HN Explorer

Ask HN: Young 'Developer' seeking Advice

1 points by mmackh ↗ HN
Hi everyone,

Over the past several months, I developed Read for iPad (http://readapp.net | Demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9GLjAZu0T4).

This was my first serious project. Now my parents are forcing me to study at a university, where I have no interest in being. I have relatively low grades (30 points, International Baccalaureate) and I am afraid that I wont be able to apply/get accepted into a 'better school'. I'm afraid that without proper education, I won't be taken seriously as a developer and that I wont be able to go 'further' to build the right connections. I love learning new stuff & I really enjoy building software. What should I do?

Thanks, Maximilian

Edit: I am Austrian. I went to a boarding school in England for five years

4 comments

[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 19.1 ms ] thread
adyus
Both.

Take the courses you need to get a degree, and do what you know and love in your spare time.

Going to college is not about learning anything useful in class. It's learning to go to class every morning at 8, learning to learn, and absorbing everything else around you as you grow up in those 3-4 years.

mmackh
I went to a boarding school in England for 5 years. When I reflect back on the time, this is exactly what I've been doing. The university I'm currently studying at is a step backwards.
symmet
There's no reason you can't do both. I worked for a web dev company while going to school at the same time and it was certainly difficult, but I learned a lot about priorities and juggling things of equal importance. Got 8 hours of work to do plus a paper due the next day? You'll learn some valuable lessons. Getting a degree is a lot more than just learning some skills.

As far as your development skills go, Read looks like a great app. If you're young and already cranking out stuff like that, keep at it and you'll go far. You'll be taken seriously as a developer more so by the things you make than by the papers you hold.

One suggestion on your site, make a beta signup form to make it as easy as possible for people to show their interest. It may not seem like a big step, but having to copy that e-mail address out of the alert box and then composing an e-mail is enough to prevent someone from following through.

mmackh
I see where you are coming from. IB was a very challenging experience and it is one of those programs that were geared towards getting you ready for University life. But I live at home and I have to drive 40 minutes to get to there - there is no real passion and you get shunned for having Apple products. I didn't mention that I was developing software, and the plan over the next year is to learn how to do basic programming in Java - it just seems like more of a distraction.

Thanks for your advice - this was my first beta test. It lasted over a month and I've learnt a lot. I managed to get about 20 or so active testers because a MacStories Editor tweeted about it.