Ask HN: At a terrible school, making me depressed. Does name really matter? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: At a terrible school, making me depressed. Does name really matter?

9 pointsnonameschool10 comments

I'm currently studying in a less than average school and feel really shitty about it. The name of the institution alone will reduce the chances of being accepted into a great graduate school to virtually zero.

When I visit the About pages of all these startups, I see lists and lists of founders and employees from Stanford, Harvad, MIT, etc, and when I read up on new advances in science and tech, I notice that those same institutions seem to produce the best work. I so desperately want to be a part of those circles for they seem to offer a wealth of connections, a valuable community to leverage, and the resources to really do big things, not to mention the credibility and respect.

I know people often say that down the road none of this will matter, but from what I see, it certainly does. If you look at the schools that Google and Facebook (among many others) hire from, where some of the most advanced scientific research occurs, and where many of the most influential professors teach, you'll notice that name really does matter. And not having that name basically prevents you from stepping foot into any of those environments.

This subject has been a source of quite a bit of depression recently, and I can't seem to shake it. Every day that goes by I read up on the latest news in startups/academia, and am reminded of where I am and where I'll likely never be.

Can you convince me otherwise? Is it really not that bad? Have any of you come from less-than-reputable schools to work in an environment filled with big thinkers and achievers?

Correlation != causation. I suspect that the reason you see tons of folks from Stanford/Harvard/MIT at Google or successful startups is because those people tend to be smart, and smart people tend to rise to the level that's appropriate for them. I also know a fair number of people at Google that are pretty awesome but don't come from elite universities. Actually, some of the best programmers I know at Google come from places like Colgate, Virginia Tech, Ann Arbor, UT Austin, San Jose State, and no degree at all.

Going to an elite school basically makes things easier. It tilts every initial interaction in your favor, so that you only have to maintain an impression instead of creating one. But it won't let you do things that you otherwise wouldn't be able to do, nor does it give you a free pass for the rest of your life.

If you get stuck with a bad degree, the way to work around it is to kick ass in your field. Be the best employee you can be, and then look at how you can improve things outside your company and be the best innovator that you can be. Eventually, everybody knows who the real folks are that get shit done. If you can chalk up a couple big successes, nobody cares where you went to school.

I went to one of the (if not the) top school for my program. Honestly, I came away feeling very jaded - I felt like the school only cared about itself and wouldn't think twice about you while you were there but would be sure to quickly claim you as an alum if you made something of yourself afterward.

That being said, I did meet some amazing people there and it helped me get through all of the politics. There's definitely something to be said about surrounding yourself with talented people. But there are other opportunities to do so outside of the school setting. Look for a local hacker group. Go to some meetups.

While these schools might provide a springboard to getting to where you want to go, they are just that - a springboard; they are probably not the end goal. There was a link posted a few months ago about the idea of everyone wanting a million dollars. The author's main point was that you don't really want the million dollars - you want what the million dollars can buy (freedom, adventure, etc). The second point was that you don't need the million dollars to achieve these things.

Hang in there!

Transfer to a better school. It is often easier to transfer than to get in as a freshmen.

As far as where you went to school not mattering it is all but a lie. Your first job out of college pretty much depends on where you went to school and how you did. That second job may not depend on where you went to school but it certainly depends on that first job which depends on where you went to school. On the other hand is it really that big a deal if you never work at Facebook?

In the end is more about what you do and what you are capable of than where you went to school or where you worked for that matter, a fulfilling life doesn't come from external sources but internal ones.

There are various "career resets" that you can use to get out of the preprogrammed track of college -> first job -> second job etc. One of the big ones is open-source software; it's done entirely on your own, so you don't need to ask permission for anything and are limited only by your own creativity. Another is founding a company, for the same reason, but with more risk. A third is going to grad school, if one will accept you.

I spent a semester at a less-than-stellar school for CS - the easy 4.0 was nice, but I know what you mean. Some things I did to help myself feel better about it:

- I got ahead - I found some small projects related to the next semester's material, and had an easy time in a class that others struggled in.

- I talked to the professors - the students there weren't motivated, but the professors were nonetheless interested in their own field, and they were especially happy to find a student who was interested. This is especially key if you need recommendation letters for transferring, study abroad, or grad school.

- I found a better curriculum online. At some point it's going to come down to what you know, not where you learned it, so just do your best to reduce the gap between you and people who went someplace with a better curriculum.

- I transferred out. You don't necessarily have to go that far, though. Whether you're in a bad job, school, or situation, one of the best things you can do is to come up with a solid plan to get out of it, or to at least compensate for it. The light at the end of the tunnel gives you the motivation to do everything else.

- I took my general education classes there. When I transferred, I fought to get credit for them, and so I was able to spend more time on classes in my major and minor. Also, don't overlook your side interests - things like study abroad also look good on resumes and the like, and are useful for networking outside of your field.

Things I didn't do that I wish I had:

- Went to user groups and conferences and networked. Networking is one big thing you'll miss out on at a school that's weak in your field.

- Worked on open source projects, or smaller personal projects. My biggest mistake in college was lack of balance - I spent a lot of time reading the best material I could find (and still do), but I've got very little that's concrete to show for it. In interviews, a nice github account and some practice coding at a whiteboard goes a lot further than your college's name.

If you're worried about grad school, one thing you could try is picking a subfield that you like, and getting in contact with professors from schools that you'd like to go to who are in that field.

Same situation as you. We have Stroustrup himself here at Texas A&M, so all anybody ever uses is C++[0]. My intro teacher to 121 actually told us to us the Waterfall method by name. All anybody wants to do is go into the video game industry/play flash dames. Pretty awful, but you can teach yourself a surprising amount of CS. I learned enough JavaScript that some of my side projects got me an internship at a "big-name" company.

Also, it seems to me that the people who are ridiculously successful at MIT would probably have been ridiculously successful most anywhere else. Find some smart friends, stop thinking so highly of yourself, and get back to learning.[1]"The best programmer is a humble programmer."[2]

[0]-High point of the class: Stroustrup was guest lecturing in class a month ago. I had seen on HN a few days before he had responded directly to one of Linus' attacks on C++. I raised my hand and asked him how he dealt with guys like Linus. He got all flustered and just went "Linus is a immature fool!" and then went on preach for C++0x. [1] Read Godel Escher Bach. It will put you in your intellectual place. [2] Wish I knew who said that first.

My advice is this:

1.Find the most accomplished professors in your department and take courses offered by them. Even though your school may not have a big reputation, some professors may have enough clout to recommend you when applying to Google/FB etc.

2.Keep doing Deliberate Practice. Take the hardest courses. Work on your own projects. Contribute to open source projects.

Do something big and different...something that will get you noticed. Make an impact on your campus, like starting a club. Whatever your interests/passions are, put your drive and work ethic behind it and really have fun with it. If you are a CS guy, work on cool open source projects.

Don't forget about grades. I think going to a less-than-stellar school means grades are far more important.

Lastly, every single school is unique in its own right. Figure out how your school is positively different than, say, Harvard, MIT, etc. For example, I went to a huge public school, but I really wish I had gotten the smaller 1 on 1 interactions you sometimes see at community colleges. Differences like that. Exploit these difference so that if the issue of where you went to school ever comes up with an employer, you can soundly give them a solid reason.

You seem particularly worried that you won't get hired since you're from a lesser known school. Don't be. Especially in fields such as software, they care a lot more about talent than name dropping. Do some cool projects and put it up on github. Have an idea for an app? Flush it out and launch it. Don't have an idea? Look at a successful app and try to port it to another platform -- you'll probably learn a lot along the way.

As students of a relatively small school that doesn't do a lot of advanced scientific research, my friends and I were able to get jobs/internships at some of the companies you've listed, so all is not lost :)

Then kill the GPA. Most grad schools (far as I know) and virtually every corporation give GPA about 50% of the weight.

Then undergrad doesn't matter.

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