[gwbas1c]

I can't stress enough how important college is. People who can drop out of college and still do extremely well are very rare: When you look at Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerburg (sp?), they had to drop out because their startups' success was a once-in-a-lifetime event. They also had family money to fall back on if their startups failed and they needed to go back to school.

Many of the techies who I've met who dropped out of school had career struggles afterwards: I can't stress just how important it is to do college while you are college age. You can delay it 1-2 years if you like, (and it will really be nice to have spending money when you're in college,) but going to college when you're significantly older than everyone else will really suck.

College isn't just about the book education. That's the easiest part. It's also about the social experience; but it's much harder to apply for jobs without the degree.

[PartiallyTyped]

> College isn't just about the book education. That's the easiest part. It's also about the social experience; but it's much harder to apply for jobs without the degree.

This can not be overstated.

University is the means with which one can reach out to knowledgeable people and build connections. The biggest mistake of my studies imho was not taking advantage of all the resources I had access to.

[munbun]

College also serves as a buffer, giving you dedicated time and space grow.

The self-taught route is a viable path but if growth is what you want, the early stages requires more work than most realize.

[gwbas1c]

More importantly: A lot of tech jobs get A LOT of applicants. Often the college degree requirement is simply a quick-and-easy filter. You might have an awesome resume, but without the degree, whoever's reading the giant stack of applications is just going to move on to the next one.

[drdunce]

Applying for CS jobs is difficult full stop, with or without the degree.

I can't remember the last time I got invited to even the first stage! University doesn't fix that.

[the_only_law]

Yeah I opted not to go, any of my friends didn’t. While it seemed like things were going good for a few years, all my friends are now getting jobs in really cool domains from university hiring pipelines whereas my careers is basically dead now.