Not Everyone has to go to College | Hacker News Reader

Not Everyone has to go to College

blog.skillshare.com

112 pointsmikekarnj49 comments

I agree with you on a lot of points, especially the following two:

1. College doesn't guarantee success.

2. Not everyone should go to college.

But here's where we diverge: I believe we'll never get to the point where everyone will "succeed". We all want our kids to succeed, but our definition of success is usually based on things like "have a high-paying job", "be important", "be powerful" or "be famous". This is because we want our kids to be happy and we come up with cookie-cutter solutions for happiness: "have a high-paying job" supplants "not have to have headaches about money", "be important", "be powerful" and "be famous" supplant "be harder to oppress by society or more powerful people".

To me, that seems to be a more fundamental problem than the problem of education and one a lot harder to solve. Disclaimer: Please don't take this as a criticism; on the contrary, when you have two important problems and you can see the solution to the one that's easier, it's a lot better to try to solve it than to sit down and lament the fact that you can't solve the harder one.

That said, I believe that we should define "success" differently for our kids. I believe we should give them a different goal: happiness. Believe it or not, you don't have to achieve greatness to be happy. As long as you can enjoy your work, your family and your life in general, you can be happy, without Leaving Your Footprints In The Sands Of History.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't teach our kids to strive to achieve as much as they can. It just means that we should try to encourage them to look for their own path to happiness. It shouldn't matter if theirs doesn't happen to pass through fame, power, influence or riches, as long as it leads them to happiness.

There was in fact, too much emphasis on 'success for everyone'. That said, if you look at the rest of the arguments, I think that he begins to form a new definition of success, one that may be a better fit for far more people. In some respects this reminds me of the incredibly bad fad/decision to destroy the high-school votech department(s). We went from being able to give students something useful and more importantly something they wanted to forcing them all into the pre-college mold; with attendant disastrous results. Dropping out at all levels from that point onwards.

While I agree that striving for happiness is a totally acceptable goal in live, I think it's a bit egoistic. I would not teach my children to seek power or riches, but to work to "better themselves and the rest of humanity". If the can't leave their own footprints, they can at least try to help others in doing that.

I want humans to achieve cool things -- build AIs, end disease and death, and settle on other planets. If everybody sought their own happiness I fear that progress would be much slower.

I'm not sure how to say this without attracting a wave of descent, so I'll simply say that your comment made me smile.

I truely hope you are sucessful in instilling among your children the ideal that the advancement of the human race is more important than advancement of self.

Although your sentiment is laudable, you seem to confuse goals and values. A goal is something to achieve, while values are what you teach your children to shape their struggle to achieve their goals.

Like I said in my comment, I don't mean to imply we shouldn't teach our kids to strive for great achievements. There's nothing to say they can't be happy striving to "better themselves and the rest of humanity"; nor is there anything to say that seeking happiness precludes bettering yourself and others.

Bear in mind that I'm talking about happiness, rather than gratification. I'm not proposing to teach our kids to be hedonists. Just because I'm not content or satisfied all the time, doesn't mean I'm not happy. To quote Frank Herbert's "Children of Dune":

"Tell me, Namri, are you content?"

"No." The words came out flat, spontaneous rejection.

"Then do you blaspheme?"

"Of course not!"

"But you aren't contented. You see, Gurney? Namri proves it to us. Every question, every problem doesn't have a single correct answer."

> That said, I believe that we should define "success" differently for our kids.

Interestingly coming from another country to US I had a little bit of a different understanding of "success". It meant something like a general "good luck", or "happiness".

Here (in US) it seems to a code word for "lots of money" and "power over people". One wouldn't refer to someone who decides to live in a remote hut in the woods, fishing and hunting but having 0 income and not managing anyone as "successful".

>One wouldn't refer to someone who decides to live in a remote hut in the woods, fishing and hunting but having 0 income and not managing anyone as "successful".

Would you refer to someone like that as successful?

I think some, unspoken, element of the definition of success is "more successful than others" . This is usually related to accomplishing some difficult task or solving a difficult problem others have failed to solve. There needs to be a relevant reference point for comparison.

Otherwise, we are all incredibly successful compared to our ancestors(and many less lucky people in other parts of the world) at obtaining food and water, having a long lifespan, etc.

> Would you refer to someone like that as successful?

It depends if they define themselves as successful. That is the distinction. Being judged by others as successful vs setting personal goals and begin successful at accomplishing those goals. If those goals are to live in nature, hunt, fish then they are perhaps very successful (in my sense of the word) but certainly not in the traditionally American sense.

> Would you refer to someone like that as successful?

If that person does what it always wanted to do, this person is obviously successful.

Note to myself: The American definition of "success" is much more f*cked up than expected. No wonder that they have these problems recently...

I don't think this is uniquely American, more like ambitious or not. Otherwise it would be too easy for everyone to "hack" success by simply setting easily attainable goals.

First a bit of criticism - I don't like this way of presenting. 193 slides? Each with one sentence? This is borderline maddening and if this wasn't a topic I was interested in I wouldn't have made it even 30 slides in. A tl:dr would just tell you to skip to slide 160.

Not only that but the parts about Skillshare itself are so disguised that I still don't have a firm grasp of why should I go there and what can I do there besides "learn" (I can just google a cupcake recipe, why should I learn through you?).

Now about the content itself - as someone from outside of the US, I'm amazed and frightened at this phenomenon. There were similar threads on reddit with people with over 200,000$ of debt. This is irrational and borderline irresponsible to owe someone so much money. I think education should be reconsidered and a better method tried. With the internet and the wealth of information on it, I find it hard to believe we can't optimize and improve upon the current education structures.

Edit: After exploring the site, I think I really like it. I'd probably like it more if I lived in NY, where most of the classes take place :) I think this idea is great and worth expanding,

I think, since your site is fairly young, it will benefit a user voice page, since I can think of tonnes of things I'd like to see there.

I actually presented all 193 slides in less than 15 minutes. The format was a huge hit with the audience.

I liked every single of my clicks.

I agree. I regularly flag links to slide share. Life is too short for clicking 190 times to get through at most a page of text and a bunch of pictures.

I also upvote any and all comments within such posts that supply the content in a more readable format.

3 minutes have 180 seconds in them.

The point is it goes kind of fast.

I went through the slides and every one had content worth reading. The flow of it was good too.

Great read. I'd like to say that I've been okay with my decision to drop out of college. Yet several years later all I've found is that 98% of companies now want a BA just to answer phones. A number of friends that I went to school with cruised their way through with C averages. I would be amazed when they'd ask me to read some of their senior level work and it would have the spelling mistakes of a 2nd grader. They spent most of their time at parties while being supported financially by their parents. Meanwhile I was attending the funeral of mine and facing homelessness, so dropping out was what was right for me at the time.

Now I'm the idiot for not having a degree, while those same guys I knew all have fantastic jobs. I think that many companies just use degree requirements as resume filtering tools and nothing more. It doesn't seem to matter that you can't write or that you learned nothing.

That's harsh, and I hope things work out for you, but there is another thing going on here - a constant treadmill of qualifications is becoming the norm in many industries. You might be doing your career harm if you isolate yourself from the main stream of academic qualifications that makes up that treadmill.

Those friends who cruised through school and have good careers, did they actually stop at a BA? Or do they have, say, accountancy qualifications? Masters degrees gained while working? Memberships of professional institutions, working towards being chartered in their profession?

Obviously I don't know the answer to that, and it varies a lot between industries - many programmers here on HN get by fine with talent and experience, and don't feel pushed to gain extra qualifications. But depending what you do, qualifications can open doors to other qualifications and over a long career it might make quite a bit of difference.

I think if you have aspirations to work in an office job for a traditional company, something beyond a high-school diploma is more or less the price of admission these days. On the other hand I think that we tend to assume that this is what everybody wants, and as a result our public education systems no longer serve well those who are not college-bound.

Not everybody does go to college; in fact, less than a third of Americans do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_U...

The percent of Americans age 25+ who attended college (some college) is 55.6%, so it is clear we are seeing well over half of Americans attend college if you include those under 25.

It's increasing though, looking at that graph.

to do well economically in the modern world, whether as an auto mechanic, computer engineer, reporter, nurse, etc. is: 1) solid writing skills, preferably in English 2) strong reading comprehension, preferably in English 3) Basic grasp of math up through and including statistics

so while you don't need college/university you absolutely need 1-3. I picked up #1 in university because i went to a lousy, impoverished high school. I mostly taught myself #2 and #3. A new learning community focused on narrow skill acquisition won't help students acquire 1-3.

Investing in basic education will fix these problems, both investing in teachers and in pushing kids to just fucking study and take learning seriously.

This article is the "High Cost of Low Teacher Salaries" http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/opinion/01eggers.html?_r=1... is much more relevant in my opinion.

best of luck w/ skillshare but please don't think it will teach calculus to people who can't add.

While mikekarnj has some interesting points about education and the obvious higher ed bubble, he is apparently unaware of education concept of "scaffolding" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructional_scaffolding

The freakenomics podcast guys answered a listeners question regarding 'does college still matter?'

Worth checking out the answer just for the unambiguous the answer is. (Answer starts at 3:00)

http://freakonomicsradio.com/does-college-still-matter-and-o...

[Spoiler alert: the answer is 'hell yes' (paraphrased).]

Interesting to listen to that. Though to be fair the question was whether college was no longer a factor or a disadvantage to gaining employment.

You can't argue with the global statement over time college education results in a greater income on average. However, what was pointed out in the OP was how balanced is the average?

Also I thought Levitt's point about comparing Vietnam draft high number lottery 'winners' not going to college versus lower number lottery winners attending college was weak simply because it was 40 years ago.

I agree with most of what you said. I also like the idea of Skillshare.

But, watching the slides, jumping from "you don't have to go to college" to Skillshare gave me the impression (even though the slides didn't say) that Skillshare is a substitute for a college education, which it clearly is not. Based on the current courses, it's more like a "social tradeschool". I'm not saying you are misleading, but the presentation may be.

I have been seeing quite a few posts in this vein on HN and they really disturb me. While I think its clear to everyone that there are problems with the education system, I have a real problem with encouraging people to drop out of, or not attend higher education. Questioning the value of your education is one of the many privileges an education affords you.

The experience we have as IT people is really deeply skewed. The IT industry really barely existed ~25 years ago. Saying that education doesn't matter because a handful of high-school/college/university dropouts made it big riding the coattails of an enormous technological change is really misguided. We get away without credentials here and there simply because so much of this stuff is so new. This is a quirk of this particular moment in time. It won't last. Once that change settles down, degrees will be required for just about every IT job. Hell, that's getting to be the case already.

This statistic about 17 million Americans having degrees in jobs that don't require them has appeared a few times in various articles. It's said as though the people went to school _intending_ to be an overqualified waiter. If that were the case, I would agree that is a terrible waste. With years of aggressive outsourcing, the effective destruction of the manufacturing sector behind us, and a recession all around us, can we really accept that statistic just as it is offered to us?

If student loans have just surpassed credit card debt I agree that is a problem. But if education is to expensive then do something about the cost of education. Don't go telling people to drop out and have their world view shaped by something as meagre as a job or a bit of travel. The only way to develop your brain is to have someone push you to think. Hard. Yes there are examples of this happening outside school but not as many as you think.

Really I think uneducated people are social equivalent of infected PC's on a network; they make things bad for everyone. More education, not less is crucial if we are going to make any progress as a society.

Just my two cents.

> Really I think uneducated people are social equivalent of infected PC's on a network; they make things bad for everyone. More education, not less is crucial if we are going to make any progress as a society.

But the question is, do we get an education from colleges that we wouldn't be able to get without them?

I was really blown away by the quality of the two minute video at the bottom of the post. Anybody have an idea about how much a video of that caliber costs?

I have a client, older guy, with 3 children - 2 older boys, youngest, a daughter is about 19 yo.

The 2 older boys both have degrees, the youngest dropped out despite good grades (chosen degree: English major) saying it wasn't what she wanted to do - and got a job at Panera Bread, where she is rather quickly moving from cashier to training.

The old guy is really stressed about it, to him and his generation, if you don't have a degree, you have no real future.

Given that the daughter is doing well, has essentially zero debt, is not addicted to anything, and enjoying her job and getting promoted--in contrast to many who are having trouble landing any kind of job; well, I am trying to nicely tell him not to worry so much.

This post is going to be downvoted. This is not a personal attack.

The basic question is, why the hell don't you learn for the sake of learning. I did that. Promise. I have an inability to study for grades. So fine, I am doing ok. I took classes, I really enjoyed them (though I struggled a lot), and I learnt a lot. I love school - its the best way to learn things in a structured way, and meet really crazy smart people doing that.

I'll be honest though, I went to pretty selective school - it took me a while to get in (but I did) and it was really an awesome experience. M.I.T. was an especially great experience.

But of course, you are entitled to your opinion, and so am I.

I wrote about this topic here: http://altdevblogaday.org/2011/04/14/the-difference-between-...

I think that it boils down to more than just sharing skill sets, but that is certainly a good start. I argue that primarily, people have to become autodidacts and learn from the wealth of free information that can be found on the internet and elsewhere.

I never even finished High School, and now I earn more/do less than my college degree holding co-workers. I have the advantage of being a programmer though, where skill is at least measurable to some degree and college education isn't as important.

It's actually taboo, but we now assume that someone who graduated from college probably sucks but is willing to do boring tasks.

I'm curious to know your thoughts on what your feelings are on your own children's educations. Will you advise them to drop out of highschool and start working? Are you expecting them to go to university?

I'll take a shot at this. High school drop out, quickly got a GED at 18, never went to UNI, 6 years later making a mid six figure salary as a programmer. Have 2 year old kid.

While I make a good salary and will probably continue to do so for the rest of my life (particularly because on of my present motivations is to start a company of my own), the driving factor behind my success has been my upbringing. I grew up in a shattered immigrant family. We never had enough money. It was gigantic source of stress for me. Constant fights between parents, moving at least once every two years, always made fun of for the way I dressed and carried myself. Never really had any friends.

My only recourse at the time was to fall into petty criminal activity and associating myself with hoods. "Lucky" for me, the constant moving due to being broke prevented me from creating any long lasting relationships with scum.

Eventually I found myself living in a small town far away from where I grew up. No friends. No skills. Too scared/smart to do anything illegal.

I spent the entirety of my time over the course of 4 years learning software development. I took on side projects that I was way under qualified for and learned as I went. My only motivation was money so we could eat. This was my college education. I didn't spend any time enjoying myself (other than playing video games between working). I worked for 12-16 hours per day, 7 days a week, no exaggeration.

The side effects of this? I still don't have any friends (most people made them in uni or carried them over from high school). While I do have interests and several personal hobbies, I don't do anything particularly well other than my work. The overwork of those 4 years became a part of my personality. All I do is work. Actually, it's Sunday and I'm working in a coffee shop right now. Yesterday I spent the beginning part of my day with my kid, then after noon I worked until 9pm. I'm not complaining or whining; I'm actively working on fixing the things that were broken due to my early life experience. In ~5 years I expect to restore a sense of normality to my life, but I'll never stop working like a maniac :)

The reason I told you this story is to emphasize how important it is to have a drive. It doesn't matter what your driving factor is. Could get getting laid. Could be money. Could be fame. Could a fear of being broke. Could be a fear of failure.

I don't expect my son to relive my life because he has a stable home with 2 loving parents. Instead, I will rigorously push the status quo. He must get good grades. He must go to university. Then I'll see how he handles it and make changes according to what I believe is good for him.

If he fails miserably at school, I'll try to understand why. Is it because he's an idiot, that is, mentally incapable of doing the work? Then I'll be happy if he becomes an auto mechanic and doesn't fall into drugs/crime. Is it because he isn't challenged enough and doesn't like school? That's fine, but he will be responsible for supporting himself the minute he believes he's an adult.

So all in all, I don't care if my kid goes to uni. I don't care if he does. What I care about is him having the motivation, drive, and passion to do something productive and contribute to society.

Forgot to mention something. One of the other side effects of not going to university is that I wasn't exposed to the "pop culture of education" as I call it. That is to say, I wasn't exposed to common classical literary works, authors, composers, music, etc.

Often times I find myself in the middle of a conversation about greek philosophy with some coworkers, for example. Mind you none of these people are anywhere expert level in these topics but they all have an introductory set of knowledge to draw from. I have nothing. Luckily, my parents (as crazy as they were) were HIGHLY intellectual and infused some knowledge in stubborn brain. When I was a kid, my mom FORCED me to spend 1 hour per day reading classic literature. Damn I hated that. So now when people bring up War and Peace, I'm like, "Yea I read that" (whoo)

Anyway, point is there are side effects that are usually untold.

I have a BS degree and was not exposed to any of that at university. Not to say it wasn't available, I just chose other courses.

Well, I'd have to admit that not every kid excels at something, or is special, including my own. That decision seems like it would need to happen as the child is growing up. If they exhibit signs of being fast learners where the education system is actually slowing them down. Then yes, I'd probably advise them not to go. Or if they want to go, to try their best to get at a top-tier school (i.e. MIT.) Certainly things like Devry and Phoneix university I would consider a joke.

However, if they exhibit signs of being average then I would push them to get a degree. Because at least they'll know how to follow some sort of procedure and get a decent job without really needing to excel beyond their peers.

In reality though, I'm sure it won't be such a black and white problem.

eg. instead of i.e., and yes, I did go to M.I.T.

I told my kids to stay out of IT. All of them were capable of working in the industry but that last ten years has ruined IT and programming as a profession. This country has ruined it as a profession by letting too many unqualified people into this country as H1Bs. Before you scream racist, there are way too many people with EE degrees are here as programmers without any chops to make a difference. It cheapens the profession.

My oldest is an Athletic Trainer and will never be outsourced. The twins are totally different. One is in textbook editing and the other will end up as a college soccer coach. At least they won't have to worry about this country undercutting what should be a professional wage.

There's an essay called "College Uneducation" by Jorge Bocobo, which tackles about current social problems involving learning. He specified each problems and called it Book-worship, Misguided Zeal, Professional Philistinism, etc. If you want to learn more about the current social problems of learning, try reading his views.

Not everyone has to go to college.

Everyone should have a trade, though. And there needs to be some framing of background - call it 'education' - to be able to have a cultural awareness and to also ably manage practicing ones trade.

I realize the topic of discussion here is whether or not college is important/useful, but as a sidenote I just have to say that your animation was absolutely stunning! Excellent work!

I didn't finish my college degree after I got into programming professionally and I honestly am disappointed I didn't. I can write software but I feel a lot of times I know how things go together the way they do, but not the why. There are times when I wish I knew the theory behind things instead of just knowing the syntax. I think the takeaway is that unless you're going to a really expensive school for the alumni network, find a low price school with good teachers and go for the knowledge. The degree at the end is a nice bonus but having that theory to back up your practice will take you to the next level.

CS is one of the fields where you really can get a good education outside the traditional system. I feel like I did. Don't let anyone tell you that these things are scary and hard, and you need a university to guide you.

I hear MIT's OCW is quite good now, though I haven't used it much myself. Might be a good place to start. Honestly, there are many great resources out there; just pick something and get started.

Cheap schools are a good idea, and I completely agree with that. But it can be hard to work and learn on a schedule; many people would do much better if they are able to learn at their own pace.

I am graduating from a University of London college in a few days and I can guarantee you it's not worth it.

Whatever you are interested in, pick a book and study about it. If you are having trouble, go online and ask. What more can a college give you?

A degree. No matter what people tell you it will open doors for you. After 10 years in the industry I can tell you it will get you in the door in certain places.

That happened 10 years ago, sure. And still happens in a lot of places but these places just follow: Once some major voices go "Yeah, higher education is no big deal", these places will start considering other things.

I've been sending emails about job opportunities as crazy lately and I am really glad that the majority of the people I talk to ask me for samples of my work in terms of coding and or project design rather than instead of exams results.

And it's sad that I don't have a lot of things to show because I've been thinking that I'll be okay just by doing the silly coursework.

"College is expensive. Learn how to make cupcakes and knit sweaters instead". That's the message I get after visiting your site and watching the promo video on the "About" page.

Why should I pay $25 to spend 2 hours with a random person who may or may not be a competent teacher? You trash college a lot, but you don't do anything to inspire confidence in the Skillshare teachers or 'curriculum' (if there is any).

The problem is that in the united states access to colleges and universities has shifted from those who are gifted to those who can pay it.

How long can a society afford it to let gifted people clean desks and wash cars instead of giving them the education they deserve to create benefits for the society?

Every educational system which expects people to pay tuitions gives a up long-term benefits for a short-term monetary gain.

Additionally it teaches young people that it is OK to have debts. It is not. Never. Don't buy what you can't pay.

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