Ask HN: Do you think college is/was worth it? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Do you think college is/was worth it?

9 pointshallole17 comments

I'm moreso referring to the educational value you received. Colleges increasingly have the reputation of being run like factories: less concern for the quality of their lecturers, and more for augmenting admissions numbers, even if it means dropping standards. To what extent is the knowledge you gained of real value to you? Were you well prepared to enter your field? Do you feel your degree is more than a guarantee to employers that you're not a complete bozo?

I think it was mostly worth it. Some upper level classes were half baked, with a few faculty members of dubious competency. But, I did learn enough to apply myself to my chosen field.

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College in general is pretty worthless in the long run. I'm 41 years old and I only speak of my college "experience" fondly. I don't speak to anyone about their college classes or what not.

I, actually, care more about what I did around college, which was make fun events and organize stuff. I ended up doing a few crazy things that I look back on and deem them to be my "internship" in entertainment or working in film. I created a late night comedy show. My friends were the head writer and the host. I just put it all together.

I also created a 24 hour short film competition. Did it 3 years in a row. Which not only was a great thing to do once but I had the grit to continue to do it and grow it year to year.

BUT>>>

Right out of college I ended up literally using my degree to get a job. I interviewed for a job in video on cruise ships, got turned down but got a job in theatre automatically because I had a degree in theatre. Done and dusted. Ended up working there 5 years, earning my way into video, then IT. Started coding and ultimately now two decades later, I'm putting it all together... coding on youtube in videos. crazy right?

Yes and no.

For the intended purpose of learning? Not at all. If you're legitimately interested in the subject, you'll learn more on your own.

For improving your prospects? Definitely. Say you were unlucky enough to be born in the third world. University is the easiest route into the first. I've spent almost £80k between tuition fees, rent, and living expenses over the past 3 years, all my own money from bug bounties, freelancing, and jobs/internships. I could've probably lived a comfortable life back in Malaysia with that much savings while working an average job. But the cap on my potential has definitely been raised several times that just by having a UK visa and a pathway to residency.

Also, I learnt this lesson way too late: it's not about what you know, but who you know. I wasted my first two years here mostly doing individual projects. Even though the 3rd year is the most busy, I'm making active effort now to work with professors on their projects. Some are genuinely interesting and at the same time, they have the ability to link you up with people with similar interests. If you can't seem to find people at your level IB Uni, it's because you haven't tried going the indirect route via professors. They know everyone

My take on college:

* Don’t stop at just a bachelors degree. Get a masters.

* Don’t bother with a computer science degree. A person that is smart enough can teach themselves to write code. Instead focus on an educational subject of greater learning.

* Be choosy with your school focusing on quality of education in your subject area and not the prestige of name unless you have money to burn and are just there to buy future friends.

Yes, college was absolutely worth it, but then I went to a very inexpensive school.

I have a previous Master’s degree from art and I am after working years in tech doing a second degree in CS. Neither degree I need in my current job.

Personally I think what you gain from education comes from three things:

i. How much you apply yourself, how much are you willing to self-study, do research, your own projects, ask question. ii. The structured pathway an educational institution gives you to learn certain skills and gain knowledge. In self-learning the problem comes knowing what to learn and in what order so that you can advance to a more advanced level. iii. People you meet. Not just networking, but the fact that if you hang out with very clever people all day long, some of that prob sticks to you as well.

Even my art degree was extremely useful, although it provided absolutely no path to employment. I don’t know what the future brings, but I have absolutely loved my current degree so far, although it admittedly very hard at times.

If you can skip some or all electives and instead receive credits for joining research on campus as an undergraduate then it's worth it. There were a few TAs at my school who joined some professors project and only did that their last two years of undergrad where they had to produce a research paper for credit but they all ended up graduating with their name on multiple papers, going to invite only graduate summer schools, getting employment or grad school offers none of the rest of us were offered. Otherwise the cost seems too high now for a 4yr undergrad unless you scheme for a cheap bachelors (Europe? UoPeople?) and invest in a masters instead

Everybody in my team has either a PhD or a MS. My (big tech) company rarely hires people without a college degree, unless they have outstanding accomplishments. In my case, it was a requirement or I wouldn't be working in tech.

In term of training, lectures were unequal, but overall I learned a lot. Would have been impossible to achieve the same level of knowledge on my own. The problem isn't the content, but the discipline to learn things on your own without validation, over several years. That'd take a high level of maturity I didn't have at 18.

It's the networking. It's who you know and status marker. So bottom 90+% was probably never worth it (for coders). Top 1% still does and will, and there's no dilution there at all. Elite meets elite.

My fiftieth college reunion (if I were to attend--I'm not planning to) is not far away, so a lot of things have changed.

But yes, it was worth it. It would have been more worth it had I taken more mathematics and foreign lannguages.

The most important things I learned from college.

- What I am capable of. How I compare to others out there.

- How to comprehend and learn on my own. Most of what I now use on a daily basis in order to earn a living, I learned on my own.

- Teaching can be a guide but learning is a choice. It requires dedication and motivation.

It was, but please remember "college" is not fungible.

Absolutely not. Total waste. Nothing but regret about it. I graduated 13 years ago, and I'm still paying on it.

The valuable "education" came after, wasn't related to the school curriculum, and was mostly learned on the job.

Some professions require the pedigree, in those cases, you have no choice but to play the game.

If you want to get educated, take the courses that align with your chosen vocation, don't bother with following a degree track. It's not worth the money/hassle. Also, and this is key, marry what you learn with hands-on doing of the stuff you're covering in class.

Get into an internship/apprenticeship. Learn a trade.

The "you have to go to college to be successful" mantra is a lie. And we've saddled ourselves (and our kids) with this idea and the horrendous debt that comes with it.

It's a terrible, terrible idea.

"I have never let schooling interfere with my education" - Mark Twain

I did try and take a practical course, but they were more interested in the less practical aspects e.g. being able to write an essay. The most intolerable bit was group work where people were marking each other mostly on how much they liked each other.

https://x.com/profstonge/status/2001631029799608525

More evidence as to why it’s not worth it.

The worst thing about titles is the arrogance of people who need to hide behind them so that no one can argue with them.

Yes i met my wife mary at college

Caveat, it was a long time ago. Second caveat, I ended up completing with effectively positive money afterward. However, generally yes anyways. Towards your specific questions.

Knowledge you gained of real value?

Yes, mechanical engineering, and most of the skills / knowledge have been used frequently for the last several decades. Job immediately afterward was designing optical instruments, and mechanical design skills were directly applied for several years. Later job was with NASA / MSFC contractor (this kind of stuff [1][2]), and engineer skills use was pretty much all we did. Mechanical design, acoustics, fluid dynamics, testing / experimentation, problem identification and resolution. Actually, not totally fair, we also wrote a lot, and college English classes + graduate research work helped a lot. Surprising number of publications for working in .gov. [3]

[1] https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20140016892/downloads/20...

[2] https://araesmojo-eng.github.io/araesmojo-html/project_nasa_...

[3] https://araesmojo-eng.github.io/araesmojo-html/resume_public...

College had a large scale senior design project, and the organizational skills necessary over a year for a significant size team were also helpful in being able to consider a problem with large scope beyond your own personal ability to tackle, work with others to frame the problem, consider a solution, and then implement it. Also involved working with a customer (large chip manufacturer), external vendors, and other teams in the same design project facility. All those skills have remained useful for years.

People often complain that classes like math are not especially useful (or the usefulness is not communicated well). Yet, over several decades, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, differential equations, continuum mechanics, and numerical methods have all proven useful. Admittedly, engineer. So, kind of a profession biased towards actually using math.

Well prepared to enter your field?

Yes, no real complaints. First job, felt like I made a difference in their products, and was able to achieve something relatively quickly after starting. Skills learned were applicable, and some the design stuff mentioned earlier came up almost immediately because we had a machine shop on site. NASA was a similar situation. Been a little while since studying the material, yet most ended being necessary parts of the job almost every year. Day to day work involved significant use of engineering classes, math classes, writing / English classes, and even a bit of electives stuff like economics (lots of money in rocketry), psych (real mindset / fear / disposition / perception issues in launch or not), history (grappling with a 25 to 30 year old program (Shuttle) and ~70 year old institution), and poli-sci (it's .gov).

Do you feel your degree is more than a guarantee to employers?

Yes, much for the reasons listed above, and many of the skills have simply been valuable in personal life outside of the work environment. Hobbies, friendships, ability to consider types of problems I might not have otherwise, awareness of other fields of education, awareness of the variety of research activities, being able to read difficult material without any immediate reward, proofreading my own and other's writing (had several errors in this post...), self directed research and investigation, finding info with limited clues, and being able to formulate somewhat long form responses to questions like yours.

Yes, go to school.

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