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Re:Ask HN: How did you start higher education after 40? by capitalsigma on Sunday September 11, 2022 @12:07PM (#32800811)
I was a double major in philosophy and CS in my undergrad. Philosophy was fun, but in hindsight I wish I did math or stats or some other STEM instead. I would say my main takeaway from the philosophy degree was developing a sense of intellectual respect for big, important ideas that I don't personally agree with (various religious thinkers, Marx, Aristotle etc), but it really doesn't compare to the actual nuts-and-bolts abstract reasoning skills you pick up in an abstract algebra course, for example.

I also found that I could consistently get As in humanities courses with ~20-40 hours of work per quarter (the time to write 1-3 papers) once I picked up the skill of "writing like an academic", vs my CS courses which continued to be challenging and require a ton of effort to succeed in up until my graduation. My senior year, for example, I had some core-requirement course about theater -- I attended zero classes and did zero readings until I sat down to write the paper, and I got As with compliments from the professor on how well-written my papers were. YMMV.

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