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Thanks for your insight! I definitely agree the environment of uni can be great and don't doubt it will be valuable for me, but I do wonder if the opportunity c

Thanks for your insight! I definitely agree the environment of uni can be great and don't doubt it will be valuable for me, but I do wonder if the opportunity cost of uni is worth it for me personally. I suppose I like self-learning more and have been coding, either as a hobby, freelancing, or on my own startup, for 5 years. My experience at this unicorn and elsewhere has made me question just how much I'll get out of a Comp Sci degree. I'm someone who spent most of high school classes coding, and my spare time hacking with embedded devices or mitigating DDoS attacks. Even disregarding that the value of bachelors of comp sci may be substantially less for me personally, I don't know if software engineering is something I want to build a career in anyway. Doing Comp Sci commits me to this track to some extent. 4 years of full time work, very frugally saved and invested in an index fund, can become very considerable amount. I can afford to save the vast majority of income for the next few years -- so why not optimise for it? P.S: Are you Brain Armstrong of Coinbase? Love what you're doing!

brian-armstrong 11y ago
If you don't know what you want to do, you're right, university is likely not a good choice. I'm not very familiar with tuition fees in Australia, but in the U.S., I've seen people pick up debt just to find out they're on the wrong track. On the other hand, once you get going in a career situation, it can have quite a lot of momentum and be hard to get out. The window to get your degree, practically speaking, closes pretty quickly. That's not to say people can't or shouldn't get an undergraduate degree in their later 20s or 30s, but it's rare, and the momentum is part of that. If you don't know, maybe just take some time to feel things out before making a decision. There's unspoken pressure at 18 to make these big decisions, and frequently people choose without being fully ready. Going on the wrong trajectory is costly, both financially and from an opportunity cost perspective. 6 months spent getting your launch plan together is a lot cheaper than being 2 years into the wrong plan and so on. Your financials and interests will likely place some bounds on how long you can spend away from obligations, but now is also a good time to do all those really out there things you've thought about like Peace Corps etc. Also, no, I'm not him, though I appreciate the enthusiasm. There are a plurality of Brian Armstrongs, even in tech :)
pvg 11y ago
the opportunity cost of uni is worth it for me personally. That's a good question but it's hard to evaluate the opportunity costs of either. My experience at this unicorn and elsewhere has made me question just how much I'll get out of a Comp Sci degree. CS programs typically and primarily teach things other than 'coding'. Doing Comp Sci commits me to this track to some extent. It doesn't. You can always drop out. This isn't to say that if you find the idea entirely unappealing, you ought to do it anyway because of some silly reason. But if you want to genuinely weigh the options, it's better to not misrepresent them to yourself. Let's say you've decided you'd rather keep on working. Terrific, keep doing it. Or maybe that degree in music theory sounds like it might be interesting. Go ahead and try it.
- HappyTypist 11y ago
  > CS programs typically and primarily teach things other than 'coding'. Yeah, but practically what I'm doing most of the time is architecturing, coding, or debugging, and know/'don't mind learning' a decent amount of 'everything else' to be productive. I had no trouble learning A* or Minimax or Quicksort when I needed it, I learned enough about neuron networks to build something 'good enough' in two days, I knew enough about networking to mitigate a layer 7 DDoS, etc. I think I have enough surface breadth to know, most of the time, which tool or algorithm I'll need -- and can then learn that. I don't know too much about genetic algorithms for example, but I think I'll know when it's suitable for the job. I do not doubt that CS will be valuable to me. I just question "how valuable", because 4 years is a long time. > It doesn't. You can always drop out. Good point. I thought that I'd be making a huge commitment, but I won't be in reality. Starting a degree will allow me to better evaluate its value to me too. Thank you!
  - pvg 11y ago
    I had no trouble learning Astar or Minimax or Quicksort when I needed it, I learned enough about neuron networks to build something 'good enough' in two days, I knew enough about networking to mitigate a layer 7 DDoS, etc. Of course. But pop into a bookstore or library and leaf through SICP or TAoCP or the white book or Patterson and Hennessy, etc. There's a reason these and many other topics are subjects of years-long study. It might turn out to not be your thing but you seem somewhat dismissive of it all and it might be to your detriment, whether or not you give a whit about pursuing this academically (I'm not a CS grad myself, incidentally).

brian-armstrong 11y ago

If you don't know what you want to do, you're right, university is likely not a good choice. I'm not very familiar with tuition fees in Australia, but in the U.S., I've seen people pick up debt just to find out they're on the wrong track. On the other hand, once you get going in a career situation, it can have quite a lot of momentum and be hard to get out. The window to get your degree, practically speaking, closes pretty quickly. That's not to say people can't or shouldn't get an undergraduate degree in their later 20s or 30s, but it's rare, and the momentum is part of that. If you don't know, maybe just take some time to feel things out before making a decision. There's unspoken pressure at 18 to make these big decisions, and frequently people choose without being fully ready. Going on the wrong trajectory is costly, both financially and from an opportunity cost perspective. 6 months spent getting your launch plan together is a lot cheaper than being 2 years into the wrong plan and so on. Your financials and interests will likely place some bounds on how long you can spend away from obligations, but now is also a good time to do all those really out there things you've thought about like Peace Corps etc. Also, no, I'm not him, though I appreciate the enthusiasm. There are a plurality of Brian Armstrongs, even in tech :)

pvg 11y ago

the opportunity cost of uni is worth it for me personally. That's a good question but it's hard to evaluate the opportunity costs of either. My experience at this unicorn and elsewhere has made me question just how much I'll get out of a Comp Sci degree. CS programs typically and primarily teach things other than 'coding'. Doing Comp Sci commits me to this track to some extent. It doesn't. You can always drop out. This isn't to say that if you find the idea entirely unappealing, you ought to do it anyway because of some silly reason. But if you want to genuinely weigh the options, it's better to not misrepresent them to yourself. Let's say you've decided you'd rather keep on working. Terrific, keep doing it. Or maybe that degree in music theory sounds like it might be interesting. Go ahead and try it.

HappyTypist 11y ago
> CS programs typically and primarily teach things other than 'coding'. Yeah, but practically what I'm doing most of the time is architecturing, coding, or debugging, and know/'don't mind learning' a decent amount of 'everything else' to be productive. I had no trouble learning A* or Minimax or Quicksort when I needed it, I learned enough about neuron networks to build something 'good enough' in two days, I knew enough about networking to mitigate a layer 7 DDoS, etc. I think I have enough surface breadth to know, most of the time, which tool or algorithm I'll need -- and can then learn that. I don't know too much about genetic algorithms for example, but I think I'll know when it's suitable for the job. I do not doubt that CS will be valuable to me. I just question "how valuable", because 4 years is a long time. > It doesn't. You can always drop out. Good point. I thought that I'd be making a huge commitment, but I won't be in reality. Starting a degree will allow me to better evaluate its value to me too. Thank you!
- pvg 11y ago
  I had no trouble learning Astar or Minimax or Quicksort when I needed it, I learned enough about neuron networks to build something 'good enough' in two days, I knew enough about networking to mitigate a layer 7 DDoS, etc. Of course. But pop into a bookstore or library and leaf through SICP or TAoCP or the white book or Patterson and Hennessy, etc. There's a reason these and many other topics are subjects of years-long study. It might turn out to not be your thing but you seem somewhat dismissive of it all and it might be to your detriment, whether or not you give a whit about pursuing this academically (I'm not a CS grad myself, incidentally).