Hacker News Reader

Comment by boon | Hacker News Reader

If Peter Thiel calls you, it might make sense to at least hear him out. Slamming doors is rarely a good approach to life.

And school will always be there to go back to.

View on HN

I don't think it's really worth going back to school. I dropped out to join the military. (Later left that too) 10 years later, every time I think about going back I think, "why?". I've already got a job, and I make decent money. I'd learn much more, faster, by taking on more responsibilities here than I would in some sandbox environment. Unless I went to, like, Harvard or something.

... which is actually an argument for staying in school in the first place. Once you're out, the realities of life make it very difficult to go back.

I dropped out because I didn't feel I was learning enough to justify the expense. I can educate myself on my own time. I'd make the same decision today, only I'd be more certain about it, what with skyrocketing tuition costs and all.

Of course, not everyone's like me. But for people in the same socio-economic position I was in back then, I don't think college offers the solid pathway to middle class comfort everyone seems to think it does. You might get lucky, you might also get saddled with a $30+K piece of paper and no marketable skills, in which case you'd have been no better off working as a waiter/tress or whatever and working towards something better on your own terms.

Is it? That argument assumes that school is worthwhile in the first place. If you assume your conclusion, it seems an awful lot like begging the question.

If you don't go to school, live your life, and find out everything is just hunky-dory without it - what exactly have you missed out on? Maybe you were right in the first place, and can congratulate yourself on making wise decisions that turned out to be vindicated in the end?

The OP said he has thought about going back multiple times. Obviously it has some value to him.

...and then decided against it every time, so obviously it has less value to him than other things he could be doing with his life.

...a life which is much, much more complicated after leaving school, serving in the military, having a career, starting a family, etc. If school has any value to you at all, the utility of finishing school vs dropping out is higher earlier in life than later. Maybe for some people it makes sense to drop out (Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg being canonical examples). But for most people the decision isn't so clear-cut, and going back becomes tremendously more difficult as time goes by.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com