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Thank you for you advice. But the point still remains that exams and all the education learning side aren't for me. Teaching my self and learning on the job so

Thank you for you advice. But the point still remains that exams and all the education learning side aren't for me. Teaching my self and learning on the job so to speak sounds much more like me.

ColinWright 15y ago
That's fair enough. It sounds like you've made up your mind, so I wish the the very best. There are people here on HN and in other places who can help and offer advice. My advice now is to do stuff, lots of stuff, to show that you've done the work and are willing and able to take advantage of advice they offer. Remember, 90% of everything is crap, so you need to do 10, perhaps 20 or even 30 times as much work as you want for your final output. Volume, along with introspection (so-called "deliberate practice [1]) and "taste" [2] will be your friends. [1] http://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/wiki/index.php/Do_Lots_of_Deliberate_Practice http://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/wiki/index.php/Do_Lot... [2] http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html
- joshuahornby 15y ago
  To all of the above, thank you for your feedback. My plan is to try and get through the next month of term and pass the exams. I then have the whole of summer to work on things and see if I can gain some experience. I need to give my self as many 'open doors' as I can. Thanks again.
stfu 15y ago
What I would suggest is sitting in on a few advanced courses and talk to those lecturers who seem most relateable to you. I found the first years of my studies dreadful. I barely survived the these years, but once I found subjects that I enjoy it stimulated my competitive spirit. It made me realize that I am not a "generalist" and get extremely bored by things that everybody is doing. But as soon as I can see some level of obscurity and the opportunity to "find something new", my motivation gets a massive boost and I can dedicate myself for weeks to some minor details. But this is just me. The big challenge for you is to find out what truly motivates you and then arrange things in a way that play to your strength, i.e. squeeze those examination regulations until you find a school that supports your preferences. Nothing wrong with accepting that you are a bad at exam taker. But if you don't want to change this, you have to compensate for it by putting in the extra effort of finding a school/degree, that allows you to retake tests multiple times and/or replace them with oral disputations/papers, and one that gives strong weight to the final thesis in the total grade calculations.
caw 15y ago
I don't think anyone here is going to convince you of going one way or the other, it seems like you've made up your mind. A couple of points to think about with whatever you do: How you perceive things affects what you gain from them. If Uni "isn't for you" then sitting in class you're not going to learn anything. If you say "this might be useful, maybe not today, but someday" then you'll get something out of it. You may run into problems finding a job without a degree. While freelancing is fine now, how do you know you'll want to do it forever? I worked with a guy that ran his own consulting company for over 10 years, and had 3 employees. The economy crashed and he found himself looking for a full time job. While he had the experience to cover himself (being in his 50s), what if this happens to you in 3-5 years? There's a reason college sports players still get degrees. There's a lot of growth that occurs at school. I recently had the opportunity to work with someone around my age that didn't go to college. I expected him to have a baseline of knowledge that he didn't have. There were communication problems because there was no common baseline. I also noticed a certain level of immaturity that I didn't notice in my peers who I went to college with. There's also some amount of perseverance demonstrated by completing a degree. I don't know anyone who liked 100% of their college classes. Besides the required learning the piece of paper also signifies this. What does dropping out project to others about yourself? Will they realize this initially, or will you have to explain it to them? There's no right answer to this question.

Thank you for you advice. But the point still remains that exams and all the education learning side aren't for me. Teaching my self and learning on the job so to speak sounds much more like me.

ColinWright 15y ago

That's fair enough. It sounds like you've made up your mind, so I wish the the very best. There are people here on HN and in other places who can help and offer advice. My advice now is to do stuff, lots of stuff, to show that you've done the work and are willing and able to take advantage of advice they offer. Remember, 90% of everything is crap, so you need to do 10, perhaps 20 or even 30 times as much work as you want for your final output. Volume, along with introspection (so-called "deliberate practice [1]) and "taste" [2] will be your friends. [1] http://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/wiki/index.php/Do_Lots_of_Deliberate_Practice http://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/wiki/index.php/Do_Lot... [2] http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html

joshuahornby 15y ago
To all of the above, thank you for your feedback. My plan is to try and get through the next month of term and pass the exams. I then have the whole of summer to work on things and see if I can gain some experience. I need to give my self as many 'open doors' as I can. Thanks again.

stfu 15y ago

What I would suggest is sitting in on a few advanced courses and talk to those lecturers who seem most relateable to you. I found the first years of my studies dreadful. I barely survived the these years, but once I found subjects that I enjoy it stimulated my competitive spirit. It made me realize that I am not a "generalist" and get extremely bored by things that everybody is doing. But as soon as I can see some level of obscurity and the opportunity to "find something new", my motivation gets a massive boost and I can dedicate myself for weeks to some minor details. But this is just me. The big challenge for you is to find out what truly motivates you and then arrange things in a way that play to your strength, i.e. squeeze those examination regulations until you find a school that supports your preferences. Nothing wrong with accepting that you are a bad at exam taker. But if you don't want to change this, you have to compensate for it by putting in the extra effort of finding a school/degree, that allows you to retake tests multiple times and/or replace them with oral disputations/papers, and one that gives strong weight to the final thesis in the total grade calculations.

caw 15y ago

I don't think anyone here is going to convince you of going one way or the other, it seems like you've made up your mind. A couple of points to think about with whatever you do: How you perceive things affects what you gain from them. If Uni "isn't for you" then sitting in class you're not going to learn anything. If you say "this might be useful, maybe not today, but someday" then you'll get something out of it. You may run into problems finding a job without a degree. While freelancing is fine now, how do you know you'll want to do it forever? I worked with a guy that ran his own consulting company for over 10 years, and had 3 employees. The economy crashed and he found himself looking for a full time job. While he had the experience to cover himself (being in his 50s), what if this happens to you in 3-5 years? There's a reason college sports players still get degrees. There's a lot of growth that occurs at school. I recently had the opportunity to work with someone around my age that didn't go to college. I expected him to have a baseline of knowledge that he didn't have. There were communication problems because there was no common baseline. I also noticed a certain level of immaturity that I didn't notice in my peers who I went to college with. There's also some amount of perseverance demonstrated by completing a degree. I don't know anyone who liked 100% of their college classes. Besides the required learning the piece of paper also signifies this. What does dropping out project to others about yourself? Will they realize this initially, or will you have to explain it to them? There's no right answer to this question.