| A few quick questions to help you think through your decision: - does your 'refusal to buy into this idea' prevent you from seeing additional options? - is it really a binary question, or are there a range of possible solutions to your need that include different mixes of university and work I got a Ph.D. at age 20 by being a bit creative with the institutional side of things. My university, rpi.edu, brought me in as a transfer student from nowhere and gave me credit for university-level classes i had sat in on at skidmore college and through johns hopkins cty program. i finished the last 2.5 years of my undergrad in 2 years by cleverly managing course requirements and taking a few extra classes. Then i cranked through my ph.d. while getting sent to japan for a summer through the nsf, and to conferences in Nice and Hungary. if you set out a list of all that you would like to do and view university more as a mix-and-match opportunity, there are a lot of ways one can do things, that can be more productive than the traditional route. for example, one could camp out in palo alto and attend a pile of stanford classes and events, plus tech industry startup events, plus ... for two years i was on a campus without being a student there... but hey, some people like to get a degree and have a student i.d. card. at what cost though... food for thought ;) |