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Comment by legerdemain | Hacker News Reader

I'm generally too smart for my instructors. They are all either teaching by-the-book or actively trying to hold me back from going as fast as I'm capable of. The best courses are the ones that allow you to swap a midterm grade for any missed homework. In all the internships I had, developers solved problems by searching up the error message and trying suggested solutions one-by-one until something worked. Why don't schools use this extremely efficient method when teaching math and science?!?

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Sounds like you two should stop wasting time with easy courses. If you are as brilliant as you say, there is no way you can't get permission to skip prerequisites or transfer out.

You might also consider working in a research lab at your university, where you are likely to find some harder problems.

> The best courses are the ones that allow you to swap a midterm grade for any missed homework

My recommendation: do the homework - you'll presumably breeze through it if you have mastered the material. If not, it will be a good refresher.

Homework is easy, but it is busywork. What if I told you to whittle sticks for three hours a day? Homework is a waste of time. You are telling me to waste my time. When I work at FAANG, none of this will matter except the lost time.

If homework is considered easy, then perhaps you're at the wrong school? Ideally you should be in an environment where you feel like everyone else is smarter, and you're struggling just to keep up. Consider transferring to a different institution, your future self will thank you.

I commend your modesty. In most CS (and EE) courses I'm familiar with, the homework is not mindless busywork but a path to mastery, though perhaps your school is different.

At many universities, students can also customize their course plan with department approval.

Usually you can take graduate courses without having completed the undergraduate prerequisites if you talk to the instructor. Perhaps you might find that more your speed.

If graduate courses are trivially easy for you and you've exhausted them all, you might consider taking the Ph.D. qualifying exams and moving directly into research.

> In all the internships I had, developers solved problems by searching up the error message and trying suggested solutions one-by-one until something worked

Sounds like shotgun programming to me.

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