Comment by nicbou
21 days ago
Perhaps it has to do with the reason people go to university, and the pressures they're under.
I remember being a poor student burning through my savings. I had no patience for humanities and anything that didn't directly help me get gainful employment.
Years later, I love those things, mostly because I am free to pursue them at my own pace, without worrying about maintaining a high GPA, courting companies that offer internships, building up my portfolio, and learning the things that are actually related to my job. That's on top of working my way through school, trying to make friends in a new city, and pursuing happiness.
I suspect that a lot of people are in the same situation, cutting corners to make ends meet and remember their early twenties as more than endless work and drudgery.
Agreed. Having time and a mental health status where one can relax and peacefully read a whole book is a luxury. Having a job where you can apply any knowledge from your studies is a luxury too. Having space in your life to care about knowledge and learning for its own sake is a luxury
I didn't enjoy my studies because it was so stressful and i had to optimise for exams. I had no choice but to cut corners where i could. I was also forced to do many classes that i didnt really care about.
Though i have the feeling i can't begin to imagine the life of these people that are addicted to their phone, they kind of feel like a different species to me
In the university I optimized for exam. The degree was the only thing that mattered. Like you now that I’m older and wealthier I can lean for learning sake at my pleasure and deep dive things I care about.
For me it was extracting the most value for the money, which meant getting the best possible education within the boundaries of the degree. This involved taking graduate courses and substituting them for undergrad to get more of a challenge, taking more math courses both undergrad and graduate (I was a CS major), etc. Yes ultimately I was paying for a piece of paper, but when you're paying $15k/yr I wanted to be damn sure it was money well spent, and to this day I still feel shortchanged.
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> I suspect that a lot of people are in the same situation, cutting corners to make ends meet and remember their early twenties as more than endless work and drudgery.
This was definitely the case for me.
However, it always left me with the idea of “then why did I study?”. To get a job, of course, but in retrospect a better path might’ve been to work and then study at a later phase in life.
Good points, but the other part of this is that back in "our time" (we may not be the same age - I was in University 1999-2005, but regardless) there was...basically no other choice.
If you wanted to work in CS, you had to get a degree. Then you'd get a shitty entry level job. Then eventually after a couple of years you'd be an "intermediate" engineer, have a good enough salary to live on your own (that's right - up until this point, you probably still needed to have roommates, if you are in a major city), take vacations, start putting in for retirement, etc.
Maybe if you were in Silicon Valley and already saw the dot com boom you saw another path. But most of the world didn't think like that.
Over the last several years you instead saw people go into CS thinking their first job will be 150k/year from a big tech, they'll be a senior within 3 years, and start working on their FIRE plan. And meanwhile they're surrounded by friends and peers who are either influencers, content creators, or have startup exit stories from the ZIRP era.
You and I remember endless work and drudgery. Those in our shoes today instead feel constant anxiety like they're already behind, they're not good enough, like maybe they missed their chance in the gold rush, and the only solution is to hurry up and dig faster.
I feel like that's another reason for the increasing # of shortcuts people are taking with their education.