throw6969away
After more research, I don't think this was accurate. I feel bad for resorting to stereotype.
"Liberal" is absolutely correct here, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_education
"White" is iffy. In my experience in the U.S., thinking about alternative education is a luxury that only some can afford to do. Therefore, it is an issue of affluence.
"Women" was out of line. This is not an issue of gender, and I think it was harmful to reinforce certain traditional roles here.
I lied about my GPA btw, it was around 3.8. And I went to a mid-tier state school in the Midwest. It was good in that I enjoyed it and learned a lot.
Compilers and UI APIs are easy to learn. I did it too. Education is the problem of teaching people much harder things.
> It hurts me to read this
Hey man, look, I was a great student and graduated from a good college with a 4.0 GPA with a math and CS degree, and now I've made a lot of money in industry. I am a huge proponent of the U.S. educational system and of the freedom of the individual to become educated.
But there are hard things you have to do in life; unless your name is Erdős, who, btw, was on speed the whole time.
It was relatively easy for me, but learning something real is something that is hard for all humans. The subjective experience of encoding millennia of information into your fleshy brain. Just like working out. The best way to work out is with a coach or buddy. There's a reason humans evolved to be social. Same is true with educational structures.
Play-based learning is a fad designed to satisfy liberal white women. Real, practical results come from overcoming challenge.
[1] https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/the-short-lis...
Learning is inherently painful. You are encoding boring new information into your brain, and most of it will be useless. From personal experience, 95% of the things you need to learn in CS or mathematics are boring. It is extremely difficult for most people to find motivation to do this. Schools (with grades, etc.) provide a structure to incentivize this.
Common sense is something you can only learn through personal struggle. But if you already have some common sense, going to university and learning about the 15 or so different subtopics of your field is enriching, imo.
There was probably a technical definition of the "critical" at one point, but now basically something like the above is meant by "critical thinking". I don't have a problem with it.
OP turned down a full scholarship. I think this is a huge mistake. Going to school -- even a state school -- on full scholarship is one of the best experiences in life.
I did it. It was worth every cent I didn't pay, but it was also worth my time. There's not a lot of opportunity cost for starting white-collar adult life at 22 vs. 20, but there's a hell of a lot of benefit of a university as a platform to develop yourself when your brain is running at full capacity.
At least, if you study something technical.
Once the patents on Apple's trackpad expire, then we'll see.
For me just getting a low latency mouse (e.g., wired g203) and correctly configuring 100hz+ monitors has vastly improved my experience on my M1 Air and the shitty Thinkpad I use for work -- to the point where I haven't used my desktop in a long time.