Ask HN: What's your non standard education story? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What's your non standard education story?

1 pointalfonsodev1 comment

We all know the standard happy path that society mostly agree on how and when formal education is supposed to happen.

Unfortunately for some people there are life events and circustances that interrupt or interfiere with education on the standard time window.

One of the main problems if you miss this window is that as an adult you have to provide economically for yourself and many times for your family too.

What's your story?

How did you overcome your educational gaps? Did you take the formal education path? did you take a break from work?

I have a thousand of questions but I think is better if you can share your story to inspire others.

I think there is the emotional journey and then the practicality of it, I'm interested in both actually.

Thanks for sharing!.

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In the early 80's I was a high school student, in Iowa. I disliked my school and the culture in my community. I'm biracial, and being so in Iowa during the 80's was no fun, and insultingly stifling. Nobody seemed to have ambition. Being a gifted student and an early computer geek, my best friend and I created a video game company for Vic-20 games. We managed to get them sold by Sears nationwide. From that experience, I learned about the Apple Macintosh in early development, and that Harvard University was offering a class in pre-release Mac development which also granted one a Mac Beta Tester. My game company was not all that successful, so I closed and used the remaining cash to buy my way into the Harvard University Professional Macintosh Developer's Program. I dropped out of high school in preparation, as high school was just a waste of time. Harvard was a super intense 6-week summer experience, moving to Boston, learning Cambridge, and to my delight I learned that Harvard Night School and Harvard Summer School are open enrollment - anyone can take the classes, and they are taught by the same professors as normal Harvard. I also learned there is a cross college class transfer program between many of the Boston based Universities. So I applied and got into Boston University (a very easy school to get into) but proceeded to take every class I could at Harvard Night and Harvard Summer (I attended summer school to avoid returning to Iowa.) At the end, I got a Boston University degree, but due to my presence in so many Harvard classes, I am sort of a member of the Harvard alumni network, as I maintained several Harvard friendships over the years.

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