Ask HN: Where do I go from here?

I was fifteen when I came to this country. I didn't speak English. I eventually graduated from high school but since at the time, Chinese was not taught in school, it was not considered a foreign language and therefore could not be used to satisfy the language requirement for getting into University.

Instead, I applied to the local city college and spend the first semester taking high school math, physics and chemistry. Then after two more years, my English improved well enough that I was able to transfer to a four-year school, majoring in engineering. I also worked part-time in a laundry at minimum wage to save enough money so that I can move away from home to finish my degree.

After my bachelor degree, I worked summer before returning to graduate school. Then after my master, I worked a few years before returning to get my Ph.D. Then I worked again and after a few years, took a teaching job at UCLA.

When I was forty years old, I left the comfort of academia to start my first company.

I just took life one step at a time and every step of the way, I didn't ask for any favor, except for a chance to prove myself.

Now after two companies, I am retired.

You can do anything you want in this country, even if you weren't born in this country and didn't even speak the language. Just don't take no for an answer and always accept responsibility for your own failure.

Last time I checked Georgia Tech wasn't a no name state school, and depending on your CC gpa you could very well transfer(Transfer requirements are usually a lot lower than initial entry requirements.) Second, there is intro to engineering, basic engineering classes that don't have the high math reqs you are envisioning. In fact if you go the CS route most of your classes will have no math req.

What you should really do is make a complete system and put it out there for people to use. A web service, an iPhone application, a desktop application, whatever. There are no educational prerequisites which prevent you from doing this. This will give you something to put on a resume, experience getting something done from start to finish, more general programming experience, and possibly the foundations of your own startup. It will also let you know if this sort of life is something you even want to do. If you didn't enjoy the process or you couldn't get anything out the door, chances are you might be better suited for something else. This website is hacker and startup oriented, but truth be told that sort of thing isn't the best fit for everyone and there are many other paths to success. It's better to figure this out when you're 20 and then adjust accordingly.

>Besides that, will it even do me that much good to have a degree from an unknown state university?

It won't make you a successful startup founder, but it will give you a ticket to employment as a member of the professional class. That's enough for a lot of people.

What state are you in? Why not go to the flagship state university while you figure out what kind of startup you want to do?

> when I'll have to fill up an entire semester with just a Trig class, so I can fill up another semester with just Calc 1 so I can get to Calc 2

A lot of people 'place out' of these using AP exams - you can take them even now. This should help you move faster.

I am failing to see the problem.

No seriously guys. Here's the problem:

20 years old. Doesn't know what to do. Options are college or work. And how is this "problem" anything other than universal? And how is the advice anything other than banal? Go to college. Keep working. Whatever.

Good luck in college. Work hard to transfer into Georgia Tech. I'm not a Math person by any means of the imagination so after visiting and trying to convince myself that I would do well at the liberal arts at Georgia Tech, I decided to go to Emory (starting august)

But enough about me.

It's all about a simple idea and then just doing, making an application, starting simple, and working hard without giving up. Doing website design work has exposed me to the skills, now HN is getting me exposed to the mindset, I'm taking steps.

Since you are local, feel free to get in touch with me. We have similar dreams. Hopefully employers and educators will quickly look past your GPA. I am sure they will.

nir@lonick.com

Hello. A lot of your early years sound very similar to mine: Liked computers, grew up in a place where nobody knew/cared about them, was smart but never worked very hard, got by in school but never excelled. I lucked out and knew a professor that knew someone and when I dropped out of college I left for industry and have been able to keep inertia up to where I am. My advice:

1) Keep Moving. If I only had two words to tell you it would be those. You're behind the eight-ball as far as education, math in particular, goes but you can fix that... but it's not going to fix itself. Take any other classes you can in parallel but Just. Don't. Stop. What you're looking at as an crushing, insurmountable mountain of work is really only a few years.

2) Get a degree in a field you care about and can find work in. The school doesn't really matter. The old "just get the piece of paper" advice is generally considered deprecated, but you do need to have the skills. Unless you go somewhere that is actively known for its bad program (and even then that's only likely to be known locally) it will be a net positive.

3) Attempt to seek out people that are smarter and more curious than you are. I can relate to your high school experience, and I don't have a lot of hopeful to say about the people that stayed in the town I grew up in. Always keep your eyes open, though; you may find people that seem smart at first that don't seem like it after you see their weaknesses.

4) The "cities full of intelligence and ambition" thing is romantic but won't pay the bills. Be on the lookout for cities that have a solid economy and job opportunities for people with your skills and education. I suspect you'll do better more toward the west than the (north-)east, but I don't know much about the south-east. You may be better off right now than you know.

5) Use your desire to learn about geek stuff (SICP, Python, et. al.) to feed your general sense of curiosity, and your "technical taste" but don't bank on it for preparation for entrepreneur-hood. {major dissenting opinion ahead} I believe that people searching for the next big thing in the fields of the last big thing are generally wasting their time. Too bad for me (and possibly you) this industry is what I love. Tech is a great industry to be working in, but every big thing started with an itch to scratch.

Good luck!

Get yourself into Georgia Tech, which has an excellent (read: world class) CS department. If you don't have residency in Georgia, get it before you apply. You need a job, a drivers licenses, and a residence for X amount of time. Check the local laws. Figure out which of your courses transfer. Figure out how to work the system so you can graduate in two years. You'll be 23 or 24 and have a degree from a top 10 computer science department. Sounds like a pretty damn good life to me.

Now let's talk some more specifics. You'll probably need another year to establish residency in Georgia. In that time, you need to make yourself a more attractive candidate so you can get in. If you can, get yourself down to Georgia Tech and get a job around there. A system admin job in the school's IT department would be ideal. Sit in on classes, conference with admissions officers, and call in any favors you have to get a good recommendation from someone in high school. Study for the ACT (or SAT if GT doesn't take the ACT). Honestly with half a year of preparation you can raise your score a ton. A strong standardized test would improve your application a lot. Take classes at a community college for a semester near GT. Get at least two kick ass recommendations from professors there and make sure you get a 3.5 GPA or higher. Note, getting good recommendations is an easy process. Just let your enthusiasm for computer science show, go in to the professors office hours to ask questions, and work on an independent project with them. Honestly, since GT is a public school, there are probably incentives in place to take a certain number of community college students per year and that can help you.

Some people here might advise you to teach yourself what you need and try to make it on your own. Let's be realistic. You don't even know if you are capable of working hard yet on highly technical projects. School will teach you that, and give you the ability to get a job if starting a company doesn't work out.

To give you a bottom line, you need an associates degree, at least a 3.5 GPA (> 3.7 is much better) in your community college classes, and at least two excellent recommendations from professors there. You also need a kick ass essay, which you should spend a lot of time writing and sharing with people. Any personal connection you can establish with people at the school before you apply is just an added bonus. You can make it happen, and three years from now the world will look completely different.

I hate to be the cynic here but I think you need to really change your attitude if you want to succeed in life. To me your post seems to be "I sort of like computers and my life isn’t working out the way I want so I now want to pursue computers because it looks like my best chance out of the life I’m living"

Well, sorry to say, that isn’t how it works. Don’t get me wrong, if you really work at it I’m sure you can do it but you are WAY behind the curve if you’re 20 years old and have done nothing but tinker with BASIC and C. That said here's my advice...

First, accept you need to work day and night to accomplish your goal. Again, you’re already way behind so you have a lot of catch up to do just to be competent. You should be looking at 70 to 80 hour weeks of pure hard work (including your grocery job).

Second, learn Python (or some other language) backwards and forwards before you even start anything else. Tinkering doesn’t prove anything. Anyone can write a "hello world" app but true programmers have to think in a very specific, logical fashion. You might not have the aptitude for that and there’s no point wasting time pursuing this goal if you’ll never be able to get good at it. You can learn everything you need to know with a search engine these days so there’s no excuse here.

Third, stop thinking in generalizations. No one succeeds by saying "I want to found a start up." You need to latch on to an actual idea and you need to start working on it as soon as you are able. From where you live and the experience you have I figure you’ll need to create a whole product just to interest anyone.

Again, I apologize for the harsh tone but I think it’s justified. As rude as it sounds someone who gets in your position usually doesn’t get out. Getting out will not only be the hardest thing you ever do it will be close to the hardest thing anyone’s ever done. You literally have to remake yourself at a time when many of your instincts have already been formed. It’s not easy, it’s not fun and it will be tons of work and tons of time before you see even a little bit of results.

But if you want to succeed you have to commit yourself to that reality.

> I've been working my way through SICP and I've recently learned the basics of Python, but I don't know if I can learn everything I need to know through self-study

The majority of what you need to know in order to run a startup isn't taught at collage/uni, it's self-taught or learnt through experience

Here is what it comes down to. School is a security blanket, as is pretty much everything else society tells you that you "need" to do before doing a startup (VCs, corporate experience, etc.).

This is what you need to be able to do to succeed.

Hustle.

Hustle your brains out and figure out what you want to build, build it, monetize it, prove that you can do great things, and the rest will be history.

Good luck man, just don't let your past dictate your future and you'll be fine.

I don't have too much big picture advice given that I'm roughly your age and also somewhat disoriented, but with regards to learning your math: most if not all schools will allow you to take a math placement test to determine where you need to begin in the curriculum. I completely agree with you that taking 3 semesters (a year, a year and a half?) just to get up to speed would be silly, especially if you do in fact have an aptitude for math.

If you've never taken calculus it would probably serve you well to take it in an actual classroom (possibly at night while working?), but trig can easily be self taught from a book. If you need a little extra help, contact the math department of a local university and ask if they have a list of students who are available for tutoring. It would be a small cost to meet with someone once or twice a week to stay on track with your self study, compared to an actual college class.

Can't you take SAT II and place out of calc 1?

I have a hunch that you will be in a lot better position when you join uni and graduate than a lot of my friends who recently graduated and then had the "NOW WHAT?" moment. You are having that moment right now, which is good.

Knowing that you like math is a great start. Also, learning python is another awesome decision. Now while you are trying to figure out your "big" thing(which school to goto etc.), try putting together your love for python/math and build cool apps out of them.

Finally, quit regretting your past. Think you partied too much in high school? There are geeks who wish they had more fun in high school:) Point is, it is about how you frame your experience. Instead of thinking "I was a slacker" ask yourself "what can I build for slackers like me[and profit!...jk]?".

I graduated from Georgia Tech's CS program in December, so I can hopefully give you a few useful pointers.

First of all, while GT is definitely your top (and really only) choice in the state for any of those three departments, you don't necessarily have to start out there. Look up Southern Polytechnic State University - it's in Marietta, just a short ways outside Atlanta, and it has a few serious perks for your situation: - It's a whole lot cheaper (about $10k less) than GT is, particularly for students who are not in-state. - It is an engineering-focused university that will get you up to speed reasonably quickly and let you start taking some classes that will transfer well to GT (but not as well or smoothly as you might expect, so be careful). - Transfering from Southern Poly to GT is almost a guarantee -- as long as you do well there, you are pretty much certain to be admitted.

Second, whatever university you wind up going to, be sure to get involved in activities outside of class. They don't all have to be focused on programming or startup stuff, either -- my time working on GT's student newspaper helped in my job search nearly as much as my degree itself. Plus, the things I did had the additional benefit of exposing me to a much wider group of people than the typical CS crowd, and keeping me sane during tougher times.

Last, don't give up, especially once you actually get into university. GT's engineering, science and CS programs tend to smack people down in their first couple of semesters, and the worst thing you could do is let that get you down to the point of dropping back to your current situation.

Heh, I'm 33 and actually in a similar spot in some ways. I hated school, was sick to death of it, went to college because it was just sort of the thing to do. I was interested in math and science but the classes were hard and I realized I just didn't have the drive at that point to compete. I ended up majoring in Anthropology and dropped out after three and a half years.

I do alright as a professional, self-taught programmer, after working my way through various tech support and later testing jobs, but I long for a better foundation in math and comp sci and am trying to go back to school full time. I can say this from my own experience...if you're not reasonably sure you want to knock out a bachelor's degree, don't. It doesn't get easier as you get older but there are still lots of opportunities for adults returning to college. I didn't need a degree to make it as a programmer and many others didn't either, but I also got in during the dot com boom so had some easy experience to go on.

Hey, just get it done.

I understand you are 20, and you still have a lot of sorting out to do, but you know what the answer is?

There is no answer; just get it done. There's no real need to write out this essay about why this, how that... its nonsense, either you want to do something and you start trying to do it, or you don't

Somebody has to say it.

Stop talking, start doing.

"Credentialism, like it or not, is still a huge factor when you have no work experience."

Uh, yeah. that's what your parents always say. I can't tell you how many people told me I'd be working at gas stations if I didn't get good grades and go to college. By 20, my wages were competitive with my parents.

If you don't have education, you need experience. Get a job as a windows monkey/cable bitch at an office or an ISP. Work for people who are better than you are. Yeah, you have a few years of getting ridiculously underpaid ahead of you. I remember getting paid $7/hr to fix computers, when customers were billed for my time at $80/hr.

move up to a better job every year or two. Linux pays better than windows, so as soon as you can make that jump, do so.

That said, you are going to be working shit jobs until the recession is over. just remember it is the experience you are after, not the money. But as soon as the economy picks up, if you have been doing the job for peanuts, you will be able to get paid real money.

But the important thing is to have jobs that count. small companies are good, because the owner cares about money, and if you get hired on as a level 1 windows monkey, if you can, it's usually pretty easy to get them to let you take on more responsibility, work on the linux servers, etc..

I started doing that at 15. By the time I was 20, I was living in the bay area making around $60K. Now, that was '00. The crash wasn't too long after that so I had a few years of flat salary, but then things picked up again; that seems to be the way it works. learn things during the downturns, cash in when times are good.

Now, I've chosen the path of bootstraping my company, because I prefer to sell to customers than to investors, which is a little different, but really, knowing how to do something useful is a huge help in starting your company. First, working lets you see problems people have, and second, if you know things, you can rent yourself out for venture capital. I suck at business. I spent four years bleeding into my current venture before I saw black ink. (But... that was my Porsche.) But the thing is, with what I can bill out as a contractor, I've got (what seems to me like) a massive wad of venture capital, replenished monthly. That means I can pay for a lot of mistakes, and I'm finally at a point where it looks like I have the upper hand. (see, this downturn I'm prepared. During good times, nobody cares about money. During downturns, money matters. You should probably try to apply this to selling your labor. Offer to be underpaid for a job you are not quite qualified for.)

I don't want to discourage you from going to school, but it's not the only path. Credentialism is dead.

Cherokee County, eh. We should touch base; I'm in Fulton/Midtown.

In old days, there is another path: To join military. It will shape the view of a person definitely. After services and you can go to school with better financial support and stronger will to achieve things, if you are lucky to get out the service without trauma.

But it seems joining military is not really good choice since invasion of Iraq. It seems like the best way is try to build something that you like and learn from it. School can only teach things that can be taught, and unfortunately there is no school to teach creating stuffs for arts and technologies or fiction/poem writing! You can only learn them by doing, from trials and errors.

It is your will power to be successful matters. You are 20, so you are much more luckier than people who figure this out in 30s or 40s and have no guts to choose the path.

I am in my mid-20's. I still have a long way to go and I have lots of plans for the future. The thing I have learned so far is that we should all be responsible for everything we do. Be it your job, your small projects or even those quick scripts.

The level of education and facilities in my country are way behind from the US, but thanks to the internet I can learn new things that were not taught in schools.

I don't know how the admission systems work, but perhaps you could get into school in another country, like the UK? Although I seem to remember from the UK they also have things like you had to take physcis in school to be allowed to do it at university. But in some countries it does not work that way, for example Germany is different (you are either qualified to get into university or not).

Credentials don't so much matter if you're doing startups -- you need to know some co-founders and you need to all trust each other to be able to make things.

But college helps a lot of other things. So:

If you end up at GT, I'd recommend looking into their Computational Media program. It's a lighter version of CS with extra media studies (games, films, websites, etc). You still have access to all the CS classes if you want them. I am of the (somewhat biased) opinion that you can craft a better startup education there.

UCF also has a pretty good CS/media program and is in Orlando, which might be easier for you.

Thanks for all the comments. I've actually followed through on a couple pieces of advice.

I scheduled an interview with an admissions officer at Southern Poly, and I spent all night last night working through the Django Book, so I can try to put together my first webapp idea. I've always learned best by actually getting my hands dirty, so I think it will be a good experience.