7 ms·

If one is thinking about not getting a degree and trying to go straight to work, as someone who did so (albiet out of poverty rather than choice) but didn't end

• maxk42 4mo ago
  My experience has been quite the opposite. I have done far better than my peers and have less debt. I wonder which country you're in?
• ehnto 4mo ago
  To a much smaller extent due to where I live, I noticed this too. From merely the fact that I had a (local economy relative) high paying software job and that I could "make stuff happen" for people with capital or people in the "boys club", I was introduced to an entirely different layer of the city I had no idea about. I noticed how effortlessly the signals transfer and how it all feels very meritocratic, you don't even notice the layer and you just see the people. Until someone who's not in that layer shows up, and suddenly the doors close, the conversation chills and the barriers to the layer become evident. I am very curious how this changes for young technologists in an AI era, where maybe non-technical people in this layer no longer see a self made technologist as a value add to their cohort. I purposely use technologist over software developer, since I feelnthe generalist self-made developer typically commands an intuitive breadth of skills not just programming. I also didn't make out like Zuck, though I am happily working and making games on the side.
  • anal_reactor 4mo ago
    Honestly I do the reverse of that. I dress like shit and when introducing myself I specifically use the word "immigrant" rather than "expat" because signalling high social position attracts people who want something from me but don't offer anything in return.
    • NathanielK 4mo ago
      Not surprised to hear this from anal_reactor.
    • mc32 4mo ago
      immigrants are people who tend to stay and don’t have plans to return to their home countries. Expats are temporary immigrants typically paid by their company to move and intend to move back to their home countries once the assignment is over.
      • anal_reactor 4mo ago
        Ain't nobody calling seasonal minimum-wage workers "expats".
        • mc32 4mo ago
          True, but I'm talking about native English speakers. Those people likely have their own terminology in their own language to describe themselves. Also an ex-patriate is typically in the professional class. So those "English" teachers who teach in Japan, etc., may think of themselves as ex-pats or try to frequent "ex-pat" hangouts but they aren't necessarily because of two things: one, they have not been working at their home office and then transferred and typically they do not hold prelesional degrees -though they may hold "certificates" or whatever. They are in effect temporary workers on a limited stay visa, often needing annual renewal by hopping to a third country to have it renewed themselves. For ex-pats all this or arranged by their employers.
          • anal_reactor 4mo ago
  • platz 4mo ago
    what's an example of something you made happen
    • lifestyleguru 4mo ago
      encrypted backup of media files which should become public in very specific circumstances
      • platz 4mo ago
        you made a funny
    • mettamage 4mo ago
      [flagged]
      • voidfunc 4mo ago
        You know writing for brevity usually means you don't need to explain to your readers that you are writing for brevity...
      • maccard 4mo ago
        This is nonsense. It’s referrals for jobs that get filled before the JD is even posted, or discussions about what companies/people _actually_ want when they’re tendering projects. It’s tickets for sold out events, access to golf tee times or bookings that just aren’t available if you have to ask. Two examples from my life - a friend is a headhunter for tech companies. My last job was been him hitting me up before the job was advertised - I had met the hiring manager and booked an interview before they saw my CV or anyone else even applied to the job. There’s a major sporting event in my city every year and the tickets sell out within minutes every year, the good ones gone to season ticket holders years in advance. A colleague is a season ticket holder and not interested in that particular game so the last few years I’ve gotten his ticket for less than face value for the cheap seats.
        • mettamage 4mo ago
  • lifestyleguru 4mo ago
    Take me on your helicopter, Jeffrey.
    • whattheheckheck 4mo ago
      He was bragging about having a ti calculator in the 80s was seen as cool in that "interview" he filmed with Steve bannon
  • hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm 4mo ago
    [flagged]
  • DiggyJohnson 4mo ago
    Just curious what part of the world you live in? Apologies if that seems like prying
• aaron695 4mo ago
  [dead]
• stephbook 4mo ago
  Shouldn't a bad job market convince people to get a degree? You only miss a bad job market entry and low salaries, you need every meagre advantage you can get. 100% agree on a degree being a strong signal, by the way.
  • danans 4mo ago
    > Shouldn't a bad job market convince people to get a degree? Maybe, but the degree has to be paid for, with time and money.
  • formerly_proven 4mo ago
    Not if the baseline assumption is that the value of a degree continues to go down and you could've climbed the ranks of plumbing instead of getting a white collar degree.
  • somenameforme 4mo ago
    If we're speaking realistically and not idealistically, then the primary point of a degree is as an investment in a job market. You go deep in debt with the aim of getting many times what you invest in return. But in the case of a bad job market, you're investing serious money (especially in modern times) for what may not ultimately pay off. And even if LLMs don't reach their viable potential, they're still likely going to significantly depress wages/employment for many forms of knowledge work, making a degree even less valuable. I went to a top 10 university, but won't be encouraging my children to go to university at all, nor will I strongly discourage them. But I will make it clear that it is a choice with pros and cons, and in modern times I personally think that the cons outweigh the pros. Of course if they want to do some form of engineering then it will probably be necessary, but there's lots of wild careers like underwater welding that make big $$$, are fun/physical, highly skilled, and you get paid to learn instead of going 6 figures in debt before you even enter the job market. And it's something that will always be needed, everywhere, and isn't going anywhere. And the reality of life is, like the article says - where you start is not where you end. Once you get your foot in the door pretty much anywhere, your formal title often quickly becomes much less relevant than the skills you have.
• jongjong 4mo ago
  Yes 100%. I was born upper middle class. I have a BIT from a global top 50 University. I understood this after working in cryptocurrency sector in Germany. After I left Australia and moved to Europe, I realized after some time that 'the matrix' had demoted me into a lower social class. I had to work harder for less money and had access to fewer opportunities. Then I joined the crypto sector and the people there seemed almost mentally deranged. I didn't understand it at first. They had a way, way, way more cynical view of the world than I did. In retrospect, it feels like they had been under attack by the system, in secret... And they saw any outsider as an enemy. I felt like I was disliked for not being cynical enough. Like my subtle optimism was a signal that I didn't belong. It made me a target. Then I came back to Australia after having a really tough time and switched back to mainstream tech sector and it was like everyone I worked with was living in some fantasy world. Like 10x more naive than I ever was, all colleagues with master degrees and PhDs... Work was a lot easier too. More forgiving. Also, I was liked. People were almost too nice to me. The difference is privilege. I can see it very clearly now. It's absolutely not based on culture or race. Society is highly stratified and I believe there are mechanisms built into the system to prevent people from different classes to meet. I feel like there is some kind of operating system which manufactures cultures to create separations... Traditions and taboos separate people to prevent them from sharing their experiences and to maintain blind spots which serve to hold the system together. I think I understand why rich people don't like to hang around regular people. Have you ever wondered why people don't talk to strangers anymore? I went to a train museum recently and noticed that the carriages on old trains had seats facing each other; I sat on one side and thought to myself that it must have been awkward for people to stare at each other in the face, sitting so close to each other, with nothing and nobody standing in between them... for such long trips. Carriages were split between 'smoking' and 'non-smoking'... Nowadays carriages are split between 'normal' and 'quiet'... And the number of quiet carriages seems to have increased over time... It's like there are forces in society which try to prevent people with different experiences from sharing their experiences. This is masked by superficial differences; superficial mental and physical differences are fine but experiential differences are not. When I watch modern movies, they seem to show characters from an elite perspective. Even characters who are depicted as poor seem to share elite ideologies which makes the characters not believable. Also, beyond values, there are some material distortions; I've seen too many detective series were the cop is living in a luxury penthouse.
• zarzavat 4mo ago
  Most of the value of a CS degree is being able to say that you have a degree truthfully. If you don't have a degree then you just lie and say that you do, which is a moral papercut. Nobody really cares about your education though, they just want their world view to be maintained.
  • toast0 4mo ago
    All of my professional jobs have been contingent on background checks and validating (to some degree) the things I put in the record. If I say I have a degree, they call to verify. They called to verify work history, although not being able to reach previous employers wasn't a deal breaker. I don't think just claim you have a degree when you don't works. If you have a degree from a 'good school', that gets you some credibility by itself, but mostly a 4 year degree says 'this person can commit to doing difficult things without an immediate payoff for around 4 years' which is a valuable thing for employers.
• hiAndrewQuinn 4mo ago
  For those looking for one practical way to do this in the US, I can share my story. In the US I waited until I was 24 years old to transfer to a 4 year university, because my parents were somewhat well off and utterly unwilling to help with my student loans when push came to shove - even though my financial aid was calculated based on their income and assets. At 24, I was reclassified as an "independent student", and my financial aid was now calculated solely on my (nonexistent) assets. The dynamic entirely flipped and I got to go full time, and even live in a dorm and stuff. Between 18 and 24, then, one has roughly six years to get a 2 year community college degree out of the way for relative pennies on the dollar. That's a lot of time! Federal loans can pay for all or nearly all of this, but CCs are generally cheap enough that even on minimum wage one can generally budget the ~$100-200 per month it takes to take one or two classes per semester. (I wouldn't actually recommend paying out of pocket if you can avoid it, because your quality of life suffers far more from a $200 extra per month when you are making minimum wage vs when you are making six figures, but to each their own.) If you fear you won't be able to transfer to a 4 year university for whatever reason, there are 2 year degrees which provide on-ramps to paid work; my original degree was going to be like that until I switched plans to the transfer approach. The time I spent in a 4 year university weren't entirely covered by grants of course, but it was many multiples cheaper than it would have been had I insisted on going right out the gate. I don't think I would have been approved for the six figures of loans I would have needed with that plan with such unwilling parents. I walked away with low figures total in debt, which is much more manageable, and has a much higher ROI than e.g. $30,000 of a house mortgage. I actually somehow ended up holding less student debt than most college degree holders I have met here in Finland, where tuition is free and loans are intended to pay for everything else (housing, etc).
• pipes 4mo ago
  Hi, can you elaborate, I don't think I understand what you mean.
• KolibriFly 4mo ago
  [dead]
• s5300 4mo ago
  [dead]
• zipy124 4mo ago
  This is completely correct. It's the same reason why an MBA or PhD can be valuable if you want to go the management track. In Europe specifically - especially in the UK - the class based system is still alive and kicking and is based on subtle tells such as education, name, accent and more. It's less overt than in say India, but still very much present.
  • BoxOfRain 4mo ago
    I really do think the class system holds us back as a society in Britain, George Orwell had a lot to say on this subject in England your England and I fear the decline he describes in the 1940s only accelerated through the 20th century and into the 21st. That essay is a good read for anyone interested in the topic, although of course much has happened since it was written. I resented being constantly 'corrected' on the local accent I was picking up from school as a child, but now I appreciate that an RP or close to RP accent turns down the difficulty slider in certain British interactions.
    • zipy124 4mo ago
      It really does. The classic example I think of is Michael Caine discussing when he wanted to do housing renovations, and before he even submitted designs, he had neighbours and councillors complaining it was going to be "vulgar," "nouveau," and "obscene" simply because of his class. He also talked about the concept of working class people furthering the divide, for example his female family members referring to women of the correct class as "proper ladies" and putting themselves down.
      • Ylpertnodi 4mo ago
        I go back to the UK every so often for work. Being in EU countries is really weird, because they don't have 'class systems' (like the brits). Deference is given to your professional title, doctor, lawyer etc.
        • varjag 4mo ago
• Madmallard 4mo ago
  As someone who got a Comp Sci degree from a good school and who worked at FAANG right out of school, it seems like this is all that matters to companies looking to hire me.
  • tayo42 4mo ago
    You still need to leet code and memorize the system design script lol
    • Madmallard 4mo ago
      doing game dev as a hobby sorta make this stuff come naturally
• YZF 4mo ago
  I got a job first and my degree later. At work nobody knows what degree you've got. I mean some people insist to be called Dr. X if they have a Ph.D. (and in some cultures that's more common). You can have a B.Sc. in biology, or an M.Sc. in EE, or a law degree or no degree and nobody knows. As a manager in a large tech company I didn't even know that for the people I managed. I would usually find out people's background through random talk but it's not information I had access to. I was surprised to find one of the rising stars didn't finish his degree and wanted to take some time off to finish it. Where it does matter is in the hiring process and especially for juniors and larger companies. > I've never seen a time when tech is less about engineering than right now. Sad but my experience as well. As someone who started being more self-educated (I did learn a lot of theory myself) and only later finished my degree (started, dropped out to do some real work, came back much later) I do think a good CS program teaches a lot of important things. Most importantly the ability to learn and understand research in this area. Not all the specific things you're going to learn are going to be applicable all the time, some will some of the time, and not having that background at all is limiting. You can learn this without going through the academic system but it's much harder and most people don't and stay stuck in some sense.
• EsotericSoft 4mo ago
  Opposite of my experience. I never cared about social networking. I focused only on being good.
  • ericmcer 4mo ago
    Yeah being good is great but... some of the best engineers I have ever met are working at small companies making 150k, while mediocre ones fell into Meta/Google/Tesla jobs during the pandemic hiring frenzy and are now looking at retirement. If the goal is to be good that is fine, but there is little correlation with salary.
• ericmcer 4mo ago
  Similar story where as soon as someone made a 100k+ offer to me I dropped out of school and never looked back (was making $12/hr at the time). In retrospect it was not the best choice because college does give you a unique chance to get connections that let you into "the club" and will send you to the upper echelons of FAANG and early retirement. I always thought I would just become a better and better engineer cutting my teeth at startups and then make the switch, but now it almost feels like you are a career startup engineer or a career big tech engineer, and making the switch is difficult. One is obviously insanely more lucrative, probably 3-5X with the way equity has exploded.
  • burnte 4mo ago
    > Similar story where as soon as someone made a 100k+ offer to me I dropped out of school and never looked back (was making $12/hr at the time). In the very early 90s, at 15 my part time computer repair job was paying a large share of the family rent, and by 17 I had graduated early and was working full time making 60k/yr. I had scholarships but I didn't take them because by 18 I had a customer base and a reputation. I went back to school in my 30s but it wasn't worth it. School is very help for many people and paths, but not all people and all paths.
• westoque 4mo ago
  There's a formula I've bookmarked from someone to help you get better social capital. In order to increase your surface for social capital you need to expand your influence, therefore you need to increase your luck: L (luck) = D (doing) x T (telling) Basically, you need to be able to show you are able to do stuff (D) and with enough people seeing this by you sharing (T) through different channels, can open doors. I haven't been doing it as heavily but it has already given me incredible opportunities.
  • taurath 4mo ago
    Best way to have social capital is an introduction into a space where money and power exist. Many spaces no matter what you do you will never be able to get in without an intro, and they have extremely few opportunities. Being college buddies with a member of an upper class is one of the only times they will ever socially mix. It is indeed like royalty in every way. Being at Harvard gets you a lot relative to the population, being around the right clubs at Harvard gives you a lot relative to that. There is meritocracy within the range but nepotism can easily put people in the room. Work at a startup or two run by families of billionaires, and watch their career trajectory, and you will not have any doubt.
    • amelius 4mo ago
      But what do you do if you can't stand the faintest smell of nepotism?
      • girvo 4mo ago
        Struggle harder than you otherwise would, sadly.
      • coldtea 4mo ago
        Then you're fucked :)
      • reinitctxoffset 4mo ago
        The sibling commenters are correct but I will add with the benefit of being an old guy that this ebbs and flows. GP said "I have never seen tech be less about engineering", and I agree. But it can't get much less about engineering before rich people become poor in large numbers, and that will start the pendulum back the other way. Rich people losing money that matters in large numbers is like a soft civil war, everything changes.
• jimvdv 4mo ago
  I guess it depends on what you want out of life too. I did not go to Uni, started my career early and had a very comfortable income my entire 20’s. No debt, travelled all over the world, relaxed freelance contracts. I had a lot of free time and low stress. Later I joined one of my freelance clients as a co-founder (early 30s), more risky than the FAANG path but we’re on the right path to a comfortable pension. I wouldn’t trade my life for that of some of my FAANG friends.
• bottle_roket 4mo ago
  This tracks for me because I am a developer with a 4 year degree in a field completely unrelated to CS and I have never felt any of the stigma or othering from my coworkers on the measures you described.