First year Thiel Fellow here. Just wanted to add that the Thiel Foundation(who oversee the program) isn't necessarily against going back to school and never have been.
They've been very open that for some projects, academia is a good place to be.
"Thiel Fellows are given a no-strings-attached grant of $100,000 to skip college" - thielfellowship.org
"The fellowship is intended for students under the age of 20 and offers them a total of $100,000 over two years as well as guidance and other resources to drop out of school" - Wikipedia
If the Thiel Fellowship isn't about convincing kids to drop out of college and not go back, someone should tell Peter Thiel and the person that runs the website. :-)
Glad to hear the fellowship is working out great for you, though! I'm not a big fan of college myself.
Haven't done the math myself, but if you factor in years of salary earned while the doctor in training would be at school/residency/fellowship and the salary on that page is for folks who have been at it for a while and either have a private practice with many clients or have been in academia for 10-15 years.
I'm working on http://usebloom.com for the foreseeable future with another Thiel Fellow.
I find I learn best by reading books and talking with smart people, both of which can be done outside an academic setting, so I've decided not to go to college.
While plausible, there is an aspect of a filter bubble / confirmation bias you are ignoring that comes with a formal degree. In particular, liberal arts degrees.
Being forced to look beyond one's bubble is extremely rewarding. Being forced to tackle trying tomes of knowledge that test the will may be the only chance one can have to learn on certain topics.
The whole “skip university” trope is a sad meme to push were it only for these reasons.
It is sadder still when one performs a reducto ad absurdun where the sole metric is formal education as monetary gain.
Where would our culture be without music, literature, philosophy, and art? Is there value in studying these worlds beyond monetary gain?
What sort of an elevated impact might the brilliant minds around HN offer with a diverse and eclectic formal education?
I believe the "skip university" trope is sad. I also believe "everyone has to go to college" is sad. There is a huge disparity between universities -- I went to an average state university, and in most aspects I firmly believe it was more damaging to my being than helpful (it has been over 5 years since I graduated and I am still realizing and overcoming personal problems that I believe were partly inculcated in me from college and K-12).
My sisters went to decent liberal arts universities and, through observation, believe theirs to much more worthwhile. Of course each person is different, so others may not have had as worthless of an experience as I did.
Point being that (although I can't back this up) I'm pretty sure no university is better than 50%+ of universities out there, and so the endless expectation bias is often harmful.
Since all my other comments are quite negative, I'll take a moment to defend the OP here.
Notice their justification begins with "I find I learn best...". Sounds like perhaps the best way to justify a decision about one's education.
As for breadth, it's true. College makes accumulating these experiences very easily. Luckily, there are lots of smart people out there for anyone who might want to broaden their horizons while not attending college. In fact, part of the point of college is realizing this is true and figuring out how to benefit from these opportunities.
That's precisely my point. You tried it, it wasn't for you. It isn't for everyone. But trying it out is important.
I mean, the OP said he learns best being surrounded by books and smart people; that's college in a nutshell. You're unlikely to ever find a better library.
To be quite blunt, most of their life is not a very long time.
I, too, had a good idea of my learning style and aptitude going into college. It has not changed all that much since.
What did change was my ability to use that learning style to link together fields, knowledge, information, and people that appear extremely complex and disparate on their own.
The world needs specialists, for sure, and perhaps you can level up your knowledge in the field of your interest by using books and web research. That's valuable.
If you really want to be valuable, do what no one else seems to be able to do right now: put everything together. Everything. Not just different parts of your own field, but throw chemistry and poetry and literature in there. How about music? How does that affect your work? What about history and philosophy or shoot, most importantly, psychology? How will you not only create great products, but also know how they affect people, and exactly what ways other people will think about them? How will you discover what people really need if you don't understand them on a basic level?
What about theology and philosophy? If you just rejected the possibility of their importance to your work, then you're not the kind of person I want to work with. Rejection of knowledge is already failure.
College, above all, gives you breadth and the tools to deal with it. Use that and you'll be ten times more valuable than even the best specialist.
Can you get that elsewhere? Maybe. Does everyone need it? Probably not. But I've never seen anything that kicks you out of your own head more swiftly or effectively than a good university—and that alone makes you better in my book.
Interesting. I suspect this varies a lot person to person - I'm thinking about Meyers-Briggs and the S/N divide here. I knew how to throw everything together from a very early age. I wrote one of my physics exams in rhyming couplets of iambic pentameter (you try rhyming ∇ · B, I dare ya :-)). I was making hanging mobiles out of the periodic table elements at 12, and my dad taught me how to balance chemical equations and graph exponential decay curves at 7.
What I didn't know how to do was put my nose to the grindstone and rigorously study one subject in depth until I learned all the dusty corners. I was very good at impressing people with off-the-wall connections and intuitions that they would never have dreamed of, but I couldn't finish my homework or solve textbook problems. I did learn that in college (but in an unorthodox way - by nearly flunking out).
But I can't help but wonder if this is a maturity thing and it would've happened without college. I actually felt that the greatest improvement in my ability to persevere and get through the boring things that weren't immediately obvious happened in the 5 years after college, once I got into the working world.
>Perhaps they've spent most of their life studying
Most of their life studying? How much relevant experience do you think one obtains in years 0 to 16? Up to that point school is a complete and utter joke, especially if you're even modestly intelligent.
A 16-19 year old, no matter how intelligent, doesn't have much wisdom.
They've been very open that for some projects, academia is a good place to be.