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Ask HN: Is it possible to be successful without getting into a top college?

4 points by lowiqengineer ↗ HN
There are countless YC founders and other notable engineers who dropped out of elite schools like MIT and Stanford and yet more who talk about going to their state school despite getting into better institutions. I never got into anything better than my state school and my career so far has been exceptionally mediocre. From what I understand people don’t generally change after they reach adulthood - am I doomed to mediocrity? Are there folks that were able to succeed later in life?

6 comments

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itqwertz
Just do something and you will be ahead of the majority of your peers. Don’t live in a self-induced paralysis when it comes to your life.
lowiqengineer
What do you mean by do something?
throwlaplace
Just do something anything instead of pre-emptively performing the analysis (whether it'll be worth it or not) you're trying to perform.
_bxg1
At the risk of sounding harsh, this is an incredibly silly way of looking at things. Of course you can be successful. And I'm not speaking from a toxic social-Darwinist mindset; there really are people out there for whom the cards of life are stacked against them and no amount of bootstrap-pulling is likely to change that. But an engineer who graduated from an accredited college (assuming there aren't additional circumstances) is not one of those people.

I would guess that your definition of "successful" is set unrealistically high, and/or you've burned-out when it comes to moving above what you consider to be "mediocre". The former can also lead to the latter.

I recommend re-evaluating what will actually make you happy. Take a critical eye to the expectations you place on yourself and make sure you're only hanging on to the ones that will make you yourself happy, not the ones that society, or your parents, or anyone else has given you. Alternately, for some people, having expectations at all is problematic. Some people (like me) thrive in the absence of pressure and get paralyzed by it when it is present. It could be that you just need to give yourself a break and ask yourself what you want from life, instead of what you think you're supposed to want. Everyone's different.

Best of luck working through all this.

lowiqengineer
> I would guess that your definition of "successful" is set unrealistically high

This might be the case. It just always gets me down when I read first author research papers written by undergrads and ivy-bound high school students that far surpass my fundamental understanding. It feels like I'm behind forever and I don't have any hope anymore because I was just born like this.

I'm honestly not even sure what makes me happy.

_bxg1
Take a step back and look at it on a meta-level. What purpose is that feeling of inadequacy serving? Who are you helping by making yourself miserable?

Life isn't about accomplishments, accomplishments are just one aspect of life. And by getting a degree and starting a career in a high-tier field, you already have things to be proud of. Happiness cannot be reduced to a checklist. Ask yourself: if there were nobody to compare yourself to, if there were no awards or scores or accolades in the world, what would you want to be doing, right now? And then chase that feeling.