[unalone]

This semester I've been really focusing on web development. We want to apply to YCombinator over the summer, and I want to make sure that I'm more than capable of handling the aspects of the site I'm running.

My co-founder (apparently that term's inappropriate now) is very much a math-and-science person. I'm not averse to them - I took calculus in my junior year of high school - but at the same time, that's not what interests me. I'm much more an arts person: writing, music, theatre. It's a good combination, because we look at what we're developing in different ways.

At the same time, I'm learning how to program, I'm in a digital arts course, and next semester I'm taking an upperclassmen programming course. I'm not planning to throw my life away on a project. But if I've got a good idea, I'm going to try to implement it. I'm young: I can risk failure.

[strlen]

> But if I've got a good idea, I'm going to try to implement it. I'm young: I can risk failure.

Sure but don't risk your undergrad. Graduate school is a much better time for this. And to quote DHH, don't treat your life like a planned waterfall project: "I want to do web development, so I will do X, then I will do Y."

[unalone]

Worst comes to worst, I leave college for a year or two, and come back after I've tried everything a bit older and a bit wiser.

I don't think that web development is my big thing. I'm interested in the web, but I'd hate to have to work on ideas I don't love. My current project is something for writers, so it has practical uses for myself as well. And YCombinator summer happens in Boston, which happens to be the place I want to go, so I told my cofounder and we agreed we'd give it a good try.

[timr]

Crabapple is obviously trolling, but (s)he's got a point: it's a really bad idea to drop of out of college to pursue anything less than an instant success. You'll have plenty of time to chase rainbows once you've finished your degree. I realize that this isn't popular advice amongst the "school is for luzers" crowd that camps out on this site, but every good developer I know had the maturity and perseverance to finish college. It isn't that hard.

Important corollary: you'll never have more free time to pursue personal projects than you do in college. You don't need to quit school to find the time to make a popular website (just ask Rob Malda).

[strlen]

right. it's not even about a degree or the knowledge. more than anything, as this acquisition shows, start-ups aren't about technology or knowledge: they're about executing on an idea and tons of PR and marketing.

but one way to increase your chances of winning (that is, drive a start-up to profitability or a home-run exit) is to get a body of knowledge that makes you stand out from others.

i certainly agree that college is the time to pursue personal projects: but personals means exactly this, personal. work on projects that will teach you the most vs. the projects that seem to be the best from business perspective. you have rest of your life to spend worrying about making a profit.

for 2 years out of my undergrad career i did contract systems administration / internal web app development. however, i've learned a lot more about systems administration. in retrospect, it'd have been better spent otherwise. trying to have personal projects while working full-time and doing a part-time masters is a great luxury.

[unalone]

work on projects that will teach you the most vs. the projects that seem to be the best from business perspective

I think that the best metric is a third thing: "work on projects that you like the most."

I think that the start-up I'm working on will teach me a lot. And it's got more than enough potential to earn me a living, too. But more than that, it's an idea that I love. The fact that I think I can sustain myself with it is an added side effect.

I mean, I won't drop out of college just for the heck of it. My co-founder and I are applying to seed investors, though, and that means we'll spend time on leave from college working on the idea. If we get accepted, we'll work on the project full-time for as long as we can. But if we don't, then it'll continue to be a side project and we'll launch it from college.

[nostrademons]

Most decent colleges will let you take an indefinite "leave of absence" to pursue other stuff, and come back whenever you're ready without reapplying and without having lost your credit. Technically, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerburg, and Larry & Sergey aren't dropouts, they're just still on leave and haven't bothered to come back yet. Wozniak did go back, after his plane crash, and finished his degree.

And I found it wasn't time that was the limiting factor, it was attention. I found it really difficult to have spare attention to devote to personal projects when I was a physics major, learning CS fundamentals (mostly on my own, but I took some upper-level electives and ended up finishing the major), doing sailing & orchestra, and trying to have a semblance of a social life. Might be easier in a less-demanding major with fewer activities, but I found it a lot easier to do personal programming once I got a job.

[timr]

Those are potentially misleading examples:

* Bill Gates had the resources of an extremely well-connected and wealthy family to hedge his risk. He has also repeatedly and publically advised young people to stay in college, and not follow his path.

* Mark Zuckerburg didn't leave college until Facebook was growing so quickly that he had to make the choice.

* Larry and Sergey were grad students; they were trying to get their doctorates, not their BS degrees.

Ignoring all of that, there's some serious selection bias going on: for every Bill Gates, there are ten thousand droupouts who are flipping burgers.

[nostrademons]

Not really an argument, just pointing out that there's a 3rd option besides "drop out" and "stay in school". And it sounded like that was the one unalone was considering.

[gommm]

I almost took a leave of absence when I was in college to go to work and study in china for a year (learning chinese and working as a developper for a year) but in the end I didn't do it (partly because of money and because of sars)...

Looking back I regret not having pushed ahead and taken that leave of absence because working even for one year in a company makes one appreciate the subjects of the classes in college much more... And I feel part of the classes of college were wasted on me because I lacked the experience to appreciate them

[unalone]

It's not a matter of perseverance, though. I know I can finish college. I'm only a semester in, but I like classes, I can stand the people, and I'm good at this.

It's more that I'd rather take risks early. If I try this and succeed, I have more of a vantage point. Perhaps I'll end up at a better college, at a better program. If I stay in college for four years before doing this, my idea might have been taken, and if my idea doesn't work I'll have to hunt for an alternative venue. Right now, I've got the ability to leave for a little while, then come back, and I don't see why I shouldn't at least try.

[timr]

I'm all for taking risks early -- smart risks. But it's not really that smart to quit college to pursue a business that has no traction. Nobody is going to steal your idea if you don't drop out, and nothing is stopping you from working on it now. And if it does turn out that your idea takes off, you can always quit then. Staying in school is a smart hedge against failure that most entrepreneurs don't have.

Ignoring, for the moment, that a college degree lends you business credibility that's difficult to obtain otherwise, it's important to realize that quitting school right now probably won't give you a strategic advantage. Quit school, and you've got to feed yourself, house yourself, pay the bills and do a million other things just to manage your life. Stay in school, and you've got to do some homework. Otherwise, you're surrounded by smart people, free resources, subsidized housing and food. It doesn't get any easier!

Assuming that you're not going to some ridiculously expensive private school (and paying for it out-of-pocket), I can hardly think of a better place to start a business than a University. I've never had more free time than I did as an undergrad, and I think that others would tell you the same.

[unalone]

Nah. I'm going to public school. But - I said this before - the problem I'm having is that I don't see the purpose to the specifics of the things I'm doing. It saps me of some motivation when I'm doing things that not only aren't productive but aren't learning.

[strlen]

> Worst comes to worst, I leave college for a year or two, and come back after I've tried everything a bit older and a bit wiser.

Before you make this decision, you should talk to people who tried. However, as I've said, life isn't a planned waterfall project. You seem bright, focused and most importantly confident.

I guess what I mean to say, don't come away from this knowing _nothing but_ web development (whether with a degree or not).

When I was an undergraduate, systems administration was all I wanted to do. Then all I wanted to do was backend web-development. Now I've realized that both of these are just narrow technical skills that anyone could do, but I am no longer nineteen (yet luckily, I'm also not 30 yet).

[unalone]

That's sound advice. Thanks!