Comment by ajsnigrutin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ajsnigrutin | Hacker News Reader

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> Don't go to college before you have a sense of what you are interested in learning.

I live in a country where college is paid by the taxpers, and college students get a bunch of advantages (student work, food coupons, cheap stuff, access to student resources, gyms etc.).

We have a bunch of students who have to decide on what to study at age 18, and a bunch of them are just "i'm bad at math, what doesn't have a lot of math?" and totally disregard other factors (mostly, employment opportunities), so after ~5 years, they get their masters in ancient greek and philosphy and then complain that there are no jobs for "educated young people".

On one hand, they knew that there were no jobs in that field when they filled out the application forms, on the other hand, the taxpayers paid for 5 years of a useless college, then they learned something that has zero added value in their eventual workplace, and then they still complain.

TLDR: "interested in learning" sure, but with consideration of "are there jobs in that field?"

This is what Americans are afraid of in terms of universal education or whatever it’s called. I think it probably still has some net positive effects on society as a whole, even if that person has a useless degree they are educated and that foundation remains through their life regardless of whatever job they end up in. In the US, we have such a disparity of education. It’s likely fueling some of our other problems. Just like income inequality, healthcare, etc.

This is essentially the "elite overproduction" hypothesis. We have artificially priced some forms of education below the market rate. Graduates with useless degrees have poor career prospects, leading to social instability.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_overproduction

>I live in a country where college is paid by the taxpers,

May I ask which country? Whenever I look at education stats for a taxpayer college funded system versus the US, there are tradeoffs made, such as less of the population getting college degrees through stricter (taxpayer desired) requirements. I'm curious if your country has a solution that's better on some Pareto frontier of education funding methods.

Slovenia

agreed, that's why my practical advice is less about college prep and more about meeting a lot of people who do a lot of different things for a living and letting those observations inform your direction and plans.

fwiw my nieces ignored my advice and are liberal arts majors at private colleges in the US but at least they have close to full-ride scholarships.

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