[fnordpiglet]

I graduated high school and went out to the valley immediately in 1995. I did well but I eventually got to a point where the natural language and machine learning stuff I was doing required more advanced math and statistics than I had the ability to teach myself. I went back to college leaving my successful career to “memorize random subjects.”

One thing I learned in college was you learn what you put into it and I put everything into whah I was doing. I learned that learning was the most valuable thing one can do because the process of learning new “random subjects” teaches you how to understand how to learn and think. Being intelligent is perhaps necessary but it is absolutely insufficient. Not a single moment I spent studying in college was a waste of my time, none of it was “memorizing.” In fact one reason I didn’t go was I was bad at memorizing - and I learned in college I could derive equations from my understanding faster than memorizing if I really understood the subject.

I graduated summa cum laude at a top engineering computer science program and dropped out of graduate school to get into quant trading at a top shop on wall street and have since done a fairly complete tour of FAANG and adjacent as a distinguished engineer, building stuff you likely use every day.

I never would have had my career had I stayed working without an education. Knowledge and wisdom and learned through education and being taught by those who have explored things you haven’t. Ability and experience isn’t just mechanical knowledge of a technical subject or intelligence.

I’ve done both paths, and I strongly recommend people to never memorize random subjects but to dive into college and learn and understand everything in total depth, then carry that into life. There is no greater gift you will ever receive in the work world than the gift of knowledge and ability to learn and appreciate life in all its complexity you will learn in college.