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Comment by eric9 | Hacker News Reader

Programmer. Smart and driven. Went to MIT or Stanford, or else skipped college altogether.

Am I the only one who sometimes feels like you might as well have skipped college if you didn't go to Stanford, MIT, or some other top school? Anything else seems to be considered Blub U., and Google and the other cool companies that you would like to work for don't hire from Blub U.

Maybe this is why so many hackers who didn't get into MIT or some other top school turn to entrepreneurship; degree or no degree, the job opportunities aren't so hot otherwise.

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Am I the only one who sometimes feels like you might as well have skipped college if you didn't go to Stanford, MIT, or some other top school?

I don't think so. MIT or Stanford help a little (like 10% when raising money or looking for a job), but at the end of the day, the degree doesn't really matter. For some people, going to a state school or small college is the right path to take. For others, skipping school altogether is the right path. Go to college, or skip college, for other reasons.

It's just talk. Ignore them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Buchheit "went to college at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio."

I wouldn't put Case Western in the category of Blub U. It's a solid, possibly top tier, tech university.

I've applied Google for summer intern 2010. At that time, I was second year student and haven't taken any computer science courses. I've had a solid resume background (startup experiences/open source project/good university etc.) but I never get any feedback from Google regarding the internship. So I ended up to spend my summer in Facebook. It was a pleasant experience, and I would never consider to apply Google again.

Notice, it says he was employee #23. I think Google's standards have risen since then, and even if they make the odd exception here and there, betting on being such an exception seems questionable.

Why, I do believe my beloved alma mater has been slandered! I need to recruit Buchheit and Eric Meyer and the ghost of A.A. Michaelson and Donald freaking Knuth and come kick your butt! ;)

No, seriously: It doesn't matter. People manage to succeed with pitiful little CWRU degrees like my own. And, obviously, many of the most successful people in the industry never went to college at all.

I have heard the occasional rumor that Google is obsessed with academic credentials. If true, that is more of a problem for them than for you.

I wasn't bashing CW, just pointing out that it was easier to get hired at Google in the early days than it is now, and picking out early hires who didn't go to Stanford isn't really representative of their current hiring practices and isn't something you should count on happening to you.

> I think Google's standards have risen since [...]

... since hiring the guy that went on to create Gmail!

Yes, this reminds me of what tends to happen as companies get larger: they add more processes and "standards" and management and therefore increasingly lose out on the kinds of opportunities and people they used to be able to get.

Granted, Google stands out as seeming to do pretty well fighting against it, staying fairly "agile" for it's size and age. But if your company reaches the point where it cares more about what university you attended rather than your intellectual qualities and accomplishments, you're heading in a bad direction.

(Not sure if this is a joke, so I'm not going to vote up or down. I hope it's a joke.)

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