Ask HN: Should I drop school? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Should I drop school?

3 pointsraphaelj8 comments

I'm a postgraduate student doing my last year in Computer Science.

We need to carry out a graduation work. I tried to introduce some personal ideas to teachers, in their respective area of expertise:

1. A P2P client optimized for LANs: an GUI very similar the Windows's Explorer over a LAN but with an easy setup (no server, no complex configuration), fast transfers (many sources) and a solid search feature over the network;

2. Forcing people to share as much as they download in a P2P client by using a cryptocurrency. You get "paid" when sharing and you paid when downloading ;

3. Develop an API (as a SaaS) to index and search images with similar small patterns and/or colors. Targeted for e-commerce websites selling clothes. I work on the idea for a few months.

I tried to find promoters for these since May without any success. I lost a lot of time by writing emails and waiting for responses. Most of teachers didn't even take the time to respond to me. Others thought that my ideas were useless (1 & 2), refused to promote an industrial project (3) or clearly showed they didn't like the specialization I took (Business Management).

Now I really need to choose something but all interesting suggested subjects have bee taken by other students (they didn't lose weeks waiting for emails).

I tried to choose a mildly interesting subject last week without any success. The teacher never responded to my email to schedule a rendez-vous.

I'm tired of being treated like shit. Write emails for hours without any response is really depressing. I lost any motivation to do my graduation work.

I don't want to speed months doing a work I don't like for people who don't give us any respect.

I'm thinking about either dropping out to work or trying to finish my third idea (eventually resuming my studies next year if it doesn't work).

I'd say - finish. A diploma is not necessary to be successful in life or to provide for your needs. But later in life you will compare yourself with others, your colleagues, your friends, and you might feel inferior, unfishied. Something will be missing, especially that you are at the end of the road, you're almost done.

The things you talk about are quite ambitious. Let's make a comparison with filmmaking world. If you are about to graduate from a film school, you are not supposed to make your first movie as good as some of the Old Masterpieces, or a big budget Holywood movie. You are supposed to make a soap opera episode - just get things simple and right - correct shots, correct lighting, well paced, clearly structured plot. And so should be the graduation work you are facing now.

And finally - there are many moments when the formal diploma is required from you. For instance immigration and changing countries. Being an engineer opens a lot of doors, makes it A LOT easier to get a working permit/visa. There are certain types of jobs that require formal education - and without it you will not even be considered a candidate. Right now you are probably young, single and it's not a problem for you to be a contractor and have less stability, but later you'd get married, have children, take a mortgage, and then having a well paid job and organised life in a big corporation is not a bad thing at all.

And moreover catching up with the degree later in life is really difficult.

So, honestly, just finish it. It doesn't have to be spectacular. I've made this mistake, you don't have to.

Your ideas appear (at least to me) overly ambitious. Probably better suited as startup products. So shelve them for when you have finished.

Giving up within sight of the finish line is wasting your investment of time and money to date. And in the future not having your diploma might become an issue.

Just do the least amount of work that will get you to graduate. With your diploma in hand you can work on whatever project appeals to you the most.

Having been an adjunct in the past, I can assure you that your teachers are more likely to be over-worked and they too only want to do as much work as is necessary to get you to graduate. Ambitious projects generally need lots more hand-holding and have an increased chance of failing to show sufficient results in the limited time you have available for it.

Don't. Finish, get the diploma, you will need it.

Have you paid for your credits until now? Not graduating is also similar to throwing all that money to the trash.

Don't. Finish.

> Write emails for hours without any response is really depressing.

Short emails with very specific requests get higher response rates. Suggest a follow up phone call within 2-3 days. They need to hear your voice.

Make an appointment and try to talk to your teachers in person. Maybe they can guide you in the right direction, give you some pointers on what projects are suitable as a graduation work.

Don't quit!

Finish. I am also a grad student and your not the only one with experiences like this. Those ideas actually sound interesting. Get the degree.

"You are" not. Grad student. :-P

Even grad students can have reading disabilities!

It is weird just how many incorrect it's / its there are on HN.

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