My current state of experience as a college student

[Jamminrabbit]

Imagine wasting precious time and money on college nowadays

In 4 years you're going to have a mountain of debt that's going to take you decades to pay off no work experience which is all anyone actually cares about no examples of your skills but at least you'll have a piece of paper saying you spent alot of money and know 1 or 2 things pretty good or alternatively in 4 years you could've had 4 years of actual work experience and a decent safety net saved up and you could've studied whatever you want in your free time while also making examples of what you can do with those studies for any future employers or even use your saved up money to start your own business

This is the single most worst advice I've seen all week, and the lack of a single punctuation lends credence that higher education should be more accessible/affordable to the greater public.

OP, stay in college. Make friends, get laid, and earn that degree. I have friends with 'a piece of paper saying you spent a lot of money' making six figures, significantly more than our non-college counterparts who are stuck at the cash registers in Target and as shift managers at McDonalds. Starting a business? Most businesses exist on survivorship bias. More have failed than succeeded. You require hundreds of thousands in loans, a metric fuck ton more money than a college degree, to finance a business that you will pay a big interest over the years.

In the meantime, if you need to try and make more money, take your copywriting services to gig sites like Fiverr that can reach international clients, build a client base to work on your own time for some extra cash. AND charge on US dollars rather than PHP.

 

[K5Rakitan]

 

[StrongArm]

Lovely, i needed to hear this.

 

[Redemit]

This is the single most worst advice I've seen all week, and the lack of a single punctuation lends credence that higher education should be more accessible/affordable to the greater public.

OP, stay in college. Make friends, get laid, and earn that degree. I have friends with 'a piece of paper saying you spent a lot of money' making six figures, significantly more than our non-college counterparts who are stuck at the cash registers in Target and as shift managers at McDonalds. Starting a business? Most businesses exist on survivorship bias. More have failed than succeeded. You require hundreds of thousands in loans, a metric fuck ton more money than a college degree, to finance a business that you will pay a big interest over the years.

In the meantime, if you need to try and make more money, take your copywriting services to gig sites like Fiverr that can reach international clients, build a client base to work on your own time for some extra cash. AND charge on US dollars rather than PHP.

And I know people who have those same papers working the same cash registers as people without and I know a middle school dropout who's making those same 6 figures who owns his own house 4 vehicles and has a family in his mid 20s all without any college debt he has a skill set that will always be in high demand

As for my lake of punctuation that's mostly just a habit I've had for years when typing anything out on my phone such as my posts here I'm not getting graded or payed for these so i don't really care

 

[Jamminrabbit]

And I know people who have those same papers working the same cash registers as people without and I know a middle school dropout who's making those same 6 figures who owns his own house 4 vehicles and has a family in his mid 20s all without any college debt he has a skill set that will always be in high demand

As for my lake of punctuation that's mostly just a habit I've had for years when typing anything out on my phone such as my posts here I'm not getting graded or payed for these so i don't really care

Bro over here just tried giving an exception as an example to the rule. Lmao. There are also plenty of middle school drop outs from my former middle school that are living alone, with one used car, and paying rent to a landlord.

OP, always assume you're the rule, not the exception. Just because a handful of people won the lottery, doesn't mean you will too in the next gamble. While it is true (only in some places, looking at you United States) that the cost of tuition is becoming costly, a college degree still provides a significantly higher chance of employment in general. Sure, if you're going to become a plumber or HVAC technician, you won't be going to a university. You would be going to a trade/vocational school instead, for the very same reason you don't go to a trade/vocational school to learn software engineering.

There's a reason some of the poorest places also lack resources to education. Under a magnifying glass, there's a reason some of the poorest neighborhoods in the States also have the worst rate of middle and high school graduates.

 

[Kenjona]

And I know people who have those same papers working the same cash registers as people without and I know a middle school dropout who's making those same 6 figures who owns his own house 4 vehicles and has a family in his mid 20s all without any college debt he has a skill set that will always be in high demand

As for my lake of punctuation that's mostly just a habit I've had for years when typing anything out on my phone such as my posts here I'm not getting graded or payed for these so i don't really care

Your anecdotal evidence is just that. Anecdotal, it really depends on the degree. However this argument does not answer the original Question. @DaisukeHanashi Jobs are a plus if you can handle the school work and the job workload. If can you get a second hand laptop might be the way to go if the specs for it are at what you need. Refurbished also may be the way to go. However as a previous poster said, ask your instructor for suggestions on what to get, within or near your price range.

 

[TremendousHuman]

In 4 years you're going to have a mountain of debt

never understood those barbaric countries that don't have free higher education.

you could've studied whatever you want in your free time

No way a person working has more time than a person literally studying. Unless they part-time at the same time

use your saved up money to start your own business

Don't even want to comment on this ridiculous suggestion.

"Oh yeah bro just don't go to college/uni"
worst advice I've ever heard

 

[gaylolis]

i was also taking multimedia computer science (not bachelor one tho, but the 4 year program) and i was able to finish it with potato pc. though that was like nearly a decade ago. i finished my thesis by using RenPy, which can also compile in low-end pc's. i barely got the passing grade since i was lazy, but i did pass and graduate lol

the most resource intensive for me one was 3dsmax during the 3d animation class, but a lot of them were mostly about coding in non-intensive resource application.

if you really need a good pc, maybe make some friends and try to borrow theirs for schoolwork. in my days, we used to live in student hostels which located close to each other near campus. you can try keeping in touch with student forums.

or perhaps your campus can have computers you can borrow. iirc there are also computer rental sites, but in that case and using others pc, just make sure your flash drive (or any storage you wish to bring) isn't infected with viruses.

in the meantime you can make up a plan about things you want to do to make best use of your time. you can also try to watch the tutorial videos and grasp the basics you can; anything you can do with your current hardware.

personally, i think college can be a great place since there are so many opportunities to learn and make connections. i regret not being a better student and wasting my parents' money. though in the end, i think it's more of an investment than a necessity. if your family has enough money to send you to college without massively burdening the daily expenses, then it's a good decision, otherwise i think it's more important to have mindset for continuously learning and improving yourself like a labor of love.

 

[CubicleHermit]

Tech is in the middle of a downturn and there have been a ton of layoffs recently. During the boom times, it was not that hard (in the US, not sure about elsewhere) to get a developer job with a non-technical college degree and not even that hard to get a first job with just some bootcamp/unpaid experience and no (or unfinished) college degree. Once you had 2-3 years experience, nobody cared where or even whether you went to college.

In a downturn, all that changes. Companies get a lot more selective, and if you have a gap in your resume from layoffs, the less traditional your earlier career path is, the harder it is to get back in. I'm pretty old (not quite 50) and came up during the prior big tech boom (dot-com 90s) when you could get hired basically if you could spell "WWW" ... and as someone who got into programming jobs with a non-tech degree, I got hit hard by the early 2000s downturn and ended up going back for a CS grad degree.

So yeah, stay in school. In the happy path, a college degree makes a few things easier, but may not always be worth it. What it does is open up a TON of options where the unhappy path if you don't have one is pretty much low-wage service work or joining the army.

 

[DaisukeHanashi]

I know it's too late for me to reply, but I absolutely treasure your advices a lot.

I'll keep them in mind, so that I may build a good habit and mindset to go through some hardships that I have to go through (even if I may be in a quite unfortunate state).

Thanks for replying ;)