[ambertch]

'#4 Do Things The Hard Way'

I think this is so important for our young generation b/c everybody is trying to "hack" or "game" the system. The problem is that you don't actually internalize things by hacking your way through

So it depends on your goals. Let's take a computer science degree for example: if your goal is to do investment banking and having a CS/engineering degree from a top university really puts you apart from all those econ/business majors in the finance interviews (which it does), sure hack your way through CS/EE: you're not planning to go into that field anyways so copy-change homework and study past tests to hack the system and get a good GPA. But if you're doing CS to be a software engineer, you DON'T want to hack your way through, you'd want to "do things the hard way" and really learn the material.

[ankrgyl]

I think your definition of "hack" is confusing with respect to this forum. Hackers are people who understand the system so well that they can manipulate it to their advantage. Good hackers have done things the hard way and use those experiences to make things easy in the future.

[hackinthebochs]

I'm no authority but I'm gonna have to disagree. Hackers as understood on this forum are people who find the shortest path to an intended outcome. This usually takes a novel way of looking at the system. But it by no means requires a complete understanding of it. Hacking requires a clever insight that allows you to quickly accomplish your goal. Total understanding is usually too time consuming for the hacker.

[ankrgyl]

To clarify, my definition of hacking is inspired by this http://stallman.org/articles/on-hacking.html

[lukifer]

Wisdom is knowing which shortcuts to take. But there are no shortcuts to wisdom.

[Retric]

You can hack collage just like any other complex system. The #1 secret to a inflated GPA in collage is knowing which teachers take and which ones to avoid.

I knew one teacher who basically gave every student an A in his advanced math classes. "Ok so everyone has an A, but we have 2 weeks left and I have more material I would like to cover so please show up." Not only that but he actually knew how to teach so you where ready to use the material in the future.

Unfortunately I knew a history teacher who like to base essay questions off of obscure references in the ~3,000 pages of text you where apparently supposed to memorize for the test. In his words two A's in the same class was a sign he was going soft.