outside help. Some even conducted surgery on themselves sucessfully. I doubt the average visitor of HN could do that.
Maybe its because some folks are smarter than others, or maybe you are taking for granted some andavtages you've had over average Joe, or maybe its both. But if you take random Joe off the street and tell them - you will get £10k if you learn to write basic python in a month with no help, just google - most wont be able to do that.
Take yet another step - realise most of the world does not speak english, and for them to learn coding is even harder.
There are probably some core subjects I could usefully have studied. But, in general, I'm probably not going to place out of classes at many schools even if I've deliberately studied for AP tests. So it's not obvious that year of self-study necessarily leads to a shortened or improved degree program.
That's not a reason not to do it of course. But self-study doesn't necessarily lead to greater personal enrichment than volunteering or hiking the Appalachian Trail does.