Technically both HS dropout and undergrad (MIT) dropout. I apparently could attend many European grad programs, especially in the UK (LBS/ICL econ or MBA would be interesting); I'd be tempted to drop out for the trifecta, though.
I feel weird saying "College Drop-Out", or even (on other forms) "Some College", since I took one semester at UIC (psychology 101 and political science 101) and then bailed.
This is a tired joke, please let it die. Liberal Arts get shit on by everybody around here. Arguably, it's much more important than learning how to make fancy toys for rich people.
snide remarks about people who choose an education to broaden their horizons? is it just me or does that strike you as just a little bit... narrow-minded?
I have a Certificate in GIS which is the equivalent of graduate level work but I never finished my Bachelor's (in Environmental Resource Management). I also have an AA in Humanities and a spiffy certificate my former employer paid for that entitles me to call myself a "certified life and health insurance specialist."
I also took 4 years of college level math between 8th grade and 11th grade to "prepare for college" only to be screwed by the system when they told me I now needed 2 MORE college math classes to actually get my degree, even though I already had more math than most folks with a bachelor's. I ultimately CLEP-ed college algebra many years later and took an intro to statistics, which was at least new info for me without requiring me to take math like a physics major or some nonsense.
For some people, these questions are not so cut and dried. Can I pretty please haz an "Other" button?
Dropped out because it was oh so boring. I wish it was like Coursera classes, but we didn't get to start actual programming until maybe third year, and I didn't have the patience so I dropped out on second year. Don't regret it, although I partly regret choosing a local university instead of trying harder and maybe going abroad. On the other hand, I really enjoy doing actual work in the field and it would be hard to forget about it for several years.
It’s not the job of university professors to motivate/entertain you; being motivated to learn is the students’ job and every minute the professor spends entertaining disinterested students is a waste of time for those who actually want to learn things.
Did you read my comment? My problem wasn't that I asked for entertainment. I asked for education, which I didn't get.
I was very motivated when I got into the university. I was hoping we'd learn compilers, functional programming, low-level stuff, I was eager to learn everything.
What I got was professors who didn't care about their subjects and last time did their actual programming twenty years ago. We did have one programming course, and the so-called “semester coursework” took me twenty minutes because it was three C functions.
Most students didn't care either because they were there “to get the diploma”.
Not every university is like Stanford, you know. I was very bitter with my experience.
>I was very motivated when I got into the university. I was hoping we'd learn compilers, functional programming, low-level stuff, I was eager to learn everything. (..) but we didn't get to start actual programming until maybe third year (..) Most students didn't care either because they were there “to get the diploma”.
Are you living in Romania, by chance? Because the situation looks EXACTLY the same here.
I got into college hoping I would get some guidance learning something I find very interesting, but instead I get a big fucking joke.
Of course I tried to learn by self-teaching, but it was hard and I didn't even cover what a decent university would cover. And, like you said, the rest of the people are there just to get the diploma.
When I talked with a friend in Austria about how things are done here, he was shocked. You can't even call it an education. More like a big waste of time.
Right now I'm stuck in third and last year, with a dozen failed exams on subjects that god knows who placed them in the curriculum. I wanted to drop out in the first year, after seeing the horrors for myself, but there was nothing I could do about it.
Sucks so hard seeing all those years passing by and barely even learning anything from what I was eager to learn.
I was at a state school paying a reasonable tuition to learn from a quality computer science program. I regret it because although I have written all sorts of frontend code, Ruby, Python, PHP, Java, managed servers, I have still not "finished" learning what a CompSci student learns. I couldn't write my own compiler, I can't tell you which sorting method is fastest for certain data sets, etc. I have learned solely by what is needed at the time, and have created value for businesses I've worked for, but I often just don't have the additional motivation to learn things I don't immediately need. I have SICP sitting on my bookshelf, unfinished.
Anyways, basically finishing CompSci would have forced me to learn some of the theories/necessary base things that I may be missing now.
I dropped out of high school in 2000. I'm 31 now. I built a hosting company from scratch (hosted Gatorade, almost all of Pepsico, Arthur Anderson), sold it, was a Director at a consulting company at 23-24, worked on data taking for the CMS detector at the large hadron collider, and now am a VP of IT Operations.
I'm not sad at all I missed out on everything a CompSci student learns. If I want to learn it, a problem presents itself, and I learn it.
If you want to learn the things you mentioned, learn them! Our industry allows us immense time leverage. Work 10-20 hours a week at a high dollar amount, and spend the rest of your time learning that which you're not going to learn on the job.
Don't worry about that. The stuff you've learned are more useful than what you have to finish at school.
You can learn what you need to learn and cherry pick them. There are some interesting courses during the program, but that really depends on the teacher, your class mates, etc etc. What you learn by yourself is more important than what you have been thought. IMHO.
Pick up Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming series along with Concrete Mathematics. I'm going through them myself right now (slowly, though) and the knowledge I've gained from those books is offsetting never having learned the fundamentals pretty well.
Make a game that teaches SICP (cue leet bbcode masters with "have you read your sicp?" Snakes) - you learn the book by gamifying it; other people learn the book by playing the game.
Every time these kinds of questions come up people ask "Is it worth it?". I cannot answer for anyone other than myself, but I see it as years I can spend exploring different fun and interesting things.
For example I've had courses in artificial intelligence, compiler construction, statistics, number theory, algorithms and graph theory. Most of the things I've studied during my time at the university I would probably never had met if I did not attend university. Sure there is Coursera and all information is already out there, for free, but I'm absolutely sure I would never spend the effort and energy if it all was by myself.
Studying is very much what you make it. One of the biggest advantages is actually to have five years where I can just do things on my free time, without any real obligations other than passing a few courses. I can read courses on coursera, I can read a lot and I've started Taekwon-do which is awesome. And I can play games and do a bunch of other stuff and it's all okay.
Additionally, it's not like 5 years is a long time anyways. Many are rushing out to work and to get the money rolling, but maybe I'm different. I don't really think money is the one thing to strive for - as long as I have enough to live and do things I like - why need more? I will realistically work 40+ years of my life anyway, I feel no need to rush.
Studying is absolutely not for everyone, but often here on hacker news I feel the benefits are being shrugged of a bit too lightly. And I haven't even mentioned the probable benefits an actual degree might have in your career.
You should have an option for "College Graduate (Associate Degree)" as well.
Of course, this whole thing is kind of silly anyway. Who's to say that one's "level of education" corresponds to what degree they earned (or not). I've graduated college three times (3 associate degrees), have about 3/4's of the work towards a B.S. degree done, and have taught myself all sorts of shit totally unrelated to my college programs, over the intervening years.
It would be both accurate and wildly inaccurate to say that my "level of education" corresponds to:
1. college dropout
2. college graduate (associate degree)
3. college graduate (bachelors degree)
4. other
Then again, I'm probably the walking, talking definition of "edge case" so probably best to just ignore me. :o)
For a while, I was the same. I got an Associate degree and started working. Though I eventually went back to school (online) and finished the Bachelor degree.
I have a bachelors degree in Motion Graphic Design. I dropped out of studying Computer Science at a university after the first year.
I am a lifelong programmer, since I was 8 years old. My high school had an amazing 4 year computer science program that totally spoiled me. When I got to a university it was so slow, and everything seemed outdated. Having to relearn all of it in an inferior way was excruciating.
I dropped out, worked for a few years in an unrelated field, and then decided to go back and study Motion Graphic Design, since I had a passion for it, and it seemed like something I could actually learn new information about.
I love what I do now. I work as a programmer, for the most part, at a design studio. I get a taste of the design and film production that I'm so passionate about, while also getting to program.
Even though I love what I do, not a day goes by that I don't regret quitting my CS education. If for nothing else just so that companies that are obsessed with credentials, like Google, would consider me.
I’m currently studying CS. Initially, I thought I wouldn’t be able to intellectually grasp it, but it turned out I could make it through it with a lot of effort (and Wolfram Alpha, Kahn Academy, Wikipedia …). I don’t think I’ll be capable of doing actual computer science research, but I could imagine working as a programmer one day. It’s really enjoyable filling in all these "conceptual holes" that remained after years of informal education as a teenager. Maybe I haven’t got deep enough into programming before college to develop that feeling of university being a waste of time that some seem to share in these comments.
I have a Bachelors in CS but just cannot imagine doing anything more in terms of formal education. MS/MBA/PhDs are not my thing. Nothing wrong with them but just not for me.
My computer science teachers were like... well, the best one bragged about how he stopped studying and updating his knowledge at the time of punched cards.
1995-1999: BA history & religious studies
2008-2013: MEng integrated manufacturing systems (basically a mix between industrial & systems)
I went back after ten years because, when the economy tanked, I wanted a piece of paper to validate my work experience. I learned an awful lot in my course of studies and it's directly applicable to my day job (directing IT for a high tech manufacturing company).
Only commenting because I have a weird combo of votes. Left school at 16 (the then-legal end of "high school" in the UK). Last year, back to education for the first time, starting an MSc, aged 32 (industry experience related to the subject being my way in). So high school "dropout" and pursuing post-grad(!)
Dropped out of school with lowest degree possible (due to so many missing hours or better say days). With my education background I would only get a job as a garbageman. I don't regret it.
The garbageman is the smartest person in the Dilbert comics ... and I've learned the lesson those strips are promoting. Performance in school can not be directly correlated to performance in the workplace.
I have a Bachelors and Masters in Music Performance (classical guitar). Did one year of a doctoral program too before I figured out I liked building things more.
Depends on the country, but those are moving towards being structured as masters degrees by the end. Many U.S. universities now have the 5-year engineering option structured as a "5th-year masters" add-on year, on top of a 4-year engineering degree. And the Bologna Process in the EU requires that the old 5-year degrees (Diplom and similar) be split into BS/MS as a 3/2 split.
