Early on the money is probably the least important part. Momentum seems like a lot more important.
If you finish uni and take 1-2yrs off, that puts you wayyy behind someone who goes straight into a job. If you take 1-2yrs off your knowledge won't be fresh and you'll not really be a new grad anymore.
One thing to keep in mind is that a lot of people who leave school 'for a little while' with full intentions of going back can find it difficult to do so and then never go back. When you're in the 'real' world you can start to accumulate commitments and the more of these you have the less compatible college is with your life.
From other comments it sounds like your main motivation is to make yourself more marketable to future employers. CS grads are already highly marketable especially when combined with internships and/or part-time work. It sounds like you already have good experience and presumably you will have more during college with an internship or some such thing. If you complete a degree you'll have the qualifications that hiring managers would look for. Having full-time experience instead of part-time isn't going to give you any added benefit. And it probably won't get you a higher starting salary - you'll be in the same hiring pool with all of the other new grads.
And there are costs to be considered. You'll be delaying your college experience by a year. Your friends will be meeting smart interesting people and going to parties and spending late nights in the lab working on cool projects and learning about things they hadn't even heard of before. You'll have to get up early for work tomorrow. You'll be delaying the start of your career by a year. Your salary can rise pretty quickly in your first five years after school. How fast it goes up will be determined on how you perform on your first job(s) not on some work you did when you were 18. The money you earn next year probably won't make up for delaying that process by a year. Also note that salaries can vary widely by geography and are much higher in the Bay Area, New York, etc. If you want to move to a higher earning location you'll be delaying that by a year.
I've been out of school for five years, and it's amazing the degree to which my first full-time salary didn't matter at all in retrospect. In fact, it still doesn't, but now I have the perspective to know that.
Absolutely go for what will make you grow the most.
Some people invest 3 years and massive debt in studying in uni but we don't think it is something weird even though I will probably hire you as a developer over someone who just finished uni with no experience. So look at it as something like that, you invested in yourself in some way and you are ready now to reap the rewards.
I think there's definitely some value in taking time off to figure out where you're going (and where you want to be.)
Keeping your head down and finishing for the sake of finishing is probably not going to end well; you'll be in debt, you will have lost the opportunity cost of your time in school, and you still might not know what you want to do.
Don't be the guy who's in debt from a degree in a field he doesn't want to work in.
You make a good point-- If I study part-time, by the time I graduate I would have accumulated ~5-6 years of experience which would diminish the value that I'd get from a degree. I'm leaning towards joining a bootcamp, building a portfolio and then looking for work. I feel like I'm missing out on the whole university experience, but in 4 years time I can accumulate a lot of work experience.
The only issue with finding a job right away is I would likely be starting as a junior at whatever company that will take me. I'm afraid that this will make me a less desirable candidate to good companies later on. The last thing I want to do is be stuck at a unknown company for a few years doing menial work and not learning anything new.
Thanks for your input. Can you please elaborate why you think it might not be a good idea to to be in full student mode
(if one ignores the monetary aspects and the risk of not finding a job soon after the break)
In ten years, one is homeless, the other gainfully employed in the tech field?
Honestly, we don't know. And while your choice of university matters for the first few jobs out of university, it quickly gets pushed to the back of the bus in favor of experience. Mental stability and the framework to deal with real life, though, matters much longer.
I appreciate the insight. Money isn't really the issue for me, and I don't plan to skip college altogether. I feel that with one year part time, and one year full time experience, when I do graduate I'll be much more marketable and my job prospects will be better. I also expect that I'll be more focused in college given that I've seen how what I'm learning applies in the real world.
Either way - having more options can't hurt.
Do either option 1 or 2:
Option 1: Spend as much as you want during your college years, go party, and go get laid w/o caring about your grades or getting a job. You still are gonna have to work for the next 40 years anyway.
Option 2: Do a startup while you're in school, ignore everything else(girls, grades, getting a job, etc) so you can strike it rich. Even if you fail, you're still gonna have to work for the next 40 years anyway.
10 years since I've graduated. Knowing what I know now, if I was in your position I would postpone school for a year, at least, to take whichever position excites you more. If you do decide to go back to school your real world experience will be so valuable as you take classes; if you don't go back to school it will probably be because you're loving your current situation.
> Imagine the advantage you get getting there 2-3 years ahead of most people.
IME, there isn't much. You get to college a few years early, it's a kind of awkward experience, and then life happens.
Some of my friends lost a year or two due to the adjustment.
Other friends ended up in boring low-risk careers and regret not being mature enough at graduation to know what they wanted to do (switching majors, grad school, starting a company, etc.)
In the best case you start the career that you would've had anyways 2-3 years earlier.
I've met a lot of people who got started on life early (you probably have too). Most look back on it as having no material effect on their lives. A few consider it the worst decision they ever made.
Some people imagine a huge financial difference, but retirement is a long game and other variables dominate. A $10K difference in your salary at your first position, or getting laid off at an unlucky time, or choosing to optimize for something other than income, or buying randomcoin at the right/wrong time, or having your rsus vest in the right quarters, etc. are all going to have a larger financial impact than an extra 2 years in the labor market over a 30+ year career.
Another perspective: this need not be a binary 1/0 decision. At my school it's common to take a year off school to work and gain some real-world experience. I did after my third year of engineering and I'm very glad for having done so.
Why don't you view it that way? Then you can return to school if/when it doesn't work out, and still get the awesome experience and hopefully some $$$.
I had the option to graduate HS a year early, but instead took courses at a local college, and used that to get into a better university.
I decided to graduate a year early from college, but not for the education reasons. I had grown a lot in the 3 years in college, and I felt I had gained all of the social skills I could from the school, and it was time to move on to the next social challenge: real life. Saving $50k also helped make the decision easier, but it was the social part that was the main deciding factor...I just felt ready to move on with my life.
You're getting 100k around 6 years sooner, and your degree postponed indefinitely.
I did 5 year double degree in finance and software engineering finishing at 23. The education helped me gather $100+k by 26, (and looking like $200k by 27, unless I get fired and can't find a job for the rest of the year starting tomorrow).
If I could go back in time with a guaranteed ticket to be a Thiel Fellow I don't think I'd take it. The knowledge I learnt at my university is invaluable, and continues to be useful everyday.
i think my point is that your first job, and/or grad school studies, have extremely far-reaching effects on your life trajectory.
for example, if i had good grades, i'd probably have gone to work for a google-esque company, or gone to grad school, and i would NOT have started a tech business.
my life would have been completely different if i had good grades.
I think a gap year, even if you don't travel is a good idea. I'd just started freelancing in my final year of high school so I deferred a place at university to see what I could make of freelancing. After the year I decided university wasn't for me (something I'd thought for years but as it was the natural path people take I was going to do it anyway) and that I would be better continuing freelancing and building a business. Three years on and it's been one of the best decisions of my life.
Taking a year out gives you a good opportunity to evaluate the pros/cons of further education. The last year or two of high school are spent being told how important further education is, taking exams, and applying to universities. Evaluating what would happen if you did something else never really enters the thought process for most people. A gap year gives you time to consider your options.
If you finish uni and take 1-2yrs off, that puts you wayyy behind someone who goes straight into a job. If you take 1-2yrs off your knowledge won't be fresh and you'll not really be a new grad anymore.
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