Three years since being rejected from CS | Hacker News Reader

Three years since being rejected from CS

vutran.me

54 pointsvu0tran31 comments

Hah! Fun story: I was rejected from University of Washington CS as well. Since then, here is a list of some projects I've made that are used by tens of thousands of companies/orgs worldwide (including UW ;)): Vagrant, Packer, Serf.

For more backstory: I applied direct to UW CS from high school, rather than waiting a year or two into undergrad to apply. I had a background in programming (not what I'd call "CS"), I had successfully run a software business for 4 years, I had a 4.0 high school GPA, had perfect 5 AP scores across the board in basically every subject imaginable, played varsity sports, was part of extracurriculars, etc etc. I thought it was a safe bet, an easy in. Surprise surprise: I was accepted to UW, but rejected to the CS college. Ego blow.

At the same time, I was directly accepted to the Carnegie Mellon CS program, which is a pretty good school, if you don't know. My ego tempted me to accept this. After all, in much of the CS academic community (and to some regards industry as well), having a CMU degree is regarded VERY highly.

But, I visited Seattle anyways since I had those tickets booked already and I ended up falling in love with the city and atmosphere. So I attended UW anyways. I failed my first quarter of college (whoops, was too cocky, never attended class), got a 4.0 in my 2nd quarter, and re-applied to UW CS. Miraculously, they accepted me. I graduated in 2011, and here I am. I'm a big Husky at heart and the UW CS program is amazing.

I was bitter for a short while, but the things I'm working on today would simply be impossible without a strong academic background, so I'm thankful I pushed through and got my degree in CS rather than sitting on the sidelines.

This has absolutely nothing to do with this post, but figured someone might find this anecdotal story interesting.

Thumb up for both you and OP. Glad things work out for both of you.

Wow, the acceptance into CMU's CS program is more meaningful than you may realize. Besides being one of the top 4 schools for CS in the world, Stanford, UC Berkeley and MIT are the others, unlike the 2 other private schools (don't know so much about Berkeley), they limit their class size to 135 students, and have a separate admissions program for that.

That they would accept you and UW didn't suggests either UW screwed up, or just had too many qualified applicants and your luck initially wasn't good.

I actually do realize that. They accepted 185 students that year to CS worldwide, and I was one of those 185. I just didn't mention it for whatever reason. But yes, I kept my acceptance letter as a point of pride, but I still went to UW. :)

> Wow, the acceptance into CMU's CS program is more meaningful than you may realize.

Does mitchellh really seem like the type to downplay accomplishments?

Errr, yeah. He even confirms he knew the class size limit but didn't flaunt it (my word choice there).

I just wanted to make it crystal clear what it meant to achieve that, especially in contrast to the initial UW rejection and, as he says in response, he kept the acceptance letter "as a point of pride" ^_^.

Did the CMU CS program have separate admissions 20 years ago? I applied to CMU for CS, got in (but don't remember if it was for CS or just CMU in general) and then couldn't afford to go even with the aid package (biggest mistake of my life!).

Do not know, I've only been recently studying the top 4 after the dot.com crash, when CS enrollments also crashed.

While not actually being an EECS major (science was my calling), I have close ties to the MIT EECS undergraduate program and wanted to see how the other schools were dealing with these problems. The department's enrollment crashed by more than half after decades of being 40% of the undergrads; they were panicked into developing a new curriculum, and a new meaning of what it meant to get a MIT EECS degree.

So, um, what have you been up to? Text doesn't convey inflection so please know that I'm not being a twit about it. I can't find an "About Me" page anywhere, though your list of Seattle stereotypes is rather funny. Maybe I'm being too nosy; I just like to read other folks' successes.

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/vu-tran/42/586/9

From Lead Dev to Consultant. That's a hell of a nice trajectory.

For those of us who can't view his LinkedIn account, that still doesn't offer much information; anybody can call themselves a consultant.

Regardless of the details, it's an inspiring story of someone persisting with their dream after facing rejection.

Stealth startup for stealth technologies.

I'm just playing. Honestly, I wrote the post on a whim because I just got back to my hometown of Seattle and was reflecting on where next I should go in life.

I guess inadvertently, when you think about where you want to go, you often think a lot about how you got to where you were.

I'm going to do another startup soon. If you want to know what I'm doing right now, I've just been traveling and consulting for the past six months (Amsterdam / Germany / Japan this summer). If you want to know exactly what I'm doing right now, kind of just typing this.

>"It’s great because I almost get monthly emails from recruiters from companies such as, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, and this time around, I’m the one dishing out the rejection."

This seems to be standard practice. Recruit people who've ostensibly been vetted by someone else already and surely pay a premium versus "taking a chance" on the same guy 3 years earlier.

I wonder if/how hiring processes could be improved to surface desirable people in the first place?

On a semi-related note, I find it mildly annoying to see job postings looking for people with say 3 years of experience in technologies that are 3 years old.

Still better than requiring 8 years of experience in a technology that is 3 years old.

backstory: it used to be extremely difficult to get into that program, but since expanded by 55%, so rejection is no reflection on the student

http://seattletimes.com/html/dannywestneat/2016987078_danny1...

http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2022132141_b...

Wow, this really helped.

I got rejected from UCLA's bioengineering program this morning. I've been volunteering here full-time for about 19 months. Really, it hurts a lot. I feel like a sucker. I feel terrible for believing in people that are obviously taking advantage of me. Like a soiled napkin, that's how it feels.

But, your piece helps. I know that I have to move on, that I'll be stronger and better in the future. That I'll be the one rejecting them soon enough. I hope, at least.

Anyway, thanks.

Try applying to Human Longevity, Craig Venter's latest startup in San Diego. http://www.humanlongevity.com/careers/open-positions/ Nothing like Craig Venter's network to jumpstart your career.

Based on your post, I am wondering whether "big" tech companies have any minimum filters? If you weren't already eyed upon or networking, and you are just filling in the form or however you regularly apply for an internship these days, what is the absolute minimum tech companies ask from you?

Or do they read every application/CV/motivation independently and check whether it's a match? Is there a checklist or something?

While I didn't get a lot out of this blog post, your prior ones ("what would you PAY for it?" and "shit goggles") were really well done. Good work!

From intern to director in 3 years, whew I must be doing something wrong then. Nice work sticking too it, I'd love to hear more details.

"We are all main characters in our own movies." nice line.

It's also the basic definition of narcissistic personality disorder, the inability to see other people as anything else but supporting characters in a scripted life about you.

I think you missed the "we" part.

that's another trait of narcissists, they think their behavior is normative.

Is there a disorder in the DSM wherein the subject labels others as having disorders based on a single written sentence and nothing more?

So, basically...if he thinks he's special he is a narcissist, and if he thinks he is not special, he is a narcissist?

Diagnosing mental disorders is an extremely complex process. You can't just read something and say, "well, that's pretty much the definition of Disorder X!"

Someone likening life to a movie is pretty out of touch with reality no matter what you call it. That was the only point of my comment.

movies are representational of reality, some more than others. How is this so far from "life is but a stage"?

It seems like a short-handed narrative for purpose of communicating a train of thought to me.

So it was CS at that specific university or no CS?

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