Comment by austenallred | Hacker News Reader

Comment by austenallred | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Interesting article, considering I dropped out of school yesterday (literally).

The reason I dropped out isn't because I'm lazy or incompetent; I'm actually 30 credits (two semesters) away from graduation. But as I look at what my class schedule would be, I realize that the bubble they're trying to force me into takes me a different direction than where I really want to go. I don't think I could handle the cognitive dissonance of that realization day after day.

I love technology and mass media, and I want to go into Internet marketing - I've worked in Internet marketing for five years, so I ended up in the communications department, which was perfect. The program was great - we would discuss how media is changing, work on being creative, study design, understand why people do the things they do; it was great. But then, after my 2nd year, it got specific to make sure we could get a job at an advertising agency - to make sure we stay the 2nd best school in the nation for advertising.

And now I look at my class schedule of the classes I have to take to graduate. Advanced account management? A forced internship (when I've been working in Internet marketing for five years)? Writing 150? (I tested out of that with two different AP tests and my ACT score, but it's required in the Commms program no matter what.) What college wants me to do to ensure I get a job just isn't relevant enough to what I want to learn or where I want to end up. Not to mention the fact that the company I'm a co-founder of has investors begging me to drop out of school and go full-time... it's just not a good fit. It just doesn't make sense.

I'm designing my own curriculum around the things that I want to learn. It's difficult to do and will be hard to force myself to do those things, but at least it's relevant to where I want to go.

I would remind you that copy writing is critical to advertising and the basic tenants they are teaching you aren't that different. You still need to manage leads, create conversions, follow up. You need to understand the difference between brand and product marketing and learn what it means to have a target market. You need to learn to read and do meaningful analysis on analytics using methods that aren't immediately obvious.

You need to learn a whole host of things I cant even list here because I didn't get a degree in marketing.

I understand that. To be clear, Writing 150 is the freshman writing class required for all students except those who received a 26 or more on the English section of the ACT or who got a 3 or more an AP Language or Literature test. I got a 36 (perfect score) on the English section of the ACT and a 5 (perfect score) on both the AP Literature and Language tests. I don't want to say it would be below me, as one can always improve his or her writing, but it would not be the wisest use of my time.

If you saw the syllabi of the required classes I have left you would understand why I'm dropping out.

Just talk to the prof and ask for a pass. It seems like you are dropping out for some other reason and looking for an excuse. Just finish your degree and work on the side.

I finished my Masters @ Berkeley while working at a startup -- doing both at the same time provide great crossover.

>I'm actually 30 credits (two semesters) away from graduation.

Which means you essentially have a college education.

It's not the piece of paper you get at the end that is the education.

It is the piece of paper that is thought to bring the value of an education though. Nobody cares about the education itself. You can get that anywhere.

If you start your own business, certainly it's the education that matters, not the piece of paper.

In my personal case, I care about the education I received. I don't have the diploma framed on my wall, and I don't know if I could even find it in the basement. Maybe others care about the paper, but I don't.

One year of shit you have to do now will save you a decade of shit you have to do later.

It is entirely worth it to finish those 30 hours.

30 credits doesn't equal 30 hours as far as I know. But still, I think GP should just suck it up and finish his degree, he has only a very limited amount of time to lose by doing so, and possibly much to gain from having a degree. In other words, he has limited downside and almost unlimited upside.

In the US, credits are typically by "Credit hours", which I believe is in reference to how much instruction time you have per week. A 3 credit hour class may meet 3x a week for 1 hour, or 2x a week for 1.5hr. So saying 30 credits is the same as saying 30 credit hours, which is 30 "hours" of course work. Wall clock time is higher because you have homework and other stuff, and of course a 3 hour class goes on for at least 12 weeks of instruction.

At my alma mater, Georgia Tech, they assumed 2-3 out of class hours for each in class hour. So that's 2 terms of 45 hour weeks basically

I probably will later, but turning down investment in a company I believe in to do those classes is something I can't handle right now.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com