I could choose my classes so that the material would be generally useful, by moving into a combined honors, or interdisciplinary degree. I tried really hard, and eventually people started coming to me for tutoring. I taught a few classes, professors asked if I wanted to work with them, and eventually I graduated with the university medal.
One thing that I never gave up on was the idea that you can turn anything from an 'assignment' into a really educational experience by going above and beyond. In math assignments, prove auxiliary theorems, and the general case. Always do the bonus problems. For projects, release on Sourceforge. Write essays to please an online audience. For new projects that would be better in a different language, learn the new language. Learn everything from first principles, and when something looks wrong, bring it up. Do all the readings, and read the original works. Program in programming contests. Program for fun. Program as reflex. Don't ask permission to do research. Live in Libraries. Play games with smart people. Give talks. Teach. Publish. Learn.
University, for many people, seemed to involve a lot of rote learning, but I seem to have avoided that substantially. I loved my years in college.
I barely passed Calculus III; there is no way I could have proven any auxiliary theorems.
I do think that it takes years of general dedication towards learning to start tackling such topics, and it takes confidence to know that what one is aiming for is achievable, and it takes the honesty to realize when one truly is and when one truly isn't understanding some topic. I am continually astounded by the insight and intelligence of what some on this board might consider regular folk, and I think that what sets me apart from the masses isn't in hardware (a better brain), but software (beliefs and an outlook more conducive to learning).
Unlike physics say, students have less reason to trust those higher up in this way in a field such as computer science.
"Learn everything from first principles, and when something looks wrong, bring it up."
From your list of accomplishments, I suspect one of the skills that sets you apart is your time management capabilities. Otherwise commonly known as self-discipline.
I fully agree that this is exactly what you should be doing to genuinely learn and have a good time. But doesn't the regimentation of school just get in the way of doing the above? School has so much random pointless overhead you have to put up with, and doesn't help at all with doing the above.
It also helps immensely to have deadlines from outside you: given a schedule I found myself able to complete many times more than I would otherwise schedule for myself, with no exhaustion and less stress than I would otherwise have.
I don't think it's a great mode to be in permanently, but for four years? It was definitely worth my time. I know that college isn't needed to learn any specific thing, but I know that it would take uncanny discipline to approach the breadth of what I had learned without the framework of the university to guide me. I needed to harness that framework, and parts of it did get in the way, but I certainly think that for me it conferred net benefit.
I dropped out of high school, and thinking that college would be more of the same, I didn't even consider applying. This was a mistake, but I had immigrated to the US only a short time prior, and didn't know these things. I learned to study on my own (and ended up "living" in my local university's library for a time), but now my motivation is waning, and I think it's due to lack of external pressure.
Err, sorry for the life story; what I'm getting to is this. I always assumed that I've missed my opportunity, and that going to college now, while possible, would be more trouble than it's worth. It wouldn't be a good college, and I'd have to pay for all of it. Until today, I didn't even know you could earn scholarships while in college.
You said you never went to high school--was your situation similar? How did you get in, and where?
I took two classes per term in my first year, and I got A+'s. When I called up the dean of science to thank him for letting me in, I found out that he had died of a heart attack. Before passing away, however, apparently he had enrolled me full-time. From that point on I was a full, legitimate student.
I know several people who have gone into college with a GED, and a few others that went into college before they graduated highschool. Some were in the USA, though it was markedly fewer. Often you have to talk with the math departments to get anywhere.
Scholarships are quite attainable in college, but since the tuition is much cheaper in Canada it makes more of a difference. You can also win summer research studentships, and these are lucrative enough on a student budget as well. Finally you can get paid to tutor, mark assignments, and teach classes.
I did actually take classes at a Community College at the same time as when I was in high school, and I really hated it. It was academically like high school and socially like a Dilbertesque job (especially the programming classes). Worst of all, it led me to think that I don't like math. After a couple of years, I accidentally came across a textbook on mathematical logic and proofs, and it was like being hit on the head with a brick. I thought, "Why did they hide this stuff from me?". No wonder math had been frustrating--it wasn't really math, any more than using Windows is computer science.
Anyway! There are bad things in my Community College transcript. I wonder if that will hinder me, or if I have the option of just pretending it never happened...
Is there something special about math departments in universities (less corruption? a lot of influence?), or did you just guess, correctly, that I wanted to study math?
I got fairly lucky with community college: there was another really bright student there. He coded a 3d engine in ASM. So I learned a lot from him.
I didn't guess that you wanted to study math, though it's not much of a guess that you'd like it.
The thing about math departments at research universities is that the field has largely been written by ex-prodigies (each textbook seems to include a mini-bio on galois...), and they don't care much for rules or structure since much of the faculty had to struggle with such artificial things anyway.
So I tended to have a lot of luck talking with math departments. I was quite a writer back then too -- better than the pupils of the English department, it seemed, but there I really doubt I would have gained the traction I had gained with the math department.
By the way, if you don't read Scott Aaronson or Terry Tao, I strongly suggest that you do -- they're wonderful bloggers, and Scott has a terrific (though unfinished) set of notes called Quantum Computing since Democritus. A book you might really like is "What is mathematics" by Courant -- it's wonderful.
I was right -- in the 7 years since I graduated it has been everything I did in addition to taking classes which has gotten me places, not my grades in the courses themselves. Every year, at every college in the world, there's someone who graduates with the highest GPA. If you want to make yourself stand out more than that -- to make the point that you are not just the best of your year, but the best of the decade -- you need something other than just GPA.
I'd say, the perfect GPA is something around 3.5+ If you are 4.0 (or almost), there is a good chance you either didn't have enough fun, or didn't do other things in the side while at school. Not a very balanced person. even geniouses get A- or Bs once and a while.
A person that gets only A = annal retentive personality.
Or really bored with the work assigned.
In real life, even in startups, there are boring stuff that have to get done.
I remember, on one of my math classes which was easy (let's say I took Calculus 3, and then this easy class to finish off my minor), I slept on most of it, yet I managed to show up in tests and (to my suprise) got a B.
The girl that I had been helping on her homework all semester got an A. Bascially my B showed my laziness for petty work, and not necesary intelligence.
So, GPA is 2/3 a display of your commitment to work (somebody that finishes off a given task), and 1/3 intelligence (some people, no matter how commited they are, are not smart enough to get all A's).
Sure, but the payoff for the boring stuff in startups is much bigger. The boring stuff in startups needs to be done so you can make millions of dollars. The boring stuff in college needs to be done so you can get a job paying tens of thousands of dollars a year.
Who wants to commit to boring work?
I don't.
Ever read The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus? If not, you should Google it.
It is impossible to commit to work when you see something more interesting that could be worked on that would teach you much more. The existing work becomes tedious and dissatisfying. You begin to resent the existing work because it cuts into your time.
Example: I'd like to learn all about Scheme and Common Lisp. The courses I'm taking teach Perl, PHP, and C++. Can you spot the difference?
The default way to do this is to get great grades, which covers both bases. But other paths are often much more worthwhile. You can start an organization or become the leader of one. You can do a startup. You can film your documentary, produce an album, or write for newspaper - the imagination is the limit.
Make sure that you finish the project. Otherwise, you can't prove to others and yourself that you can actually bear down and gut something out.
I got a 3.2 GPA because I wouldn't do school work I didn't thought was necessary. If I didn't need to do problem sets to learn the material and ace the tests, I would just skip them and take the hit to my grades. Instead I spent time working on software projects that actually launched. This proved that I could get things done and resulted in great job offers.
The classes I think are easy are the ones that scare me. I've had a couple experiences where I thought a class was not going to be challenging and ended up with a worse grade than classes where the material was harder.
A lot of the higher level mathematics is cool: I personally liked dsp and stochastic systems but it got repetitive. Most CS programs offer similar math anyway. I wanted to go deeper into how the math was developed.
In short, the traditional electrical engineering field is being heavily encroached by software and the high end math isn't interesting enough. Which is why, if I had to do it all over, I would have done math, CS, physics, a lot of chem, and maybe an EE course or two. Boucher is right, it is a very difficult major, but boot camp is difficult too. I just wish it were more relevant to what is going on.
The 80 k entry salaries are dubious unless they plan on using their school name to get a non-ee high paying job (read consulting, hedge fund, finance, etc). 60 is probably more realistic in my area (mid-Atlantic east coast) at the high-end entry level. In the most inflated market (the valley), seems like 100k is reasonable after 3-5 years experience (non consulting). A lot of them want advanced degrees. Of course, most of the jobs are software: http://seeker.dice.com/jobsearch/servlet/JobSearch?op=302...
Not only is electrical engineering possibly the hardest engineering degree offered, it is probably also the most important. I mean, honestly, pretty much every advancement in computer technology is a direct result of EE. The rest is mostly physics. And honestly, at the high end of EE, there's very little difference.
I got a masters degree in Electrical Engineering, mostly digital systems work. I learned to build a large number of highly interesting things. In fact, built a lot more in EE than I ever did in CS. Despite the fact that I now work writing web software, my degree is still highly applicable.
Or you studied engineering at Georgia Tech or Berkley or, well, anywhere else. And 'thou' definitely doesn't mean what you think it means.
Your GPA doesn't mean much in the world, but your TOEFL score does.
I still remember the smartest person I ever met (I would be willing to bet that he'd do pretty well on any math test - Putnam included - you gave him). This fellow had the highest GPA in electrical engineering and also had the second highest GPA in economics. Simultaneously.
And on the side, he was an active skydiver and practiced jui-jitsu 2x a week. And over the course of the 4 years we spent in undergrad, I don't think I ever saw him study (I'm not exaggerating).
So it is possible to be off the charts intelligent and not be anal retentive or unbalanced.
And then I go to class. Oh well. I suppose college isn't perfect.
I have some kind of allergy to pointless busy work and institutional bullshit.
Anyway, I don't understand the point of the question... :)
College for me was lots of work (and b.s.) but lots of fun also. Work hard, get good grades, party, have fun, screw girls... repeat. Eventually gets tiring, but remember, you will be working for the rest of your life, why start the pain earlier?
There are plenty of very successful, (and very rich) people that skiped, or quit college, but you don't hear much about the hundreds of thousands that quit college, and had much harder time on your life.
I'm dropping out after this semester and never looking back.
Like any generality, there are specific counter-examples, but the people that will need to judge you quickly by little pieces of information are very likely to skip over you. That is unless you have some amazing thing on your resume.
I did ok in undergrad (3.4), but I'm finding that as I tackle a masters full-time will working full-time I am rocking... Funny what perspective and motivation working gives you.
I know that not having a degree hurts me severely in a traditional job pool. I don't care. If I need to submit my resume to get a job, I will have failed miserably. I think I would choose street life over working for the man. I probably couldn't get a real job anyways, because I don't have very many skills or qualifications. Despite my lack of skills, qualifications, and especially motivation, I am confident that I have the instinct necessary to manage successful and obscenely profitable companies.
Exactly, so we should be telling people that college is the backup option. Try to do some impressive and interesting stuff, and if you succeed, you've got a free ticket out of college. If not, you can always just do the safe thing and go to college.
I admit this wasn't my plan, and that dropping out of college was an act of desperation in response to the pain it caused me. I just happened to have enough stuff with which to fill out my resume since I had been interested in CS and programming for a long time.
--Or you can be really smart, and get a free academic ride as I did, or go to schools (state schools) that don't cost too much and are decent.
You can get a DECENT (maybe not the greatest) education for LESS money in this country, you just have to try hard.
Remember, often in undergrad, it is what you do that matters the most. Once you go for Masters/Ph. then the school where you go matters a lot more.
For some wierd reason, the people that I met that didn't go to college but went straight working (usually during 98-2000 boom), even thou are very smart, and did well are somewhat rough on the edges. It is hard to point it out, but they just don't seem well refined...
I'm not sure if you're talking about all degrees, or just CS... However, speaking specifically about CS, I believe that my lack of refinement comes not from lack of Computer Science courses, but from lack of Math.
There is not much that an undergrad CS education teaches that I have not learned on my own over the past few years. However, I find that when I'm delving into deeper magic, my lack of math comes into sharp perspective. Most recently, this came up while I was hacking together a recommendation engine.
Sure, I can read a few articles and throw something together that works. But, when it comes to fine tuning it... I'm lost.
By the way, I'm a 22 year old hacker who did not go to college (yet). And I'm taking a Linear Algebra class right now to alleviate some of this problem anyway... heh.
The second thing that will help you is studying data structures algorithms. What is the average case for a search over x items? How long does it take to insert into a linked list? This way you can begin to identify bottlenecks, and get an idea as to how to approach solving problems with performance.
I don't want to work for someone who places such an importance on having a degree anyway. I want to work for someone who hires me for my ability to do work, so I think demonstrating that ability to do work is more important than getting some piece of paper.
A Bachelor's degree is just a certificate of minimal competence anyway. A significant fraction of people with BS CS degrees can't even write simple programs. There's plenty of other ways to demonstrate minimal competence than to get an undergrad degree.
So, anyway -- why's it so important to have a degree? Everything they teach (and much more!) is available in the form of dead trees at my local library. I can party with my friends regardless of whether I'm in college or not, plus now I can afford awesome beer. What else is left?
"Taking advantage of my location in Cambridge, I have sat in on some classes at MIT in Atmospheric Physics, Biology, and Geology. I also teach a software engineering lab course at MIT every three or four semesters (textbook). But for me, the university has mostly been a source of entertainment; I have never looked to it as a source of income."
http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science (Appendix E)
So the compelling reason might not be that getting a degree will impress other people, but that learning is a fun and enriching experience. Yes, there are dead trees in libraries, but lectures, being able to ask questions to someone who is an expert in what you want to learn, and collaborating with peers who also want to learn are difficult to duplicate with only dead trees.
CS is a brand-new discipline, which means it's in the process of generating a lot of shallow observations right now [1]. In another generation or two, some brilliant synthesizer will come along and produce a real theory. For now though, most of the stuff you learn as a CS undergrad (other than a few senior-level theory courses) should be obvious if you know how to program.
If you do go back, pick another discipline and study it like a computer scientist on vacation. Pick ONE powerful software package (python might be good, or maybe (sic) Mathematica) and use it to do ALL your assignments. Focus on simulation and visualization. You get to learn something real, and you get to do cool software work at the same time.
[1] Graph theory is almost 100 years old now, and we're starting to see the discipline collapse into a hard core. You still need a lot of loose terminology to get started, but after that there's a clear progression through the different concepts.
By leaving college I was able to get rid of a humongous stressor in my life, and this new mental freedom let me pursue my interests and study what I liked. Now I've figured out how to actually sit down and study, and I could actually take an interest in all the GenEd courses that pissed me off so much in the past. I bet now I could go back and actually finish an undergrad degree with good grades... but now I need it even less than before; I've learned how to study on my own. If for some perverse reason I do end up going back, I'll probably study math. That's one area that I'm still figuring out how to self-study.
http://www.math.uni-hamburg.de/home/diestel/books/graph.theo...
I like to think that I'm on the billionaire path.
It's not clear that there is any billionaire path.
Multi-millionaire, sure. There are lots of ways to achieve that through skill and hard work. But the billionaire path is being on the multi-millionaire path, having an extremely rare opportunity serendipitously present itself to you, recognizing it, and then making a long series of good decisions without any major missteps. There is a lot on that path you have not control over. Talent, effort, and even wisdom are probably not enough to keep you on it by themselves.
I had the chance to get some good art clases (which were fun, and a good way to meet girls), minoring in physics, math, doing some finance/accounting.
I did things that I wouldn't normally do, i.e was forced to go beoynd my level of comfort, which is a good thing, as it forces you to learn new thigngs and it broadens your horizons.
Whoever says that college is a waste probably didn't know how to take full advantage of it. (in academics, fun, creating life lasting connections, and learning from interacting with so many people of your age).
In the "Real World" you just don't face the huge amount of interactions in such a confined space, with some many people of your own age.
I didn't go to any parties or have any significant involvement with girls when I was doing my undergraduate degree (unless departmental awards ceremonies count as parties), and I'd say that my years were not even remotely wasted. Neither were the years when I was 20-24 years old (when I was doing my doctorate).
Of course, if you're not interested in learning, you'll find college/university to be a waste -- and in such circumstances I would very much encourage dropping out. For those of us who enjoy learning, however, it's the partying and girls who are a waste of our best years.
That's the problem, I was, but that was not the focus of my school. Most everything I learned, I learned on my own time. After school I learned much more on my own time. Had I been able to skip the first two years, I probably would have learned more on my own.
Know what's interesting? You're the first person to ask me that, as far as I can recall.
Likewise, your future degree has an expiration date. I would estimate about a year from walking. Your degree will start to smell if you have no accomplishments to back it up. Each year past graduation, the education section of your resume should be bumped farther down the page. Eventually, it should become a matter of whether or not you have room to include your education at all. Your education should become a trivia fact. A small talk subject before discussing what you have done.
PS: I am of the opinion that anyone completing a four-year degree with a 4.0 grade point average did not get their money's worth out of college.
I am reminded that Bill Gates would find ways to take graduate courses that interested him that he did not have the prerequisites for and argue with the professor from the first day of class.
Not the most efficient path to getting a high GPA, but likely a good way to learn a lot in a short period of time.
1) It'd be cheaper
2) It's still a solid education that will get me a job
3) I would have time to party and work on my own projects, rather than be at the whim of a professor's latest epic dull assignment
The result? 3.7 GPA and have run a successful entertainment blog, have two Facebook apps with 550,000 users, and hopefully announcing my web startup in the next month.
Also have a job locked in at a top engineering company, should I choose to work for them.
Certainly not saying there weren't stressful times, just much less of them and far more time to enjoy what you really like to do.
And as long as you know how to manage your time you can get good grades and do fun things. My favorite part of college was not getting good grades--the best part was being student class president and winning the ACM-ICPC. I also enjoyed having the time to start a company that ended up getting acquired by Google. So make sure you measure your life, like you said, not by how good your grades are(I would be miserable if that's the case) but by the whole balance of your life.
It meant you were actually doing your important your, your research, while still passing.
Research is what will get you into grad school. A big project is what could spinoff into a company, or at least teach you how to build big/real systems.
Went back part-time about 5 years later, and failed a compilers course after I decided to forgo the group, write the compiler myself, but got sidetracked leading bots in assault mode on Unreal Tournament.
I really learned how to study about 2 years ago. Sigh.
Spending too much time playing games was a major contributing factor. OTOH I now work in game-development.
I occasionally think about going back so I can some day get a post-grad degree, but don't relish being some profs biatch.
I have a university library-card, read theses and research papers, and generally do whatever I damn well want, while getting paid and hatching product ideas.
Second college? Business Administration. I dopped out after one year because I was getting a divorce. I had a 4.0 average.
I felt awful about lacking a college degree -- until managing my first PhD. He was an idiot. The second and third were worse. Really smart guys with an awful attitude.
Ever since then -- I keep asking myself what the point would be to go back? College was fun. I learned to play games by arbitrary rules some jerk set up. I would much rather learn all the time than play games.
Probably confirming this general prejudice, I programmed a lot in high school, and I never thought grades had anything to do with intelligence or ability or willingness to work, because all the smart people I knew had bad grades. It annoyed me when people with good grades got into good colleges for not doing interesting things, so in undergrad I decided that I'd get perfect grades. I did that, majoring in math and physics, and switched back to C.S. for grad school. My adviser told me grades don't matter in grad school, so I've now gone back to ignoring grades.
I'm in grad school at the moment. I'm sure I have a lot of learning to do, as far as what different groups of people think of all this grading information. I mostly just look at it as a proof that I'm willing to teach myself, learn, and occasionally work, so it seems frustratingly tedious to me, as I already know the answers to these questions. Since perhaps middle school, with the exception of graduate school, I've disliked much of school because I don't like being taught, as compared with being given enough freedom to teach myself (gently guided exploration is my preference).
Grad school is fun if it's your cup of tea.
Despite having extremely limited information on the subject of how grades change job prospects, I think people worry too much about grades. If you get the perfect white collar job after getting perfect grades then chances are you will still be unhappy unless it is a good fit for you. A college degree is the access card to the academic and corporate systems, so it's an important constraint, and nothing to casually dismiss or yawn at. And grades are part of that. But rational, informed decisions can be made to not go to college, or to not get good grades, depending on one's interests. For example, the corporate side of the world doesn't interest me at all, and I have the nagging feeling that in undergrad I really should've been exploring what I wanted to do with my life more instead of spending four years trying to get good grades.
The bottom line is that I'm not convinced that careers and that ordering them the way that everyone tells me to will necessarily give me happiness. When in doubt, ignore everyone else and listen to oneself, but first maximize your information by reading lots of good books on the subject of grades and careers, and also be rational and don't overly discount the worth of your future time; realize that grades are a part of the union card for corporate America and the academic world.
1) You should try to learn as much as you can.
2) Grad school. If you decide you want to go to grad school, it's important to have good grades and more importantly research experience.
3) Employment. Grades / research experience may not matter for a startup, but I think it does help with getting your foot in the door with big tech companies like Microsoft, Google, etc.
Only 1) matters as far as start ups are concerned, but it's good to keep options open. Your interests may change (I'm only 23, and my interests have changed a few times already).
Do the grades matter? Not really, but it is always nice to go out on top. So what I am saying is that I recommend, for you, to do the last year or the last semester really well and get all A's. Then for the rest of your life you can say that you finished school on top.
Make sure you do lots of extra-curricular work that you enjoy, and that's difficult. If your grades aren't great, you can show off projects to get jobs. If you want to make your own job, grow it out of your projects.
I failed out of school, and I'm an inconsistent employee at best, but I only know a couple of people who work harder than I do, and they're all business owners.
I do work a lot on my own. I too know only of a handful of guys who are more willing to learn than me.
I looked at the curriculum (http://warp.senecac.on.ca/bsd/courses.aspx) for my program today and it looks like the majority of courses are business oriented. One major project + an internship do not sound very appealing.
I'm not sure what else to do though :(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_grading_in_North_Ameri...
I had an average of 4.3 (on a scale from 1 to 5). I worked somewhat hard on the interesting courses and did quite well. I got my Masters degree "with distinction", as I also got a 5 for my thesis.
My final GPA was 3.1. It is not a coincidence.
Sophomore year started off depressingly. Then my start-up took off and it was lots of fun. Funnily my grades improved a great deal between freshman year and sophomore year(even with the start-up).
That's how far I got before taking off. Hopefully I won't have to return anytime soon.
May sound cocky, but did not put forth a whole lot of effort in my classes. I put in enough to get a B (or an A if the class was interesting or easy) but 90% of my time (and learning) was spent working on my own projects.
I also did an internship at a biotech company in Germany, worked with SAP for my university, got hired by one of my professors and helped him to write a book on astronomy, did a project with another professor on Six Sigma, and another project with a different professor on databases, worked at a gaming company (mostly R&D) and did a few other projects on the side.
Thats mostly what I did during school ... but then graduated and decided to start my own company, which I did, and learned maybe more than ever ... and am now working on another project ....
so I am also not too clear about your question ... but what you want to do after college is also important, meaning if you want to do masters then you must try to get good grades, if you want to get a job then it depends on what kind of a job ...
but as a general rule I would say try to do your best ... if you don't do too well at the beginning try to pick it up and do better later on, people will notice that, they like to see you improve, specially during your senior years ... the better you do the more options you leave open for yourself.
I think undergrad mostly fills you up with the basics, so you can go and specialize on whatever you like after. But the most important thing you can take away from school is getting disciplined, and learning how to look for information and learn more when you need to. Getting good grades also means you have actually learned something from college. The worst is to go to college and get bad grades and the excuse being "my courses are boring," or something along those lines. Your marks might not be that important to everyone, but what you did with your life within those years would matter a lot to anyone that might be interested in you.
I don't mind when I hear people drop out and end up doing something, even if they don't make it big. At least they realized they don't want to waste their time with school and they have other ways of doing it.
Bottom line, having good grades will never hurt you no matter what you want to do. But if you don't have good grades then you must have other stuff to make up for it, or to replace it and sometimes you need to give a valid reason of why you don't have the grades.
Just remember that nothing is the final answer, and there is not one way that you can do it. Get creative and come up with other ways that can prove yourself.
College doesn't matter, either. You will discover this eventually.
Sure, it might seem important if trying to impress an employer right out of school, but that's still like waiting to be rewarded by Daddy -- much like the Christian religion, in which Celestial Dad is going to punish or reward you after you're dead -- there is no self-determination, only supplication. Everything depends on pleasing, or obeying, some other more powerful entity.
Take off the shackles and decide for yourself. Grades make zero difference for start-ups -- it's like Captain Jack Sparrow said, "The only rules that really matter are these: what a man can do, and what a man can't do."
Are you saying the only incentive for students to spend hundreds of hours in the research lab is just to get a letter of recommendation from the professor and land a job? As a student, I find that ridiculous. Are you saying the only incentive for Catholics to pray the rosary is to rack up points in the afterlife? As a Catholic, I find that objectionable.
However, I'm not even sure the context of your statement that High School and College don't "matter". Matter for what?
Landing a job? I doubt you meant this, but that's certainly not true. For an education? You could possibly make an argument for this, however I would still disagree simply because of the amount of resources available in a school. Do they serve no purpose at all? High School and College are fun, so that can't be true.
It seems the only case where school potentially doesn't "matter" is in the context of start-ups. But what happens when all your startups have failed and you're 40?
In this context, the reason to pray the rosary or spend a lot of time learning in college is for self-fulfillment. If you find it fulfilling, great. If not, your time is probably better spent doing something else, if the afterlife points or letter of recommendation don't matter to you.
Object to all the straw men you care to erect.
> But what happens when all your startups have failed and you're 40?
What happens when you're 40 and all the companies you've worked for have gone under and you can't get hired because of age discrimination?
We can play the "What-If" game all day long.
College doesn't matter in the sense that I know people who went early, got A's, and then it's like, "now what?" The people who care tend to be those who are interested in pigeonholing you.
And eventually nobody cares whether you went, let alone what your GPA was. The great majority of your post-college life is like this.
Learning what you need is useful; college tends to have some overlap with this but they aren't equivalent. Looking back, I'd say the best time to do a start-up is when you have the most energy and enthusiasm, which tends to be somewhere in the teens to around 21ish. High school and college dampen enthusiasm and people are given to rallying their jaded spirits through frivolous amusements, as RWE put it.
Jumping through other people's hoops is a major diversion of time and energy.
"Absorb what is useful" regardless of the source.
As for publications, that would depend on where the paper is published and how much of a contribution was made by the candidate vs his/her coauthors.
IQ doesn't change much. If you were super bright in high school, you will probably still be super bright in your 20s and 30s.
And honestly, if you won a medal in the IMO and don't have anything to show for your undergraduate years aside from a high GPA, there's something wrong with you.