10 ms·

Dear Mom, I'm Dropping Out

53 points by sberens 5y ago

igalakhov 5y ago
Very well written!
eitu_s 5y ago
Great letter!
dimmke 5y ago
I did a year of college and dropped out and began my career at 20. It’s definitely possible to have a good career as a software engineer without it, but it definitely put me at a disadvantage in some situations. Only one time that I explicitly know of professionally but it also caused some problems with feeling insecure. If you’ve already gotten a job at FB just make sure the offer isn’t contingent on completion of degree and you’re probably fine. But be aware there might come a time where you’d wished you had finished.
- woleium 5y ago
  I dropped out, went back to do a MBA part time (while working full time) about 10 years later because almost all director level positions I was looking at required it. It was hard work, but it worked out for me.
  - sjg007 5y ago
    I'm considering an MBA for that reason.
- google234123 5y ago
  If you already have a engineering job at FB then they wont care if you finished your degree.
- tombert 5y ago
  I have a similar story; I finished about 1.5 years at FSU, and due to a lack of motivation and depression (and the two feeding into each other), I decided to drop out when I was 21. I was extremely lucky to find work as a software engineer really quickly, and I managed to piece together a pretty awesome career making a pretty reasonable salary, but there's been several occasions where not having a degree made my life measurably worse. Since then, nine years after dropping out, I managed to complete my degree at WGU (which has its own share of valid criticisms). I don't know if the degree will "help" me more than my experience has, but at elast it's one less inferiority complex I have to deal with.
  - dimmke 5y ago
    Yeah. I could go back and finish (though I’d guess I would be starting from scratch now), but I’m now at a level where it doesn’t matter. It would be so weird to be taking English classes with a bunch of 18 year olds just to add a line item to my resume nobody would read anyways. I’ve had times where it felt like I had to work harder, but I think a lot of that was self imposed and working hard is important in being a good software engineer anyways. You can go on the CSCareerQuestions subreddit and see many posts from people who did the bare minimum and have CS degrees with no idea how to get into the industry.
    - tombert 5y ago
      If you just want a nominal degree, you might check out either WGU [1] or Northern Arizona University [2]. The competency-based system allows you to get through the courses a lot quicker (and cheaper) than you would with a traditional school (both are fully accredited). I don't know that it's "worth it", since that expression can mean different things to different people. For me, I want to unlock the path to do research, and a bachelors is basically required for that for most jobs. I also just wanted to get that chip off my shoulder (as stated before). [1] https://www.wgu.edu/ https://www.wgu.edu/ [2] https://nau.edu/online-innovative-educational-initiatives/self-paced-personalized-learning/ https://nau.edu/online-innovative-educational-initiatives/se...
  - Buttons840 5y ago
- chana_masala 5y ago
  Yep. I graduated in the top ten of my high school, had a full scholarship to the state university, and already had about a year's worth of college credits from AP classes. I made it one semester. Too much instant freedom discovering drugs and parties. I should not have lived in the dorms. After a ten year gap year and years of professional experience I am now finishing up my degree.
- EdwardDiego 5y ago
  Yep, I developed a love for coding when I'd already squandered my attempt at tertiary education, and had a young son and wife who'd developed a belief that women shouldn't work, to support. So I wasn't able to go back to university, so I'm self-taught, although I sat (and passed) a few first year papers via correspondence. Later on I took second year papers part-time to cover gaps I'd identified in my knowledge of computer science. But it was very hard to get an interview with no degree. I had a portfolio of code I'd written for people freelance, but even getting people to look at it was near impossible. I was rejected several times with reasons along the lines of "self-taught devs write unstructured/bad/spaghetti code", which annoyed me when they wouldn't look at my portfolio. In the end, I got an interview via a friend of a colleague who was a stealth developer in the call centre I worked in. He was desperate to learn JS, so I taught him, and consequently he recommended me to his friend. Who, luckily for me, worked for a company founded by a developer who was also self-taught and sans degree, so he gave me a chance to prove myself. 13 years later, my lack of degree doesn't concern anyon But, 5 years to get an interview, and in the first 5 years, I was really worried what would happen if the company downsized and I had to find another job. Not to mention the imposter syndrome feeling.
ykevinator3 5y ago
Simon stay in school, you'll be 30 one day, then 40, you're so close, just finish it, this is a really stupid decision.
kindle-dev 5y ago
I think this is a bad idea. The author is clearly self motivated, so why does he want to start a full-time dev career so early? College is basically the best time in most people's lives to explore ideas that they have. College students are smart enough to build something significant, and have enough time to do so. I know so many people who have atrophied motivationally at Facebook and other big tech companies. The ones that haven't devolved into general apathy are more focused on climbing the corporate ladder or making more money, not anything truly fun and inspirational. Personally, I would love the opportunity to go back to college and have the time I need to explore my ideas.
- paxys 5y ago
  For the last couple of years the "best time in most people's lives" has been paying $40K for the professor to shuffle through years-old powerpoint decks over Zoom. It's hard to find anyone graduating today who isn't fully disillusioned with the college system.
  - netizen-936824 5y ago
    Is it really any better to sit in a grand lecture hall while the same tired professor slogs through a years old PowerPoint in person?
    - paxys 5y ago
      No, but at least people are now realizing the absurdity of the whole situation. Plus there were at least other benefits of college outside of lecture halls that are no longer available.
- tombert 5y ago
  NOTE: Not the author. I can't speak for Facebook, but I definitely feel like Apple made me stagnate intellectually. It didn't help that every time I wanted to work on something open source, I would get a nastygram from their legal team telling me that doing so would be grounds for termination. That said, at least for me, college required a type of stick-with-it-ness that I don't really feel I obtained until having to sludge through horrible office jobs for years. Having to work for megacorps that I hated forced me to finish work that I didn't want to do, and trudge through meetings I didn't have any desire to go to. After the hundredth "glorified data entry" assignment and thousandth "sprint planning that I'm only relevant for two minutes of", pushing my way through college felt somewhat easy in comparison. My path would be virtually impossible to recommend to people, but I honestly wouldn't change the order of how I did things given the option.
ctvo 5y ago
Must be extraordinary to hop to New York City for a month, then fly to SFO as a young person, with not a (mentioned) care in the world about running out of money. With the above context, I think we can agree the risks for this person is low. If things go badly there's a landing spot.
- fatnoah 5y ago
  Yeah, I'm not sure what "risk" this person is taking. They can afford to move around the country while not working, plus they already have an offer from Facebook (which would likely be > $100k) for employment.
- Doches 5y ago
  I'm setting a calendar alert to check for an "Our Incredible Journey" post from the OP in about 18 months...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
purpleflame1257 5y ago
I think the author has some unresolved anxiety issues that therapy might address better than dropping out would.
jenny91 5y ago
I want to chime in with a bit less negativity. Universities can really be a bit behind on CS compared to industry, and it's really hard to teach a lot of the practical stuff. You can absolutely get a lot more out of industry experience than school in that field, and the author seems well posed to do that with their intrinsic motivation to do this stuff. All the information is online these days. Universities are good at teaching things for two things: they guide you through the field in the right order and teach you what's important, and there's someone pushing you to do your work with deadlines and such. (Of course the value of universities is not just in the teaching/learning bit.) If you have the motivation for 2, and you have a good guide/job to do 1, then a unviersity might not offer you as much value.
- sberens 5y ago
  Appreciate the positivity! I'm definitely grateful for the first two years at university; I wouldn't be where I am now without them! Like you say though, now I feel like I have (1) and (2) covered, so I'm not getting the same amount of value anymore :/
- quonn 5y ago
  Universities teach the stuff that has stood the test of time. It has been relevant in the 90s and is relevant now. Everything else changes. The whole debate is only in issue in the US where it‘s always tied to debt. Come to Europe and enjoy university for free!
Aqueous 5y ago
Have to say this because I've seen this attitude become pathological: You don't have to be "killing it" all the time. There's no rush. Time isn't running out. Finish school. Slow down. Think about what you want to do.
talentedcoin 5y ago
I mean, so, just looking at one of the courses this person has singled out .... https://writeofpassage.school/#pricing https://writeofpassage.school/#pricing I'm not sure what to think about dropping out of college to spend $4-$7k on a course about writing? That is definitely getting up to the level, at least, of what some college courses would cost. As far as dropping out just generally goes ... what's the rush? Especially if you're close to being done in any case? People shouldn't write off the utility of the credential itself, regardless of their own personal feelings on the subject.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  You don't understand! Their website uses fancy German fonts and neon color gradients, clearly they know what they're doing. And check that out, I can pay my $7,000 tuition via Apple Pay! Be right back, I'm going to go cancel the rest of my semester.
  - sberens 5y ago
    Unironically, the whole system to pay tuition has awful UX. The main benefits of the course that I see are: - focus on writing online, they make you make a personal website, they give you advice for twitter, medium, etc - community--people here are much cooler than average college students, they are successful, interesting, connected, and experienced in writing online and are more than willing to share their advice - there are no grades, which allows me to optimize my time how I want
    - talentedcoin 5y ago
      Idk. I am skeptical but I wish you luck! All I would say is (speaking from direct experience here), just be sure in your own mind that you are not just taking the external validation you would receive through college and proxying it with something else like "another course". There are lots of paid courses out there -- some are good and some are bad, but none of them can approximate the experience of working on a problem yourself first. With respect to writing specifically, there is no magic bullet. Writing takes practice and learning some tricks to optimize your own workflow. You could, after all, practice that in your spare time and stay in school :) Don't quit a program just to do things you could have done while staying in.
paxys 5y ago
Buried towards the bottom of the essay is the fact that the author has accepted a full time offer from Facebook. So yeah, the last year of college (and a degree stamp) is meaningless as long as he plans to stay in the tech world.
- diskzero 5y ago
  I noticed that and was slightly surprised. Does anyone know if there is a special visa carve-out for non-degreed Canadians?
  - kritiko 5y ago
    Based on the part of his story about leaving his parents in NY I don’t think he’s Canadian or is dual national.
    - cbracken 5y ago
      Agreed -- the use of the word college (instead of university), high school (instead of secondary or cegep), and a few other cues suggest he probably didn't grow up in Canada.
      - sberens 5y ago
        Yes, I was born and raised in New York!
        hitekker 5y ago
        Did your parents pay for your college?
        sberens 5y ago
        Yes, I'm very lucky and grateful for that!
  - wheelinsupial 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
aaroninsf 5y ago
"I realize that I’m in the final stretch of college now, but I just can’t bear to waste another second bogged down by things my brain screams are irrelevant when I think (dare I say know) I can replicate everything college can give and hopefully more." I had to double check that this was no satire, as this is remarkably ignorant. Ironically it demonstrates that no, Simon does not "know", what a classical general education is and what it is supposed to provide, specifically when delivered in an environment that considers academic knowledge and research as valuable as ends, not means. Dear Simon, a four year education at a credible institution is neither about resume-packing skills nor partying to build a network... I can't decide if such misplaced self confidence is more demonstrative of generic individual hubris based on no actual world experience, or an indictment of the conversion over the last decades of four-year college education into a de facto half-million-dollar glorified boot camp, but either way, what a shame.
- pdonis 5y ago
  > Simon does not "know", what a classical general education is and what it is supposed to provide This still raises the question: is the education Simon is getting at McGill actually providing this? I strongly suspect the answer is "no", since almost no college now actually provides what a "classical general education" is supposed to provide. Particularly if one is getting a CS degree. That's a specific credential for a specific career path, and the education that comes with it is focused on that. > an environment that considers academic knowledge and research as valuable as ends, not means. This again raises the question: is any college now actually such an environment? Certainly the governments that pay for the research don't view it as an end, they view it as a means. After decades of that system, that attitude has percolated down to the professors and students.
frazbin 5y ago
tl;dr - dropped out to work in red hot job market.
ljm 5y ago
> [...] what would be the use of credentials issued by a university thousands of miles away that still taught PHP for web development? Would success in the far more complex task of building startups from the ground up not be credential enough? [...] I'm reminded of the recent post about the 22 year old who said they had failed: "Your mistake was thinking you could go into, say, a CS degree and have nothing to learn."[0] Of course, dropping out and starting a career at FB (or similar) is hardly a bad move. Who can say if it's the right thing to do or not? It's hard to discern a positive motive, though, when 95% of the reasoning is why college isn't great, and the bit about Facebook or throwing startup ideas at the wall to see what sticks barely passes as a footnote. Generally the best decisions don't come from focussing on what you don't want to do. [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28575317 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28575317
TameAntelope 5y ago
This is what I think my father must have meant when he said, "I hope you never visit SF because if you do you'll never leave." If I were 21ish and had gotten this far, I absolutely would have made this choice, and it absolutely (for me) would have been the wrongest choice I could have made in that moment. The credential matters, and is worth 10 fold the value of that checked box on interview applications. To the people whose opinion Simon likely cares about, it proves you can stick with something that's unpleasant long enough to see it through to completion. Completing college (or not, as it's something I haven't done) sticks with you in conversations, in social interactions, and in the minds of others. If you ever want to do anything besides bootstrap your own startup all the way to product/market fit (not as easy as you possibly think right now), not finishing college will create a little nugget of, if not doubt, then "prove it now" mentality in the heads of the people whose opinions you care about (both professionally e.g. investors and personally e.g. friends). If you're 20 or 21, your primary advantage is time. You do have the time to finish up college, and then do all of these things. You can do both, and pretending like you can't is just giving in to that underdeveloped prefrontal cortex. Simon, I hope I'm wrong, but this is a mistake. You will regret this.
- paxys 5y ago
  The credential matters – until you get your first job. A few years from now no employer (at least in tech) is going to reject him for not having a college degree when he has "Software Engineer at Facebook" on his resume. I was recently looking to switch jobs and actually removed the "education" section from my resume because it was taking too much space. Prospective employers care much more about work experience and other relevant projects than the college courses you took a decade ago.
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    This has also been my experience. Without a degree, finding people interested in your CV is pretty tough. Once I started citing some previous contract work though, things started to open up. It's obviously no replacement for a degree, but I guess most people just want another party to vouch for your credibility.
  - 5y ago
ibraheemdev 5y ago
Is this a repost? I seem to remember seeing this a few days ago.
- sberens 5y ago
  My submission was put in the pool! You can read more about it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308
motohagiography 5y ago
Kid's being dumb, especially if he was at McGill and is Canadian. e.g. Have fun getting a US work visa to work with all those cool people without finishing your undergrad. The friction from the same degree/visa issue cuts you out of taking jobs in Europe. Any company bigger than a startup that has an actual HR department won't give you P&L responsibility because if something goes wrong they are exposed to the accusation you weren't objectively qualified, and even though it's bullshit, it will keep him out of most management roles, and reduce his bargaining position on every job he does. Even if he fails and uses his tech skills to take a government job, he's going to spend his life working for (and likely antagonizing) the long tail of people who only barely graduated, and that was their high water mark. This isn't 1995 where you can "learn computers" and become a valuable asset. Most of the skills he has, he is - or will - be competing against offshore shops, and even against them, he will be competing globally against people who have mobility between countries (facilitated by degrees) to enter and leave his market as they please, with a lot more talent and leverage. When he wants to go do a quick masters in something he finds interesting, he's also shut out, even if he could probably teach anything he becomes interested in. Maybe he does a series of startups and one hits. Maybe he's lucky, or brilliant, but the opportunity cost of 4 years in your early 20s is insignificant compared to the same time in your 30s and later. The feeling of this kid's parents isn't sadness or disappointment in foregone dreams, it's awe at how stupid he is being while still managing to dress and feed himself unassisted. Dear Kid - you're making a staggeringly poor quality decision, go back to school.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  > Even if he fails and uses his tech skills to take a government job Governments are some of the most picky about credentials.
- diskzero 5y ago
  This is really interesting observation. Much like the author, I also dropped out partway through a degree to do startups. Boy was I surprised when I (US citizen) was stopped by Canadian immigration and asked to show my degree when I was arriving in Vancouver, BC for a meeting. This was in 1998. I later finished my degree thanks to Apple's then generous at the time support. I feel that I valued the education more as an older adult, but I also wish I had just completed my degree earlier, as it was a lot of work completing a degree and working full-time.
MattGaiser 5y ago
The important part of a degree as a Canadian is TN. Makes a heck of a lot easier to get into the USA.
par 5y ago
My most recent job (for a well established fintech company) actually verified my diploma with my university, and even asked me to correct a small, related detail i had mistakenly put on my resume! This kid will get background checked some day and start regretting this.
- glangdale 5y ago
  The kid, unless he is very stupid, won't falsely claim to have graduated. They don't background check you on things that you don't claim. That said, I wonder if a university will confirm a partially completed degree. If not, it becomes something that rounds down to zero at anywhere that takes background checking seriously.
- quonn 5y ago
  Hmm. I never got background checked. But I would also never put anything false. Honestly, you only have one life and university is a significant part of it. It has nothing to do with your job - nothing at all. A few decades down the line this will be clear.
zinodaur 5y ago
I think its okay to drop out because you have your own ideas you are excited to work on. You can always go back to school and finish your degree if you need it for a visa. Don't drop out and work for FB though. I can tell you are fired up and excited to do things - but big corporations like FB will suck you dry and you will get nothing in return.
glangdale 5y ago
A common thread in these endless discussions is what a shallow and reductive view the pro-dropout people have of university. This guy thinks the biggest dig against McGill is that they teach web development (!) with an old stack, and he "knows" that he can "replicate everything that college can give and hopefully more". I hope Facebook can pay this kid in Dunning-Krugerrands. What a lot of early dropouts don't seem to realize is that the normal university experience in is very tail-loaded towards the tough, interesting courses. You can blitz through a couple years of basics and fume about how slow stuff is, or that the Intro Programming is in the "Wrong Language (TM)", but most of what I remember being good were 300- and 400-level courses. As you specialize, you also pick up a lot of these courses, relatively speaking. There's also a lot to be said for, I dunno, all the other courses that you could be doing at a university for intellectual breadth. It's not a vocational school. Oh well, he has a starter job at a tech company, which will probably be for life. That's how that works, right?
- sberens 5y ago
  Man, nobody gives people the benefit of the doubt on the internet huh :( Sorry if my comment on PHP was in poor taste, but it was more of an easy rag than the crux of my argument. I do standby that most CS courses that are supposed to be "practical" teach outdated material (at least at McGill), but of course there are exceptions (e.g. I used ZooKeeper in my distributed systems course). I do think that I do a decent job in my essay explaining how I can fulfill the three reasons people go to college by myself, so I think that merits more of a response than a mocking quote (if I'm reading the tone right). For the record, I took several 500 level courses (along with 300-400 level courses) and although I did learn a good amount, I still think that my time would have been better spent elsewhere. Also for the record, I took several psychology and philosophy courses where I liked the content but felt the professors/TAs tried to shoehorn me into some method of thinking and take it out on my grades when they disagreed with my essays. I will gladly read the same content on my own time and discuss it with other interested people.
Communitivity 5y ago
Ok, so some straight talk. Follow your dreams, but after you get the degree. A degree now days primarily is a signifier of two things: you have the the patience and discipline to stick through it and do well, and you are able to conform. The biggest benefits conferred by a degree are the networking you will do while at a good college, and being able to pass hiring gatekeeper checklists. This is doubly so if you plan on doing any kind of research. There are still places that will block you if you do not have a degree. The person that does it is an initial screener that is just looking at a checklist and nothing more. This probably (possibly?) does not apply if you have software engineer at a FAANG company on your resume. Who am I to comment? I basically did this, but went the corporate route. I dropped out to work in the corporate world, rather than startups. For family reasons I am unable to move to SV or NYC. After a career spanning 25 years I am making roughly $180k salary, not counting benefits, in Maryland. I have worked my rear off to get there, and I am in the process of going back to get my bachelors...because there are positions where the division head has to sign a waiver for me to be hired to the project in that position, because I do not have a degree. There is a caveat..I am in a somewhat degree-obsessed are, defense consulting. Still, I urge the OP to reconsider.
keithwhor 5y ago
There are a lot of comments here that echo my sentiment. Simon, I am a Canadian founder. I got my first job offer in the US (San Francisco) at 25 years old. I took it right away. It was not FAANG, though I was interviewed there many times: not once was I given an offer. My degree was in Biochemistry, not CS. I probably would have been over the moon to get an offer from FB. So I can understand how you feel. However; I think you should consider finishing your degree. The job offer from Facebook will always be around -- or some equivalent. If you can get that at 20/21 you can get it at 21/22. The only time where I'd recommend somebody drop out is if they're committed to a project that is either clearly a business or has the potential to be one and they're pursuing entrepreneurship. I know a number of founders that have pursued this route and are quite successful. That said; college is really a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I wouldn't trade my time in college for anything, even though coming to Silicon Valley at 25 years old made me feel ancient. If you focus your last year on personal growth, hacking, friends, your network, building relationships - both at McGill and around Silicon Valley - you'll be even more set up to succeed post-graduation. Re: the FB offer. The ugly truth you're glossing over is that working at FAANG can -- for many -- ultimately be just as boring as coursework in college. If you want to get into startups and like the energy surrounding them, my recommendation is use your last year of college to (1) kick college's ass and get that degree so immigration is easier and (2) start a badass side project. That's my $0.02 but YMMV. Shoot me a DM on Twitter if you feel like chatting.
- jjeaff 5y ago
  For me, the most important thing that college did is force me to study a bunch of stuff that I did not want to study. I never would have learned about philosophy or linguistics or advanced math were it not for university. In many cases I learned helpful things and gained an appreciation for subjects and people outside of my bubble.
- brockwhittaker 5y ago
  As someone who also dropped out, I think college will always be there for Simon. You go to college to become employable. I learned far more on the job than in school—and dropping out didn't hinder me becoming a good engineer—it expedited it. Go back to college when you're older and then study something you'll appreciate learning. Hungry kids like this who want to start making stuff in the real world should do just that.
gtvwill 5y ago
This kids a middle management wet dream for easy abuse labor. Is willing to drop out of secure education for in-secure work. No long term fin capital from years worked to weather a rough employment period. No further education tickets to class him as a threat to taking managements jobs. Basically lining himself up to be a slave to the system.... He will make a good cog in the machine.
FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
There's a flip side to the sunk cost fallacy: I might not fly around the world to pick up a $100 bill. But if I'm standing right next to it, I pick it up. Let's say this kid is right that 4 years for a McGill degree isn't worth it (though it is). That's not the decision now. The forward-looking cost is only one year, not four years. Pick up the $100 first. Also, a lot of the "college isn't worth it" arguments are for English degrees from West Podunk University. A CS degree from McGill is a completely different animal. One year? Worth it.
chas 5y ago
While I did computer engineering and not computer science, I frequently come back to how useful of an intellectual foundation my college education was. It's basically a whirlwind tour of humanity's greatest hits in a given domain. While it's hard to tell which ones are going to be a big deal for you, there are certain collections of skills that have been super useful to combine in the past, so getting the whole cognitive standard library under your belt is a great use of time. While I thought I'd be focusing 100% on discrete math in my computing life, I was really happy to have been exposed to gradients and convolutions when neural networks came to prominence. I've also recently gotten interested in power electronics and have been really grateful for having previously been exposed to several varieties of transistors and having had half a semester of thermodynamics. Not to say that this background was really enough to be productive, but it was really nice to already know that these subjects exist and be familiar enough with their broad outlines to not have to completely bootstrap multiple fields at the same time. I'm a little salty about this though because, at the time, there were a ton of classes that I thought were boring and useless. I was wrong (at least about the uselessness) about for vast majority of them.
deleted 5y ago
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SamvitJ 5y ago
I was really worried about this person reading through this post (felt like a lot of negativity and short-sightedness) until I came upon the fact he had a full-time job offer at Facebook. Still worried, but not as much.
- sberens 5y ago
  Can I ask where you saw negativity? That wasn't my intention when writing the essay; I'd love to make my writing more precise!
jbirer 5y ago
When I was 17, I registered to oDesk (now Upwork) to get freelance gigs using my moms card to withdraw (I was already doing small wordpress jobs and some PHP stuff through word of mouth). At some point the High School work was distracting me from my freelance work (1000$ is A LOT of money for a 17 year old in Romania). Now I am 26 and earning 3000 Euros a month freelancing as a React + Solidity dev. My college graduate friends sometimes ask me for money. I did get rejected from a lot of jobs for not having a degree but I never had a month where I made less than 500 euro (minimum wage here), capitalism and demand prevails every time.
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53 points by sberens 5y ago

igalakhov 5y ago

Very well written!

eitu_s 5y ago

Great letter!

dimmke 5y ago

I did a year of college and dropped out and began my career at 20. It’s definitely possible to have a good career as a software engineer without it, but it definitely put me at a disadvantage in some situations. Only one time that I explicitly know of professionally but it also caused some problems with feeling insecure. If you’ve already gotten a job at FB just make sure the offer isn’t contingent on completion of degree and you’re probably fine. But be aware there might come a time where you’d wished you had finished.

woleium 5y ago
I dropped out, went back to do a MBA part time (while working full time) about 10 years later because almost all director level positions I was looking at required it. It was hard work, but it worked out for me.
- sjg007 5y ago
  I'm considering an MBA for that reason.
google234123 5y ago
If you already have a engineering job at FB then they wont care if you finished your degree.
tombert 5y ago
I have a similar story; I finished about 1.5 years at FSU, and due to a lack of motivation and depression (and the two feeding into each other), I decided to drop out when I was 21. I was extremely lucky to find work as a software engineer really quickly, and I managed to piece together a pretty awesome career making a pretty reasonable salary, but there's been several occasions where not having a degree made my life measurably worse. Since then, nine years after dropping out, I managed to complete my degree at WGU (which has its own share of valid criticisms). I don't know if the degree will "help" me more than my experience has, but at elast it's one less inferiority complex I have to deal with.
- dimmke 5y ago
  Yeah. I could go back and finish (though I’d guess I would be starting from scratch now), but I’m now at a level where it doesn’t matter. It would be so weird to be taking English classes with a bunch of 18 year olds just to add a line item to my resume nobody would read anyways. I’ve had times where it felt like I had to work harder, but I think a lot of that was self imposed and working hard is important in being a good software engineer anyways. You can go on the CSCareerQuestions subreddit and see many posts from people who did the bare minimum and have CS degrees with no idea how to get into the industry.
  - tombert 5y ago
    If you just want a nominal degree, you might check out either WGU [1] or Northern Arizona University [2]. The competency-based system allows you to get through the courses a lot quicker (and cheaper) than you would with a traditional school (both are fully accredited). I don't know that it's "worth it", since that expression can mean different things to different people. For me, I want to unlock the path to do research, and a bachelors is basically required for that for most jobs. I also just wanted to get that chip off my shoulder (as stated before). [1] https://www.wgu.edu/ https://www.wgu.edu/ [2] https://nau.edu/online-innovative-educational-initiatives/self-paced-personalized-learning/ https://nau.edu/online-innovative-educational-initiatives/se...
- Buttons840 5y ago
chana_masala 5y ago
Yep. I graduated in the top ten of my high school, had a full scholarship to the state university, and already had about a year's worth of college credits from AP classes. I made it one semester. Too much instant freedom discovering drugs and parties. I should not have lived in the dorms. After a ten year gap year and years of professional experience I am now finishing up my degree.
EdwardDiego 5y ago
Yep, I developed a love for coding when I'd already squandered my attempt at tertiary education, and had a young son and wife who'd developed a belief that women shouldn't work, to support. So I wasn't able to go back to university, so I'm self-taught, although I sat (and passed) a few first year papers via correspondence. Later on I took second year papers part-time to cover gaps I'd identified in my knowledge of computer science. But it was very hard to get an interview with no degree. I had a portfolio of code I'd written for people freelance, but even getting people to look at it was near impossible. I was rejected several times with reasons along the lines of "self-taught devs write unstructured/bad/spaghetti code", which annoyed me when they wouldn't look at my portfolio. In the end, I got an interview via a friend of a colleague who was a stealth developer in the call centre I worked in. He was desperate to learn JS, so I taught him, and consequently he recommended me to his friend. Who, luckily for me, worked for a company founded by a developer who was also self-taught and sans degree, so he gave me a chance to prove myself. 13 years later, my lack of degree doesn't concern anyon But, 5 years to get an interview, and in the first 5 years, I was really worried what would happen if the company downsized and I had to find another job. Not to mention the imposter syndrome feeling.

ykevinator3 5y ago

Simon stay in school, you'll be 30 one day, then 40, you're so close, just finish it, this is a really stupid decision.

kindle-dev 5y ago

I think this is a bad idea. The author is clearly self motivated, so why does he want to start a full-time dev career so early? College is basically the best time in most people's lives to explore ideas that they have. College students are smart enough to build something significant, and have enough time to do so. I know so many people who have atrophied motivationally at Facebook and other big tech companies. The ones that haven't devolved into general apathy are more focused on climbing the corporate ladder or making more money, not anything truly fun and inspirational. Personally, I would love the opportunity to go back to college and have the time I need to explore my ideas.

paxys 5y ago
For the last couple of years the "best time in most people's lives" has been paying $40K for the professor to shuffle through years-old powerpoint decks over Zoom. It's hard to find anyone graduating today who isn't fully disillusioned with the college system.
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  Is it really any better to sit in a grand lecture hall while the same tired professor slogs through a years old PowerPoint in person?
  - paxys 5y ago
    No, but at least people are now realizing the absurdity of the whole situation. Plus there were at least other benefits of college outside of lecture halls that are no longer available.
tombert 5y ago
NOTE: Not the author. I can't speak for Facebook, but I definitely feel like Apple made me stagnate intellectually. It didn't help that every time I wanted to work on something open source, I would get a nastygram from their legal team telling me that doing so would be grounds for termination. That said, at least for me, college required a type of stick-with-it-ness that I don't really feel I obtained until having to sludge through horrible office jobs for years. Having to work for megacorps that I hated forced me to finish work that I didn't want to do, and trudge through meetings I didn't have any desire to go to. After the hundredth "glorified data entry" assignment and thousandth "sprint planning that I'm only relevant for two minutes of", pushing my way through college felt somewhat easy in comparison. My path would be virtually impossible to recommend to people, but I honestly wouldn't change the order of how I did things given the option.

ctvo 5y ago

Must be extraordinary to hop to New York City for a month, then fly to SFO as a young person, with not a (mentioned) care in the world about running out of money. With the above context, I think we can agree the risks for this person is low. If things go badly there's a landing spot.

fatnoah 5y ago
Yeah, I'm not sure what "risk" this person is taking. They can afford to move around the country while not working, plus they already have an offer from Facebook (which would likely be > $100k) for employment.
Doches 5y ago
I'm setting a calendar alert to check for an "Our Incredible Journey" post from the OP in about 18 months...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

purpleflame1257 5y ago

I think the author has some unresolved anxiety issues that therapy might address better than dropping out would.

jenny91 5y ago

I want to chime in with a bit less negativity. Universities can really be a bit behind on CS compared to industry, and it's really hard to teach a lot of the practical stuff. You can absolutely get a lot more out of industry experience than school in that field, and the author seems well posed to do that with their intrinsic motivation to do this stuff. All the information is online these days. Universities are good at teaching things for two things: they guide you through the field in the right order and teach you what's important, and there's someone pushing you to do your work with deadlines and such. (Of course the value of universities is not just in the teaching/learning bit.) If you have the motivation for 2, and you have a good guide/job to do 1, then a unviersity might not offer you as much value.

sberens 5y ago
Appreciate the positivity! I'm definitely grateful for the first two years at university; I wouldn't be where I am now without them! Like you say though, now I feel like I have (1) and (2) covered, so I'm not getting the same amount of value anymore :/
quonn 5y ago
Universities teach the stuff that has stood the test of time. It has been relevant in the 90s and is relevant now. Everything else changes. The whole debate is only in issue in the US where it‘s always tied to debt. Come to Europe and enjoy university for free!

Aqueous 5y ago

Have to say this because I've seen this attitude become pathological: You don't have to be "killing it" all the time. There's no rush. Time isn't running out. Finish school. Slow down. Think about what you want to do.

talentedcoin 5y ago

I mean, so, just looking at one of the courses this person has singled out .... https://writeofpassage.school/#pricing https://writeofpassage.school/#pricing I'm not sure what to think about dropping out of college to spend $4-$7k on a course about writing? That is definitely getting up to the level, at least, of what some college courses would cost. As far as dropping out just generally goes ... what's the rush? Especially if you're close to being done in any case? People shouldn't write off the utility of the credential itself, regardless of their own personal feelings on the subject.

smoldesu 5y ago
You don't understand! Their website uses fancy German fonts and neon color gradients, clearly they know what they're doing. And check that out, I can pay my $7,000 tuition via Apple Pay! Be right back, I'm going to go cancel the rest of my semester.
- sberens 5y ago
  Unironically, the whole system to pay tuition has awful UX. The main benefits of the course that I see are: - focus on writing online, they make you make a personal website, they give you advice for twitter, medium, etc - community--people here are much cooler than average college students, they are successful, interesting, connected, and experienced in writing online and are more than willing to share their advice - there are no grades, which allows me to optimize my time how I want
  - talentedcoin 5y ago
    Idk. I am skeptical but I wish you luck! All I would say is (speaking from direct experience here), just be sure in your own mind that you are not just taking the external validation you would receive through college and proxying it with something else like "another course". There are lots of paid courses out there -- some are good and some are bad, but none of them can approximate the experience of working on a problem yourself first. With respect to writing specifically, there is no magic bullet. Writing takes practice and learning some tricks to optimize your own workflow. You could, after all, practice that in your spare time and stay in school :) Don't quit a program just to do things you could have done while staying in.

paxys 5y ago

Buried towards the bottom of the essay is the fact that the author has accepted a full time offer from Facebook. So yeah, the last year of college (and a degree stamp) is meaningless as long as he plans to stay in the tech world.

diskzero 5y ago
I noticed that and was slightly surprised. Does anyone know if there is a special visa carve-out for non-degreed Canadians?
- kritiko 5y ago
  Based on the part of his story about leaving his parents in NY I don’t think he’s Canadian or is dual national.
  - cbracken 5y ago
    Agreed -- the use of the word college (instead of university), high school (instead of secondary or cegep), and a few other cues suggest he probably didn't grow up in Canada.
    - sberens 5y ago
      Yes, I was born and raised in New York!
      - hitekker 5y ago
        Did your parents pay for your college?
        sberens 5y ago
        Yes, I'm very lucky and grateful for that!
- wheelinsupial 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

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aaroninsf 5y ago

"I realize that I’m in the final stretch of college now, but I just can’t bear to waste another second bogged down by things my brain screams are irrelevant when I think (dare I say know) I can replicate everything college can give and hopefully more." I had to double check that this was no satire, as this is remarkably ignorant. Ironically it demonstrates that no, Simon does not "know", what a classical general education is and what it is supposed to provide, specifically when delivered in an environment that considers academic knowledge and research as valuable as ends, not means. Dear Simon, a four year education at a credible institution is neither about resume-packing skills nor partying to build a network... I can't decide if such misplaced self confidence is more demonstrative of generic individual hubris based on no actual world experience, or an indictment of the conversion over the last decades of four-year college education into a de facto half-million-dollar glorified boot camp, but either way, what a shame.

pdonis 5y ago
> Simon does not "know", what a classical general education is and what it is supposed to provide This still raises the question: is the education Simon is getting at McGill actually providing this? I strongly suspect the answer is "no", since almost no college now actually provides what a "classical general education" is supposed to provide. Particularly if one is getting a CS degree. That's a specific credential for a specific career path, and the education that comes with it is focused on that. > an environment that considers academic knowledge and research as valuable as ends, not means. This again raises the question: is any college now actually such an environment? Certainly the governments that pay for the research don't view it as an end, they view it as a means. After decades of that system, that attitude has percolated down to the professors and students.

frazbin 5y ago

tl;dr - dropped out to work in red hot job market.

ljm 5y ago

> [...] what would be the use of credentials issued by a university thousands of miles away that still taught PHP for web development? Would success in the far more complex task of building startups from the ground up not be credential enough? [...] I'm reminded of the recent post about the 22 year old who said they had failed: "Your mistake was thinking you could go into, say, a CS degree and have nothing to learn."[0] Of course, dropping out and starting a career at FB (or similar) is hardly a bad move. Who can say if it's the right thing to do or not? It's hard to discern a positive motive, though, when 95% of the reasoning is why college isn't great, and the bit about Facebook or throwing startup ideas at the wall to see what sticks barely passes as a footnote. Generally the best decisions don't come from focussing on what you don't want to do. [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28575317 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28575317

TameAntelope 5y ago

This is what I think my father must have meant when he said, "I hope you never visit SF because if you do you'll never leave." If I were 21ish and had gotten this far, I absolutely would have made this choice, and it absolutely (for me) would have been the wrongest choice I could have made in that moment. The credential matters, and is worth 10 fold the value of that checked box on interview applications. To the people whose opinion Simon likely cares about, it proves you can stick with something that's unpleasant long enough to see it through to completion. Completing college (or not, as it's something I haven't done) sticks with you in conversations, in social interactions, and in the minds of others. If you ever want to do anything besides bootstrap your own startup all the way to product/market fit (not as easy as you possibly think right now), not finishing college will create a little nugget of, if not doubt, then "prove it now" mentality in the heads of the people whose opinions you care about (both professionally e.g. investors and personally e.g. friends). If you're 20 or 21, your primary advantage is time. You do have the time to finish up college, and then do all of these things. You can do both, and pretending like you can't is just giving in to that underdeveloped prefrontal cortex. Simon, I hope I'm wrong, but this is a mistake. You will regret this.

paxys 5y ago
The credential matters – until you get your first job. A few years from now no employer (at least in tech) is going to reject him for not having a college degree when he has "Software Engineer at Facebook" on his resume. I was recently looking to switch jobs and actually removed the "education" section from my resume because it was taking too much space. Prospective employers care much more about work experience and other relevant projects than the college courses you took a decade ago.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  This has also been my experience. Without a degree, finding people interested in your CV is pretty tough. Once I started citing some previous contract work though, things started to open up. It's obviously no replacement for a degree, but I guess most people just want another party to vouch for your credibility.
- 5y ago

ibraheemdev 5y ago

Is this a repost? I seem to remember seeing this a few days ago.

sberens 5y ago
My submission was put in the pool! You can read more about it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308

motohagiography 5y ago

Kid's being dumb, especially if he was at McGill and is Canadian. e.g. Have fun getting a US work visa to work with all those cool people without finishing your undergrad. The friction from the same degree/visa issue cuts you out of taking jobs in Europe. Any company bigger than a startup that has an actual HR department won't give you P&L responsibility because if something goes wrong they are exposed to the accusation you weren't objectively qualified, and even though it's bullshit, it will keep him out of most management roles, and reduce his bargaining position on every job he does. Even if he fails and uses his tech skills to take a government job, he's going to spend his life working for (and likely antagonizing) the long tail of people who only barely graduated, and that was their high water mark. This isn't 1995 where you can "learn computers" and become a valuable asset. Most of the skills he has, he is - or will - be competing against offshore shops, and even against them, he will be competing globally against people who have mobility between countries (facilitated by degrees) to enter and leave his market as they please, with a lot more talent and leverage. When he wants to go do a quick masters in something he finds interesting, he's also shut out, even if he could probably teach anything he becomes interested in. Maybe he does a series of startups and one hits. Maybe he's lucky, or brilliant, but the opportunity cost of 4 years in your early 20s is insignificant compared to the same time in your 30s and later. The feeling of this kid's parents isn't sadness or disappointment in foregone dreams, it's awe at how stupid he is being while still managing to dress and feed himself unassisted. Dear Kid - you're making a staggeringly poor quality decision, go back to school.

MattGaiser 5y ago
> Even if he fails and uses his tech skills to take a government job Governments are some of the most picky about credentials.
diskzero 5y ago
This is really interesting observation. Much like the author, I also dropped out partway through a degree to do startups. Boy was I surprised when I (US citizen) was stopped by Canadian immigration and asked to show my degree when I was arriving in Vancouver, BC for a meeting. This was in 1998. I later finished my degree thanks to Apple's then generous at the time support. I feel that I valued the education more as an older adult, but I also wish I had just completed my degree earlier, as it was a lot of work completing a degree and working full-time.

MattGaiser 5y ago

The important part of a degree as a Canadian is TN. Makes a heck of a lot easier to get into the USA.

par 5y ago

My most recent job (for a well established fintech company) actually verified my diploma with my university, and even asked me to correct a small, related detail i had mistakenly put on my resume! This kid will get background checked some day and start regretting this.

glangdale 5y ago
The kid, unless he is very stupid, won't falsely claim to have graduated. They don't background check you on things that you don't claim. That said, I wonder if a university will confirm a partially completed degree. If not, it becomes something that rounds down to zero at anywhere that takes background checking seriously.
quonn 5y ago
Hmm. I never got background checked. But I would also never put anything false. Honestly, you only have one life and university is a significant part of it. It has nothing to do with your job - nothing at all. A few decades down the line this will be clear.

zinodaur 5y ago

I think its okay to drop out because you have your own ideas you are excited to work on. You can always go back to school and finish your degree if you need it for a visa. Don't drop out and work for FB though. I can tell you are fired up and excited to do things - but big corporations like FB will suck you dry and you will get nothing in return.

glangdale 5y ago

A common thread in these endless discussions is what a shallow and reductive view the pro-dropout people have of university. This guy thinks the biggest dig against McGill is that they teach web development (!) with an old stack, and he "knows" that he can "replicate everything that college can give and hopefully more". I hope Facebook can pay this kid in Dunning-Krugerrands. What a lot of early dropouts don't seem to realize is that the normal university experience in is very tail-loaded towards the tough, interesting courses. You can blitz through a couple years of basics and fume about how slow stuff is, or that the Intro Programming is in the "Wrong Language (TM)", but most of what I remember being good were 300- and 400-level courses. As you specialize, you also pick up a lot of these courses, relatively speaking. There's also a lot to be said for, I dunno, all the other courses that you could be doing at a university for intellectual breadth. It's not a vocational school. Oh well, he has a starter job at a tech company, which will probably be for life. That's how that works, right?

sberens 5y ago
Man, nobody gives people the benefit of the doubt on the internet huh :( Sorry if my comment on PHP was in poor taste, but it was more of an easy rag than the crux of my argument. I do standby that most CS courses that are supposed to be "practical" teach outdated material (at least at McGill), but of course there are exceptions (e.g. I used ZooKeeper in my distributed systems course). I do think that I do a decent job in my essay explaining how I can fulfill the three reasons people go to college by myself, so I think that merits more of a response than a mocking quote (if I'm reading the tone right). For the record, I took several 500 level courses (along with 300-400 level courses) and although I did learn a good amount, I still think that my time would have been better spent elsewhere. Also for the record, I took several psychology and philosophy courses where I liked the content but felt the professors/TAs tried to shoehorn me into some method of thinking and take it out on my grades when they disagreed with my essays. I will gladly read the same content on my own time and discuss it with other interested people.

Communitivity 5y ago

Ok, so some straight talk. Follow your dreams, but after you get the degree. A degree now days primarily is a signifier of two things: you have the the patience and discipline to stick through it and do well, and you are able to conform. The biggest benefits conferred by a degree are the networking you will do while at a good college, and being able to pass hiring gatekeeper checklists. This is doubly so if you plan on doing any kind of research. There are still places that will block you if you do not have a degree. The person that does it is an initial screener that is just looking at a checklist and nothing more. This probably (possibly?) does not apply if you have software engineer at a FAANG company on your resume. Who am I to comment? I basically did this, but went the corporate route. I dropped out to work in the corporate world, rather than startups. For family reasons I am unable to move to SV or NYC. After a career spanning 25 years I am making roughly $180k salary, not counting benefits, in Maryland. I have worked my rear off to get there, and I am in the process of going back to get my bachelors...because there are positions where the division head has to sign a waiver for me to be hired to the project in that position, because I do not have a degree. There is a caveat..I am in a somewhat degree-obsessed are, defense consulting. Still, I urge the OP to reconsider.

keithwhor 5y ago

There are a lot of comments here that echo my sentiment. Simon, I am a Canadian founder. I got my first job offer in the US (San Francisco) at 25 years old. I took it right away. It was not FAANG, though I was interviewed there many times: not once was I given an offer. My degree was in Biochemistry, not CS. I probably would have been over the moon to get an offer from FB. So I can understand how you feel. However; I think you should consider finishing your degree. The job offer from Facebook will always be around -- or some equivalent. If you can get that at 20/21 you can get it at 21/22. The only time where I'd recommend somebody drop out is if they're committed to a project that is either clearly a business or has the potential to be one and they're pursuing entrepreneurship. I know a number of founders that have pursued this route and are quite successful. That said; college is really a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I wouldn't trade my time in college for anything, even though coming to Silicon Valley at 25 years old made me feel ancient. If you focus your last year on personal growth, hacking, friends, your network, building relationships - both at McGill and around Silicon Valley - you'll be even more set up to succeed post-graduation. Re: the FB offer. The ugly truth you're glossing over is that working at FAANG can -- for many -- ultimately be just as boring as coursework in college. If you want to get into startups and like the energy surrounding them, my recommendation is use your last year of college to (1) kick college's ass and get that degree so immigration is easier and (2) start a badass side project. That's my $0.02 but YMMV. Shoot me a DM on Twitter if you feel like chatting.

jjeaff 5y ago
For me, the most important thing that college did is force me to study a bunch of stuff that I did not want to study. I never would have learned about philosophy or linguistics or advanced math were it not for university. In many cases I learned helpful things and gained an appreciation for subjects and people outside of my bubble.
brockwhittaker 5y ago
As someone who also dropped out, I think college will always be there for Simon. You go to college to become employable. I learned far more on the job than in school—and dropping out didn't hinder me becoming a good engineer—it expedited it. Go back to college when you're older and then study something you'll appreciate learning. Hungry kids like this who want to start making stuff in the real world should do just that.

gtvwill 5y ago

This kids a middle management wet dream for easy abuse labor. Is willing to drop out of secure education for in-secure work. No long term fin capital from years worked to weather a rough employment period. No further education tickets to class him as a threat to taking managements jobs. Basically lining himself up to be a slave to the system.... He will make a good cog in the machine.

FooBarBizBazz 5y ago

There's a flip side to the sunk cost fallacy: I might not fly around the world to pick up a $100 bill. But if I'm standing right next to it, I pick it up. Let's say this kid is right that 4 years for a McGill degree isn't worth it (though it is). That's not the decision now. The forward-looking cost is only one year, not four years. Pick up the $100 first. Also, a lot of the "college isn't worth it" arguments are for English degrees from West Podunk University. A CS degree from McGill is a completely different animal. One year? Worth it.

chas 5y ago

While I did computer engineering and not computer science, I frequently come back to how useful of an intellectual foundation my college education was. It's basically a whirlwind tour of humanity's greatest hits in a given domain. While it's hard to tell which ones are going to be a big deal for you, there are certain collections of skills that have been super useful to combine in the past, so getting the whole cognitive standard library under your belt is a great use of time. While I thought I'd be focusing 100% on discrete math in my computing life, I was really happy to have been exposed to gradients and convolutions when neural networks came to prominence. I've also recently gotten interested in power electronics and have been really grateful for having previously been exposed to several varieties of transistors and having had half a semester of thermodynamics. Not to say that this background was really enough to be productive, but it was really nice to already know that these subjects exist and be familiar enough with their broad outlines to not have to completely bootstrap multiple fields at the same time. I'm a little salty about this though because, at the time, there were a ton of classes that I thought were boring and useless. I was wrong (at least about the uselessness) about for vast majority of them.

deleted 5y ago

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SamvitJ 5y ago

I was really worried about this person reading through this post (felt like a lot of negativity and short-sightedness) until I came upon the fact he had a full-time job offer at Facebook. Still worried, but not as much.

sberens 5y ago
Can I ask where you saw negativity? That wasn't my intention when writing the essay; I'd love to make my writing more precise!

jbirer 5y ago

When I was 17, I registered to oDesk (now Upwork) to get freelance gigs using my moms card to withdraw (I was already doing small wordpress jobs and some PHP stuff through word of mouth). At some point the High School work was distracting me from my freelance work (1000$ is A LOT of money for a 17 year old in Romania). Now I am 26 and earning 3000 Euros a month freelancing as a React + Solidity dev. My college graduate friends sometimes ask me for money. I did get rejected from a lot of jobs for not having a degree but I never had a month where I made less than 500 euro (minimum wage here), capitalism and demand prevails every time.

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