Comment by markbao | Hacker News Reader

Comment by markbao | Hacker News Reader

I'm trying to develop my own mobile device. Going to be fun. Intel Atom 1.6ghz, Ubuntu-based, hopefully some kind of 5" capitative touch, software written in Qt/C++ (for lack of a better framework/X drawing option). http://avecora.com

Also working with hnuser://jasonlbaptiste on Ramamia (beta), which lets you keep in touch with your family. http://ramamia.com -- as well as status updates for sports games at http://tickrtalk.com (we were launched, but the data source pulled the plug on our API access...)

...and Classleaf, http://classleaf.com - bringing education a bit more into the 21st century by helping teachers create class websites, with homework, test and due dates, events, file attachments, email lists, pages, and more, and class tracking for students. (You can tell I say that pitch too much.) Mostly managing sales staff (they're working on commission, $1000 per sale) to make sales to high schools primarily.

Lastly, working to study/improve SAT/ACT/SATIIs/my abysmal GPA so I can actually get into a decent college come this fall... sigh. Anyway, overview's mostly at http://markbao.com.

Lastly, working to study/improve SAT/ACT/SATIIs/my abysmal GPA so I can actually get into a decent college come this fall...

Enjoy having no time for your personal projects and instead having to do mindless "introduction to cutting-and-pasting java 1.1".

Even if his "decent college" has such a class, and he can't pass out of it, I can't imagine that one intro class would take up that much time.

I'm really disappointed in how little you're doing with your time ;-)

Why do you want to go to college? Speaking as someone who did, I'm not sure you'll learn much that you haven't already.

College social experience, connections, academics, and excuse to be in NYC (that is, if I get into my top choice NYU)

I'm also at NYU. Contact me when you are in NYC.

I believe strongly in higher education (I'm getting my PhD afterall), but sometimes it needs to be said that college is not the only place you can get all these experiences. You will build your own social networks regardless of wherever you go and whatever you do, and your connections from your various businesses are surely just as strong, if not stronger than what you'll find in college. And of course, if you're such a self-starter as you seem to be, you'll take the time to learn the subjects on your own regardless if you go to college or not.

Please realize that there are many different paths through life. We are lucky to be in the top 1% to take advantage of these educational opportunities. But we're also just as lucky to have the freedom to choose how we want to live our life in a way that brings us the most joy.

Speaking as a college dropout, who dropped out due to lack of money and immediately got a programming job, I would like to stress the importance of college. As far as the social experiences go, you will rarely ever be in an environment that is anywhere near the social level of college. As programmers we tend to get jobs where we are locked in on the computer all day off in our own world. I have definitely made social connections from working, but no where near the level that you get with college.

I agree with some of the other posts that you will not likely learn things in college that you don't already know or couldn't easily learn, about _computers_, but my recommendation is to ignore the computer curriculum in college (unless the program is outstanding) and pick a completely unrelated topic that you enjoy. Your college degree will be a piece of paper that no one cares about, so make college about you, not about getting a degree to impress someone else. This also has the advantage of keeping programming fun, a lot of programming classes and homework take topics that are very interesting and make them tedious and unenjoyable.

If I was to go back to college and start over right now, I would double major in physics and linguistics, and minor in greek/roman history and in philosophy. You can still take programming classes, but ignore the earlier classes, figure out the materials, teach yourself anything you need to know, and test out of those classes so you can just take the classes you are interested. There is also a lot of interesting math classes you can take.

(EDIT: typo)

I totally agree, but having a college degree is still a great plan-B, and it gives you a lot more credibility in certain circles which makes dealing with business folk easier in certain contexts.

Can't wait to see the fruits of your labors with Avecora Mark...best of luck!

From your page: "Mark Bao (formerly Steven Bao)"

Interesting intro :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com