Ask HN: Did Anyone Else Here Simply Not Do Well at School?

I do not have ADHD or any other learning impairment that I am aware though I ready slowly unless under intense pressure. Statistically they tell me I am in the top 2% if I have an IQ around 148. I performed poorly in school and never developed a passion for instructional learning until I became a father, so my grades were frequently low. Now I love reading educational material and writing.

I was a terrible student who really disliked school. At the time (late 90s), I found the curriculum staid and obsolete on delivery and didn’t see a way to explore things that interested me.

Things turned out ok. None of the big companies that visited campus would interview me. I ended up at a late stage startup that had taken a hit in the dotcom crash and did really well there. Then the company was bought at a premium a year later and I got a nice deal from the stock conversion.

Later I joined a big mega org and moved up to the VP level there over the years. A have a friend who did something similar - he’s some big shot at a bank now.

The key is getting in the door and kicking ass. Be good to people. At the end of the day, once you have a track record, nobody gives a shit about your 2.0 GPA after a few years unless it’s a company that likes to collect Ivy diplomas.

Funny story - I interviewed for a gig apparently by mistake. The interviewer scoffed and said they rarely hire anyone from state schools, and that I’m wasting my time. 6 months later, I’m making 5x as a consultant to do same thing and pull their chestnuts out of the fire. I got a very touching gift from the same dude, who didn’t remember me.

Also consider that development may not be your jam. Devops, analytics or other disciplines may be more your speed.

Yep! C to B student in high school, granted, taking the tougher classes. Got better grades in college (Which I got into mainly because I scored well on the SAT and applied as a music major, then switched immediately after), and graduated with a (in hindsight) bullshit degree in applied science.

~5 years after college, I learned to code, and it's been a passion since. 7 years after college, I started a path I am still on to become proficient at math and science. I am still on that path. I"m 37, and am in a coffee shop reading a paper about interpretations of electron charge distribution. At home, I am coding general relativity and chemistry sims. I had no interested in this sort of thing while I was in school, and if I'd pursued them, I almost surely would have failed out.

I have a well-rounded math*+science+engineering background and knowledge base now, but it was almost entirely from self-study.

Good luck!

*Math in terms of the sort you'd need for science or engineering. I think the abstract stuff may be beyond me forever, in the way functional programming is. I think you need a certain level or type of intelligence for that.*

I had a tortured academic path - collected all the letters in high school and university. Despite this I was able to get into a good law school, where the format was a much better fit (which I could elaborate on if you want) and I did excellent. In the real world I’ve done alright for myself.

In the working world the best jobs are not at all like school - you make your own projects, there is no defined right answer, and there is room for lots of different types of people. Very different from school, where it is highly structured, in the box thinking, with very inbred processes.

My number one tip would be to work really hard in the beginning to get yourself into a place and position where you can be creative and shine. You may not land there in your first job, so bite the bullet and break out of it as soon as you can.

Yes. I had Fs, I skipped school. I couldn't understand the material, math especially. My HS diploma says something to the tune of E+ or very close to C.

I just barely had a conversation with my daughter (going into adult age) about how ridiculous our education system is and how it tries to shoehorn lots of very different people into one uniform system of learning. She commented that it's because society wants to fit everybody into neat little boxes, but it doesn't work.

My take on your story is that college grades aren't necessarily an indication of how well you will perform professionally. Get your game face on and figure out how YOU can win, and understand that it doesn't have to match somebody else's definition of success.

Same as many here, mostly a c student. If homework was 15% or less for the grade, I didn't bother with it for my entire under graduate degree.

> Despite being a smart person, I've never been the kind of A type personality who does well at school.

It’s hard to measure smart. Especially to measure myself. How do I know if I’m smart or stupid? Beats me.

I’ve met people who think they are dumb and seem like a genius to me. And I’ve met people who wear “I’m a genius” and literally showed me a Mensa card and seemed very dumb to me.

I’ve met lots of people claim to be smart when “it’s important” but seem stupid to me.

So I don’t try to measure smartness.

Some people suck at school. That doesn’t mean you’re dumb. If you’re happy and productive then don’t worry about it.

But one want to substantiate intelligence is through credentialing systems like school. There’s tons of flaws and no way perfect. But I think it’s more accurate than just asking people if they think they are smart.

I had poor high school grades and was formally kicked out of my first community college for poor grades. Went into the work force, eventually went back to school at a different community college, and now have an ivy league degree. Sometimes the timing is just off or there are external factors that have nothing to do with your raw ability.

I was a pretty mediocre student in college, mainly because I did well in HS without having to work too hard and tried to apply the same methods to studying in college. I did well in courses that interested me, but overall was just an average student at least as far as gpa goes. I did find that I'm a much better student now than I was then, probably because when I take a course these days I have a goal in mind or something particular I want to get out of it so I'm more motivated to put in the work. Not perfect though. I imagine some doors closed were closed to me, especially in being able to go further in academics, because of this, but I don't think it made much difference career wise.

I did pretty well up until middle school. My parents went through a messy divorce and I kinda checked out at that point. Spent a lot of time on the computer but didn’t have motivation for anything else.

Around junior year in high school I somewhat started applying myself again but it was far too late to get into a good college.

Went to community college for a couple years and then transferred to a cheap in state school with a decent CS program and graduated with a CS degree.

Fast forward to today and I work in Silicon Valley, own a house, and have a family. My teammates have CS degrees from universities like Stanford and MIT. I guess it all worked out in the long run, it just took me longer to get here.

I don’t have any regrets, I met a lot of important people on my journey I wouldn’t have met otherwise.

I did very well in high school and had a pretty good time. I barely did any work and still got great grades. I got into a good engineering program and there I had a bit of trouble.

I went from being a smart kid in a high school class to being average or slightly below average in university. Suddenly, school was moving faster than I was comfortable with. When I got a few bad grades I really struggled with that because it hadn’t happened before. I managed to get things turned around in my third year and have had a really great life since, but those first two years of school taught me a lot about myself.

If you're certain it's what you want, don't accept no for an answer and keep hassling the school or college at different levels and see if you can still make it happen.

Fck school dude, you good. I mean, unless you like it. My only regret from college is that I spent it studying instead of doing a lot of drugs. If you’re doing computer stuff, the grades don’t mean anything. There are so many paths to get in. You should only stress about the grades if you wanted to go on to be an academic— but if you aren’t enjoying the setting then you probably don’t want to go the academic route anyway.

Here’s the best most beautiful part about coding:

### ain’t no one can stop you ###

You don’t need* a degree to do it. School is not the gatekeeper. The information is yours for the taking.

Check it out: https://www.udacity.com/course/design-of-computer-programs--...

You do NOT need to pay money for that course, I know they really try to get you to sign up for a nanodegree but click around till you can take the course.

If you can understand and replicate even 30% of the material in that course you are a certified badass.

Can you load data from a file, manipulate it, and save it to another file? Congrats you are able to get a job with some effort.

If you have an opportunity to take any courses, even the video courses, from Dave Beazley, do it: https://dabeaz.com/ (assuming Python is your thing). You will know more about Python than all of your professors and anyone interviewing you.

Last bit of “stick it to the man” advice, you have one major advantage over more experienced developers that often goes overlooked: the ability to go deep on a technology. Most senior developers need to be generalists, the cost of going deep is almost never worth it. At this point in your career you actually have the opportunity to become better, for instance, at TypeScript or Python by spending a whole year or two studying the hell out of it while you look for a job. And being a specialist early in your career is something you can hang your hat on, people WILL hire you just for your subject matter expertise, and they figure you can learn the rest on the job.

Oh yeah two more things (I also have ADHD) #1 go to conferences, like PyCon or ClojureConj or whatever you are interested in. They are extremely welcoming for new folks. We are excited that anyone gives a sht about the stuff we are interested in. You will almost certainly walk away with tons of interview opportunities if not offers.

Lastly, about school — don’t overlook the opportunity to make friends and take advantage of the school resources. That’s my biggest regret from school. I don’t have any friends from college despite being a generally outgoing person. And schools have an ENORMOUS amount of opportunities available and most people don’t take advantage of them. These opportunities for socializing and resources are MUCH harder to come by after school in the work force.

tl;dr fck school

I think society, collectively, puts a lot of currency is "knowing what you're going to do". It's a question that adults ask children, especially precocious ones.

But, frankly, it's pretty much bullshit.

I was an average student in university. The courses I liked, I did well in. The ones that I struggled to engage with, not so much. The reality is that once you are out in the real world, no one's going to tell you what to do.

If getting a CS degree is that important to you, then stick with it until you can qualify for it. But there's no requirement that you must have one just because you want to work in the field.

Note: There might be companies that won't consider you as a candidate if you don't have a CS degree. My recommendation is that, again, unless you really want to work at a company like that, find your own path.

Mostly a C student through all of my years of school, some B’s in topics I enjoyed (eg: Business, Physics).

Accepted directly into my University’s CS program, first year was pretty difficult. During the first summer I started working for a local tech company, they wanted to keep me on past summer so I stayed. A year later I was interviewing with Google, Amazon, LinkedIn, Uber all at the same time (no clue how my LinkedIn drew attention). Now I’ve been with AWS for 8 years as a sr. engineer, no degree.

I learn best by doing, so I followed the paths that would enable my learning. For me, studying and testing never worked well.

I had, literally, eight different majors over my Bachelor's career, with almost enough credits for two whole B.A. degrees by the time I was done. I just finally picked a major that I had the most credits towards and was cheapest/easiest to finish distance learning (a degree in theology). Of course, by this time, I was over 30 and had already built a career sans degree and (if I recall correctly on timing) was working at Apple as a software engineer.

I've always been an autodidact not as a point of pride but instead of necessity. I grew up really poor and, given it was Alabama, our education/library system wasn't great. I taught myself a lot of things, and because of that, had a lot of interests, which led to a...er...chaotic college experience when the road to education was less narrow.

My point is, yes a lot of people go through this, and the only path you're limited to is the one you pick. Getting into a career in engineering without a degree does require some hustle to get over the initial inertia, but you can do it. If you feel like you have the knowledge and wherewithal to make it happen, major in a "backup" or something that interests you. If not, there's no shame in it, so pursue the plan you laid out. All in all, the ultimate result is that you learn how to think about things and pick up some skills along the way. However you and your brain get there isn't really defined.

(Ninja edit to say: I was a low B student in high school, had a 3.2 GPA in my bachelor's work. I took some master's classes from Harvard when I could afford them, and I was knocking them down with a 4.0. Environment makes a big difference too, so don't feel like you're stuck in what you've tried. You might just need to find the right place.)

I was sub 2.5 GPA person throughout career. But I started learning things that interested me. Got more and more good at it. And somehow got somewhere. It's not a bad life but good enough.

Throughout my life I felt like what your are feeling right now. But I would say things eventually fall in line of you are persistent enough. It may take some extra time but it will.

Regarding ADHD, I would recommend you see a psychiatrist and follow your routine properly.

I graduated with a 2.6gpa [0] with an electrical engineering degree. While I am not in the top of my college friend group career/financially, I am in the top 20%. I don't work at Google or FB, but even 2nd tier companies pay well and offer interesting problems to solve.

You wont work in Big Tech right out of school, but do your time at a startup and then work your way up.

[0] - My excuse is I had a traumatic brain injury when I was 10 and have a terrible short term memory. It takes me 3x longer to learn anything, but once I do it sticks. I also thrive in remote environments where everything is written and searchable.

Scored 1600 SAT at 13, 36 ACT/1590 SAT in HS. Was an absolutely terrible student and dropped out of grad school (Oxford). Never had a perfect GPA despite most classes coming easily to me, which of course made my life a hell when I encountered an actually challenging topic for the first time at University.

Intelligence is just one component of academic success and while it is a strong correlate, it isn’t a guarantee.

For what it’s worth, it is possible to get this on track. I eventually restarted school at UVM Medical School and did exceptionally well in my year there. You will need to find a system that works for you to handle the responsibilities of your academic workload.

> I've been told I have ADHD, but I do fine and manage time well when I'm in an actual job setting with stakes.

That's part of ADHD, too, though. A big part of ADHD is executive dysfunction and one way to activate it is by applying accountability. I can't say whether or not you have it, but that's not a good metric to discount the possibility.

I have ADHD and am the prototypical gifted kid who continuously failed throughout school, but is really good in a work environment.

My path sounds similar :)

I started at UC Berkeley in 2010 as a Political Economy major. Hated it, tried the intro CS class because I liked computers, loved that one, but struggled to find motivation for required math classes with tons of homework. Had to take a semester off to work to support myself. I made friends with great people at my student job, joining a cybersecurity team, doing some psychedelics. Didn’t scape the GPA together to declare CS major by the cutoff semester. When my friends started graduating, I gave up and dropped out.

I had no interest in FAANG types (at the time, they had very similar energy to those courses I hated) and looked mostly at startups. No one ever brought up my lack of degree.

I applied to Airbnb with a rec from a friend’s older brother in 2014 and got the job. Once you get that first job, no one will think about the degree. Since then I make enough to not worry about much. I’m about average with my friend group career wise; resume: https://jake.tl/resume.pdf

Sometimes when someone asks me a complicated question I say “sorry I don’t know, never got a degree” to elicit some eye rolls. My girlfriend hates that one.

Did you ever get tested for learning differences like dyslexia? It often comes along with ADHD. You didn’t describe exactly what happens in detail but it may be worth checking.