Hacker News Reader

Comment by amitprasad | Hacker News Reader

Hey Marcus! Super cool to see another fellow Minecraft-jumpstarted developer. I got into programming way back in 2013 with Minecraft mods and then Bukkit/Spigot plugins.

> I decided to look for open Developer positions, to work with a team of experienced developers so I can learn even faster.

Seeing as you're in Europe and not in the U.S. (with exorbitant tuition costs), I would actually recommend against skipping out on College. I can confidently say that while experience in the industry is great (having worked part-time at a startup, as well as various internships during College), I think the knowledge gained from University classes is often underrated.

Not only that, but College is definitely a life experience that I would recommend not to skip lightly.

Regardless, this is super impressive work!

View on HN

To add to your great points, if OP ever decides to immigrate elsewhere (not even talking about the US specifically, but pretty much anywhere outside of the EU), attempting it without a college degree can range somewhere between extremely difficult and impossible. Yes, even for high-earning fields like software development.

Unless there are strong reasons not to do college, I would recommend to not skip it.

Disclaimer: I am talking about OP's situation specifically. I am not trying to make a general "everyone should go to college unless they have a strong reason not to" statement, because I don't agree with it myself.

An additional tip: College is not too hard, specially in colleges where you can choose to pursue easier subjects or less number of subjects in a semester when needed. This might give OP the flexibility to purse the startup/project in parallel with college if they want.

To add to that, you might not even need a master's degree; bachelor's is perfectly fine too and it's less of a time/effort investment.

bachelors was enough for me to get a visa, i think it was just the right amount of schooling. but i do miss my uni days

Just my experience, but I'm not sure how much a degree matters in UK after you have a few years experience. The exception probably being 'big companies' and (obviously) graduate schemes. I guess getting your food in a door somewhere (if you have no other way, and no experience) - a degree will probably help.

All that said, I really grew up at university. I loved it. It was great fun, great to expand your social circle and I'd absolutely recommend it if you can.

A lot, if you're trying to get a visa.

I guess to clarify my point (and again based on my own experience and that of my social/work circles): assuming you're a UK resident, looking to work in the UK.

I would say a degree, masters and PhD all give diminishing marginal returns when applying for a given job, but they open doors (and bypass recruitment filters) which you might get tripped up by with just work experience.

There is also a lot to be said for being a well-rounded person. Even at £9k per year, I would encourage people to go to university - it is the most convenient way to meet a lot of new people, experience living in a different part of the country, and learn to be an adult all while keeping some structure and goals in place.

Lot of colleges now a days have strong startup programmes. This can help you get in touch with venture capitalists and like minded folk. Theres also value in the network of friends and acquaintances you meet at college.

> I can confidently say that while experience in the industry is great (having worked part-time at a startup, as well as various internships during College), I think the knowledge gained from University classes is often underrated.

100% agree. Great advice. I never went to University, in my case for reasons that I prefer not to mention and it has been a constant source of regret. I wish I had a time machine.

+1 on this. Left school at 16 to do an apprenticeship, then went straight into industry. As a result, my social life is like a withered plant. Don't waste time and money on education you don't need, but also don't grow up too fast. You only get one life and one chance to be carefree.

I have a great family, a phd, and a good job in industry.

My social life is like a withered plan im the middle of a toxic waste dump :)

I went to college and didn't have a social life. Maybe it's on us

In college/university, the social life is there for the taking, and you just have to let it sweep you along. As an adult, finding the same number of acquaintances takes an immense amount of effort.

As someone who left mid-college to do software development work, I regret not completing a degree of some kind. (I was studying electrical engineering.)

I would say, for me, it actually would have been good to spend a few years working in industry to get a view of what real world programming is like and gain some awareness of what doors might be closed to you without a degree.

In this situation I would recommend being careful to not become dependent on the level of income that most software development provides. If you are cautious with your finances, you could decide to go for the degree with some money saved up as opposed to it feeling like a major financial hurdle to leave your job in order to go to school full time.

All knowelage today can be found on the web. And you will never have any use of 95% of the course. If you get emplyed you will find that you already know more then the people with an engendering degree. But I still recommend getting a engineering degree for two reason 1) those with a degree earns 25% more then you because they can get more job offers 2) university/college is good for your social life.

So if you already have many job offers (1) (you can negotiate a good salary) and already have a GF (2) reason 1 and 2 is already covered and thus you don't need uni/college.

The problem with knowledge on the Web is that it's mixed in with a lot of noise, and, frankly, there's just too much of it clamouring for your attention.

So, sure, you can Google the hell out of CSS, and clearly that's good enough to build Web pages.

But equally there are a gazillion posts about everything, and no considered, coherent, path through it all.

A university maps a well-trodden, and hopefully well considered path through the knowledge. It leads you to places unknown, and sparks interest (and understanding) beyond just writing code.

For example you might randomly hear about P versus NP, or NP Complete, and decide to follow up on the web about that. Chances are though this might be the first time you've come across this. But I'm pretty sure it'll come up at college.

A degree course guides you through the knowledge, taking you places you didn't know existed. Over the long run this foundation makes it a lot easier to grow and do more than just "write code."

If you have the opportunity I recommend taking the time to do some formal study.

Bullshit.

The web is full of crap. To really learn you need to learn how to learn. Education still matters. Otherwise you’re just a gpt4 prompt monkey.

I’ve found many times in my life where the internet doesn’t know anything about what I’m trying to figure out. Your “just google It” recommendation is destructive.

Then buy a book or read a paper. It is staggering how many college courses just go through textbooks. I find people with this perspective are often bad at googling and/or aren't reading books/papers.

You are a GPT-4 prompt monkey. Your experience is your prompt data. The more diverse it is, the better off you are.

Now, college / uni plays an important role here. It helps you learn how to learn stuff. If you're already good at learning things (and I mean really, really good), you can skip it. Otherwise, you should at least give it a try. Of course, try to get into a good one.

College teaches you how to memorize stuff and regurgitate it in exams. For practical / understanding-based coursework, it may teach you how to learn stuff, but for the smart students it instead teaches them how to craft an answer to fit a mark scheme. Are those useful skills? Probably. Do you need to spend tens of thousands for to learn them? Probably not.

College doesn't teach you how to learn. There's no course on memory or forgetting curves that is mandatory. Nobody taught me flashcard software.

I only got a bit about skimming and note taking from my high school teachers

The benefit of formal education (beside easier visa, easier access to the hiring pipelines and meeting new like-minded people) are the tests.

I was struck so many times thinking I understood something (either through lectures or self-learning) to be proved wrong by the exams or talking to other people who studied the same.

It's no wonder that TAOCP is mostly about exercises. But, the algorithms are easy to self-test for understanding and knowledge. The other subjects -- not so much. Formal education helps here.

Meh, I'll go against the grain and say I'm happy I started programming in my teens, and got my first job at 19. It's harder to learn university-level curricula by yourself, but not impossible, and it is better to get a headstart in a field where young talent is preferred over senior like tech.

If you want to be real good at inverting a binary tree and get a FAANG job ASAP, choose the academic route. If you love programming and want to get better at it with real world experience, get a job. You will have the rest of your life to learn about inverting binary trees if you really need to. 100% of what you will learn is available online, often for free.

Don't underestimate the effect of starting your career at 18 instead of 25. I'd rather hire the one with most experience.

The university experience is whatever people choose to make of it. The people who complain most loudly about how college was a waste for them tend to be people who took no initiative of their own and expected to simply be spit out of some pipeline of courses into a top tier job. OP is clearly not one of those people, and has an internally driven passion for learning, pursued of their volition. That doesn't mean OP is somehow beyond college, it means they are an excelent candidate for it.

The combination of breadth and depth of knowledge and experience available at universities is unmatched anywhere in the world. OP may find themselves more interested in developing neural interfaces, working on processor hardware architectures, designing next generation microscopy systems for biology, or a hundred other things. It's true that there are other entry points into those areas that don't involve being on a campus, but a good university provides efficient entry points into all of them. This is especially true for students who set up independent study courses for themselves, start/run student organizations, talk to professors about their research, and seek out research and project opportunities during summers.

I think college is most useful to people who don't know what they want to do. I complain about college _because_ I took initiative beforehand.

I knew exactly the job & company I wanted to work for way before college, so I had learned everything relevant to that goal before I joined. From my perspective, I spent 3 years learning stuff I didn't want, or paying to be taught stuff I'd already learned on my own. Both left a sour taste in my mouth.

I graduated into exactly the job & company I wanted from the start. I give college zero credit for that. Well, maybe a little bit for getting past the "candidate has a degree" hiring checkbox, but I often question the value of that. 3 years of my life. Ugh. I was watching the clock the whole time.

If you want to work for a couple of years, do it!

College doesn't go away, it can wait.

Given the market and his skills, college will never come. He’ll just get into and immersed in the industry and forget about College. The idea of college will only hit later.

Realistically, however, college is only important if you are planning to leave your own country; or get involved in a very bureaucratic/hierarchical company. Since he is from Germany (which has a quite powerful passport), college will only be important if he wants to immigrate later to the US.

Another way that a degree becomes useful later on is once you need to write a bio for your photo on your startup's About Us page. The vast majority of bios, even for old wealthy folks, list the degree and university in the first sentence.

The "college experience", however, won't be available anymore when you're no longer of a similar age as your peers there. I wouldn't have wanted to miss out on that.

Lots of people start college 2-3 years after finishing high school. That age difference is no big deal. I think many people actually benefit from taking a year or two away from school before jumping in for another 3-5 years.

Yeah I'm explicitly not saying time off in general is a bad idea, but it'd be a shame to wait too long/never do it.

I think that is another great aspect.

Doing a "gap year" and deciding later if I wan't to visit college.

Another one here :) I got really into programing and sysadmin because of Minecraft, I had dabbled before but running a server was a great way to learn a lot of things in a fun way. Linux, networking, security, Web dev, then writing plugins for for hMod/bukkit some java, CI/CD, and a door into the world of open-source. I also met many knowledgeable people through the game that helped me out a lot.

I ended up starting to work in software for cash before I finished high school, and I'm still a dev that loves the stuff, 13 years later. Makes me happy to see so many people with a similar story.

That said, I did eventually go to college and I don't regret a thing. I met so many people, and did so many things I wouldn't have done otherwise, and it made me a better professional. The corporate world can be very oppressing and unforgiving. I wouldn't miss university, having the chance, and you can still freelance while you're there too!

I didn’t go to college due to circumstances. I don’t regret and will make the same choice given the same circumstances.

But if you can, I think it’s the safest decision to go.

People in this thread give a bunch of reasons, which I challenge:

1. Immigration: I’m 25 from a shithole country. I have lived and worked in Asia, Europe and America. A bit more difficulty, but nothing major. Surely with a German passport this wouldn’t be a biggie.

2. Learning: Admittedly, the internet has a lot of noise. But there are good resources like MIT OCW, teachyourselfcs, etc. I will argue some universities are worst than some of the online resources.

3. Social connection: This wouldn’t be a problem if you have hobbies, community and a life outside work. You can always make life long friends.

4. You will learn or experience something vague: Please be specific? Usually, there are other ways to learn or experience these things.

The biggest issue I had to deal with was I thought all the college folks were better than me. But that went away when I joined bigger companies and started interviewing and working with college folks. They were not special.

You're 25... You could still go to college. If you're in Europe I would recommend it (if you wanted to).

Thanks. I’m in Berlin. Why do you recommend? If you have experience going to college as an adult I would love to hear it also.

I think the only difference I had from going to university later was I hung out with people around my same age.

Would have been better to start earlier but that wasn’t an option. Extra-meta: would have been better to go to a trade school or similar and skip college altogether but that’s not what they were selling back then.

> Surely with a German passport this wouldn’t be a biggie.

The U.S. PR lottery couldn't care less. Neither many other non-EU countries.

Would it be acceptable to do a part-time (i.e. community) college or take college classes with an internship? If not, I strongly recommend look at a college with co-op and internship program.

I agree that the computer science knowledge, even some of the deeply theoretical stuff, is heavily underrated. Classes like OS, networks, programming languages and compilers, and computation theory have taught me stuff I use in actual software development. Plus, learning how to look up stuff and understand research papers and take measurements and form experiments (you will need to read heavy documentation and measure things in industry).

Without knowing the fundamentals of CS like data structures you may miss out some concepts and end up doing things inefficiently (in both development effort and inefficient programs). Webdev alone won’t get you that knowledge.

As for the “college experience” personally I disagree. I’m of the camp (as an American) that it’s mostly a glorified American thing. As long as you have some friends, who you can find in college or industry or your local town (if you don’t move), you are set, and you’re not missing much (as having some friends and hanging out basically is the college experience).

But also, as someone who went through college I think it greatly helps to have experience in industry. Because while you miss out on purely industry, you also miss out on purely academia (cue: academics who are wildly out-of-touch, papers on deep theoretical concepts I doubt will have any real-world use). It also really helps with finances (read: not going into college debt) and "getting your foot in the game" and making connections early is extremely useful as it will let you graduate with experience on your resume and skip entry-level jobs. I think that the best solution is both, hence join an internship-focused college or take college classes and maybe lab work while doing an internship

You can also work during college. No reason the two have to be mutually exclusive, especially now that remote has become so much more common.

I used to work half days and whole days whenever my schedule would allow.

I didn't have any good experience in college. Could have skipped, I don't want to work as a developer anyway. Ended up playing poker professionally...

If I could go back and skip college I would. Worst years of my life by far.

Those with degrees, don’t see the downside of not having a degree.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com