College vs Start-up - It's not about the job
danieltenner.com
danieltenner.com
- Immigration, if you ever decide to work abroad
- Banks, if you need to finance a house
- Dates. Education level is one of the main filters
- Parents of women you're dating
- Universities, if you ever want to hang out for a year doing research between startups
It's probably less of a handicap in life than, say, having "PSYCHO KILLER" tattooed across your forehead, but it's significant. You can get along, but you'll always be explaining it. People who never went often seem to turn into defensive people later in life. YMMV.
It's just an oversimplification and not useful in the real world.
People get defensive when you call into question their competence or judgment. Some people feel that any criticism calls into question their value. Some people (like myself) are used to it. Identity != Value. I'm lots of things. I make lots of decisions. Unless you can assault the critical part of my judgment system that makes choices you're free to say about anything.
As for college, simply separate out what you want and go do it. I think college is great for forming connections, for finding a cofounder. So if I didn't have one (or a few good candidates) I'd go in a heartbeat.
If I wanted a good liberal arts foundation, which I think is crucial to living a good life, I'd go get that. Colleges do not own the monopoly on liberal arts educations, though.
So take ownership and go do what makes sense. There is no "right" or "wrong" answer here.
I think it's a good discussion to illuminate what people's goals are. People need to think about their own personal goals instead of having other people on the internet tell them what to do. You do that best by thinking about it: hearing people argue/discuss. But if it devolves into a right vs wrong thing it _is_ a waste of time.
Why does a group of people who by and large have already made this decision -- and won't be making it again -- find it so worthwhile to keep debating it? Probably because explaining the choice they made makes them feel better about themselves.
Whether or not the conversation is boring is another matter entirely. Obviously somebody posted the article, so it means something to somebody. After a while, I'm going to stop reading all these college vs. no college articles. So will everyone else, I imagine. Nature will take it's toll.
I trust my fellow posters to come on here with an open mind. That's not out of any kindness on my part -- it's simply a practical matter. There's no point in posting anything at all if you're just talking past one another.
We're talking. See? Obviously both of us feel that there is some information that is being exchanged that is worthwhile about some tangential part of this topic.
I think I come at this from the standpoint of having to work with people all day long that have strong opinions about technology. If I had an option of simply ignoring subjects that my clients found difficult to come to grips with, my work would be a lot easier. And nothing would get done.
Yes. There are some topics that people tend to talk past each other. Those are the most important ones to talk about. What? You want to spend your time on things nobody feels strongly about? As long as the chat is productive, bring it on. If it's not productive, downvote it, ignore it, and move on. Just like anything else that's not worthy of your or my time.
EDIT: I don't want to look like I'm changing my opinion, so what I mean is that there are some topics that people tend to associate directly with their judgment and self-worth. Religion is one of those. Politics is another. But gee, it can be anything. This emotional entanglement is just a part of human nature and is part of real-world conversations.
If this were say, one of the many discussions about database tech, caching and whatnot -- even though we've got a lot of experts in those fields people still change their minds, are open to new view points, and use that information to make future decisions.
This is like the girl I'm dating and I arguing over which of our home countries has the best food. We're arguing over formative experiences that have just become part of who we are. It's cute banter, but really not more. Just because we're going to continually disagree, and we're both throughly convinced of our rightness, doesn't mean that it's an important thing for us to keep discussing.
Others have pointed out learning things from the conversation, including the person who posted the article.
For you, perhaps, it seems like old hat and re-hash, and it has that faint whiff for me too, but every now and then a little glimmer of light shines through. That's why longer posts are usually better than short ones -- you're more likely to stumble on an area that nobody has thought about if you try to be thorough.
I know how you feel, though (I think). I get the same burnt-out feeling when I see yet another article on git, or piracy, or CSS vs non-CSS, or functional vs. imperative, etc.
Heck, if you think about it, there's a lot of topics where we're mostly just talking past each other. That's kind of my point: people get emotionally entangled with the weirdest stuff. Instead of trying to generically categorize it, I just accept it as a natural part of human interaction. If had a magic list of topics to avoid that would be nice, but unrealistic.
Audience member: "You should have done X"
Messed up person on stage: "You don't know me! You don't know me! <Louder> You don't know me! You don't know!"
If I ever had kids, I'd tell them I'd pay for a chunk of college-- if they put it off for 1-2 years after high school.
College should not be a way to delay a child's real life. It should be part of their strategy to live a good one.
I don't understand the blanket hatred of college; it appears to come from people who spent >$100k/yr and are now drowning in that debt. If doe properly it's a very good thing; I learned a lot, made connections and grew as a person. I would say it's worth more to me than what I paid.
My own institution is proud to be doing its own "lowest tuition hike in 41 years", at 3.8 percent. Thankfully I'm a PhD student and so I don't actually pay my own tuition.
How about we say $100k of debt for a degree?
All of that is pretty overrated, teaching quality on margin is worse and unless it's a Top 100 school, you're basically wasting time. And even if it is, you're still probably wasting a good deal of money.
Should've just left the military, gone to community college and taken a scholarship to keep as cheap as I could've. Oh well, now I know.
I definitely have never regretted going to college, though.
I do not have any experience at a state school, but I would posit that it is worth paying the premium for an Ivy just to meet some of the kids. I have often had this discussion of whether it was worth going to college with my friends. As I am from a small town and they are from different countries all around the world, we would have had no connection with each other. Additionally, the alumni base has helped me talk to tech CEOs and venture capitalists as an 18-year old.
Even though I think the classes are pretty much worthless for long-term success, the extracurriculars and connections you meet during your four-year experience are the shaping factors.
For me, it has been great to be able to take classes that I am actually interested in instead of just the ones that involve the least work like many of my friends have (CS is the only department with that many specialized classes).
I wasn't forced to choose a specialization, if I was, I probably would not have chosen CS at the time. I chose different classes freshman year and started to gravitate towards CS as a sophomore. There was no commitment so I could have stopped CS and focused on something else if it turned out that I didn't like it.
Most of what I know is also self taught. Once you get into the more advanced CS classes at my school, it is very independent (I am the only one in each of my classes this year). I can ask the teacher for help on an assignment or have him explain something if I need him too but most of the time I work independently.
I jokingly referred to our classes as learning "skills" since we lived so close to the poverty line. We had well taught and well funded tracks in dry cleaning, construction, cosmetology etc. I joke but they provided job placement and it probably gave many people a decent living.
I also remember how great it was have an army recruitment office inside the school.
(Adding some geeks of the opposite sex (or same sex if preferred) may increase the fun, though.)
Where I grew up there was a statewide program where you could attend college classes for free during the last 2 years of high school. I pretty much did this full time after my sophomore year. I believe this sort of program exists in many US states.
I got my first 32 hours of math/english/chemistry/history out of the way my senior year in HS for $48 a credit hour. Definitely a great deal.
Some cities in our state, notably the ones with colleges in them, allow their HS students to attend college classes instead (with approval of professor and the university). I've seen random 16 year olds on campus in calculus III classes for instance.
But for a lot of folks, a technical degree from one of these places could be a real leg up in finding a comfortable paying job without incurring college debt.
Plenty of time to do a startup on the side, especially in the early stage where you have slow growth.
And its not like you have to become a hermit, you have plenty of time to have a social life
a) Interest free debt that you don't have to even think about for 4.5 years, and even then you only pay back a few hundred bucks a month and if you can't they'll work with you to defer payments or adjust them.
b) No other expenses for the 4 years(rent, food, high speed internet, utilities), nothing to worry about but school and startup.(this is if you live on campus..which you should since your loan can cover housing)
c) Plenty of engineering talent all over the campus who can take a risk with you and even work for free
d) Plenty of people who you can consult for advice(teachers/councilors)
e) Access to alumnis who you can eventually tap for angel level funding
f) No obligation to show up to classes/do homework...yes your grades will suffer(if you mess up on finals), but if you are doing a startup, you don't really need to care about grades, and this way you can be very flexible
And sure you'll end up 40-200K in debt, but so what? Everyone else is in the same situation as you. But unlike them who'll get a job at $40k/yr, you'll have a startup that you had 4 years to grow to profitability. And it doesn't matter what business model you have, in 4 years anyone can get profitable.
I also think the article makes a great point in that you can always drop out. If college isn't for you; you can leave.
tjogin; Private colleges are expensive, but if you go to state schools it is not. You still have to deal with feeding yourself and housing, but the courses are only a couple thousand per year. You barely get a used car for that little. :)
I personally planned financially for it, applied for as many scholarships as I could, hold 2 jobs and work through holidays. Not to mention there are ways to reduce the cost of a degree. Take general ed classes at a community college and then transfer credits.
I'll be finishing my second bachelors degree in Mathematics(finished my CS degree already) with no debt.
Of course, we had several professors that prided themselves on upholding the 2-to-1 ratio. For every hour in class they wanted us to do at least two hours of homework/projects.
Granted, if you cut out the 16-20 hours wasted every weekend on going out with friends, and the 20ish hours a week wasted playing video games, I probably would have had plenty of time for both.
1. Some of the professors are not interested in teaching- they do it because they have to. They rarely answer questions and go way to fast over the material.
2. We have to take many math courses. I was very interested in math until I got to university. Why? Because if you have a bad teacher you cant learn a lot.
3. Out of the about 300 people that learn with me in various courses there are probably less than 10 who are actually interested in CS (ie. program outside of school...).
4. Because of (1.) it is actually easier to learn from a book and much more efficient. You just need someone to answer the questions that you get here and there.
The whole thing just isnt fun at all... not even close. I really dont know what to do.
1. Find one person who is moderately competent. When you study, study with him. You both study a topic or chapter seated beside each other. Then you discuss the chapter to see if you both understood it the same way. If yes, proceed to the next chapter. If no, discuss some more and try to work out what the prof meant. If you do not understand it, skip the chapter and move on. Sometimes it gets clearer later.
2. For some subjects, it's better to read material that is not specific to the subject. For example, let's say you want to understand electronics. If you buy an electronics book, you will have to go through 100 pages of theoretical stuff that is difficult to understand. You will lose interest and you cannot learn it well. A solution would be to buy a physics book that uses electronics as an example (Physics for Electrical Engineers, for example). This book will explain the electronics as quickly and as efficiently as possible, so that they can focus on physics. This gives you a high level understanding that you can then use to understand the denser material.
3. If you have an exam that you have to pass in a short amount of time, work backwards. Take the old exam questions, and study the theory for each question till you understand enough to solve and understand the problem correctly. Do this for a wide range of questions, and this fills in your theoretical knowledge piece by piece, like a crossword puzzle. It's not a good way to learn, but it's an efficient way of passing and exam.
The best way of succeeding in school is by hanging out with the people who want to succeed at school.
Stick through this part, and you'll find that things rapidly become more challenging and interesting.
Once you've selected a major, the coursework becomes much more interesting and difficult. There will be plenty to challenge you.
Be grateful for the good teachers you have, but don't let the bad ones slow you down. You can be successful despite them.
I've always wanted to start my own business. It was at this point that I realized something: I don't want a PhD, I want to hire PhDs. :)
There will be plenty of web companies worth founding three, five, ten, or twenty years from now.
If you'd regret not going to college, go. And if the "founder" bug bites, well, it's not there aren't any example of college startups, right?
Now meeting hackers at other schools is also possible, and I'd say pretty probable, if you try hard enough.
Having a network of hackers is pretty useful, especially for founding, and I think people underrate the value of relationships developed in college. There's no other environment quite like college, and even if you don't agree that the relationships built in that environment aren't uniquely valuable, I think you can probably agree that they're unique.
If that ever happens to me, I'm betting my X number of years spent earning my college degree will help me find a better job with a higher wage than if I didn't have a degree.
That was one of my personal reasons to go to college. I positive I could do without it but I think I'll feel somewhat safer in life knowing I can still have a good career if everything else fails.
Nobody really cares that much.