Comment by not_paul_graham | Hacker News Reader

Comment by not_paul_graham | Hacker News Reader

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not_paul_graham

Yes man the irony. Georgia Tech tells you that you've graduated in the top 10% of your class, institutional highest honors and all that.

And then your parents call you and tell you that they spent six figures on your education and you are essentially worth nothing. Here are some quotes from my parents:

"If you really wanted to work as a shitty programmer for a small pay we could have saved all that money instead of sending you to this school."

[My dad to relatives in front of me] "Sending not_pg to Georgia Tech was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. It was just a drain of my hard earned money."

The reason for shame was my culture and I'm still grappling with it a bit because it is so ingrained in my psyche from all the years of growing up with it. It seems like everyone in my family is constantly judging me for being such a failure. In the grand scheme of things I've stopped caring lest I let this get to my head. But I do realize that I essentially screwed up my time by not being more diligent, not managing it better.

Anyway I'm out of the US so Atlanta to DC isn't in the picture atleast in the short term. The only good thing to come out of this is that if I do apply for a PhD in the coming few years I'll have some professors that'll write some good recommendations for me and a decent GPA.

I think you need to read a bit of michaelochurch, and learn to stop desiring to be a cog in the machine. A "job" is a contract wherein you show up and are told what to do, in order to make the owners rich in exchange for a subsistence salary and all of your waking hours.

There is more to the world than that. Take time off, explore and learn about the world. Start a company. Start ten companies.

Believe me, "jobs" are overrated. Between me and my friends, we've worked at every top tech firm in the world (Apple, Tesla, Google etc). They're all the same. They want all of your waking hours in exchange for a subsistence wage (Bay area is expensive).

Go and live your life. Build your own skills so you can consult and control your hours. Travel and have fun. YOLO.

Corporate jobs do have their perks. Especially in the Bay Area, they give you access to the following:

1) A green card if you're not a US citizen (this one's really important for foreigners).

2) Starting capital (savings), if you want to later start a startup. If you're single and live in SV, you can save substantially. Maybe you can start a company with no money, but I imagine it's harder.

3) Connections/networking. You get to work with a lot of smart people. Again, if you want to start a startup, this helps (it's easier to have 1-2 cofounders, than do it alone). For example, Valve was founded by a couple of ex-Microsoft engineers.

Wow. You can't judge your success by what your parents think, especially not Asian parents who, though they often have the best of intentions, frankly have no idea how things work in the U.S.

Anecdote: my parents, who are from Bangladesh but have lived here since about 1989, called me one day (five years ago now), deeply concerned that my brother wanted to turn down his acceptance to Cal Tech to go to this place called "Yale." They had no idea that there were avenues to success beyond getting a PhD in engineering and going to work for Lockheed-Martin. They're extremely smart, loving, and genuinely concerned parents who supported us (financially and emotionally) in every way, but had these ingrained cultural perceptions that I had to talk them out of.

Also, I'll say this: there's very little you can do with a 3.9 at Georgia Tech that you can't do with a 3.65. Your GPA is well beyond the cut-off where American companies are going to care, except perhaps the snobbiest investment banks or management consulting firms. What held back your job search was almost certainly your narrow scope, not anything about your stats on paper.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/11/14/lock...

My brother used to work at that Newtown facility. He left before this crash happened, but LM firing all those people has killed the town. We hear about the Rust belt and the factories closing, this is the high tech example. My brother saw it coming and left. Everyone there said he was crazy at the time. Now he has income and skills, they do not.

Life changes. You have to raise your kids with enough sense to be able to recognize when it does and then act accordingly. Even if it seems crazy to you, you gotta trust that you raised them right and then trust them.

If any parents are out there, please don't do this. Your children are independent adults and they have their own values and goals. They are not an investment opportunity or a vessel for your own unfulfilled aspirations. If you make your kids feel that you're disappointed in them you're just going to make them miserable and resentful and you'll have a lousy relationship as adults. Please value your children's happiness and well-being over prestige and money.

It's a fine line that's hard to walk. In stark contrast to my asian parents, my wife had hippie Oregonian parents who said "do whatever makes you happy!" She regrets a little that they never gave her the information and support she needed to pursue Ivy-league colleges.

It's not your job as a parent to prioritize happiness over prestige and money, just as its not your job to prioritize the other way. What you bring to the table as a parent is experience and knowledge of the world, and you need to make sure your kids have the information they need to make the decisions they need to make. Maybe your kid grows up and wants to be an investment banker making a few million a year. You don't have to push them in that direction, but it's valuable to them if you tell them what they need to do to prepare for that if they ultimately want to pursue that.

And keep in mind: nearly everyone will value money more at 35 than at 15, but the decisions we make that lead to that are often made long before we can appreciate what the impact will be.

Your wife's parents might not have known. There was an article no too long ago describing how kids in the midwest are at a disadvantage because kids never learn to perceive elite schools as substantially better than most state schools.

My opinion is that the real value of elite prep schools is that they teach (indoctrinate?) you elite values through the culture, your peers, actions of your peers etc. They tell you what to do, instill in you a belief that you are "worthy" and capable and give you the tools on how to do it.

I think the key word in what I wrote is "adult". Whatever fine line may exist with kids, at some point people start to value their independence and you do more harm then good by trying to pressure them.

I'm glad that you are starting to let that go. It can be paralyzing and then all you will do is resent yourself more because of all the time spent dwelling, making your situation and gauge worst. Let it go, you are great. Do great now.

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