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by AllTheThings 4493 days ago
>As someone who came from a working class background, college has enabled me to move up multiple socio-economic classes.

I'm really happy someone brought this up. Where I went to school, the average student just ended up working in their parents/relatives' car wash, nail salon, or sandwich store, those that didn't fall into the grips of drugs and gangs. Even into high school, a few of us didn't even have an internet connection. Though I used to code a lot as a kid, I never thought of coding as something of inherent value because I never saw anyone around me go into a job that involves coding or even math/science as a skill. Forget working at a startup as a teenager! To me, the folks at Google and Apple (Facebook didn't really exist yet) wore white labcoats and tweaked giant machines and took notes on their notebooks. I was just a kid who could visualize math and physics better than his peers.

It wasn't until I went to college that I realized that I might end up working for a company like that or making a difference in the world of technology. And it's college I thank for giving me the self-confidence and technical ability to work in the world of tech.

College isn't useful for social mobility? Bullshit.