Comment by rmk2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rmk2 | Hacker News Reader

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The most interesting thing about this is the feedback loop. These kind of stories seem to strike a chord and in turn more people will post about this.

Yet the discussion always goes along the same lines. The problem is that all of these are unavoidably anecdotal in nature and thus something that is basically impossible to discuss.

Sure, it might have worked out for some and might not have worked out for others. The problem is that everyone has their own experience with this, which basically confirms or denies other anecdotal evidence.

These posts pop on HN a lot, yet I find them useless. Sure it worked out (or didn't), but nobody is able to tell how things would have been if the poster had stayed in college (or in other cases, if he had left college).

All these submissions seem to do is get the "anti-college" crowd on here happy, giving them more anecdotal evidence that really, see, all I ever said is right because that dude had a similar experience while at the same time bringing out everyone for whom college did do something to scream at those who disagrees.

Repeat ad infinitum...

I think these types of posts are becoming popular because we all grew up under the belief that college was the only way to become successful, and it's becoming increasingly clear that not only is that not true, it can be harmful in some cases. This is a big shift from the thinking of previous generations and probably amplified by the current looming student loan crisis and poor economy.

Yes, college works for some and not for others, but only recently has the suggestion that maybe college isn't a golden ticket to success started to sound pretty reasonable.

I think you have a good point. I grew up never hearing anything negative about college, only positive things. All the adults I knew, when I was young, who went to college had nice houses, cars, vacations, etc. Then me and some friends went to college, and many of us were not so fortunate. Bearing large debt that keeps us close to poverty, seeing people that have almost half our IQ, half our discipline, half our ethics making more money than us ... it was a shockingly rude awakening. And when people have such a shift in thinking, we are drawn to articles that try to explain and make sense of our shattered perceptions (kind of like a Phillip K. Dick novel).

Good point.

The US alternatives to college are terrible, particularly if you didn't have money/access. Trade schools are almost fraudulent (and not like Canada, which at least encourages vocations) and the whole entrepreneur out of high school mindset seems downright irresponsible (I would hope there's a better pipeline for ambitious world-changers than just going through the school of hard knocks).

And the worst part of the discussion is it's not even informed. Like, you will never see anyone in these threads recommend joining the military. I joined the military 2 years after college, but had I been informed of my opportunities earlier (say, in high school), I would have definitely joined the military right out of high school and then done college later, once I was ready for it and had GI Bill benefits to use.

All that said, college went okay for me. I don't really know of anyone in my circles that didn't get at least something productive out of going to college, based on where they are now, over a decade later.

You have a point there, especially when you name the economic situation, which arguably changes behaviour patterns.

To expand a bit more on my previous "anecdotal in nature" point though, I think that the articles we see here are not just anecdotal, they are also overgeneralising. I reckon CS is one of the few areas that lends itself most to showing qualification in a way other than presenting a degree.

Normally, the degree signifies the consensus that you have done a certain amount of work and passed a certain set of requirements. In CS (amongst some other things), this can also be shown to a potential employer by showing them your actual coding work, prototypes, programs, scripts, websites etc. Here then, the degree becomes less of an issue because you can show proficiency in a different way.

This however does only work in a limited area of expertise, such as design, art, programming, journalism (to a degree) etc. For most other purposes, a degree is still a certificate of (baseline) proficiency, so saying "college becomes irrelevant" (not that you did) is overly broad and only partially true under certain circumstances.

Now I know HN is mostly programmers, CS students, maths students, some designers etc., as can be seen by the outright hostile attitude towards the humanities displayed by some of the other comments to this submission (especially further up), but it still peeves me to see people inductively draw conclusions from their own experience, ultimately concluding "how things are", thereby implying "for everyone".

[edit] spelling [/edit]

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