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I went to a college that seemed to follow this belief. Sarah Lawrence College, in NY, lets you take 3 classes a semester, where half of your credit for each cla

by fourk 16y ago

I went to a college that seemed to follow this belief. Sarah Lawrence College, in NY, lets you take 3 classes a semester, where half of your credit for each class comes from a semester long project that relates at least tangentially to the course subject. I ended up dropping out after 2.5 years to move to SF, but I don't think I would have lasted that long if not for the awesome projects I got to work on. As examples of the type of I did for my CS-related courses: for Computer Science: An Accelerated Introduction (Python), I made an app that parses an iTunes XML dump, hits Last.fm's API for additional info on each track and artist, and uses that data to generate playlists. For Data Structures, I built a 3d printer for the college that uses Java firmware. For Robotics, I implemented a Neural Network-based bot that predicted opponents moves in low-limit Texas Hold Em poker. For another class, I wrote a bot for Eve Online that would perform margin trading. These projects I found to be more valuable to me once I had started my career than much of the time spent in the classroom.

bretthoerner 16y ago
I went to a cheap state school and mostly regret it, I wonder if there's any correlation? > According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, Sarah Lawrence College has been the most expensive college in the country for the previous two academic years (2008–2009;2009–2010). > The total cost of tuition, fees, room, and board for a student entering in the fall of 2009 was $55,788. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Lawrence_College#Tuition_and_finances http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Lawrence_College#Tuition_...
atamyrat 16y ago
That sounds like my dream hacker college. As a drop-out myself, I am thinking of going back to school sometime in the future, and wondering if SLC might be right place for me. If you don't mind me asking, why did you drop out? Were there anything wrong with the school/system that made you move to SF without finishing your degree, or was it only for personal reasons? Would really appreciate if you could share your overall experience at SLC.
- fourk 16y ago
  There were a number of factors involved in my decision to drop out. At the root were family/financial issues, although these were not dire enough that I was forced, per se, to drop out. At the end of the day it came down to the school's limitations on how much CS I could learn. The school is very small (1300 undergrads), with very few of the students interested in pursuing CS in any real depth. I have only great things to say about the two professors in the department, but due to lack of student interest in the programs, there are few advanced classes available. Looking at the 2010-2011 Course Catalog (http://www.slc.edu/undergraduate/study/science-mathematics/computer-science/courses.html http://www.slc.edu/undergraduate/study/science-mathematics/c...), there are only two CS courses available (one for each semester) which require the student to have some prerequisite experience/knowledge (Databases and Robotics). The other limitation you're faced with are the credit caps. SLC is a liberal arts school where, regardless of what you study, you can only receive a Bachelor of Arts degree. They cap you at 80 credits in Science/Mathematics, with a maximum of 50 of those coming from Computer Science courses. At the time I dropped out, I had 40 CS credits and 50 Science/Math Credits. Presuming I had stayed on for the additional year and a half to get a degree, I would have been limited to taking only 10 of my remaining 45 credits in what I genuinely wanted to be learning. Given the cost of the school (the most expensive school in the US), I felt that I would be better off 1.5 years down the line by getting paid to learn what I wanted to be learning, rather than paying to learn things that I didn't, simply for the sake of a degree. It's actually been 1.5 years since I made this decision, I would have graduated next month, and I have absolutely no regrets about having made the decision I did. I'd like to make a blog post sometime about everything that's happened in the past year and a half. I've been considering finishing my degree at some point because there are a few fundamentals courses that I missed (Algorithms, Compilers, to name a few). I'm sort of torn at this point between making the decision to do it continuing to work 9-5 for the next 2+ years while taking courses online to get a degree, or whether I'm better off making the plunge back into an 70 hour a week startup lifestyle which leaves no room for online edu. I'm unsure of which leaves me in a better position 2 years from now. Have any of you finished an education online while working? Were you happy you did so?

by fourk 16y ago

bretthoerner 16y ago

I went to a cheap state school and mostly regret it, I wonder if there's any correlation? > According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, Sarah Lawrence College has been the most expensive college in the country for the previous two academic years (2008–2009;2009–2010). > The total cost of tuition, fees, room, and board for a student entering in the fall of 2009 was $55,788. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Lawrence_College#Tuition_and_finances http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Lawrence_College#Tuition_...

atamyrat 16y ago

That sounds like my dream hacker college. As a drop-out myself, I am thinking of going back to school sometime in the future, and wondering if SLC might be right place for me. If you don't mind me asking, why did you drop out? Were there anything wrong with the school/system that made you move to SF without finishing your degree, or was it only for personal reasons? Would really appreciate if you could share your overall experience at SLC.

fourk 16y ago
There were a number of factors involved in my decision to drop out. At the root were family/financial issues, although these were not dire enough that I was forced, per se, to drop out. At the end of the day it came down to the school's limitations on how much CS I could learn. The school is very small (1300 undergrads), with very few of the students interested in pursuing CS in any real depth. I have only great things to say about the two professors in the department, but due to lack of student interest in the programs, there are few advanced classes available. Looking at the 2010-2011 Course Catalog (http://www.slc.edu/undergraduate/study/science-mathematics/computer-science/courses.html http://www.slc.edu/undergraduate/study/science-mathematics/c...), there are only two CS courses available (one for each semester) which require the student to have some prerequisite experience/knowledge (Databases and Robotics). The other limitation you're faced with are the credit caps. SLC is a liberal arts school where, regardless of what you study, you can only receive a Bachelor of Arts degree. They cap you at 80 credits in Science/Mathematics, with a maximum of 50 of those coming from Computer Science courses. At the time I dropped out, I had 40 CS credits and 50 Science/Math Credits. Presuming I had stayed on for the additional year and a half to get a degree, I would have been limited to taking only 10 of my remaining 45 credits in what I genuinely wanted to be learning. Given the cost of the school (the most expensive school in the US), I felt that I would be better off 1.5 years down the line by getting paid to learn what I wanted to be learning, rather than paying to learn things that I didn't, simply for the sake of a degree. It's actually been 1.5 years since I made this decision, I would have graduated next month, and I have absolutely no regrets about having made the decision I did. I'd like to make a blog post sometime about everything that's happened in the past year and a half. I've been considering finishing my degree at some point because there are a few fundamentals courses that I missed (Algorithms, Compilers, to name a few). I'm sort of torn at this point between making the decision to do it continuing to work 9-5 for the next 2+ years while taking courses online to get a degree, or whether I'm better off making the plunge back into an 70 hour a week startup lifestyle which leaves no room for online edu. I'm unsure of which leaves me in a better position 2 years from now. Have any of you finished an education online while working? Were you happy you did so?