Ask YC: Best undergraduate college for hopeful startup entrepeneurs

<i>Also is a computer science or business degree recommended?</i><p>Computer science. Hands down.<p><i>am wondering which college would be the best for an aspiring start up entrepreneur.</i><p>I think that Stanford is obviously the best choice, they push entrepreneurship pretty hard. But at the same time, I don't really think that it's the school, it's the student. And, Stanford is really expensive. If you get in to Stanford and can get funded, great. If you can't get funded, I'd really try and balance the really high costs, how much work it's going to require to get in to Stanford and how much competition you'll have while you're there, with the benefits that Stanford will give you.<p>You might be better off going to your local University of Foo state school, and working hard on your own to learn the types of technologies that you're going to use in your startup. Nothing can stop you from learning what you need to learn to start a business. The school I'm finishing up at-- University of Maryland--isn't a tech powerhouse. And, most of the CS education tends to have a slant towards Defense contracting, which means Java and Oracle (Ada for the advanced stuff. :) ). But, I've managed to squeeze out a decent education in web development since I've been there, I think.<p>Another key factor in school selection is to keep expenses low. You're going to have a hard time starting a business after college if you're $125k in debt to school, and $25k in debt to credit cards because you went to a school that you couldn't afford.<p>Your risk of failure is a lot lower if you have minimal expenses when you're done with college. If you can finish college with zero debt, your can take all the time you want to start a business as long as you have money for rent, ramen and bandwidth. I really think that people underestimate this aspect of being an entrepreneur. As an entrepreneur, it's in your best interest to run financially lean and mean: low cost, low debt.

Stanford has an amazing campus and most everyone there is very positive. It is like a little island for overachievers.<p>MIT is great but the attitudes and environment are quite different. The campus is in a much more urban environment. Rather than the upbeat attitude at Stanford, MIT is more of a tough-love kind of school. "You might think you are smart, but really you suck and are lazy" is how motivation works at MIT. At Stanford it is more like "yo, we're all super smart. let's be rad and play ultimate frisbee later." I think it has something to do with the wildly different climates.<p>This is very qualitative, but from my experience MIT is probably a better place to go if you want to do a form of engineering that requires crazy smarts that isn't computer science. Like hardcore electrical engineering, or bioengineering or material science or designing atomic weapons. Stanford is better for straight-up computer stuff.<p>If you can get into one of those two schools you are a step ahead of the game. They are the only two schools in the USA that are worth their super inflated tuitions. Otherwise I'd just go to the best school you can get into that costs the least amount of money.

You can learn (or incidentally, not learn) CS at most decent colleges. What I think is a lot more interesting about college is everything else that you'll learn there along the way and learning to get along and have fun with other smart people.<p>When I was college shopping, I was choosing between a liberal arts school and a top-tier engineering school. I visited the engineering school and realized that while they had an amazing computer science program, the social outlook was rather drab. Only 20% girls, in the middle of nowhere, the people that I talked to didn't really seem to like it, but all assured me "that it was really a great college."<p>Then I visited the liberal arts school. That was definitely the right choice. As it were, I had some great professors that really took an interest in my research and my life. I learned a lot about literature and philosophy and psychology and history and hung out with folks that weren't just gear heads. My world grew wider, not just deeper.<p>Now, many years later I realize that after the first two years or so of CS I knew enough to be able to understand and find hard problems. But if I'd not been forced to take that massive block of core classes, I might have never realized that psychology is really interesting, that there are a lot of parallels between the way that architechts and programmers think or that you can meet a lot of cute girls if you hang out in the music department.<p>So, why is that important?<p>Well, when I was submitting my proposal for my senior research, I was stressed out because it didn't fit neatly into a specific department. It was on the line between CS, physics and biology. My advisor said something that's stuck with me to this day:<p>"The interesting problems of the coming decades of computer science lie at the intersection between computer science and other fields."<p>Getting a solid grasp on computer science in my opinion is critically important, but it's also pretty ubiquitous. (Though, sadly, it's pretty universally mediocre. A lot depends on your personal uptake.) What seems a lot more important to me is finding a place where you can cross-pollinate with other disciplines, meet a lot of different and interesting people and, well, enjoy yourself. The skills required for that seem to escape nerds much more often than the ability to sling code, and are essential in business interactions. A lot of people get caught up in getting into the dozen hardest to get into schools, but most colleges will have more people smarter than you than's names you can remember, and it's not that hard to find them.

Recently my son and I sat through a combo-presentation given by Stanford, Penn, Harvard, Columbia, and Duke. The presentations were all good of course, with the presenters from Harvard, Penn, and Duke being the best.<p>One point glaringly stuck out in the Duke presentation though. Even in your freshman year at Duke, you as a student can pitch the school with an idea, and they'll consider providing project funding and resources. None of the other schools suggested they would do this.<p>Duke is obviously taking the entrepeneurial pulse right now, and consider promoting and cultivating entrepeneurship as a selling point for their school.

Whichever college allows YOU to grow creatively, socially, and intellectually. This college is not necessarily Harvard, Stanford, UCLA, or Somestate University.<p>As far as a degree, whichever you enjoy the most. Don't focus on the product; rather, HOW you reach it.

Babson College for entrepreneurship. Any top 10 engineering school in the country for CS. You learn the same shit, it's the just level of immersion in the coursework and peer pressure that differentiate the school.<p>A lot of mentions of Stanford here but how many of you actually went to school there? I swear to god somedays I think most of you are just card-carrying cargo-cultists.

As a Berkeley grad, it pains me to say this, but Stanford is almost certainly your best bet. It's great academically, <i>and</i> it seems to understand how to encourage students to get involved in startups. In the startup world, it's Stanford and everyone else.<p>That said, "everyone else" still has some excellent options. MIT, Harvard,... yeah, all good options. But don't rule out the big public research universities. Berkeley and Illinois grads (among many others) have produced a lot of great startups - great by almost any measure (except that damn university to the south ;) )

Stanford by far. Then MIT/Harvard. Everywhere else is roughly in the same magnitude.<p>For undergrad, getting a business degree is pretty irrelevant to start ups. Get a technical degree, such as CS. Learn about start ups by evaluating different opportunities, reading case studies and books like "founders at work."<p>You can test out ideas in your free time during the semester and winter break. It is important to get relevant internships during the summer.

Choose Stanford (MIT, Harvard). The major benefit which you will get there is alumni and networking. If you are low on funds, you will have to be extremely wise on budget. But don't let debt scare you. When you are done, you can take two-three years working on other startups, get the rid of debt and gain priceless practical experience. And you can always bootstrap your own thing during your off-hours outside day job. Startup is not an easy thing, but if you have passion and willingness to win, nothing can stop you now. Don't be afraid and you'll be thankful to yourself for making this choice.<p>"Being in your own business is working 80 hours a week so that you can avoid working 40 hours a week for someone else." (c) Ramona Arnett

I'd highly recommend the University of Maryland's "Hinman CEOs" program. UMD has been pushing entrepreneurship very heavily in the past few years (especially in the engineering disciplines.)<p>The Hinman program provides mentors, classes, living/learning environments, conference rooms, and other facilities to help potential entrepreneurs. Additionally, they bring in a steady stream of successful entrepreneurs to speak, network, and help you on your way.<p>Add that to its close proximity to Washington D.C., good tuition, and highly ranked engineering/business departments, and you have a fairly good entrepreneurship package.

Stanford.<p>Computer Science.<p>Good luck.

If you live in the midwest, I highly recommend the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It's a top 5 CS program.

For Canada: Waterloo University

a) Answers without reasons are more or less alma mater shoutouts, I recommend you ignore them.<p>b) Stanford and UIUC tend to be more entrepreneurial than other CS colleges (I find Carnegie Mellon/MIT tend to lean towards academia), but I'd say it's more important to go where you'll be happy...visit everywhere and find a place that won't drive you insane, since nothing kills the startup spirit faster than being forced to work day-in and day-out on things you don't enjoy.<p>That being said, I love Carnegie Mellon :-P

The school of hard knocks? Dropping out seems to be a common path for successful entrepreneurs. Witness Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, to name a few in the technology space. Follow subjects that energize you; they are the ones that you will continue to get better at after you graduate. Entrepreneurship has very little to do with programming or college, and a lot to do with a relentless focus on value creation.

I went to brown - I loved it, it had a really great CS department, especially for an undergrad, and was overall an amazing social and academic experience. Not a big entrepreneurship culture in the CS department, but I think you can make that happen if that's what you want to do.<p>College is all about the people. Find the one with the people you like the best and respect the most. You'll figure out the rest while you are there.

If you're a junior in high school, I'd take as many college level courses (mostly math and CS) as I could in your senior year and seriously consider skipping college.<p>I would normally never recommend this to anyone who cared about their future, but if you truly are an "aspiring start up entrepreneur", then you already know this is the right answer. In your case, college is an unnecessary detour.

Where the weather is warm and the energy is palpable. Where else but SomeSchool, CA? Any school near the valley. Hang on every campus you can't get in and get a good feel of the people you can build with. I envy you. Good luck.

Go to a place with easy exams, cool course projects, and smart people.

Someone has to mention Cornell. The undergrad community is intensely entrepreneurial, the CS department is top notch and you won't find nearly as many a-holes as at Harvard (half serious).

&#62;Also is a computer science or business degree recommended?<p>why not both?

I would like to point out that if your aim is purely financial freedom, there are much easier ways to accomplish this.

location, location, location: where are all the startup hubs?<p>anywhere close to the valley, boston/cambridge, austin, seattle, nyc.

Stanford.

Harvard. Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Mark Zuckerberg.