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I'm sure you've heard it again and again, but university really isn't about learning topics or skills. Many classes are a waste of time, taught by TAs that migh

I'm sure you've heard it again and again, but university really isn't about learning topics or skills. Many classes are a waste of time, taught by TAs that might not even grasp the subject they're teaching all that well. I definitely skipped a whole lot of classes and instead spent the time in the library getting lost in the stacks finding random books to read on my own. Once you hit the upper levels and find a major or two with professors you love that changes of course, but it definitely happens more often than most admit. The main thing you can't replace is everything else, like meeting really smart people that are working on things that are totally foreign to your day to day studies. Maybe you walk into a room at 11pm on a Tuesday because you hear someone listening to music you've never heard before. Or someone brings you to a reading of an author and the discussion makes you reevaluate beliefs you didn't even know you had. Maybe you take a class for a gen-ed that you just know will be terrible but the professor ends up being amazing and becomes a mentor to you. Or maybe you stay up for 24 hours straight with classmates studying for a final and somehow you all ace it even though you really thought solving problem 3 was going to kill you. It seems like you know that network is important, otherwise you wouldn't be attempting this experiment, but there really is no replacement for spending four years forcing yourself to be exposed to tons of new ideas and people every day. There's no other time in life you're allowed to do whatever you want surrounded by so many people in the same situation as you. Money can wait.

genwin 12y ago
I must've gone to the wrong college. Mine was like high school except there was even more busy work to do, and it wasn't free. With most kids focused on their phones nowadays, could anywhere be like you say? I suspect those days are over.
- mtalantikite 12y ago
  There are certainly many institutions that aren't worth attending, especially if you tend to be a highly intelligent autodidact. But if you are that type of person, you'll probably be able to find a great university that will accept you and give you scholarships. I can't speak to kids being on their phones all day, we only had flip phones when I was in school, but you can make personal choices to avoid those things. I personally made a choice to not live anywhere with a TV, for instance, but there sure were a lot of kids in certain circles wasting away in front them.
- hkmurakami 12y ago
  Personally, I had a nearly identical experience to grandfather post during my college years.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
joeguilmette 12y ago
>There's no other time in life you're allowed to do whatever you want I'm going to go ahead and dispute that. You don't have to buy in to the rat race
- mtalantikite 12y ago
  You left off the key part of that sentence. The point is you're surrounded by other young people voraciously exploring themselves intellectually. It's just a different experience when you try to do college at 30. Of course you could forge your own path, and I support that, but OP sounded like he was forgoing college in order to go to work to make money. His mother's article was about how he can just make money coding. If he had wrote that he was traveling for 6-12 months to research his first novel I'd have said fantastic, can't wait to read your notes.

genwin 12y ago

I must've gone to the wrong college. Mine was like high school except there was even more busy work to do, and it wasn't free. With most kids focused on their phones nowadays, could anywhere be like you say? I suspect those days are over.

mtalantikite 12y ago
There are certainly many institutions that aren't worth attending, especially if you tend to be a highly intelligent autodidact. But if you are that type of person, you'll probably be able to find a great university that will accept you and give you scholarships. I can't speak to kids being on their phones all day, we only had flip phones when I was in school, but you can make personal choices to avoid those things. I personally made a choice to not live anywhere with a TV, for instance, but there sure were a lot of kids in certain circles wasting away in front them.
hkmurakami 12y ago
Personally, I had a nearly identical experience to grandfather post during my college years.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

joeguilmette 12y ago

>There's no other time in life you're allowed to do whatever you want I'm going to go ahead and dispute that. You don't have to buy in to the rat race

mtalantikite 12y ago
You left off the key part of that sentence. The point is you're surrounded by other young people voraciously exploring themselves intellectually. It's just a different experience when you try to do college at 30. Of course you could forge your own path, and I support that, but OP sounded like he was forgoing college in order to go to work to make money. His mother's article was about how he can just make money coding. If he had wrote that he was traveling for 6-12 months to research his first novel I'd have said fantastic, can't wait to read your notes.