Anyone else feel in hindsight, college was a huge waste of money so basically just 4yrs of partying/independence from parents?

Watched Accepted on Prime yesterday which in hindsight send to be the truth...
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0384793/

I majored in finance and information systems... Well the finance stuff I remember (for stock trading) I could've learned reading some books.

IS... I didn't even need to try since I started coding when I was a kid. SQL, know it already... Matlab/weka, just another language/tool.

That’s why o didn’t go to college. Started coding in high school and looked for a job right after Highschool.
Started working with 16 and with 20 when others finished college I already had 4y experience.

Nope. Totally worth it. Learnt a lot, made a ton of good friends and acquaintances, did a whole lot of bullshit that is only easy to find time/resources for in college, got into stuff that would've been impossible otherwise.

@RememberMe Preach.
IMHO, very few people can force themselves to self-learn calculus, linear algebra, abstract algebra, complex analysis, Fourier, ODE, PDE, probability, numeric algorithms, differential geometry, discrete math...
It's better to get this solid math foundation in university, and then options are limitless.

@NickyBones true... Guess business school is just useless then...

Hard sciences, math, etc.. Yea.

Most people do need additional education.

Absolutely not. Even though it was nearly 30 years ago, my engineering degree is still useful. It puts me above others without a degree when going for jobs, I wouldn't have chartered engineer status without it and I would not have been able to get work visas for multiple countries without it.

@nibor will I mean does it have any more value then just being a piece of paper stating u graduated and that other things "require" it.

Basically just an expensive filter

@NickyBones I agree. I'm trying to teach myself pure mathematics now because I need it for research and hoo boy I would prefer to just do a maths degree instead (self-taught differential geometry is..."fun"). I should just enroll in one again, maybe even at my uni if that's possible.

Honestly we are all just speckles of time so why not enjoy the dopamine

@phat-lasagna well in my case, my parents spent $200,000 over 4yrs for my tuition at a "top" private colleges and in hindsight I probably should've just gone to a local state college on scholarship and have them pay me the diff.

Other then the name, the education probably wouldn't be any different, at least what I'd remember and use.

@donuts ah yeah, with US college tuition being what it is it's pretty understandable to feel that it might not be worth it.

College / university is as much of a waste of money as you make it. If you go there to do a good, useful degree, work hard, get a good grade, and have a laugh / make good friends in the process (the two are not mutually exclusive!) then it's a fantastic investment. Despite what people claim, it's *way* easier to get a foot on the ladder and climb it quickly with a good degree.

Alternatively, if you follow the fad these days of going to do media studies with a side of underwater basket weaving, don't do any work, party for 4 years, and then come out of it thinking "now what?!" then yes, it's a massive waste of time.

This is where this snowflakey "oohh you just need to pick whatever you enjoy and the rest will fall into place" bollocks needs to stop. You need to do research before taking a degree to ensure it's worthwhile - enjoying it isn't enough, you need to be able to turn it into a career advantage.

@AlmondSauce mine was good college == good job. Top expensive college == really good job

I got the grades but didn't get a job that the degree implied...

The job I did get I could've gotten going to a state college.. For free.

In interviews for it, I just talked about my own experiences rather then what I learned at school...

Biggest thing which sorta clicked with the movie was, I would've been better off doing what I wanted instead of what my parents wanted.

Oh u can code already, u don't need a CS degree... do finance instead....

Wrong...

@donuts Yeah, not doing a degree because "you can already do it all" is possibly the worst reason going. Even if that was true (which I doubt in its entirety) then paying to ace a degree & go above and beyond, learning way more than you know already on your subject of choice and leaving with more knowledge, experience & skills than your peers is a *fantastic* way to spend those few years.

...unless it's a sport science degree. If that's the case you probably do know it all.

Just read this...

Choose happiness, not success.

No matter what we do for a living, we all want to be a success. But what exactly does success mean? Are we pursuing money? Power? A bigger office? Or is your ultimate goal something that lasts longer but is more intangible?

The key message here is: Choose happiness, not success.

Chasing success often looks like this: Imagine you’ve been hired at a job you really love. You’re passionate about the work and want to impress your bosses and colleagues. So you go all in, working all hours, taking every chance to display how much you care. It’s only natural, but it comes with problems.

Sometimes, our passion gets in the way of doing the work well. This is especially true if you’re not taking into account the needs of others. For example, imagine you’re a brand new teacher on the first day of class.

You’ve been working toward this for years and you’re eager to impart everything you’ve learned to your students. So you create a syllabus that includes as much material as you can possibly cover, scheduling what you believe will be challenging projects, stimulating reading material, and outside fieldwork.

But after about six weeks, you notice that your students are lagging behind. Assignments are turned in late, and no one is participating in the extra work outside of class at all. You’ve failed to take into account that this is just one class of many for your students. Your passion is not their passion. Not yet, anyway. 

In other words, your eagerness does not necessarily equal effectiveness. And if we are not effective in our jobs, we can’t be happy. We must combine both passion and wisdom to work effectively with others.

So chasing success can bring problems; it’s also never-ending. Whenever we chase success, we’re using an arbitrary benchmark that was handed to us by someone else. If we achieve it, what happens next? There’s always another goal to chase on the horizon. 

Happiness, on the other hand, is a goal we define ourselves. Only you can decide what makes you truly happy. And when you receive enjoyment from your work, other people see it. Would you rather work with someone who enjoys what they do or with someone who seems miserable whether or not they get the job done?

At the end of the day, don’t worry about what the world says you should do to be happy. No one can define that but you. Stay true to yourself, figure out what you really want out of life, and pursue it.

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Wow... Maybe @dfox should just increase the size of comments? Or is it a db col length limit?

Obviously, studying something you already mastered can't give you that much improvement.
So next life try studying something you don't already know.

@donuts that's big dough, where'd u go?

@phat-lasagna any US private college probably around that much if need to pay full... I went to NYU Stern... tithe out business school is just crap unless ur good at networking...

You are using hindsight word awfully a lot.

@donuts word yeah West lil uni gems are the best alternative I feel.