Comment by cantbecool | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cantbecool | Hacker News Reader

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I've watched that particular Frontline special before, and I must say, as a current college undergrad, it is eyeopening. Although, I must applaud the University of Phoenix investor, Michael K. Clifford. He is at least doing some form of philanthropy with all the money he's is making from for profit universities.

I wish I had a mentor of some sort as a teenager, who would have convinced me to attend a public institution or a junior college first, which would ultimately lower my student loan debt. I was suckered in by all my advisers and and the media that the only way to succeed is going to college.

I'm currently going to be somewhere in the ball park of $100,000 in debt after my 5 year BSIS degree at Drexel University in Philadelphia. I do not even live on campus; I commute from my childhood home. All I've had after 4 years there is horrible professors and teaching assistants from another planet. I wanted to learn how to program and create things, but all that I've learned is that I could have received a better education from my local public library.

I could have received a better education from my local public library.

- How'd you like them apples? Sorry couldn't resist some good will punning.

Anyways, I've always said (even when I was in high-school) that I'd just get a bachelors degree from the most reputable University I can afford without going into debt. These days I'm still missing one year of a Financial Engineering degree, but I'm earning almost twice (and quite a bit more in some cases) what most of my high-school graduating classmates are making after getting their Bachelors and Masters, and I just took a new job paying 22% more with an awful lot of benefits as a Lead UX/Systems Developer (yeah I have a weird mix of responsibilities, but they're exactly the responsibilities I wanted to have, as I quite enjoy both sides of the equation) for a big software company in my country. Take in account that I went to a recognized private school, so you could say my classmates where predestined to at least make a modest living without having to resort to flipping burgers at McDonalds.

So there. I learnt everything I know by reading, programming, and designing on my own. I was able to secure my first job pretty easily (I was 19 at the time) since I was one of the three persons out of a pool of 85 people who passed a simple test for a job working for a company that made shopping cart and merchant software. They hired me because even though the other two had degrees, I had done significantly better than they had on the test and trust me, I wasn't/am not a genius or anything or that sort.

I guess my point is that a degree is a must have because it's a great thing to fall back on if you ever need it and it can help your formation and tune your thought process, but it is by no means a silver bullet for actually achieving a great education nor does it make it a given that you'll do better in the job market. Make sure you learn what you need to learn, regardless of where you learn it, and make sure that you really learn to sell yourself instead of letting a piece of paper dictate how you do in life.

Oh and by the way... bachelor degrees are so passe this days. If you want offers based on your degrees more then your proven experience, opt for a masters degree as fast as you can.

And as a vision of the future, Germans often don't leave university until after 30...

True but misleading. Germany has some of the lowest university enrolment figures in the EU. There are a couple of reasons for this but the most important are

1. They stream early (10 years old) and savagely. Only those who go to grammar school (Gymnasium) are eligible to go to a classic university. That's less than 40% of the population.

2. They have an absolutely excellent apprenticeship system. All businesses pay taxes to their local Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and these coordinate training at a state and national level. Apprenticeships last 2-3 years, you spend a third to a half of your time at a trade school and the rest working for your employer.

The concept of streaming disturbs me, because I know I would have been streamed into a delinquent centre for always being bored and acting up (also, I'd have been killed during fascism, nazi times, communism, the inquisition, and the witch burning sessions - this is truly a great time to be me).

I love the German system. Here in Canada half my friends got absolutely nothing out of grades 9 through 12. The one non-university geared guy that actually made something out of his life noted that working hard at "applied" (here applied means "dumb" rather than actually applicable) courses was a waste of time because all he really needed was to graduate. He ended up working 40 hours a week during high school. Only now am I finally catching up with his net worth. Compounding interest is really working in his favour and he should be retired at 50 or 55 if he keeps it up.

Also, he is earning about 50% more than his other "applied" friends because his years of experience put him into middle management, rather than front line. Anyways, streaming early is good, especially if it is self directed.

Sounds slightly more like an argument against dumb education (and I couldn't agree more) rather than streaming.

Personally, I would have preferred to have been working between 13 and 18 - except for maths class, and possibly science and physics, technical drawing, French, art, could have skipped Irish, but would have replaced English with a more modern curriculum, ... okay... school was not as bad as I remember.

I hate to use an HN thread for this kind of thing, but you don't have your email address in your profile or on your blog. Would you mind shooting me an email? I'm collecting people who write well about colleges they attended. (Nefarious purposes, obviously.)

are you also collecting people who think otherwise?

I'm collecting people who write well about colleges they attended.

Heh, I interpreted this as stevejohnson is looking for people who "write about the colleges they attend" and who "write well" (presumably the writing they do about the colleges they attend is the writing that is well written).

Yes.

> I could have received a better education from my local public library.

And printed a diploma, too.

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