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> Last but not least, could Gates's approach be an afterglow of his dropping out from Harvard. I see that over and over again, dropouts seem to suffer from this

> Last but not least, could Gates's approach be an afterglow of his dropping out from Harvard. I see that over and over again, dropouts seem to suffer from this life-long hangover about what could have been? They tend to over-appreciate the power of schooling or the power of college. In the same way, I might be under-appreciating my own degrees. Gates is the opposite of Peter Thiel who studiously climbed the educational ladder until he stumbled to see the light. Thiel is now one of the staunchest critics of college. I have wondered the same, and often felt this longing for "what could have been" myself. (I'm a college dropout who pursued a rather unconventional startup path.) Even though I've found myself surprisingly well-equipped to tackle most challenges, even when working with researchers, I have a very strong sense of impostor syndrome. I feel that I don't know enough about what I don't know. Sometimes, I think that if I'd spent more time learning, I would know where to look to learn the next thing. Perhaps this is just imagination. I'm sure I would feel the same kind of longing had I spent more time in college. A funny predicament. EDIT: If the page doesn't load at first, reload the page. It should load right away.

toast0 6y ago
I've worked with people in tech who dropped out, and people with bachelors, masters, and phD, and those with degrees in the arts. I personally have a bachelors in computer engineering. I'm sure there's surviorship bias, but the people who dropped out are probably some of the best. There's certainly some value in a CS/CE bachelor's curriculum, and occasionally, something would come up where knowledge from a course was useful; but mostly a 4 year degree in CS/CE is a certificate of sticking to hard things that are computer related. You've probably got some project under your belt that shows you can stick to hard things that are computer related, even if it's not as formalized. If it really bothers you, work through The Art of Computer Programming by Knuth. If it bothers you a little, but not that much, maybe borrow it from a library and look through the table of contents and read a few sections that look interesting.
- sebmellen 6y ago
  I bet you're right about the survivorship bias, but it's nonetheless reassuring (comforting?) to hear that. That's also been my impression, though it's hard to actually believe schooling doesn't accomplish more. On that note: Had I stayed in college, I would've been a senior this year. I recently brought over a college friend to discuss a paid internship at my company with him, and was very underwhelmed with what he had accomplished during his university tenure (this being a quite prestigious institution). From the stories he told of professors assigning grindingly futile projects to his lack of knowledge about relatively widespread concepts like distributed hash tables, it was a rather disappointing conversation. I still think the institution of the university is hard to replicate elsewhere, but the content (and maybe the people) certainly need an update! Thank you for the note about Knuth's book. I'll check it out in more depth — I have the PDF version sitting in my downloads folder. My startup is currently being acquired, but once that's settled I'll have time for some holiday reading :).
paganel 6y ago
I’m also a college dropout (granted, I’m orders of magnitude less wealthy compared to Gates) but I don’t have any beliefs in the “power of college”. As a matter of fact, that “power” evaporated pretty quickly 20 years ago while I was attending one of most prestigious CS schools in my country and when I saw that the powers that be were doing absolutely nothing to handle/address the student suicides that were happening during each exam session (presumably because of the stress).
- sebmellen 6y ago
  On the one hand, there is something rotten in the university ecosystem. I have met a ton of people who laboured their way through degrees (even in sought-after fields) who have now ended up working minimum wage jobs at Starbucks or something equivalent. In the US, these people are also usually in debt, between ~$20-150k. On the other hand, the gatekeeping that a degree offers does seem to be important. I think this is mainly because degrees serve as a sort of stamina test, of the kind which is hard to replicate elsewhere. Someone who plodded their way through a coding bootcamp is unlikely to have the same grit and determination as someone with a Bachelor's degree. Perhaps we just need a better way of gatekeeping, and then the universities can once again serve as centres of education and learning. I think it would also help if employment guarantees were offered, so universities would be incentivized to teach their students relevant skills.

toast0 6y ago

I've worked with people in tech who dropped out, and people with bachelors, masters, and phD, and those with degrees in the arts. I personally have a bachelors in computer engineering. I'm sure there's surviorship bias, but the people who dropped out are probably some of the best. There's certainly some value in a CS/CE bachelor's curriculum, and occasionally, something would come up where knowledge from a course was useful; but mostly a 4 year degree in CS/CE is a certificate of sticking to hard things that are computer related. You've probably got some project under your belt that shows you can stick to hard things that are computer related, even if it's not as formalized. If it really bothers you, work through The Art of Computer Programming by Knuth. If it bothers you a little, but not that much, maybe borrow it from a library and look through the table of contents and read a few sections that look interesting.

sebmellen 6y ago
I bet you're right about the survivorship bias, but it's nonetheless reassuring (comforting?) to hear that. That's also been my impression, though it's hard to actually believe schooling doesn't accomplish more. On that note: Had I stayed in college, I would've been a senior this year. I recently brought over a college friend to discuss a paid internship at my company with him, and was very underwhelmed with what he had accomplished during his university tenure (this being a quite prestigious institution). From the stories he told of professors assigning grindingly futile projects to his lack of knowledge about relatively widespread concepts like distributed hash tables, it was a rather disappointing conversation. I still think the institution of the university is hard to replicate elsewhere, but the content (and maybe the people) certainly need an update! Thank you for the note about Knuth's book. I'll check it out in more depth — I have the PDF version sitting in my downloads folder. My startup is currently being acquired, but once that's settled I'll have time for some holiday reading :).

paganel 6y ago

I’m also a college dropout (granted, I’m orders of magnitude less wealthy compared to Gates) but I don’t have any beliefs in the “power of college”. As a matter of fact, that “power” evaporated pretty quickly 20 years ago while I was attending one of most prestigious CS schools in my country and when I saw that the powers that be were doing absolutely nothing to handle/address the student suicides that were happening during each exam session (presumably because of the stress).

sebmellen 6y ago
On the one hand, there is something rotten in the university ecosystem. I have met a ton of people who laboured their way through degrees (even in sought-after fields) who have now ended up working minimum wage jobs at Starbucks or something equivalent. In the US, these people are also usually in debt, between ~$20-150k. On the other hand, the gatekeeping that a degree offers does seem to be important. I think this is mainly because degrees serve as a sort of stamina test, of the kind which is hard to replicate elsewhere. Someone who plodded their way through a coding bootcamp is unlikely to have the same grit and determination as someone with a Bachelor's degree. Perhaps we just need a better way of gatekeeping, and then the universities can once again serve as centres of education and learning. I think it would also help if employment guarantees were offered, so universities would be incentivized to teach their students relevant skills.