5 ms·

University is a scam. I feel so bitter. I just graduated 1 month ago. I could have continued with my masters by I am done. I hated every second of being in uni

by 1971genocide 11y ago

University is a scam. I feel so bitter. I just graduated 1 month ago. I could have continued with my masters by I am done. I hated every second of being in university. Not because of any other reason but because of how bleak my financial prospect was. I consider myself lucky that my parents bankrolled me - but looking at the aggregate amount I spent on it - 60,000 pounds. I paid 60,000 pounds literally to read a bunch of books and write some code that could run on a computer from the 1980s, which I could have done on my own from my parent's basement. Every-time a lecturer gave a low-effort lecture I felt like punching them in the face, I could feel the the negative acceleration of my net worth everyday I woke up from sleep. How was I to recover it ? Is it even possible ? Meanwhile there is so much opportunities, so much data to explore, so much work to done. Its a crime that so many young minds are made to waste their time on meaningless stuff while they would start with small apprenticeship and allowed to grow.

JustSomeNobody 11y ago
1) I don't think you'll get too many bites after talking about hitting people. 2) If you hated it so much, why in the world would you allow your parents to bankroll it? That seems so disrespectful to me.
- 1971genocide 11y ago
  Its a thought - I am sure many other students who were taking actual loans would have much more terrible thoughts. Yes, I realize it was a mistake. When I was 18 I was fed the same garbage about going to university as everyone else and took it without much reasoning - It was my fault, I was an idiot. There are many other people who are in much more worse situation then I am, A lot of my friends are in much more stressful situation then me. Yes its disrespectful to my parents and that is why I quit. I felt terribly guilty since it was after all not my hard earned money but my parent's. They also brought into the whole university scam as a road to middle class life. I have never felt more relieved. Now I can go do some real studying in a much more relaxed fashion.
  - droithomme 11y ago
    Don't listen to that guy.
- aianus 11y ago
  2) Can't speak for OP but for a lot of parents (mine included) having a college-educated son is a status symbol (like a nice car or house). If it'll make them happy to piss their money away towards my tuition, why should I refuse?
ChuckMcM 11y ago
It is always sad when I read this sort of screed. I can assure you that Universities are not a 'scam' in the general sense (and yes there are actual scams by some of them but it doesn't sound like Bristol is such a university). There are three things a University/College education provides you - 1) Is a rapid exposure to many of the typical problems, techniques, and understanding of a particular major subject. Generally this is about 3x the rate you could get exposed to that in a work for hire situation. So for each year of college you end up exposed to the variety of problems it would have taken 3 years of on the job experience to get to. 2) The people who go to college constitute the majority of leaders in the community. It takes a while to realize this but as a young adult there are "the leaders" and "the followers", and the young adult is generally in the follower group. But over time folks move into the leader group and, by and large, those are the people you went to school with. So you are more naturally considered a part of that group. 3) A personal sense of what you can do, for many folks they reach a point where the requirements on them exceed their natural ability to "wing it"[1], and depending on how "smart" they were in high school this can come as a rude awakening. But once past it, people are much more mature about their skills and how to work at things. My experience has been that people who haven't gone to college rarely allow themselves to be pushed pass this wall as the other side is quite reasonably scary. Without the immovable force of 'you must do this or you will not graduate' the temptation to run away can be more powerful. Without that fundamental understanding of your abilities, and how to get more done than you think you can, often limits how successful you can be. [1] Take things as they come and complete them without preparation.
- 1971genocide 11y ago
  I beg to differ. What is the expected salary of a MIT engineer ? Last time I checked it was 72,000 dollars per year. What is the typical tuition in MIT ? I do not remember the exact number but it would take a while before students are able to pay back the amount. For 4 years of study its more than 4 years to pay back - that is how I look at it. Its bad enough for home students and astronomical for international ones. Yes, there are some students who make it really big. But that is essentially a lottery and we should ignore them. The most useful skills I learnt were all self taught - as paul graham pointed out - if you put a bunch of motivated people in a closed chamber they will figure out get things. University life consisted of learning how to game the exams and not really learn anything of sustainable value. I knew that from high school and also what Paul wrote about education in general. But I didn't fully accept that our education system is so fundamentally broken. Lets put what you are saying in monetary prespective. 3x - while just working. so if you study for 3 years you get 9 years of experience ? But then you need to spend more than 3 years paying back the debt and you also were not able to earn anything during that time. And also there is no iterative improvement. you do not know how good you are until you have crossed the 3 years period. You might be terrible at your job and there is no way of knowing. The upfront cost and risk is too high for the expected outcome. Some people I know who are studying medicine spend until their 30 to finish. How is this sustainable ?
lordnacho 11y ago
I think you need to tone down the bitterness. I'm a bit surprised that you're attaching your real name, actually. People tend to stay away from someone who seems angry. Getting a handle about a war crime is a bit aggressive, too. I presume it's something about the war of independence. Also, don't let on that your net worth matters a lot to you. People tend to be suspicious of that particular (completely understandable) motivation. When I finished university, I had some similar thoughts. There is literally nothing in any course that's not public knowledge. Practicals are a question of getting people to sign off rather than actually understanding anything. Lecturers often have crappy presentation skills. But you need to take a larger view of what you got up to. Even though every damn thing can be read in a book, not everyone has done so. Even though you can no longer remember the equations and experiments, you now possess an intuition in your field that will make retrieving the specifics much easier than for some novice. Critically, you've shown that you're able to learn on your own. Stuff you learn at university is a whole lot less structured and generally from a much larger syllabus than in secondary school. On the upside, I think your CV looks pretty good. Decent skills in something that sounds practical, probably someone who could learn to program anything.
- 1971genocide 11y ago
  My net worth is not important - but it means soon I wont have money to buy food or pay rent. I could have paid my rent and food for 20+ years on each year of my tuition. I eat canned tuna for 3 years - and went homeless for a few months while being in uni ( my landlord suddenly decided to sell his house and I had exams ) I am sorry as coming off as bitter - I have been on the job-hunt for a while and literally no replies :( I think I could have done much more productive things in the 3 years - write a blog, do some data analysis on public data and not have been so stressed out constantly. I am usually really optimistic when it comes to programming but whenever I read about universities and their high cost, etc - I get reminded of all the pain I had to endure and can feel the hopelessness of every other student who are in much more terrible situation.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
droithomme 11y ago
I empathize with your post. Myself I went to a top 10 engineering school, went into debt to do so, graduated with Summa Cum Laude with a 4.0 GPA, and learned nothing at all, and spent 4 years fairly frustrated while taking advantage of every opportunity. I did learn a lot about bureaucracy and "the system". About engineering nothing since I had been designing and inventing new things no one else had ever done since I was a small child. College is not a bad idea at all. But for the exceptionally skilled it is a waste of time to do a technical degree. Better to go it alone in the school of hard knocks, or major in something that you don't already know completely, perhaps world history or linguistics or mathematics or molecular biology. For the typical kid who learned to program at age 8, a college major in CS is indeed a huge waste of time and money. So what should you do? Pay off your onerous debt as soon as you can, and then you will be free. With your freedom, pursue your own interests no matter what they may be.
- 1971genocide 11y ago
  Thanks for that ! Really makes me feel much better knowing the best of us feels the same way. I am someone who learns by doing and it would have been better to just enter the job market.
esaym 11y ago
Sometimes I go through spells like this too. I graduated from a local state university that I purposely chose because their curriculum was entirely in C/C++. I thought learning the language that was behind Java would make me more marketable, boy was I wrong. I didn't really even land a true programming job after I graduated, just a hybrid of linux admin and software dev tasks on an IT operations team. BUT, because I knew C, and Linux, and had a love for Perl and its community, and had the algorithm/ problem solving mind that Uni taught me, I was able to whip up many solutions to our company's problems. It still did not look that great on a resume, but it was something. And the main point is, I enjoyed it (one reason I went for CS major in the first place). And more recently, I just quit that first job, and I now work from home doing web development and back end work for a couple of small shops. If you are having trouble getting work, you are probably just aiming too high. You are probably going to have to do 3-5 years grunt work. I know C really well, but I can't land any jobs in C because the people I am up against are twice my age with twice my experience. And even though I might be cheaper, employers aren't looking for just cheap, they want someone that will get stuff done (quickly). Think about if you were a home owner and you wanted a new porch or roof built on your house. What freelancer would you hire? Some kid just out of tech school that says "I think I can do this kind of work" or "I would like to do this kind of work" or "I've kind of done this stuff before"? Or the old man that says "I've done this a million times, here's how its done, here's the plan, and this is the cost".
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
dovereconomics 11y ago
Many have disagreed and furiously downvoted you(your text is quite aggressive), but you've raised a valid point. Young adults waste their time and money often by blindly having faith in flawed system. They could've been more productive, in an individual and societal level, by having more pragmatic experiences. Beyond programmers, a century ago, you could get started in finance by getting apprenticeships and moving your way up the ladder. You'd have real work experience and have a position only Ivy-MBAs currently do. In your lifetime, you'd been more productive and probably wealthier.

JustSomeNobody 11y ago

1) I don't think you'll get too many bites after talking about hitting people. 2) If you hated it so much, why in the world would you allow your parents to bankroll it? That seems so disrespectful to me.

1971genocide 11y ago
Its a thought - I am sure many other students who were taking actual loans would have much more terrible thoughts. Yes, I realize it was a mistake. When I was 18 I was fed the same garbage about going to university as everyone else and took it without much reasoning - It was my fault, I was an idiot. There are many other people who are in much more worse situation then I am, A lot of my friends are in much more stressful situation then me. Yes its disrespectful to my parents and that is why I quit. I felt terribly guilty since it was after all not my hard earned money but my parent's. They also brought into the whole university scam as a road to middle class life. I have never felt more relieved. Now I can go do some real studying in a much more relaxed fashion.
- droithomme 11y ago
  Don't listen to that guy.
aianus 11y ago
2) Can't speak for OP but for a lot of parents (mine included) having a college-educated son is a status symbol (like a nice car or house). If it'll make them happy to piss their money away towards my tuition, why should I refuse?

ChuckMcM 11y ago

It is always sad when I read this sort of screed. I can assure you that Universities are not a 'scam' in the general sense (and yes there are actual scams by some of them but it doesn't sound like Bristol is such a university). There are three things a University/College education provides you - 1) Is a rapid exposure to many of the typical problems, techniques, and understanding of a particular major subject. Generally this is about 3x the rate you could get exposed to that in a work for hire situation. So for each year of college you end up exposed to the variety of problems it would have taken 3 years of on the job experience to get to. 2) The people who go to college constitute the majority of leaders in the community. It takes a while to realize this but as a young adult there are "the leaders" and "the followers", and the young adult is generally in the follower group. But over time folks move into the leader group and, by and large, those are the people you went to school with. So you are more naturally considered a part of that group. 3) A personal sense of what you can do, for many folks they reach a point where the requirements on them exceed their natural ability to "wing it"[1], and depending on how "smart" they were in high school this can come as a rude awakening. But once past it, people are much more mature about their skills and how to work at things. My experience has been that people who haven't gone to college rarely allow themselves to be pushed pass this wall as the other side is quite reasonably scary. Without the immovable force of 'you must do this or you will not graduate' the temptation to run away can be more powerful. Without that fundamental understanding of your abilities, and how to get more done than you think you can, often limits how successful you can be. [1] Take things as they come and complete them without preparation.

1971genocide 11y ago
I beg to differ. What is the expected salary of a MIT engineer ? Last time I checked it was 72,000 dollars per year. What is the typical tuition in MIT ? I do not remember the exact number but it would take a while before students are able to pay back the amount. For 4 years of study its more than 4 years to pay back - that is how I look at it. Its bad enough for home students and astronomical for international ones. Yes, there are some students who make it really big. But that is essentially a lottery and we should ignore them. The most useful skills I learnt were all self taught - as paul graham pointed out - if you put a bunch of motivated people in a closed chamber they will figure out get things. University life consisted of learning how to game the exams and not really learn anything of sustainable value. I knew that from high school and also what Paul wrote about education in general. But I didn't fully accept that our education system is so fundamentally broken. Lets put what you are saying in monetary prespective. 3x - while just working. so if you study for 3 years you get 9 years of experience ? But then you need to spend more than 3 years paying back the debt and you also were not able to earn anything during that time. And also there is no iterative improvement. you do not know how good you are until you have crossed the 3 years period. You might be terrible at your job and there is no way of knowing. The upfront cost and risk is too high for the expected outcome. Some people I know who are studying medicine spend until their 30 to finish. How is this sustainable ?

lordnacho 11y ago

I think you need to tone down the bitterness. I'm a bit surprised that you're attaching your real name, actually. People tend to stay away from someone who seems angry. Getting a handle about a war crime is a bit aggressive, too. I presume it's something about the war of independence. Also, don't let on that your net worth matters a lot to you. People tend to be suspicious of that particular (completely understandable) motivation. When I finished university, I had some similar thoughts. There is literally nothing in any course that's not public knowledge. Practicals are a question of getting people to sign off rather than actually understanding anything. Lecturers often have crappy presentation skills. But you need to take a larger view of what you got up to. Even though every damn thing can be read in a book, not everyone has done so. Even though you can no longer remember the equations and experiments, you now possess an intuition in your field that will make retrieving the specifics much easier than for some novice. Critically, you've shown that you're able to learn on your own. Stuff you learn at university is a whole lot less structured and generally from a much larger syllabus than in secondary school. On the upside, I think your CV looks pretty good. Decent skills in something that sounds practical, probably someone who could learn to program anything.

1971genocide 11y ago
My net worth is not important - but it means soon I wont have money to buy food or pay rent. I could have paid my rent and food for 20+ years on each year of my tuition. I eat canned tuna for 3 years - and went homeless for a few months while being in uni ( my landlord suddenly decided to sell his house and I had exams ) I am sorry as coming off as bitter - I have been on the job-hunt for a while and literally no replies :( I think I could have done much more productive things in the 3 years - write a blog, do some data analysis on public data and not have been so stressed out constantly. I am usually really optimistic when it comes to programming but whenever I read about universities and their high cost, etc - I get reminded of all the pain I had to endure and can feel the hopelessness of every other student who are in much more terrible situation.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

droithomme 11y ago

I empathize with your post. Myself I went to a top 10 engineering school, went into debt to do so, graduated with Summa Cum Laude with a 4.0 GPA, and learned nothing at all, and spent 4 years fairly frustrated while taking advantage of every opportunity. I did learn a lot about bureaucracy and "the system". About engineering nothing since I had been designing and inventing new things no one else had ever done since I was a small child. College is not a bad idea at all. But for the exceptionally skilled it is a waste of time to do a technical degree. Better to go it alone in the school of hard knocks, or major in something that you don't already know completely, perhaps world history or linguistics or mathematics or molecular biology. For the typical kid who learned to program at age 8, a college major in CS is indeed a huge waste of time and money. So what should you do? Pay off your onerous debt as soon as you can, and then you will be free. With your freedom, pursue your own interests no matter what they may be.

1971genocide 11y ago
Thanks for that ! Really makes me feel much better knowing the best of us feels the same way. I am someone who learns by doing and it would have been better to just enter the job market.

esaym 11y ago

Sometimes I go through spells like this too. I graduated from a local state university that I purposely chose because their curriculum was entirely in C/C++. I thought learning the language that was behind Java would make me more marketable, boy was I wrong. I didn't really even land a true programming job after I graduated, just a hybrid of linux admin and software dev tasks on an IT operations team. BUT, because I knew C, and Linux, and had a love for Perl and its community, and had the algorithm/ problem solving mind that Uni taught me, I was able to whip up many solutions to our company's problems. It still did not look that great on a resume, but it was something. And the main point is, I enjoyed it (one reason I went for CS major in the first place). And more recently, I just quit that first job, and I now work from home doing web development and back end work for a couple of small shops. If you are having trouble getting work, you are probably just aiming too high. You are probably going to have to do 3-5 years grunt work. I know C really well, but I can't land any jobs in C because the people I am up against are twice my age with twice my experience. And even though I might be cheaper, employers aren't looking for just cheap, they want someone that will get stuff done (quickly). Think about if you were a home owner and you wanted a new porch or roof built on your house. What freelancer would you hire? Some kid just out of tech school that says "I think I can do this kind of work" or "I would like to do this kind of work" or "I've kind of done this stuff before"? Or the old man that says "I've done this a million times, here's how its done, here's the plan, and this is the cost".

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

dovereconomics 11y ago

Many have disagreed and furiously downvoted you(your text is quite aggressive), but you've raised a valid point. Young adults waste their time and money often by blindly having faith in flawed system. They could've been more productive, in an individual and societal level, by having more pragmatic experiences. Beyond programmers, a century ago, you could get started in finance by getting apprenticeships and moving your way up the ladder. You'd have real work experience and have a position only Ivy-MBAs currently do. In your lifetime, you'd been more productive and probably wealthier.