I barely graduated college, and that's okay

http://www.vikparuchuri.com/blog/i-barely-graduated-college/

by vikp • 11 years ago

95 60 11 years ago

vikparuchuri.com

jes5199• 11 years ago

life advice from people under thirty

iamcurious• 11 years ago

Does that make it more or less relevant?

Iftheshoefits• 11 years ago

It depends on the context but generally less meaningful and sometimes less relevant. One hasn't really had time to fully absorb certain "life lessons" until they've had the benefit of years and therefore other additional experiences to provide more contextually relevant information. Consequently advice derived from such immaturity isn't necessarily as meaningful or relevant.

I think the parent's glibness is a bit much, though.

Lawtonfogle• 11 years ago

Depends upon what it is about. For example, listening to 30 year olds about college is probably more relevant than listening to 50 year olds, because things changed in that 20 years between when they went to college and many of the lessons and struggles are fresher in the minds of the 30 year olds. On the other hand, I'd give more weight to marriage advice from a 50 year old who has been married for 25 years compared to a 30 year old married for 5.

lectrick2• 11 years ago

I'll put it this way- My first job out of college was one of the few that DID NOT want my GPA, and I ended up doing awesome, I'm fairly successful now.

ing33k• 11 years ago

is it related to programming ?

lectrick2• 11 years ago

Absolutely. Startup developer :) I am (mostly) self-taught.

Dewie4• 11 years ago

tl;dr: all is well that ends well.

It seems we only hear from those who did poorly in school that also bounced back and became successful later. I guess those that didn't don't have much incentive to telegraph their presence and their achievements (or rather lack thereof).

vikp6• 11 years ago

I debated whether or not to write this because, as I mentioned, I have a large degree of impostor syndrome because of my experiences. It's hard to define what "successful" is.

The process of "bouncing back" is also a process of slowly gaining confidence. I'm not sure I would have been able to write this a year or two ago. It's unfortunate that both sides of the issue aren't explored, but that may be due to the confidence problem.

Dewie4• 11 years ago

I debated whether or not to write this because, as I mentioned, I have a large degree of impostor syndrome because of my experiences.

I don't know if you need to feel like an imposter considering you sound like a typical programmer type.

Just keep flaunting your stuff. It's the modern hacker way.

brd3• 11 years ago

Is there any real take away here? Effectively it is "I floated through life and got a few lucky breaks which led me into a relatively comfortable career that I enjoy". I'm hard pressed to find something unique or interesting about this long autobiographical read.

My story started out in a similar fashion:

I did terrible in HS, slept through most classes, aced most tests, and did no homework. I finished with a 2.7 GPA. I decided early on it was okay for me to go to community college because from there I could save money and still transfer to a good school.

I deviated from the norm when I then focused on my career while going to school, working for a consulting company at 18, then landing a job as an IT security admin. I transferred to a state school because it was easy and cheap and I had realized work experiences was far superior to college credentials.

I have since then had a mostly enjoyable and relatively lucrative career as a programmer. The key take away from my story? Complete school because the piece of paper is important but focus on work early if you want to stand out and get ahead of the crowd.

blakeja2• 11 years ago

You don't need a special degree or even college at all to be a successful coder, as long as you have a passion for it. At least that is what I walked away with.

brd3• 11 years ago

That take away oozes with survivor bias. Being a successful coder because you have passion for it still requires a lucky break somewhere along the way to discover that passion and/or have someone else recognize that passion.

In my opinion, if a story distills down to a lucky moment, you should probably refrain from taking too much away from it.

vikp6• 11 years ago

I think the key takeaways that I take from it are (of course, I wrote it, so ymmv):

If the system doesn't work for you, it doesn't mean you're not capable.

Follow your passions, not external dictates.

Try to get as many different perspectives on life as you can.

Coding is making credentialing and "proving" you can do something much easier.

As for luck, I have a bad habit of framing things as lucky, and to some extent they are, but there was also hard work behind them.

You have an interesting story, thanks for sharing it.

brd3• 11 years ago

I'm not knocking on your achievements, my point is more as a warning to many of the younger more impressionable readers of HN. They may read into this as an alternate path when in reality it will likely lead many astray.

Following passion is great, it's not great career advice.

P.S. I'm glad that you're comfortable enough in your career to share these insecurities. It sounds like that is a big milestone for you. Congrats on that.

wsxcde• 11 years ago

Let me offer some (hopefully constructive) counterpoints:

If the system doesn't work for you, it doesn't mean you're not capable.

Sure, but working with the system is a useful capability. Don't be lazy and dismiss it as worthless just because you can't (or don't want to) figure it out. I've made this mistake and regretted it.

Follow your passions, not external dictates.

Following your passions is great, but doesn't always work out. Life is often about finding a balance between something you really like doing and something that society values enough to pay you for doing it.

Try to get as many different perspectives on life as you can.

Yes, of course, but the challenge is weighing these perspectives appropriately. Everybody's perspective is right from some particular viewpoint, the trouble is figuring out what that viewpoint is, whether it applies to you.

Coding is making credentialing and "proving" you can do something much easier.

Completely agree.

As for luck, I have a bad habit of framing things as lucky, and to some extent they are, but there was also hard work behind them.

Sure, you always need some hard work and talent to succeed but it's often not sufficient, and luck is sometimes the necessary component that makes the difference.

ed: One last meta point that occurred to me was that you became successful when you took charge of your career. When you were just doing what others told you, you seemed both unhappy and underperforming. The lesson I would take is that we all need to take responsibility for our happiness and success. Sometimes this means introspecting and figuring out what we ought to be doing and not just drifting around listening to what we're told by society, our peers or parents.

searine• 11 years ago

"I floated through life and got a few lucky breaks which led me into a relatively comfortable career that I enjoy".

Show HN: I Am A Dull And Replaceable Administrative Cog In A Bureacratic Machine

nsxwolf3• 11 years ago

What do you do that's so great?

ffumarola• 11 years ago

Disclaimer: I know Vik very well.

It's always interesting how different people can read the same words and perceive them very differently! I thought Vik's post was incredibly raw and useful, especially for people who feel a bit disenfranchised by the way our education system works.

I have two thoughts about Vik's "floating through life and getting a few lucky breaks" (as you read it):

1) Vik is incredibly determined and took major risks to get where he is, luck and floating aside (those are subjective so I won't argue them).

2) I felt that his story served more as a narrative of how challenging it can be to find what you love when you don't have mentors or an education system that adapts to the different ways that people learn.

My big takeaway was that our education system lets a lot of people slip through the cracks and that many people are happy to just let it happen. There is a huge need for better credentialing in various fields and more dynamic education methods. Both Vik and I share alternate paths into technology, so I understand what he means.

puranjay• 11 years ago

I found it very useful. I'm going through something similar - I know I'm smart, but I made some bad career choices.

I'm now largely starting from scratch and seeing folks like Vik do it is encouraging.

rayiner• 11 years ago

I think one unstated takeaway in the article is that you shouldn't rush into school. School is important, and there are a lot of paths that you close for yourself if you don't do well in college. It's not as big of a deal if your calling is software development, but if you want to be a scientist, professor, doctor, lawyer, banker, venture capitalist, etc, you're going to have to do well in school. And if you graduate high school with a 2.7 and don't know what you want to major in, you should put off going to college until you know where you want to go and how college will help you get there.

ForHackernews• 11 years ago

I thought it was nice that he at least acknowledged his lucky breaks, and admitted that it could easily have gone very differently. Many times on HN (and elsewhere) we see people pontificating about how hard they worked to succeed and stridently denying that accidents of birth and circumstance played any role.

superobserver• 11 years ago

"I floated through life and got a few lucky breaks which led me into a relatively comfortable career that I enjoy"

To be honest, I think this is a pretty fair assessment, even as he himself admits in the post: "...it’s amazing how a life can hinge on seemingly simple moments."

Despite the lucky breaks, yes, many of us are incredibly intelligent, capable individuals who nevertheless don't "fit in". Many in the tech world can probably relate to that. Myself included.

It would be nice to get a lucky break to be sure. I suppose one way of looking at one's situation is: "it could be worse". Here's to that comfortable career doing what I would really like to do...

blakeja2• 11 years ago

Thank you for posting this.

dgomez10922• 11 years ago

I enjoyed reading your story, as for brd below, diregard him. You published your own words and he shouldn't be criticizing and generalizing your journey to date> Thanks for sharing.

dgomez10922• 11 years ago

I enjoyed reading your story, thanks for sharing. As for brd's comment just disregard it. His generalization just means he's unwilling to get a deeper understanding of where you are coming from. Thanks again.

advicepleasehn2• 11 years ago

I need advice. Excuse me for how disorganized this all is, I'm just typing. I'd like you guys to give it to me straight, tell me if I'm being a spoiled brat who needs to grow up, or tell me if I should follow what seems right to me. I've made a throw away because I don't want this tied to my name, and my main account is my full name.

I'm not doing well in college. I just came from a midterm that I almost certainly failed. I've not done well in any of my classes besides a bullshit social science course that anyone can do well in. In my real courses, statistics, calculus, and a theory CS course, I'm failing desperately. I don't go to class anymore.

I can recognize that it's entirely my maturity and work ethic that is the problem here. When I do find myself going to class, I comprehend fully. I don't find it hard to catch up, even. When I leave class, I don't do homework and I don't study.

This is the first time I'm admitting it to myself, but I don't believe I can succeed in this system. I don't know if I'm lying to myself when I say I love learning, or if I'm just much more subpar than I'm willing to recognize.

It's not that I'm an unmotivated individual, it's just that I've always been a self-learner. I hate this whole system of, go to a class for 50 minutes and study a subject, spend an hour later in the day doing some homework in the same subject, and maybe do this every other day. When I learn, I'm much better at spending 10 hours really consuming the material, flying through chapters, and then doing that for 5-6 days in a row. Formal education doesn't cater to me in this regard.

I love to program. The few hours in the day that I'm happy are when I'm reading mailing lists and and working on personal projects. I truly believe that if I was to drop out, I wouldn't waste my time doing anything else. I'd be able to really embrace the style of learning that works best for me.

I think that a few years from now I would find myself more prepared for the real world than most of my friends, although, I think they would similarly find that they have an easier time finding work than I. But that doesn't worry me a ton.

I've watched my father be an EE for his whole life, programming and managing for a boring company that makes controllers. I don't want to enter that ecosystem _at all_. I have watched him hate his life in exchange for a paycheck, and I'd like to opt out from that system entirely. What best fits that? The market for full stack engineers / web developers / app developers. And alternatively, the start up scene.

I wonder if the reason I'm involved with coding at all is because it caters so much to my preferred style of learning. Maybe that's why I latched onto it so hard in late middle school.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Let me know what you guys think I should do, or if there are any questions you think I should pose to myself to really figure this out.

justathrow2k• 11 years ago

I think if you're going to school and refusing to put forth the work to succeed ( do homework and study, for instance ) perhaps you should stop, it doesn't seem like its a good fit for you. Either that or step up your game so you're not wasting time and money. There's a lot that one can learn during their time at University, there's also a lot of time one can waste.

littletimmy• 11 years ago

I would suggest that you grit through and try to graduate as quickly and painlessly as possible. If you need to, take easy courses and use the extra time to do the self-learning that you actually enjoy.

When you graduate, then you can take up a job which encourages self-learning. However, if you don't like the concept of structured work altogether then doing a job might also be hard. In that case, there really isn't any solution. Maybe join a kibbutz.

bradleyjg2• 11 years ago

If you are near completing college (e.g. this is your sixth semester) I'd tough it out. Even if that means switching majors to one of those "bullshit social sciences". The piece of paper still matters, true most of all in the corporate world, but not just there. You are far better off having a line on your resume that lists a college and omits a GPA than having no education on your resume at all. If you're almost at the finish line there's no point in walking away now.

On the other hand, if this is near the beginning of your college career, maybe it is a good idea to take some time off. It doesn't cost you anything to get a leave of absence versus just quitting. It doesn't obligate you to go back, but it leaves the door open. Use the time to find out if you are bullshitting yourself about willing to do some real learning so long as its on your terms. Find out what the job market is like. Figure out what it means to be responsible for your own schedule, with your ability to live (or at least live decently) on the line instead of just a bad grade. You'll either go back to school more motivated or you'll find that you are thriving without a college degree. In the latter case, if you ultimately do find you need the paper, there are increasing opportunities to do so for working adults (though life can make that really tough if e.g. you have kids).

For what it is worth, I took a semester off after doing really poorly and worked as a programmer during the first dotcom bubble, then returned to finish my degree. Best of luck.

sliverstorm4• 11 years ago

If you're almost at the finish line there's no point in walking away now.

Even if you consider the sunk costs! I mean, suppose you are to graduate this summer. Write off the sunk costs (everything before now) and look forward; for the price of three months, you can get a college degree. That's a pretty hard offer to turn down.

vikp6• 11 years ago

Wow, thanks for sharing. I know how tough of a position to be in this is -- you sound a lot like I was in school.

First, dropping out is a serious thing, and I wouldn't take any random internet advice at face value on it. Do you have family/friends/etc you could talk to? School guidance department? Does your college let you take a year off? I'm happy to chat more about it if you want, but you will get better advice from others on this. It also sounds like you may be taking the wrong classes -- maybe explore and see if others are more interesting?

As for programming, it's awesome that it's a passion for you. It may not seem like it right now, but there are lots of low-risk ways to see if that passion is real, and get more into the scene. Going to hackathons is a great first step. You get to meet other coders, potentially interact with some companies, and build something.

It sounds like you might have a portfolio already of projects. Why not talk to some local companies that are looking for interns? Does anyone visit your campus? If you already have some projects, those will be a lot more relevant than your GPA. An internship would give you all summer to explore your interest, and see where it takes you. Some colleges have intern match programs.

If you have a good portfolio, you could also try to take on some consulting work. Depending on what languages you know, this can be pretty easy, and would give you a nice way to gain some skills. Go to local tech meetups. Join your campus programming club. There's always people there who can connect you to companies.

As you start to meet more people and network, I think you'll naturally start to answer some of the questions you're having.

I'm happy to chat more. Feel free to email me if you want.

sliverstorm4• 11 years ago

It's not that I'm an unmotivated individual, it's just that I've always been a self-learner.

Maybe this is where you are fooling yourself. College was originally designed for self-learners. The most successful engineers I've seen are the ones who are busy learning on their own, plus going to classes "on the side" to supplement their own exploration with a bit of formal rigor. You are standing in the middle of a bounty of resources for learning- forget about classes, why aren't you seizing that opportunity to learn on your own from the wealth of brilliant people & resources?

If you were falling behind and missing classes because you were so busy learning something just as good, that's one thing. But if you are falling behind and missing classes and not really doing much learning on your own either, to say "I'm a motivated learner who the school just doesn't cater to" is misleading yourself. If you are a motivated learner, you would be out there learning, as there is no better place to learn regardless the class structure.

Does that mean you are a talentless hack? No. Looking at my own history, what it means is you are lying to yourself (which is the worst kind of lie) because you don't want to put in the hard work. Once you can see through that self-deception, you can get back on track.

advicepleasehn2• 11 years ago

This is exactly what I need to hear.

Thank you.

bglazer• 11 years ago

You sound very similar to myself. Here's what happened to me:

I coasted through highschool and tried to do the same through college. It didn't work. My GPA tanked, which discouraged me, and my GPA tanked some more. I finally experienced a complete meltdown with a semester and a half left in my undergraduate career. Failed my midterms miserably, didn't complete my capstone project, and was stressed to the point of throwing up in my trashcan. Not good. Further, I had a job offer on the table that was contingent on me finishing my degree.

I called my parents first. They kept me from driving my car into a tree. After I calmed down a bit, I called the university and the company and explained that I was having mental health issues. I dropped out of university for the rest of the semester and the company deferred my job offer. I went back to live at home, got some counseling and figured out the fastest way for me to graduate.

I graduated and took the job. My life has improved so, so much since I've left school. I kept studying and learning and now I'm working on moving onto a data science team.

I have found that a stable, predictable environment is ideal for me. I figured out that I packed up all my shit and moved from one city to another about 12 times in college. That wasn't good for me.

I have also found that I absolutely must have alone time and plenty of sleep. I never ever gave myself time to think in college. There was always someone knocking on my door or wanting to go out until 3 in the morning.

The long and short of this is that the multitude of distractions and bullshit in college made me forget that I actually enjoy programming. I love figuring out difficult technical problems. I imagine you do too.

My advice is to take time off. You can take leaves of absence! Forget about college for a while and come back with a fresh perspective. It's the best thing I've ever done.

What do you enjoy about programming. Why aren't you getting that from school?

Also, stop smoking weed if you are now!

cm2012• 11 years ago

For myself - while in college for statistics, I focused much more on my side jobs (in business and marketing) than college. I stopped going about a year and a half ago with a semester left, simply because the job opportunities got so good (opportunity/sanity cost of going to school was outweighed by fulfillment/high salary/career track of working more).

Eventually, I suppose I'll take night classes and finish college. But its quite low on my priority list. My work experience during college was by far more valuable to my career than the actual college education (which I thought was great, too).

trevdarc• 11 years ago

One thing I'm told has changed about the U.S. educational system over the last 20 years is that the amount of individual mentorship that students receive has strongly declined.

When I transitioned into graduate school, one big surprise was that school actually became easier in several senses: - I had a clear role model (mentor) - I had several good sounding boards for ideas (professors had more time for me than for undergrads, and graduate students were also closer friends) - More frequent communication with professors translated to better grades (if they're aware of your thought processes, they can more clearly understand how to interpret your work).

As a result, I felt much more involved in the work I was doing. That feeling of involvement made me more invested (and more confident) in my work.

I know that some colleges are working on programs to supplement mentorship and structure, and are finding great success. For example, in the ASAP program (http://www1.cuny.edu/sites/asap/), the graduation rate is more than three times the national three-year graduation rate of 16% for urban community colleges. It would be interesting to see whether life outcomes ("success") are any different for people who go through this program.

blackbagboys3• 11 years ago

I'm a little curious as to how he managed to kind of waft into the Foreign Service so easily. I have much stronger academic credentials, foreign language skills, and relevant work experience, and I spent years and years trying to get in to no avail, despite aceing the required tests each time.

I suppose its just down to fate, and I'm glad he found something he loved doing, but man, it's disheartening to read about someone casually walking into your dream job and just as casually walking away.

yarou2• 11 years ago

Gee, I wonder why...and you seem so worldly too.

sliverstorm4• 11 years ago

I don't understand. Are you taking a dig at your parent? Why? It's perfectly fair to be befuddled when someone who appears to be much less qualified than you gets the job you want.

vikp6• 11 years ago

I didn't see this post pre-edit, so I'll assume that it wasn't too bad. If you were suggesting some kind of affirmative action (as someone hinted), then that really wasn't the case.

The reason I applied to the Foreign Service is because it is a meritocracy. It all came down to how you did on the test, and later the interviews/case studies.

It's unfortunate that it's your dream job and you didn't get it, and I sympathize, but the Foreign Service admission process is one of the most transparent ones I've seen. The first step is passing a test, and anyone above a certain threshold moves to the next step. There are more tests, and anyone above those thresholds gets on the list to be accepted.

blackbagboys3• 11 years ago

This is actually not the case; you take the first-round test, and then if if you pass you submit a resume into a black box (the 'Qualifications Evaluations Panel') which evaluates your qualifications 'holistically' and then you are invited to the interview round. It's quite possible to achieve the highest possible marks on the test and never be invited to the final round, as I can attest.

Perhaps the system was different when you applied in 2008.

beachstartup• 11 years ago

this makes me laugh - don't worry. nobody in the US gives free handouts to asian/indian males. trust me on this one.

blackbagboys3• 11 years ago

I'm sure. It was an extremely uncharitable comment brought on by a moment of frustration.

Phlow• 11 years ago

My story is similar to this. I, too, did poorly in school. There were so many things working against me. I was constantly too tired in the mornings for my brain to function, so I missed important concepts. Or, the pace of learning was too slow, and my brain wanted to run with it. Or, the content was missing important piece of information that help my brain connect the dots. My brain doesn't assimilate information well when it's forced to take it for fact without answering supporting questions.

The school system is not made for people like me, and we as a society are absolutely terrible at guiding people into careers they would excel at. I'm lucky that I guided myself to software development. Many others are not so lucky.

One day, we'll figure out how to guide people to where they can excel, and when that happens we'll be much better off as a society (post-scarcity, Star Trek future).

anthonymartinez• 11 years ago

neat story, but i'm more fascinated on how he got into the foreign service- something that is arguably more difficult to get into then med school.

yardie• 11 years ago

Hi Vik, you seem like a younger version of me. I worked QC testing in an electronics factory between semesters. I graduated with a 2.1 GPA in the middle of the recession. I took whatever job I could find. Work didn't pay much but they did send me travelling.

In 2005 I applied to the foreign service as well. Instead of going to the second interview I bought a last minute ticket and flew to Europe. After traveling throughout Europe I based myself in France where I've been pretty successful.

The point being is all I had was my hard work and moxy to help me get by. All those rejection letters (sometimes not even that) had only emboldened me to prove my capabilities. I wasn't going to let my GPA be my only defining value.

vikp6• 11 years ago

Thanks for sharing! Interesting how we went through a lot of similar steps. I'm glad things worked out well.

nsxwolf3• 11 years ago

I also experienced a letter of anti-recommendation from a school administrator once, which by total chance my mother intercepted and prevented from being sent (and gave the woman quite an earful). Reading that detail makes me wonder if this is actually a common practice.

Stunning to me that someone would think to do that to a kid.

enraged_camel• 11 years ago

I'm not a lawyer, but it sounds risky from a legal perspective. People can sue companies for giving them a bad reference, so can they not also sue schools for these "letters of anti-recommendation"?

bradleyjg2• 11 years ago

The sophisticated version is to damn with faint praise. I imagine it is far more common.

lookingup• 11 years ago

He did graduate, though. That little sheepskin may seem only like a small thing, but the difference between having it and not having it should not be underestimated. He also had parental support, which, until you live without it - in the US, it's many people's "safety net of first resort" - you just cannot imagine the benefits it gives you. You can fail in all sorts of ways and still come back - you have a place to lay your head when it comes down to it, and that counts for a lot. The difference between that and thinking "hm, homelessness actually possible!" is so stark it's hard to overstate. The poster "floated by" and is doing great; I can share some experiences on what it's like on the opposite end of the spectrum.

I didn't go to college because I had to leave home early (was told I had to be out at 16, was out by 17) to support myself, and received no parental support when I left. I did, however, manage to work myself from a tech support hamster at 17 to sysadmin, then junior developer, then finally senior developer. I never lacked for work, and have made OK, but not amazing money. That all sounds great, but it comes with serious costs, especially if you're just "decent" or "pretty good." Here are my experiences:

- You're probably going to have to work 2-3x as hard as an equivalently skilled person to prove that you deserve to be there.

- You may have to deal with much lower raises, or deal with simply being passed up for them altogether. This one can be more subtle, so can be hard to prove. So, you may be picked for the challenging work, asked to lead teams, told you're the best on the team by the boss(es), and receive the company awards, but when it comes to raise time, you wonder why you just went from 80 to 85k, and the people below you in rank went from 80 to 110 (and aren't happy with that and leave anyway. Heh.) This one sucks the most, because it's the one you have the least control over, and will ultimately impact the number of choices available to you later on.

- You may experience another subtle thing. This: "we know you're good, but you don't have a degree, so we believe you're less likely to leave because the hoops for you to change jobs is higher, so we can ask you for more than your degreed peers - and we're probably right about it." You will be the person on-call more often (if that applies to you - sysadmin/devops), you will be "expected" to stay later, and just generally push harder to prove yourself.

- You're going to spend a LOT of your free time teaching yourself knew things, honing your skills, and brushing up on the theory you never learned in a setting that allowed you to immerse. Now, maybe you have superior learning capabilities and can just sponge this stuff up in just a couple of your after-work learning sessions, but I don't think it's a stretch to say that for those of us who aren't, we spend a lot of time making them stick over the years. Now, we know that everyone needs to do this stuff these days, and that it's becoming more necessary every day. No question about it. However, you will have to do it even more to make sure you're at the top of your game. You may have annoying gaps in your knowledge, and will have to go back (in some cases, WAY back) to fill that stuff in. (Now that there's Khan/Udacity/MIT OCW/others, this is actually a LOT easier to do.) If you're only decent/pretty good, you're going to have run significantly faster to stay in place. Forget most of your social life. Again, this does not apply to you if you happen to just be an superhumanly fast learner, but for the decent/pretty good, it probably does.

- Culturally, your degreed peers may have some trouble adjusting to you. Of course this happens at every level (people who went to state school treated differently than those who went to a top university, for example), but you'll be the strangest of the bunch. People may wonder if you know anything at all(!), not just about your field (which is easy enough to prove), but about the world around you: politics, economics, sociology, literature, the lot of it. Sometimes you may be looked at as a strange feral orphan child. They just may not even have a baseline for what to expect from you. The software world(s) may be more meritocratic and/or egalitarian, but it's not utopia. Now, this sounds /all/ bad, but I actually have always liked this one; if you are a dedicated self-learner, you can blow people away pretty easily. They expect you to not be able to tie your shoes, but then you rattle off your knowledge X, Y, and Z and show them your elegant, well-structured code and they are agape. This one is fun!

- Remember that the degree acts as a proxy. It's a way for organizations to outsource not only judgment about your knowledge, but your socio-economic background (in most cases), your "level of socialization", your ability to "follow-through" (and your personal story about how you had to leave home early and support yourself alone and spend all your free time learning unfortunately will not count in many/most places. Sorry!), and how "convincing" you are. You may not be listened to (even if you turn out to be right, at least for a time), your opinions may be given less weight, people may feel more comfortable cutting you off when you're talking, etc. This one can be surmounted: if you are right enough times when others are wrong you may start be taken very seriously. Still, the bar is higher for you. Much higher. This one is probably obvious, but is worth stating.

- You may have to content yourself with smaller and/or less-respected organizations. I know, I know meritocracy, etc. If you're amazing, you can most certainly get into Google and friends, but again, if you're only decent/pretty good, you /probably/ won't. For those of you who have ever wondered "who works /would want to work at crappy place X?", it's not just CS grads who couldn't hack it at Google or the 'printer guy' who got promoted to LOB programming. Sometimes it's smart, pretty good devs who are either just short of what's needed for the bigger players or are incredibly intimidated by the interview processes/hiring filters. It's funny to think that these places are (based on comments I've read here on HN) inundated with resumes from people who are nowhere even close to qualified, but people who are qualified, or at least could be with some knowledge gaps filled in/"senior-level" mentoring don't even apply in the first place. Doesn't surprise me that something like Starfighters now exists to (maybe?) try to reach these people and mop them up. I would also say that you can be very valued at startups. You may be one of those great "get things off the ground" people, like many self-starters, and if you are, your metaphorical phone will ring a lot. I wouldn't say it evens things out, but it sure helps (and feels good to be real a go-to person!)

- Unless you really are one of the best, expect to always be questioned. You probably will need to psych yourself up a lot, because it's very easy to get disheartened and discouraged when you feel like you're never quite good enough/people are always going to assume there's "a lot he/she probably just doesn't know if we're honest" (even if you have been working for decades and proven yourself with real work)/you don't ever quite fit in culturally because you've never had the "college experience." You need to be tougher (psychologically) than your degreed peers, because you will have to work much harder to earn respect.

So this person floated, others swim upstream to get to where he is. It can be done for people without degrees, but it actually is hard. You really can't imagine what that little piece of paper - even if you just "barely" earned it - can do you for you. It's not just about getting hired.

"I’m already starting to see some really smart high schoolers skip college to get into the workforce because they know what they want, and good for them."

If these "smart high schoolers" have the ability to have someone else pay for their education, I recommend that they go to school. If they have Zuckerberg-parent level of support or are already mindblowingly skilled/knowledgeable, OK, sure, don't bother. They're probably going to succeed no matter what. If they are on the margin, though - parents wealthy enough to send them to a real university, but not wealthy enough to Zuck them, tell them to go instead. Or at least work for a couple of years, then go back. If someone gave me a few hundred thousand to go to a great university, I'd still go in a heartbeat. You cannot replace the quality of networks you'll get there. You cannot replace the immersion. You cannot replace the prestige. You just can't. The magic of university is being surrounded by "brilliant, ambitious, well-connected elites." I'm probably right in the sweet spot of the target of today's alternative education: I couldn't go to college, I'm a regular user of MOOCs, I do self-directed learning, I'm a devourer of books, I'm someone who does coding challenges, I'm fairly smart, AND I've managed some level of success, which proves it's possible, and yet I would still tell these people to go to college.

onhopwood• 11 years ago

I personally loved this article because it lets others in the same situation know some risks that other people took to reach their ideal career.

I remember graduating college with a 2.9 but that's after being put on academic probation twice because i was burning the candle at both ends. Meaning i was working two jobs to pay for school, but was so tired I didn't do well in school. Not until 2+ years in the military did I start prioritizing what needed to be done. My GPA still wasn't high enough to show my worth, but i was happy with what i accomplished and knew what I can do. This was only a year ago, so I'm still not near my dream career, but my GPA won't stop me. Just one thing checked off on my checklist

I realize after graduating that I only wanted to finish school at the time because of society told me i couldn't have a career unless I did. So instead of going to school for education and learning i just went through the motions.

The basic thing i got from this article was just his willing to share what he went through. It might empower others to purse what they love or not, but one can't be scared to take a risk because you are scared of failure or consider yourself unworthy.

I barely graduated college, and that's okay

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