Drop out. Or don't.

This matches my experience reasonably well.<p>Some other random tips:<p>1) If you do go to college, <i>live on campus</i>! Commuters tend to fall into two categories. Those who miss out on lots of fun stuff and those who live at home and never grow out of their high school friends.<p>2) Schoolwork comes second. This does mean get failing grades or drink all day long (but one semester of that might not hurt). It means that you should take advantage of your ample spare time to do something fun or interesting. It's OK to miss a class here or there to get the most out of the overall experience. And if you don't have ample spare time, take fewer/easier classes.<p>3) Figure out a way to learn something real. Do research, take courses in areas you don't know much about, get a non-trivial part time job, do contract work, something, <i>anything</i>. Because if you're good at something, why coast through classes and do busy work? Why not get better at something you suck at? Got a bunch of assignments that are too easy, but time consuming? Tell your professor, then negotiate with them to do less, but more valuable work.

As I get closer to completing my college education (its my last semester) I think what alot of posts like these miss is most institutions focus less on teaching you how to do something and more how to learn how to do something on your own.<p>- Its not about that ridiculous project you had to do that the professor didn't lecture on and is due Monday even through he only assigned it last Wednesday.<p><i>Its how you deal with that.</i><p>- Its not about the fact that you can drink yourself under a table and party every day and night<p><i>Its about how you deal with that.</i> You could do it and fail out of many schools ,mine is one of those, or you could still do well. But either way you have to learn to balance it<p>College is the final playground. The last buffer between you and the real world. Its up to you to make it something that is worthwhile or figure out that it is not for you.<p>Also some of the best people I've met, the closet friends and strongest connections I most likely keep for life were made in college.<p>It wasn't perfect and there were things I would do differently given the chance but I wouldn't trade the experience for anything short of figuring out I had something of the caliber of what Bill Gate or Mark Zuckerburg found they had on their hands.

People always point out the social and networking benefits, which can certainly be great, but college can also be a very limiting social environment in a lot of ways. It often extends the cliques and general self-conscious stupidity of high school years and makes it easy to get completely stuck in that mind-and-soul numbing bourgeois bubble of social status and judgment, and if you aren't careful you can get pushed along on the conveyor belt into a job that's just a further extension, and you'll never get to have your own life.<p>You can actually learn a lot more about life and relationships by putting yourself in difficult, unfamiliar situations rather than cushy curated ones. Backpacking solo around the world or starting fresh in a big city doesn't get you into the Yale Entrepreneur's Club, but the things you learn and the contacts you get can be more unique and diverse, and I'd venture that a capable person will tend to end up with a better education and more adaptable people skills this way, but I don't want to downplay that it can be very very difficult to swim against the current, especially if you don't have great social confidence to begin with. It's still worth it though. The real world is tougher, but it's a lot easier to find meaning there versus being stuck on the good grades-good salary-right friends-high valuation-Achieve Success Treadmill Of Doom (tm).

My take on this:<p>- Go to a college on the cheap, and don't break the bank. This often means an in-state, public school - frankly, where your diploma is from matters little from a recruitment standpoint after you've proven yourself in a job or two. You probably have a choice of a few of them - pick the one that has the best program in what you're interested in.<p>- Also, basic english and math will likely transfer from a community college, and you'll pay a small fraction of what you'd pay to take similar courses at the big name school. This frees you up to take stuff you're more interested in, and saves money.<p>- Avoid getting in debt if you can. If you must, try to take as little as possible, and rid yourself of it quickly.<p>- Explore. Take weird classes you might be interested in, you never know how it'll be useful - the example used most often is Steve Jobs taking a calligraphy course =&#62; modern fonts in classic Mac OS =&#62; desktop publishing revolution.<p>- Look for mentorship opportunities, and feel out your career path. Do internships, etc. You want to get a feel for how businesses work, and what being an employee entails, so you know what you like/what to avoid/how to be a better employee/boss in the future.<p>- Take advantage of "student only" opportunities. Many companies and organizations will give you hardware/software/conference/professional membership discounts. It makes sense to take advantage of these.<p>- Have social life. Meet interesting people. College is different that high school - you have more freedom, and consequences. If you're not living with the parents, then get used to managing the rest of your life.

I learned a lot in college!<p>After my high school, I spent two years on a startup idea and ultimately, left my partner behind and went to college in the United States. Contrary to common belief, I learned a lot in my college. I am already a veteran in C/Javascript/PHP/C# before my college day, but the valuable thing about college is not learning "programming". So, here is what I've learned:<p>1). I learned how to work with supercomputer, no, it is not Hadoop with thousands nodes (though I've worked on that too!). It is Ranger, one of the computer on TOP500. And I can spend thousands of computing hours freely to just explore MPI and how to efficiently program on this puppy (one lesson I learned, async communication does not always save you time);<p>2). I learned what Buddhism is and how it transformed during years, how to do anthropology study and what the war is like in chimpanzees world and human tribes, how that interact, and what it implies;<p>3). I learned what evolutionary theory really is, how it developed, and the influence to American pragmatism;<p>4). I learned computer graphics! It is an amazing experience to write your own ray tracer with all the knowledge you actually knew (not just glue some random code together);<p>5). I even learned how MRI works in one of my biomedical class!<p>I am appreciated so much to the college experience and despite what people say about it, I learned a lot.

I don't care if you go to Yale. When "getting in is the hardest part about attending an Ivy League school," I have to ask, if the problem the system, or the problem the school?<p>He later writes: "Most of the foundation in communication, writing, and quantitative reasoning I developed in middle school and high school, and not in college."<p>That's plain screwed up. If you developed no communication, writing, or quantitative reasoning skills in college, then your college education was a waste of time. But it's because you made an (apparently) crappy decision to go to that college, not college in general.<p>Here in this thread, and many similar on Reddit, it is often advised to go to a state school or community college, get a technical degree, etc...But we're joking ourselves if we think a technical degree can lead to better reading, writing, or reasoning skills. Of course, if you can develop those on your own, sure, go for the technical degree. But, in this liberal arts student's opinion, the problem with college is that, instead of either studying a pure technical degree, or immersing yourself in the true liberal arts, people go to large state schools and attempt to do both, but end up doing neither.<p>/rant

This article sits well with me, as I've hashed this out a lot in my own head in the past year. I would be a freshman this year had I decided to attend a college. However, I didn't want to get burdened down with any unnecessary loans, and as previously stated by others, the industry is quite navigable without a degree. Instead I've moved myself from Boise Idaho to NYC, and I'm loving it, meeting other people in the industry I wouldn't otherwise be meeting, and learning new things constantly.<p>I think one main point that the article leaves out is that if you decide not to attend college, or decide to drop out, you'll really need some self discipline. I spent a ton of time in high school sitting in my room being an autodidact. Learning how things work, and then learning to apply techniques and such. Then trying to find any scraps of work I could so as to build a portfolio/resume. Had I been doing what the rest of my peers were doing I certainly wouldn't have been in a place to not attend college.<p>Hopefully that doesn't come off as pretentious. I just think the whole aspect of having a skill v.s. not having a skill, or a passion for that matter, are left out of many of these "is college worth it right now" articles. Assuming the goal is to acquire a skill in college, and not to make friends/go through that rite of passage. Speaking of rites of passage, anyone else going to Burning Man this year? It's going to be my first, and I'm oh so excited.

Dropping out of college is hands-down the best decision I ever made. I think it's useful for some people, but saying that everyone <i>has</i> to go is dumb.

I'm always amazed by how many people claim to have learned so little in college. It's not that I don't believe them; I just had the complete opposite experience. Perhaps I'm just slower than most here, but I studied science and engineering in school and it was HARD. It took so much effort, but I learned a ton. I'm a programmer these days, but most of my analysis skills come from the education I got in college and grad school. I've learned a lot since then of course (especially about how to design code), but I attribute most of my (modest) successes to my education.

BS in CECS and MS in CS, with no regrets on either. On top of learning quite a lot (I had no prior programming experience, aside from a tiny bit of TI BASIC and C++) I met my co-founders and mentors in school, which is invaluable. But who knows, maybe I would have learned even more on my own or met even more awesome co-founders and mentors elsewhere.<p>I will say I've learned a hell of a lot more about <i>programming</i> in the 3 years doing a startup after college than in the 4.5 years doing the BS and MS. CS degrees aren't really about programming, but I do think they lay the foundation for being better programmers.

What's often not said in these discussions is that college/university time is a great time to work out what you want to do for a bit. I certainly had no idea what I wanted to do coming out of high school. I wanted to be a veterinarian, but didn't get the marks to get into that degree programme, so I ended up doing bioinformatics, and then eventually wound up doing a computer science degree double major with history and philosophy of science. And I love my job now, working as an academic in technology ethics. But if you'd asked the straight-outta-highschool me about what I'd be doing in 10 years time, she would have had no idea I'd be where I am now. Going to university helped me to work out which path I wanted to take. Granted, I didn't go to an American university, and it somewhat depresses me to hear about how university is pointless etc. because I had some amazingly good courses and learned a lot at my university. But that was back when it was still well funded by the Australian government and less of the corporate entity it's become. So who knows, really?<p>Anyway my point is that university is not just about coming out with a piece of paper, it's about exploring possibilities and different paths. And if you go to a good university that focuses on actually teaching interesting stuff rather than churning out pieces of paper, then you'll actually get something worthwhile.

Depends really.<p>Going pre-med, college is a massive waste of time. The organic chemistry and physics is something you will never use as a doctor, nurse, pharmacist, etc.<p>For business, it can be pretty good depending on where you land up. I was fortunate to go to a school that offered one hell of a BBA program and a majority of what I learned was applicable to investment banking, consulting, and other corporate jobs. But for entrepreneurship? Eh...I dunno yet.<p>Oh and it's a lot easier to become a pretty good programmer by taking classes than learning on your own. Feedback from good professors and peers about code optimization is priceless.<p>All in all, if I had to do everything over again, I would either apply to the best BBA or computer science program, or pick the cheapest university option available to me.<p>Of course I assume that one already knows what he or she wants do right out of college, which is rarely the case.<p>So, actually college is really a place for exploration. It sucked having to go through trial and error to find my niche, but when I finally did it was liberating. I stand by my earlier position, though, if high schools went through more effort to bring the exploratory experience to its students.

I agree with the author, college didn't teach me anything that I needed later on in life, I did meet some absolutely fantastic professors and peers who pushed me, who challenged me to do more and become better at what I was doing. That I think is an important part that is overlooked. Sure you can go straight to working out of high school, but generally the atmosphere is not the same.<p>In college you can screw up, big time, and all it will cost you is time, in the real world it can mean your job, and lively hood. Academia provides a comfort zone in which you can experiment.<p>Had it not been for a few select professors and my peers I would have never experimented with electronics and made it a hobby of mine, I would have never loved programming and network security as much as I do now. Those experiences cannot be overstated. Overall I think the time I spent in college was spent well, but I can honestly say that the time spent in classes was a waste.

I studied physics at a great university, got paid for it, and graduated as first author on a PRL. I've used everything I learnt, and things from courses I failed at the time.<p>If you're doing the right course for the right reasons, it's very worthwhile.

Good article. I agree with the points. After I dropped out of high school I ended up going to a well regarded west coast university. I was all set for it to be very challenging and some place where I would learn a lot but I was surprised to find the engineering classes were all things I already knew how to do. To challenge myself I shot for all A+s and considered each mere A to be a failure.<p>I also started to, as a further challenge, not even attend some of the easiest classes and managed to get A+ in those as well. I used the extra time to get involved in student government. I found it interesting observing the politics and learning how much back scratching and insider deals infect even college student council politics.<p>While in school, I joined a music group (unrelated to the school) and we did some touring during this time and earned money. One time we were even paid to play at my university. Touring in a music group is a great gig that I recommend. I met lots of famous and powerful people and made connections doing the music.<p>Still in school, I got a job working for a defense contractor. I wrote software for secret military satellite based space weapons. This was interesting since I didn't have any sort of clearance or anything and I was making close to minimum wage. At one point I had to write a paper on my research for my boss. He published it and took my name off the paper. He also went to some conference to present it that I had wanted to go to but he said I wasn't needed. There were also false promises about getting a $1 an hour raise. I was pretty resentful of this and stopped working on this project.<p>I do have a small list of things I learned in the program but they are somewhat trivial small things that I would have learned anyway. The interesting things had nothing to do with classes. I did make some friends of course but these "connections" have not really benefited me all that much, but I wasn't looking for that. It is strange that that is so often cited as a main reason to go into debt in order to attend university. Overall the main thing that happened is it delayed the starting of my first business by several years.<p>This makes me wonder about the value of school over all. I dropped out of high school and then found even college was pretty much useless as well. Very different from the way it is presented as the solution to all of society's ills. Did I learn anything even in elementary school I have to wonder?<p>Well, I knew how to read before I started kindergarten. My parents did not teach me. They tell me that I just started reading signs as we were driving along. Then I would read books. For a couple years in elementary I didn't even attend or study as we were doing some travel. When I returned to elementary school things seemed really slow and backwards. Before college, in primary school and high school I am not sure what I learned there either. Although I did have a psychology class in high school, and then a couple in college that were very interesting, so I learned some things there. But that was from reading the textbook and studies I'd look up on my own.<p>Whenever I want to know something I track down the information and just learn it on my own. It seems to me that school is pointless. I guess it is for dumb people? Or maybe its purpose is to brainwash people into being consumers.<p>Most of the founding fathers and enlightenment philosophe's were self taught. Some of the greatest minds in history are drop outs.<p>I think school is a rip off, just considering the wasted time and not even money. It does not benefit the "student", it benefits the system.<p>There is something to be said for a community of learners though. That is what a Start Up is. Others interested in the same niche thing you are come together, and you are now working together to make something new and figure out new things out every day. You depend on no one but yourselves. It is like a Salon of revolutionary France, only more practical.<p>If I had it all to do over again and was able to do so, I would not attend school at all, not even elementary school. I would simply unschool myself. This way I would have more time to work on my projects and inventions that I started working on before I was a teen. It would have given me a tremendous head start. I did not know it at the time, but what I was doing then was useful, unique and valuable and I was doing it right. Of course others are telling you you are wasting your time and should be doing worksheets or reading some nonsensical textbook instead, but that is because they are ignorant.<p>In addition to running my latest business, I read a lot. Now I am becoming educated. None of the history that was taught in school was accurate in the least. It was just propaganda to create patriots who will kill the "enemy" without question. The most ridiculous thing of all this is being forced to chant a pledge of allegiance to a flag, a piece of cloth. No allegiance to one's family or friends, the allegiance must be to a cloth. This ritual that lead each day is a symbol of the insanity of the whole system.

&#62; All of the above is highly dependent on where you go.<p>That's one of the few claims I agree with. I can only speak for engineering majors, but my college experience was radically different from the author's. Whether the piece of paper my classmates and I walked out with mattered is another story, but at least the first three years of education were invaluable.<p>&#62; This really applies to tech, where honestly people don't really give two shits about your degree if you are a good programmer or have experience on hot projects.<p>Half-true. Even though I had been programming since middle school, my college experience with EECS taught me a lot technically and socially. It granted a far broader network faster than any job has. On top of that, it gave vast access to internship programs, which taught everyone involved a lot about industry. And that came in handy after graduating; having the knowledge that I could get a high-paying job almost anywhere at anytime allowed me to take far greater personal financial risks with my startup than I would have been comfortable otherwise.<p>&#62; If you expect to learn skills that will train you for a job, prepare to be disappointed going to a four year college. You aren't going to learn anything that is directly applicable to any job.<p>I completely disagree. Granted it all comes down to your major, but if you take engineering at a top school (which does not include Yale), this is highly untrue. The knowledge I learned in college was critical to developing my startup from a technological standpoint; operating systems, programming languages, artificial intelligence, probability, algorithms, and databases are just a few of the subjects which have flowed into it. And yes, you can just "read a book", but that is no substitute for being in the thick of it through collaborative group-work. Technically, being exposed to vast numbers of patterns is essential, and college is a prime place for that to happen. I know virtually no one who possesses the same technical breadth of those that went through my program (or equivalent).<p>&#62; It didn't prepare me mentally for startups. College was really an exercise in credentialing within a rigidly defined system, and didn't prepare me to think outside-the-box, live the consequences of my own actions, or really exist on my own in the real world at all.<p>It's amazing what a difference a major can make. Working on ill-defined team projects that would last well over 200 hours in a single semester was a great precursor to the startup world. And college is an excellent training ground to build essential social skills.<p>&#62; In my final year I was taking classes two days a week for only two hours a day (most of them intros, perversely). Keep in mind that I was a full time student without a job at one of the best universities in the country.<p>If your goal is to just get a degree, sure, you can slack by. If you want to take the maximum advantage of courses, this will not be true. Especially in engineering (architecture is another example I've seen), you will work your ass off and learn a lot.<p>&#62; For a lot of students, college is a vacation, and it is a bunch of bullshit if we pretend otherwise.<p>The only sustained vacation during my college years was Winter Break. Hell, the summer internships I had offered way more of a vacation than college did. Again, if you are going to college, you need to take full advantage of it.

Best point made in the article: "College is an oversubscribed resource". This rings factual, and I think it would be useful to discuss the ramifications of oversubscription. And the extremely high cost despite oversubscription. And MIT doesn't count because... it's not oversubscribed as you generally <i>learn industrially-applicable information there</i>. Contrast with Yale, Columbia, or Vassar. This also goes for art schools- you can use those learned skills in industry.

Good or not, I think one thing everyone can agree on is to go to college first. There are two sides to this debate. To go to college at all, and to drop out after you're in college. I think at the very least going, is worthwhile for everyone even IF college isn't made for everyone and in many cases may not help out at all in things you learn in the classroom. Afterall, there are other aspects of college you can gain from, both on and off campus.

Seems like the main message of this post is "If you're majoring in Philosophy and Physics, don't expect college to teach you about business or computers."

"Dropping out of MIT is like graduating from Yale."

&#62; This really applies to tech, where honestly people don't really give two shits about your degree if you are a good programmer or have experience on hot projects.<p>In my experience, this is true up until a point. However, I've been coding since elementary school, and topics like algorithm analysis and graph theory are not things that one typically encounters making games in Java or web apps with RoR.<p>"If you want to be a world-class programmer, you can program every day for ten years, or you can program every day for two years and take an algorithms class." - Prof. Erik Demaine (MIT)

In school (UC system) I met people who are now doctors, CPAs, attorneys, investment bankers, top engineers, scientists, and various PhD candidates. I also learned that their parents are a variety of very accomplished and impressive people. To say that knowing these people is valuable would be an understatement since I am now a small business person and having professionals you can truly trust (as good as it's going to get anyway) is incredibly important. It factors into confidence and decision making in business.<p>For me, personally, I would not have met these people if I had not gone to school. I would have been sitting in a cubicle programming computers for the next 4 years, severely handicapping my social and professional life. I also probably would not have learned the basics of Econonomics, something that fascinates me almost as much as technology. I also didn't spend much time doing schoolwork, but I certainly didn't get A's like some others here. I actually was on academic probation twice and spend most of my time socializing.