Ask HN: How to get over insecurity about mediocre education?

Beyond your first job, no one cares in the slightest what college or university you went to or how well you did there. The only thing that matters is how you perform professionally. If you want additional education, focus on on-the-job education that improves yourself as a software professional.

As for your social and dating circle, they will not care about your education either (unless for whatever reason you hang out solely with academics) and most likely will understand nothing about your field. Focus on showcasing your professional success / accomplishments and its impact, not your education.

Anecdotal counterpoint: Google asked for my college transcripts when I was interviewing with them about 8-10 years after graduating.

Of course they’re the only company that has done so, including my first job out of uni.

Oh wow..."regular people"? We're all regular people. And nobody is thinking about you as much as you think they are. They're too worried wondering if you think they're smart. How's that for meta.

Nobody gives a crap about what school you went to, or what your grades were.

I don't have a university degree, I'm a self-taught software engineer. Didn't stop TechCrunch writing about an app I built. Didn't stop me from getting hired at CSIRO (Australia' science and technology research organization).

The only thing holding you back is what you think others are thinking about you.

If you want to be likeable, pick-up hobbies. Dance, book clubs, music, sports (sailing, running, skiing, biking), travels, arts, etc. Being different is a lot better than being smart because makes you interesting. Additionally, being around people will enhance your social skills. Social/Soft skills will become increasingly important as move forward IMO, regardless of industry.

Hobbies combined with positive attitude and empathy are qualities that will drive people towards you, which to me looks like your end-goal.

That said, one of the good reasons to get a Master's Degree, is because you want to. If you pursue that area, try to do it as best as you can. Pick-up a school that will separate you from others, try to get high votes and actually learn, not just pass the exams.

> However, I have felt since graduation that people in my social and dating life will think I am either unintelligent or lazy because my university had a reputation as a middling party school.

Does your social circle consist exclusively of Ivy League and other prestigious school graduates? Otherwise I can’t imagine your education is any worse than the average individual’s.

What conversations are you having that your schooling is coming up regularly enough to cause you to feel this way?

I am a high school dropout. No degree, I went to community college for 2 years and played cards in the cafeteria every day.

Now I am a senior engineer at a big tech company. I have founded startups, been the first engineer at venture backed startups, have scaled teams, products, etc.

I can’t remember the last time someone asked me about my education. Why would that matter, when the quality of my work and experience I bring to the table is clearly valuable and high quality?

On an entirely separate note, you may still be underpaid :) Has nothing to do with your education and more to do with negotiation skills when you join a new company.

There are some jobs you won't get if you don't come from certain school but it's not in tech sector.

"However, I have felt since graduation that people in my social and dating life will think I am either unintelligent or lazy because my university had a reputation as a middling party school"

People may think whatever they want but from my own experience I can tell that you don't want to spend any time with people,who judge you based on the uni you went to,the car,or your skin colour. They are toxic and it's better for anyone to stay away from that kind of people.

Get an advanced degree only if you want to do it, or it clearly benefits you - say, migration to some country. You are not limited anymore by paper in your carrier progression within IT industry after your first job - your achievements will open the doors.

Let me also address psychological aspects. You are much more than a university certificate, you are not defined by it. You can self-educate yourself on a lot of technical and non-technical topics, you can have interesting hobbies, create, challenge yourself physically. There are potentially so much more to do to help you succeed in relationships.

Do not build barriers that cause anxiety, do not dream how much better your would be if you had a fancy degree - you live once, accept yourself, and invest in yourself in what you really want.

I totally understand you btw, I have a non-CS degree from a no-name university in a small post-Soviet country. You can imagine that I felt a bit insecure about it as well. 5 years on, I stopped worrying about it, when realised that my employers and people around me in general judged me by my current contributions and character.

In IT, we basically only need to dedicate focus and time to improve ourselves. No barriers like expensive equipment or official accreditation. Also, maybe, read Masters of Doom, a book about John Carmack for inspiration.

I don’t have a CS degree at all and _really_ felt this way early in my career. After the first few years though, the people who keep learning will pass by the people who don’t and that y-axis offset you start with from a better school doesn’t matter if you have a better slope. There are two things you get from a better school though and the more important one is a better network. Going for a Masters somewhere else might help with that one if you’re struggling right now.

I feel the same as you, but under (very?) different circumstances - I dropped out in my last year of high school due to a variety of reasons, so I never had an ounce of formal education beyond that. I also live in a place where educational attainment is highly valued, and almost always used as a baseline for how accomplished you are. A bachelor’s is the bare minimum you “need” as a signal that you’re “capable”.

I’m 25, and extremely early in my career by any measure, but I think I’m doing fine. I get to do the very thing that has kept me going for a decade and a half. I'm part of a fantastic team and surrounded by great mentors; there are so many people I can learn from, and I’m just beginning to learn how to pass knowledge around. I don’t always get to do what I truly enjoy, but I think that’s just part and parcel of any software work in general.

I _still_ worry about my lack of formal education, especially when I’m comparing myself to others (something that I’ve been actively trying not to do!), but I’ll always choose to celebrate what I can do and what I’ve accomplished over what I could have done.

> people in my social and dating life will think I am either unintelligent or lazy

People will think, and they’ll judge. But that’s entirely out of your control.

I would have 3 ranks for universities: prestigious or elite CS schools, name-brand schools and every other school.

I call out name-brand schools simply because if you get a degree from a school that has a recognizable name, you have a better chance of having an alumni network that can help you. My guess is these name-brand schools are there because of sports programs. This is me guessing because I went to an "every other school".

After working for a few years, nobody (that's hiring) cares what school you went to, its about work you have done on the job. Having a degree will open more doors. You can build a local network of people you've worked with that could help in finding new positions which could be the same as a name-brand school alumni network.

A masters degree is a lot of financial and time commitment. In this field, I work with people that have no degree, unrelated Bachelors, to people that have unrelated PHD's - it really doesn't have an impact on what they deliver.

One important step is finding someone who will listen and reflect with you with honesty and rigorous compassion.

That is hard to get from a forum of even the kindest of internet strangers.

> is this not something regular people even worry about?

Some do.

As an MIT grad, I worry about the opposite problem: that people will be too scared/angry to see my flaws that we won’t be able to meaningfully connect and collaborate. It has happened — leaving me feeling lonely and useless.

> in my social and dating life

If I’m at a party, I only care about your uni background if you have stories you’d like to share from it. Unless I have my head up my own ass that day, I mostly want to hear your stories and hear what questions about science and engineering and dance and history you find interesting.

Your friends can’t know if you are underpaid or overpaid. They can’t know what your job expects of you, or who and how talented your coworkers are. But you can always attain whatever level of education you feel you want to have. It doesn’t stop at school.

And CS is one of the best fields for self-education. All you need is a computer. You don’t need a clinic, a laboratory, a rocket, etc. Seriously, you can far exceed what MIT teaches to undergrads, it just might take a year or two of reading and experimenting with your own programs on your own time. People (and employers) definitely won’t think you’re unintelligent or lazy if you are demonstrably more accomplished than your peers.

Sounds like its important to you what other people are doing and thinking. You mention your parents, your social circle etc.

In some people its a deep psychological NEED to please others/fit into a particular group etc. If it is indeed a default setting in your brain then you have to meet that need to stay happy.

If you cant meet that need for whatever reasons, dont sit around blaming yourself, change the people around you. Easier said than done for people who have a need to fit in with the group around them but its the main route out of what can become a big trap.

> that people in my social and dating life will think I am either unintelligent or lazy because my university had a reputation as a middling party school.

Thats's a sign you're dating and being friends with the wrong people.

I'm saying this as an undergraduate myself. There are better people out there who really don't give a damn about prestige and just see you and work with you as you are, career-wise, business-wise, and even in intimate relationships.

I'm curious how many people here graduated from an elite school and are doing well. Does a MIT degree guarantee you a 6 digit salary? I have a fairly elite education too and while I'm not doing badly, I think I'm also underpaid, but that's mostly a problem with being underchallenged. Unfortunately, most of us just end up doing CRUD.

> people in my social and dating life will think I am

Do they strongly comment on that, or is that just something you think they might do? Because while education might come up as a topic, I don't really think it says much about the person unless it's something really outstanding. But different places and social scenes of course could be different there.

> Should I try to get a master’s degree from a better school?

IMHO in CS a masters is something you only get for yourself. It's nothing special, unless an employer is really picky about this it doesn't give you much over just a BS after you have some experience. I have one and enjoyed it, but here there's also barely any university fees so I "just" paid in time and delayed career start, and it's far from obvious it was "worth it" in any objective sense. IMHO you really should have a good reason for investing time and money into this - if you are sure it helps you or gives you important options, consider it, but I'd err towards "no".

Please read

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

I think you need it.