Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

   > I'm not 100% sure if I want to leave my education.
   > But I want to be a founder at the same time and 
   > I think that this startup has a lot of potential. 
   > What should I do?

Finish your degree.

Unless you personally have some idea that you just cannot get out of your head and you spend every waking moment on it and its getting traction like crazy and already making you enough money to pay your school bills, and even when you're in class you're thinking about ways to boost sales and new product ideas, stay in school and finish your degree.

I can predict, and be probabilistically accurate, that the startup that you're considering is going to fail. Or worse, get just enough traction to be acqui-hired where you will then be discriminated against at the hiring company because you don't have a college degree. Finish your degree.

One of the biggest challenges you will face early on is that you don't know enough to know what is and what isn't important. You have to make guesses. Don't stress it, everyone does, but having a CS degree on your resume will help you more through out your career than having "dropped out of school to work at failed startup X". Finish your degree.

Think about what it looks like when you are 29 looking back at your choices at 19. These are the choices :

1) Got their CS degree at 21 - went on to ...

2) Dropped out of school to work at <x> which failed

3) Dropped out of school to work at <x> which was later acquired by <y>.

4) Dropped out of school to work at <x> which made the front page of the Wall St Journal when they crossed a $100B valuation in just 5 years.

Guess what #4 isn't going to happen. #3 is the next least likely, #2 is the most likely, #1 is completely within your control and guaranteed. Go for the sure thing, get your degree.

Trust maths. Read, re-read what this dude says. You can work on your startup simultaneously as you study and get your degree. That's what probably says, that's what we say here... because... you asked us. Looking back in the future, if you did drop out and became the next Zuckerberg, still in retrospect our response remains the same.

FINISH YOUR DEGREE!

Even as a guy whose done very well for himself with out a degree, finish that degree, the degree is not about CS, it's about making contacts, and getting VISAs. Listen to Chuck.

Second, sign the fucking document, if the startup is successful great, if not bail on the fucker and finish your degree. If there are no metrics for success even better, if they insist that there are metrics use "going concern" which means that if the business stopped taking revenue that day that it could survive for 2 years with out making any cuts. (Most startups fail this test giving you leeway to leave)

I can't up vote this enough. I've worked for three startups - two of which failed fast and the other which lingered on and was always about to "make it big." I had dropped out of college and by the time you're on your third fail and looking for a job you realize nobody cares at that point how many failed startups you've worked for and all the cool, leading-edge, things you were doing. All they care about is you don't have a degree.

Don't worry though - you'll find someone to take a chance on you. After all good developers are hard to find, and they're going to underpay you anyway because you don't have a degree.

That's when you're going to go back to school. Now it's going to be a lot harder than it was the first time, at least it was for me. You'll probably be married (I was). Probably have a mortgage (I did). In other words, up and quitting your job so you can become a full-time student probably isn't going to be an option. So you're going to take morning and evening classes. You're not going to have your pick of the classes either - you're going to settle for classes you need to graduate that's offered at a time you can take them. Oh and group projects are going to be a real bear. Trust me on that one. Hang in there, you'll get your degree. But it won't be all it could have been due to all the concessions you've been forced to make along the way.

My own son is starting his Sophomore year in college as a Math & Computer Science double major and he's about to turn 19 in a few weeks. By the way he was 3 when I graduated - he attended my graduation. I'll give you the same advice I've given him. One, computer science isn't enough. You really need the math. Software development is much more a commodity skill than it used to be and now the key differentiator is your mathematical and analysis skills. Two, be thinking about an advanced degree, not just stopping after your undergraduate education. Three, you need to be doing internships and working on interesting problems during your education. Finally, when you graduate you'll have the skills and know-how to make a startup succeed and you'll have plenty experience to allow you to derive creative solutions to problems.

Good luck!

Please note that dropping out of school and going back later is also a choice. I am appalled that many people tend to dismiss this alternate path. College will not go anywhere. It'll be there to go back to if your startup fails and if you really need to get a degree then.

Ehh... that's true, strictly speaking, but a bit glib in practice.

Sure, I know several people who went back and finished their degree, taking night classes in their late-20's or 30's or whatever. However, those people had to BUST THEIR ASSES to make it happen. It required several times more effort than it would have to simply complete it in the first place when you're young and untethered.

The more you age, and the more responsibilities you take on in terms of job, rent/mortgage, marriage/family, etc... the harder and harder it is to make room for night classes (much less becoming voluntarily unemployed, and forgoing salary to return to school full-time). College is a window. It never completely shuts, but the open space does slowly close over time.

But at the same time it's a chicken egg problem for many people. Not having money to attend a uni is a big problem for a lot of us. I and my family simply did not have the $$$ to take the chance. And i am talking about actual living expenditures as the education is "free" here.

The same problems apply to starting a startup later in your life though. I personally think navigating the degree game with those problems is easier than navigating a startup with them.

^^ Just listen to this guy and go do your homework.

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