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There was a similar thread on this topic here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6142978. Let me add my thoughts: 1. In this current climate, your lack of a college degree will not affect your hiring chances. Blue chip tech companies like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Facebook care slightly more, but even then, four years of quality work experience will actually, in my opinion, put you ahead. I get the feeling that when people on this thread talk about HR, they are talking about the job recruiting processes at other non Goog/Apple/Msft/Amz/Fb firms that are not as software-focused. Those firms in my experience are a lot more meritocratic. I didn't have a college education when my resume got through Apple's recruiter filter, and when I got an in-person interview with Amazon. 2. However, the current job climate in SV is quite unique. The job market is so hot that, as you can see in the linked thread, people with 1 year of experience can get 120k job offers as web/mobile developers (take into account that SV is very expensive to live in). The central question is: what is the job market going to look like in the future? If the market crashes in the next 2 years, not only will you have a hard time finding a job, but so will even those with CS degrees (by no means am I saying that those with CS degrees will be ahead in that case). 3. I think there is a good chance of you getting a summer internship in the coming summer. Do you have any family in the Bay Area that you could stay with? Make sure it is a paid internship - unpaid internships are generally correlated with low quality. 4. There are other non-tangible reasons to go to school: the social experience, meeting girls (or guys), etc. If you're a 18/19 year-old guy it can be quite hard to date in SV working at a startup, esp. since everyone your age is in school. It's for this reason that I chose to go to school. 5. Consider a compromise (see linked thread): Get a great internship over the summer, preferably with a well-known startup or tech company. Do well and ask for a full-time offer, which will allow you to bypass the normal interview process. Defer admission to UT Austin for 1 year (a so-called gap year, you'll have to look into their admissions policies more closely or contact the admissions office to see if that is allowed - also see what kind of deadline you have for declaring that you're deferring). Work for a year, and at the end of the year, evaluate this again. |
1. That's good to hear.
2. I am a bit worried about that, which is why I want to take advantage of the opportunity now rather than four years from now when it might not be available.
3. I do have family to stay with there.
4. That's definitely true but I personally value money/opportunity/career to dating.
5. My plan right now is to do exactly that. I am a bit worried about how a gap year will affect my scholarship opportunities though.