Ask HN: Should I leave university?

Hi Jgeros.

I guess it all comes down to motive. Do you have one for quitting? Feeling like you're learning nothing is a good motive for switching universities, not quitting.

When someone in the audience at Startup School 08 told Paul Graham that people who completed college always ended up working for people who dropped out, the look on PG's face as he shrugged out a "maaaaybe" was telling.

University doesn't yield only knowledge: there's also a lot of people to meet and experiences to have. If your tuition expenses are covered and you don't have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity requiring you to drop out (personally I'm suspicious of the "once-in-a-lifetime" concept), then the wisest thing to do would be to stay.

From my own personal experience, if dropping out is right for you, you won't have to ask people what _they_ think.

Sure, lots of people will hire you without a degree. http://buttersafe.com/2010/09/09/back-to-school-blues/ ;)

If you've already taught yourself some stuff, then of course you're going to feel like you're not learning in the first half of a university program. You're not learning; you're waiting for those who haven't already learned to catch up.

That's not to say that you won't learn though. Take a compilers course, or an OS course. Or, better yet, switch into something you don't already know a great deal about, like pure math or physics. This will soon cure you of these thoughts of not learning.

You'd be crazy to not continue with your education if you can manage to do so.

People will probably hire you without a degree. But, you'll be looking for jobs that want you for the skill set you currently (iPhone / Ruby) have rather than for your future potential.

At the end of your CS education, there are a lot of jobs open to the "new college graduate" that will likely never be open to you again. It's the one time that you can be missing both the necessary skill and field experience and still get hired. Examples: finance, game development, "big 3" MSFT/Google/Facebook, etc. If you want to work in any selective places later, you will have a hard time getting past the first level of "experienced industry candidate recruiting" without your college degree, much less get your resume into the hands of a hiring manager. You will perpetually be a slave to only getting interviews at jobs where you have performed very similar work in the past.

Of course, if you have some amazing idea, want to start a company, and feel it's time-sensitive, go for it. Depending on the university, you can return after 5 or so years without your credits expiring, whether the company turns out well and you cash out or it crashes and burns.

Not having a degree is the type of thing you will be reminded of at nearly every turn in your life. Even if it's a pain in the ass to get one, I imagine it'll be an even greater pain explaining to employers at that you only left because you didn't like it. Then you'll have more convincing to do before said employer believes you're up to snuff with other, degreed candidates.

There are more shades of gray for someone going into their first year. If you're already halfway done I tend to think it'll be to your advantage to set your jaw and grind through your last year or two.

Stay in school. Quitting school just "because" would probably be a mistake, especially without a spectacular job offer already on the table. Yes, talented people will succeed either way. But always ask yourself: "what if I'm wrong?" What if you couldn't find a job after leaving? Are you prepared to start your programming career unemployed? What if the current VC/angel activity ends faster than you think? The last time and internet boom went bust it all happened practically within 3 months.

Lots of people will hire you without a degree. Most of my team members in the last few years that I recruited had not completed their bachelors.

A lot of people here are giving you average advice. If you want to be an average programmer, you can listen to their advice. I don't recommend trying to be an avg programmer.

If you don't do the degree thing, all you need to do is build your rep / brand online, which is nowadays quite easy to do, for those willing to put a little bit of time into it.

Oh, and if you're actually paying for univ and also 20 yrs or older, that should make the decision easier. It's not the great value it once (maybe) was.

Hope this helps,

lots of well known it people have never finished one, but they have made AMAZING things.... so go ahead and do something real good and people wont mind about a degree...

> I am half way through my degree studying computer science, and feel as though I am learning nothing. I have self taught myself iPhone development and ruby on rails.

It's a bit sad that you haven't learned that CS isn't about learning RoR and Obj-C. :-/

When you say half way, I'm guessing you mean two years, which isn't really half way at a lot of schools because you can only take 1-2 CS classes a semester your first couple years. Imagine if you were going to major in English, but you started illiterate and had to spend the first 1.5 years learning to read and write. And then you announced, "Guys, I want to quit my English degree...I've already taught myself to type and post messages on Twitter." Quitting a CS major after 3-5 intro classes would be equally misguided.

Do not quit school. What looks expensive (in terms of time, money, and effort) now will look incredibly cheap later.

"Lots of people have done great without a degree," is crap. Lots of people make $1m+ / yr dunking basketballs, too.

I was possibly in the same situation, sick of working full time too to pay to hang out with a bunch of kids who are spoilt and complain about too many things.

A few reasons I gave myself to dropout(defer) were I don't think I want to work for people who thought a degree was essential and only smart people had them.

I wanted to work for myself quite a bit. I also wanted to have a go at a startup which was impossible when trying to do time wasting uni assignments.

I knew I could go back if I had to, a year break would be a fair amount of time to see if there were limitations with no degree.

I know that I still have an advantage over uni students whereas they only learn when their force to by lecturers. Where as I like learning and do it daily at my own free will.

I've been off for a year and had a great time and not having a degree hasn't stopped me from doing what I wanted to do.

Keep us posted

After my first job out of Uni, I never needed my degree. Until 7 years later when I wanted to move to Japan. Alot of countries won't let you get a visa without a degree, or at least will make it very difficult.

Even if I never need to use it for work again, allowing me to make this move makes sitting through horrible, boring and outdated lectures infinitely worth it.

Consider finishing your degree but with a different concentration, like statistics (always useful), or physics (awesome).

So I did this last summer and it was the best decision I've ever made. I was miserable at NYU and already had some work experience. I waited til the summer and sent my resume out a lot and ended up with two entry level offers at startups. I took the better of the two, and a year and two jobs later I'm at a really good company earning much more money, and much happier in general in life than I was in school.

But an important consideration here is learning, and that too has substantially increased. When I was in school I felt held back: there were a ton of projects I wanted to work on that I simply didn't have the time to because I would have to take bullshit like Spanish. Now I'm surrounded all the time by programmers, and ones who are much much smarter than I am, and I get to absorb tons of knowledge much more quickly than I ever did in class. And instead of paying $100k over the next two years, I'm earning $160k with much more control and overall happiness in my life.

It's pretty crucial you have a fair amount of experience "for your age", and definitely don't do this without an offer on the table. But if you get to that point, and you've got a decent offer, I say go for it. TLDR: Because I dropped out I get paid a lot instead of paying a lot, to live a life that's substantially better, and I'm learning a hell of a lot more. Win.

My personal experience -- I did this 1.5 years ago.

First of all, you'll have a harder time getting a visa should you ever wish to relocate to a different country.

That aside, it depends on the type of person you are. If you're the kind of person that has no problem learning stuff on your own then it could work. This really includes some of the core CS stuff such as having a good grasp of algorithms, math, etc. Depending on the area you want to move in you'll have to learn some more specific stuff as well. Consumer web .. learn how to deal with scaling; Game development .. learn 3D oriented math. I'd say having a solid grasp of the execution speed of algorithms is something important regardless of the domain you're in. It will serve you a long way.

It is not so much what you know as what you can do. Can you read a paper on some technical subject and then implement it? That sounds like something an employer is interested in.

You should probably be more interested in working in smaller companies, since they're more likely to hire talented individuals. Most big corporations are built so that they can easily replace people should it be needed, smaller companies not so much.

A tip for the job hunt: Get a programming portfolio. Since you don't have a degree you'll have to show your skills, but that's no problem! Put your best work on it. :)

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

I am a computer programmer , working with Android , Linux , iPhone, OS, Networks etc, I have passion for computer. I was in the same condition as you are in, I decided to drop out from university in 7th Semester ( 4th year ). But I changed by decision because of practical reasons, I have two jobs, one Linux Administration and one as Software Engineer without degree, but I decided to continue , am still in 4th year 8th semester, what I advice you is to continue instead of leaving, if you had got a chance to CS degree, I think you should continue.

For sure, people will hire you without a degree, if you have good portfolio and out of the box skills.

I want to share a experience of mine, I was offered a job in Samsung as contract position , and my CV was selected. But I prefered to complete degree before leaving. I think a degree is important, a piece of paper will give you confidence in facing people and employers.

Thanks.

quoting Lance Armstrongs mom: pain is temporary - quitting lasts forever. (in this context, pain == bore)

You know, I have a friend who went to law school to become a lawyer. After he got out, he realized that all the people who told him he should go to law school weren't lawyers.

To me it sounds like you might be misunderstanding CS and might want to re-evaluate if you really want to do it. However, because people tell you that you "need" a degree is a terrible reason to stay in school.

you don't need a degree to make web apps/desktop apps/mobile apps. if you ever get bored with that and want to do something else you might regret quitting.