neodude

Could it just be that college doesn't really fit me?

I have learnt some self-discipline, actually. I'm sitting down, but I'm not working. Everything takes 10 times longer than it should, and every minute is very painful. I can count on two hands the number of times I've gone out and partied. I don't hack when I have stuff due.

I've had the 'perfect point of efficiency' vision in my head for a while, but I'm stumbling on the first block. I have a pretty good head for being organized, but the execution is lacking. I also have ADHD, apparently (I've learnt an awful lot about software engineering by failing to (be able to) follow through plans to do assignments, actually). So in some ways I'm trying to get around the executive functioning problem by doing something that I clearly want to do, instead of something I'm doing because it's what you do when you finish HS.

Of course, it might just because I'm dumb. Other people seem to think I'm smart, though (case in point above), and that's the only measure, aside from schoolwork, that I've witnessed.

I'm not dropping out to buy time, I'm dropping out to buy a task that I'm more willing to do.

I think I'm more idealistic than that - I've spent a lot of effort trying to get a degree, and I just don't see the point in it. When I don't win the lottery, the tentative plan is to hang around and badger startups until they let me do stuff for them.

When that doesn't work, I suppose I could always come back to college, financial aid willing.

What if you have no time to throw ideas against the wall because it takes all your effort + time to do college work? It's a safe place, but very, very painful to be in.

I'm in the process of throwing an idea against the wall right now, we'll see if it sticks.

Edit: (I'm not trying to be rude/argumentative btw - I'm sorry if I was. I'm a little confused now, and will go think more.)

Yup - I've heard that I would have liked Oxbridge very much. Apparently they just give you the syllabus and a reading list and meet you once a week to keep you on track? If I had known that when I was choosing colleges, I'd have jumped at it immediately.

I didn't consider the English system (though I'm somewhat a product of it) since I didn't want to specialize. It turns out not specializing was more excruciatingly difficult than I thought it would be, so now I'm deciding whether to run in the opposite direction.

Oh. Well, I know nothing about MIT. I was discouraged from applying there because they don't have good financial aid - for international students. It turns out I'm not international after all, but who knew.

I quite liked english literature, actually. I just like hacking more... much more.

The thing is: I find liberal arts a very good idea, almost in the stereotypical way. I think by comparing perspectives, and doing lots of different disciplines seeds one's mind with lots of different ways of looking.

I think 'doing things my way' probably defines me as a person - if anything, college has shown me that I absolutely flat out will not do it not my way - at least, without some serious, serious self-grinding.

The CS classes have been good, but pretty mindless, unfortunately. It's a good school and a good program, but I think I could do most of the classes in at least half the time. Except the math ones. Granted, I haven't taken that many higher-level ones yet, because I've had such problems fulfilling the first-year requirements.

Really, I'm just throwing the question out there and seeing what comes back :)

I'm a CS and math major already, but I'm at a liberal arts college. I've learnt a lot forcing myself to write english literature papers, but I think I'd have fared better, academically, if I just went to MIT.

I think I have the skills. And I have some runway to burn (savings, that is).

I actually have an idea that a friend and I have been working on for a while. I'm not satisfied with it yet - but it's getting closer, with each mulling, I think. It's college-related, so we're launching it for Fall term. I'm pretty sure he'll drop out of college with me for the idea, esp. if it works or if we get YC. There's also a hacker friend in princeton who I might be able to convince to drop out with us.

I've thought a lot about going it alone, and it's incredibly scary, but I think I've got the guts for it, too. Of course, I'd rather go with the plan above, until it falls apart, anyway.

Edit: This was very devoid of replying content, sorry. I think I've just had enough of college and want to try something else, mainly because I don't have any spare time. I only barely have a few of the things on your list though - so the real question is, should I still take the jump, and what should I look out for?

The problem: this wonderful time of college is being dragged through the mud by my resistance to doing the work required (less for the CS, though). It's incredibly painful, not to mention cutting significantly into time to do anything at all. You can't let yourself go out and meet people - or hack - when you really need to do this assignment for tomorrow.

I do need to drop out to get the startup going, because trying to make myself do the work takes up all my time - and since I'm not willing to just do college work and nothing else, I'm in between a rock and a hard place.

And, the reason why I'm asking HN is to check that I haven't missed (even more) obvious pitfalls. And to see what everyone has to say, gather advice, etc. (Thank you all btw.)

Edit: why the downvote?

Perhaps he repeated himself for effect? I certainly found the repetition effective.

Me too. I found it fascinating. I also didn't read it for school, but ironically 'borrowed' one of the copies from the English class that was currently studying it.

Trick the mind, not the person. Symbolism may convey something you can't understand through normal conversation.

If your 4 year tenure is absolutely non-negotiable (or if you're not ready), then fiddle - let your hacker instincts take you places. Learn a scripting language (python ruby etc), write a blog, dissect apps, join an opensource project..

After four years of quality exploration, you'll have built up some formidable experience that isn't easily replicable.

What about WebKit and Darwin, to name a few?

I go to an Ivy League school, but not Yale - one of the lesser well-known ones. There are certainly people here who have "arrived", and are skating across, partying, until they get their job at Wall Street, but there are some genuinely interesting, 'searcher'-type people here as well. They do expel people here; the school administration is pretty harsh, actually. The academics aren't easy; sure, you can pick easy classes and get your A-, but your major classes are unlikely to not require some serious work, and you have to do a major. There's definitely a sense of severe detachment with the real world, but that may be more about the isolated location than the prestige.

MIT sounds awesome, actually - people in touch with reality! Humble people! People who don't expect it to be easy, and hence complain about things being so hard! Maybe I should have applied, but apparently their financial aid isn't too good.

When I visited Yale, their sense of entitlement was very, very stifling. From anecdotal comparisons, Yale seems way relaxed, academically, as well.

Thanks for the advice. It rings very true - lately, I've begun to bias for good profs, and good profs only. They make everything worthwhile.

Actually, I'm taking intro to islam this summer quarter, from a really good prof (though some say he's just really arrogant). But the class is extremely well organized and he really knows his stuff. Should be awesome.

I'm trying to, and planning to, take as many hard, hard courses at college as possible, for precisely that reason. When is the next time in my life when someone will hold me accountable to learn something really hard? I don't think it'll happen again.

This is a very good case for trying something.

Not sure. Probably because I tried a few times and was bored - and just wanted to get back and do stuff.

But I get your point. Thank you.

You're right. I'm also depicting the social organization - and my resistance towards it - in rather polarizing terms. A large part of the problem is choosing socializing over doing something fun/interesting, which I've learnt, only a while ago, that you gotta do.

No, I meant the other way round - is it feasible not to get a job out of college? I was thinking the startup route, but again, that idea is still the vague-move-to-Valley plan.

Not intending to get a job or get married (is the former actually feasible?), but will keep your advice in mind. I'm trying to get out hiking and climbing (I'm in the northeast), but (this) college is so much work.

I don't think I'd be able to survive corporate. I had a summer job doing IT-ish things in a small accountancy a couple years ago, at the end of the two months I was about to kill myself from the boredom and monotony.

That expert advice is valuable - thank you. I'm currently interested in programming language theory (prompted by steve yegge), we'll see where that takes me.

I'm trying hard with the friends thing, but there are precious few who don't "submit" to the partying culture.

Interesting - it is definitely an awesome time to be in publishing. I redid (as all freshmen tend to do) the paper's website, which was a huge learning experience.

A lot of publications seem to have problems getting themselves online - collegepublisher is the witness. So you seem to be in a viable area.

Most of the misery was from schoolwork, which is improving slowly. The social side is at a standstill, because I really don't like beer. It's a catch-22 from where I stand. I think I've always just focused on what was fun/interesting and ignored much else, which you can't do in college, at least academically. I want the liberal arts anti-focus, but of course didn't realize it would be this hard.

Fleeting thoughts, constantly. Spending a lot of time bringing myself back from mini-tangents inside the brain; in mid-sentence, distracted by thought/sight/sound/smell and hence lost train of thought (dozens of time a day).

I seem to do reading fine, but retain very little from the reading, in comparison with classmates. I've mostly been taking math-y classes (cs, math, phys). Physics was very difficult. Writing essays is even more difficult - this is the source of most of my academic troubles.

I come from Hong Kong (luckily not too damaged by deafeningly unindividualistic culture) - and spent the two years before college in Norway (http://www.uwc.org). Also quite constrained by financial difficulties.

I'm involved in two things: the newspaper, and this 'programming' group. The newspaper's been fun - I'm quite interested in the whole gambit of publishing. The programming group hasn't done anything because no one wants to spend time in it - I've been programming alone all my life, so it's no different if no one is doing it with me.

I similarly found pre-university studies rather boring, rarely did the 'busywork' and skirted "on intuition" across most of it. Got me into a fancy named university, but only then to realise my ignorance of what 'work' was. I'm just about half-way through college, and maybe now I begin to appreciate 'work' and unlearn the habits from before. It's surprisingly difficult.

It's not necessarily a bad thing that HS trains (American) kids to work so well. Society runs on people doing (generally) repetitive work consistently. My early rejection of the system meant I got left out in the cold in terms of knowing how to do that. I did get a lot of 'soft' (i.e. cannot learn from books) computer/cs/systems knowledge out of what I did spent my HS years doing, though.

To back up the food argument, I decided to become vegetarian a year or so ago (to the chagrin of my mother), and definitely noticed an increase in clarity and 'calm' mind. I changed in part because of this rumoured clarity effect, so placebo is definitely not out of the equation, YMMV, etc.

I 'have' ADD, and I'm able to focus perfectly fine, thank you.

I don't want to derail the thread, but lately I've been thinking that ADD is more about a faster attention 'cycle' than pure inability to focus.