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On Balancing Career & College...
Posted by
Cliff
on Thu Sep 12, 2002 02:48 AM
from the seeking-suggestions-from-those-who've-been-there dept.
from the seeking-suggestions-from-those-who've-been-there dept.
An anonymous reader asks: "Hi folks. Some advice please - I've been in university twice already and quit both times - the first due to lack of interest in the course and the second a combination of lack of interest and work pressures. The second time round, I started a tech company and it's now three years old and doing OK. I am now seriously thinking about going back to Uni to get a degree (for real this time ;-). Is anyone out there successfully juggling running a company and studying at the same time? How do you juggle the two without hampering either due to lack of the right amount of attention?"
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All I know is . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And I know (Score:4, Informative)
Only the ignorant says that knowledge is irrelevant or obsolete. That was never true, even though ignorants has said it for centuries. Knowledge is not a burden to carry, and there are always domains where it is applicable. Without the knowledge, you will of course not see the applications, hence you should not judge its usefulness without it.
The next step is to fear knowledge.
With fear for knowledge comes a society where people burn books in public.
Reality bites, go take a history class.
Re:Degree (Score:4, Insightful)
That's the GOOD thing about a degree, it makes you learn some important stuff you did not want to learn. It also makes you solve problems, not just read the books for pleasure. Both are a good thing (TM).
I have nothing, along those lines, to prove to myself. I have a very successful software company and quite fulfilled.
But a degree is, in career terms, like having an insurance. What will happen if your company will fail (shit DOES happen
Similar Boat (Score:5, Insightful)
First if you are with someone, they are going to need to understand that school and work are going to have to come pretty close to first. What this means is, you might not be able to be there all the time. (If they love you, they'll understand).
Find a mix of classes that work for you. Obviously if you are going for computer science you don't want to take 5 upper level computer science classes in the same semester. Take 1 and take a few ( 2 - 4 ) other general elective classes that you need. This should get you through the fall and spring, while knocking out your gen-ed requirements.
Then continue on with school throw the summer. This time take 2 computer science classes.
A schedule like this should get your through, while still allowing you a wee little bit of free time.
Keep in mind that you are going to live a very very structured life for the next few years as you work towards your degree. Sleep will become something you value, because you won't be able to do it as much as you'd like. Make sure you get 1 day off a week, or every 2 weeks. This is important, because it keeps you sane and the g/f happy.
Just my thoughts, and what works for me.
Re:Similar Boat (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Similar Boat (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Similar Boat (Score:5, Insightful)
But maybe they'll need you to be there more than you are. If you love them, you'll understand.
Please don't get me wrong, I'm not attacking you and if things are working for you and your partner, that's great :P But I think there are some people who couldn't cope with that. That wouldn't mean that they're at fault, or that they don't love you.
Re:Similar Boat (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm studying medicine in France (entering my 6th and final year - studies are a bit longer here), running my company (running various website like thera.info and free software consulting), managing several opensource projects (the LDP on tldp.org) and keeping time for my girlfriend (khady.net) and my passion (movies)
How can I do that? Quite simple: I closely manage my time. A palm or other PDA is obviously needed. Give a time slot for everything that needs one. Don't be afraid to spend 15 to 30 minutes per day on scheduling if you have many things to do that day. Get the work done - that's your goal. Scheduling is a way. Cutting in the unneeded is a good complement (do you really need to watch TV? Do you really need to attend that stupid class? Do you really need to do this 1'000 contract?)
Every morning, I go to the hospital (7-12). Every afternoon, I either study or work. (1-8)
Every night (9-11), I go and see a movie or stay with my significant other.
Sounds simple? It's not. The hardest part is mixing studies and work. You *have* to be selective. I can not offer to spend time going to classes. I study in my books, and I pratice what I've been studying in the morning. A good book is worth hours of classes. If they are not mandatory and you can do your exams without going to some classes, skip them. Your goal is to *learn*, not spend time at lectures. You know the subject? Go and do something else. Work, studies, or private. But be honest - don't just skip classes. Go to the ones you need to increase your knowledge.
You also have to be very selective for your work. I don't take a contract if I'm not sure I can efficiently do it and make a profit. That means I must know the topic (say, network administration) and have a backup solution (a friend I'll pay if some exam is suddently scheduled) so that the contract will be done. The client satisfaction is #1 priority. Financial profit is #2.
Now your private life. The previous post is very right : you must sleep well. Don't cut on sleep. Take naps if it helps. If you are tired you are unefficient. While other people may afford that, you can't because you have too many things to manage. You can take one day off every week as suggested, or take every night depending on your work load. I just did 3 weeks in a row (no nights) so I'm now taking 2 days.
Finally, be sure to love and understand your partner. Explain what you are doing and how. Explain when you are available. And surprise her! Finding free time when you thought you couldn't is good. Using that time to offer flowers or unexpected vacation is better
Until now, it has been working fine. The first months where the hardest- and then I just had work, free software and studies. Gradually I managed to add stuff, little by little. And I even found time to do a MS in biological sciences!
What works for me may not work for you, but email me privately (slashdot@externe.net) if you need some help.
Sleep 7 hours. (Score:5, Insightful)
And get a good outside accountant. Nothing will go wrong with your business that you cannot fix by delegating, except your in house accountant stealing from you.
So, study, sleep, delegate and don't let the mice play while you are away.
Re:Sleep 7 hours. (Score:4, Funny)
Is that a cron job? with some beautiful screensavers (the dreams) running while the cpu goes off and makes this memory dump to tape backup?
Part Time (Score:4, Insightful)
The rule of thumb is 2 hours coursework for every hour in class. So figure out how much time you want to spend a week, and do those many hours/3 until you graduate.
Focus on courses you really care about -- I'm much happier now that I've left CE for political Sciene and History. I'd do this stuff anyway, now I get credit for it.
You should realize that one Liberal Arts degree is as good as another, if your passion is something that is technically useless (Philosophy, Art history) you should major in that. You'll do well, and nobody really cares what the words on the degree are.
You may be able to save time by taking courses you already know -- if your business ws web design you might want to take a course on PERL. If you already know it you'll do well without effort; and if you don't you'll be doing training you should do anyway.
In short, you should focus on the shit you'd do even if you weren't in school. I read about politics for fun, so I do PoliSci. I don't do CompSci because I've never gotten around to reading any of my dozen or so programming books. You should also manage your time wisely -- but you have a business so tyou know about that.
Re:Part Time (Score:4, Insightful)
You're right about one thing though, people really don't care about the words on the degree. Many market traders have degrees in Astrophysics. It doesn't matter whether you think about binary star systems or binary code, it's the thinking that matters.
It's called 'discipline' (Score:4, Insightful)
Without it, you are doomed to a life as a semi-pro.
Pick something and stay with it. (haven't we been around this tree once already this year?)
It depends what country you are in... (Score:3, Interesting)
Now here's the fun part...I ran my own company too! (As well as dj'ing both over here in the U.K. and in Brussels, Belgium) It IS possible, it just requires that you have a timetable and STICK to it.
The worst thing you can do is mix up your social time (and remember university IS about meeting new people) and your work time. Have a set time for uni work, for work work and for play (all work and no play...etc.).
It's possible...just make sure that you give university the same attention that you do your company and socialising and you should be fine.
Good Luck! It's hard but rewarding.
Why do you want a degree so much? (Score:5, Insightful)
I went to University in order to get a good job. Now I have one, I dream of running my own company. You have your own company which by your admission is doing OK. Ask yourself why it is you really want to go back to school for a third time. You are older and have a business to run now. What could a degree change in your situation? I could understand if you were in a job and a degree could help your career prospects, but here that does not appear to be the case.
You need to do some soul searching. Don't get caught up in intellectual snobbery where you (or other people make you) think that getting a degree is somehow going to change you as a person or change the way people look at you. Don't be ashamed if people working for you have better qualifications that you do. The bottom line is that they are working for you, not you for them!
I think the current western trend to work hard, always biting into your free time, is the wrong way to live. That's just my opinion. If you think you can run a company and go to school and still have a fulfilled life (family, home, and love is what it's really all about, not your salary) then you go ahead. I will be the first to congratulate you if you succeed. But perhaps now the thing to think about is why you feel you need a degree if you are already running your own company. Strengthen your character and your interpersonal relationships, and take some professional qualifications / courses related to your line of work if you want, but why torture yourself about going back to school?
Also, bear in mind that a lot of responses here so far are probably from college students. They think (and they are right, from their perspective right now) that school is the best thing in the world. But school is not about getting a degree, it's about getting independance and working out a number of work ethic structures, logical thought processes, prioritisations, etc. The degree is just part of the process, and the better a degree you get is due to how well you organise, communicate, and learn (in an abstract sense) to use tools at your disposal.
So if you really feel you need a degree for your own self esteem, then go for it. But don't do it to the detriment of everything else, because you may find that if you ever get the degree, that your life does not change significantly. Anyone who thinks they are better than you just because they have a degree and you don't is clearly wrong, but you may not be old enough (or they may not be) to realise it. Perhaps something else is really at the root of your problems, and you need to search your heart to find out what your life priorities really are.
Re:Why do you want a degree so much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow. This post is one of the saddest, most disheartening things I've ever read. And the worst part is that you're pinning your own disillusionment and bitterness over your own life choices onto someone else, whose situation is entirely different. Don't deny someone the ability to, yes, indeed, change their life for the better, just because you took the road most travelled.
Most young people attend college expecting one of two things:
Snap judgements say you wanted the first, and ended up with the second.
When I graduated high school, I didn't want to go to college. So what that it was what you were supposed to do? So what that most jobs require that piece of paper? I don't want a job anyway. And yes, I got tons of criticism from everyone I knew for my choice. Screw them, I said!
It came down to the fact that I didn't have the foggiest clue what I wanted to do with myself. Do the same job in the same field for 40 years? Or even different jobs in the same field? Bor-ing. And what's that? You can't just take any arbitrary classes at college? You have to pick a "major," and that ties you into a certain giant batch of required courses, most of which are dull and perfunctory? No, thanks! No time for drama courses for CS majors? No ability to take advanced EE courses without actually being an EE major? Lame! I think I'll go the library intsead, thank you. I wanted to go to university to LEARN THINGS. Not to "prepare myself for the outside world." What bullshit. College is as close to the outside world as McDonalds chicken nuggets are to actual chickens.
So after high school, I said, "To hell with school," and got myself a job as a consultant for a well-connected local firm, doing work for IBM and Lotus, as well as large local companies creating Notes/Domino "solutions." It helped that I enjoyed 60-80 hour work weeks, and was a stereotypical whiz kid, as I'm sure most of Slashdot was/is.
A couple years in, I quit and started my own business, entirely self-funded (yay saving money), moved into a large, expensive apartment, and proceeded to drive the company into the ground in about two years. Notes to self: do not take on projects larger than you can handle, and always have good communication between your employees and your clients.
After another ~two years, I'm now completely debt-free (I didn't declare bankruptcy, and helped out my ex-employees as much as was possible), and attending classes full-time at the University of Texas at Austin. I'm a liberal arts student with no declared major, looking for a classic liberal arts education, and taking sixteen hours of very different courses. I'm working on a documentary, auditioning for theatre productions, taking dance classes, and working 20+ hours a week part-time doing consulting. And I hang out with friends, go out on dates, attend parties, bar-hop, etc. And getting 6-8 hours of sleep a night. Nothing is suffering thanks to careful time management and a serious desire to actually be able to do all of these things at the expense of none. It's a lot of work to make it all fit, and spur-of-the-moment plans often require much mental jockeying, but I do it, and I'm damn happy about it.
Note: Replies intent on making jokes with punchlines similar to "Liberal arts students ask, 'Would you like fries with that?'" should Google for the definition of a classic liberal arts education beforehand.
So, yes, I'm a college student. I think attending school now was the best decision I've made, because now I want to be here, and I know what I want to study (even if it is just "anything and everything"), and I'm savvy enough to be able to make everything fit. I'm not doing it to please my parents, or because it's what you're "supposed" to do, but because I want to learn new things, broaden my horizons, give myself a strong cultural and historical base upon which to better understand the world around me. I want to learn new languages and religions in an environment that will help me foster that desire, surrounded by people who want to do the same. I want to study art and architecture so I can go to a museum and be able to know why other people think painting X is so important, even if I think it still looks like crap. I want to learn to write better than using huge run-on sentences, so people will mod me up just because I'm grammatically correct. I want to do all of these things because I think they'll make me a better person, better able to appreciate and understand the world, people and events around me.
A lot of my friends graduated college over the past few years. All of them took the "career" path, but only a single one is happy with it. The rest all have the same vague, lost, unsure, slightly disillusioned look in their eyes that they had when they graduated high school, and that saddens me. People here tell me it's amazing how much I enjoy all of this, even though I have no idea what I want to do. I tell them, that's the best part.
The poster wants to go back to school. Perhaps it's for the same reasons that I have. Perhaps it's because he feels like less of a man without that piece of paper. The point is that when you're in our shoes, it's not a decision you come to lightly. Don't tear someone down because you weren't able to say "No, thanks" after high school. Just like it's never too late to save some money and start your company if you really want to, it's never too late to go back to school and make it work.
To the poster, I say, go back, and take something else. Don't take courses directly related to what your company does, because you already know most of it through practical application. Dollars to donuts says this is why you're getting bored. Instead, take things that will broaden your horizons and give you new insights into your personal universe. Don't take self-paced or online courses; get into the classroom, sit at the front, and interact with the professor and other students. Learn something new.
Re:Why do you want a degree so much? (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree completely. This is one of the best posts I've ever read on slashdot.
I started to become dissalusioned with High School (public school) my senior year. A.P. Computer Science was a joke, so I stopped caring. I made a 4 on the AP test with out ever looking at the case study. My grades in the class: AAB B(exam), then CDD F(exam). I didn't care. I was ready to be out of school. I was one of the smartest kids in school. I wanted to get to college, to get on with life.
So I go to college, start working on an electrical engineering degree. Freshman year. All of a sudden, I'm not the smart kid anymore. I realize, hey, I've got to study. Then, I started studying. I realized what I'm doing sucks. I hate it. I don't want to be an enginner for the rest of my life! Where's the creativity? Where's the fun? Is it all deadlines and straight lines? Do I really have to write my letters 3/4 of one square high, in "small caps" on engineering graph paper? So I stopped going to class. I failed most things, or didn't do very well.
After my first year, I was on Academic Suspension, with my 1.67 GPA. No school for a year for me. So I went home. I became fiercely independant, swearing up and down that college was useless, and I was going to do for myself. I got an apartment that was costing me $365 a month in rent (my part), sharing it with a guy who I barely knew, and paying for everything myself. I went back to my old job full time, working at Best Buy. I was making $10.50/hr. This is good money for someone in central Virginia who is 19. Then the bottom fell out. My girlfriend dumped me cause I had no ambition. My roommate started growing Marijuana. I moved out cause I didn't want any part of it, but I was still responsible for my part of the rent. I moved back in with my parents. I began to hate my job. I hated working nights, working ALL weekends, closing friday night until 1:30 AM, and then being back at 7AM sat. I HATED retail. I hated lying to people to make them buy useless shit.
So I went back to college, with no plan of study in mind. I was lost, but I wanted something. I needed a degree. Then I really found something that I loved. I just figured, I watch enough of the History channel, why not major in History? So that's what I'm doing, and I plan to be a high school history teacher. I'm having so much fun, I have new friends and a new girlfriend, life is great. I'm tracking to go to education gradschool after I get my history undergrad. I'm facinated by everything I'm doing.
Now, my job here is Unix network administration. I like the job. But I certainly don't want to do it all my life. This is something that I think slashdot kids need to think about. Just cause you're the computer whiz doesn't mean you're going to have to do computer stuff when you "grow up". I've been thinking of ways I can use computers to help me teaching. But
~Will
Don't give up the day job (Score:3, Insightful)
Secondly in the UK there are Open University courses which allow you to get a degree at home - You do about 90% of the work at home and attend the actual university for some workshop type courses - I'll be very surprised if there isn't an equivalent in the US (or wherever you live)
Sounds like a recurring problem (Score:4, Informative)
Long hours and determination (Score:3, Informative)
It can be done, just set that diploma as your goal and sort of coast along in the work -- doing your work, but not the "I'm working for a promotion or to expand the business" kind of work.
Go back or be fucked in these economical times (Score:3, Insightful)
If you got the oppertunity to go back, take it. What is the nature of your business, do you have any staff you can trust to run things?
See, right now, me and all my chums are out of work, and it's been that way for a while (and not looking much better) I was a sysadmin for 7 years and was making 86k at my last sysadmin job without a degree. It was dot com times man!
The one universal thread between me and my other jobless cohorts is the lack of education. Your situation might have been different, but I chose the career path over school, as did many of my friends, but now we're beggin our families to help us out.. It's not industrious self reliance.
And damn those people with degree's that got the burger flipping jobs over us here in silicon valley. I'd take ANY job right now, I applied to the orchard supplies and the Mc Donalds, my wife doubled up, filled out applications, and applied again and STILL NO response.
It's hard as hell out there, i'm in a position where if I just had a burger flipping job, I could go back to school. Dammit.
--toq
Play the game (Score:3, Informative)
We are all hired, appraised and rewarded based on personal ability and skill, not by a sheet of paper that says we got a degree.
What Really Happens:
Eventually, it does not matter how long it takes, a hard working, smart-as-hell, self-trained individual will get stepped over due to a lack of a proper degree.
The Smart thing to do:
Teach yourself what you really want to know well. Then do a double major. One half is going to be the stuff you really want to learn, the other half is something that you will find so easy that it will not be a burden.
Why?
You still get your degree, you are still an expert but you did not have to work like an animal to finish it. Since you taught yourself more than half of it, and since you had to spend the money anyway you are going to come out ahead of the game.
The important thing is that you need that degree (no matter what the field) because eventually you will be discrimminated against because of the lack of it. Certain management types expect a bachelor's degree at a level and can't visualize a person that teaches himself stuff that for all he cares can only be learned in college (duh).
The other alternative is the "basketweaving" degree. Get a BA in anything you think is cool, then use your experience to build on top of your education. I had to run interviews literally every week at my previous job and almost nobody was applying to a job for which their original degree would apply to. I work now in a very small shop and I was joking with my president that with my BS in Manufacturing Engineering I was the most poorly educated person in the company. His reply: " I got a BA in History and here I am..."
This discrimmination against non-college educated people is a complete disgrace, but if you already have a job you should start making plans to finish your degree even if it is a bit at a time. When I was in the Army I knew lots of people that little by little finished their A.S. and B.S. degrees just by taking one and two courses at a time.
Correspondence (Score:3, Informative)
Anyhow... might want to browse the websites. Can't hurt to poke around. Feel free to e-mail me personally if you want to know more about it (or anybody can e-mail me if they want).
Get the right education (Score:3, Informative)
There is a difference between difference schools, state vs. private universities, two and four colleges, polytechs, and distance education vs. correspondence. Research the options, and pick the right one for you.
In this day and age you do not need to attend classes in person to earn a meaniful degree, in UK, the Open University [open.ac.uk] leads the way, and in Canada there is Athabasca University [athabascau.ca], I am not as familiar with US schools, but there is the University of Phoenix [phoenix.edu] as well as many others.
Define your goal(s) of attending a post-secondary school. Also an idea for your career goals might be useful, but you need specific education goals. Write them down. I said, write them down. This is how you will evaluate schools, programme and course choices.
Is it just to have a degree? Do you want more a fundamential understanding (i.e. theoric) of computing? Do you want business skills? To become a better rounded software engineer? Understand business, so you can grow your own business? Get a MBA? Meet women? For technical training? To earn more money? Continue doing what you already do, or so you can do something new? Certification?
An university degree is suppose to be based upon a theorical understanding, which while being less specific (i.e. more abstract), is more lasting and will not be outdated every 3 years. That is the #1 source of frustration and confusion I see from young computer science students. An university degree is not a career training programme. You get to do the career training in your own time.
Make use of your electives, do not choose courses because you think they will be easy like "Rocks for Jocks" and "Clap for Credit", find introductary courses you will be interested in, and will benefit you either personally or professionally.
Most schools have some means of providing tours of their facilities, especially in the summer. Since this is an investment that will cost approx. $40,000, you should research this investment as being right for you. If possible, arrange a talk with someone from the department that you are looking at majoring in.
Bone up on time management and planning skills, and study skills if you find studying difficult. University is about learning, but unfortunately very little is taught about how best to learn (for you). Read Stephen R. Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People [franklincovey.com] it will help in setting your priorities, and planning. To help learn about learning, John L. Adams [stanford.edu] book Conceptual Blockbusting: Care and Feeding of Ideas, and George Polya's How to Solve It.
Practice reading, seriously if you do not do a lot of non-fiction book reading, start doing some more. A list of books any
Some advice from someone who knows (Score:3, Informative)
Is anyone out there successfully juggling running a company and studying at the same time? How do you juggle the two without hampering either due to lack of the right amount of attention?
Well, I've done it, and I work with a lot of engineering students that are doing it now. It's not easy. In my case, it nearly cost me my education, my company, and my state of mind. Now I help others avoid running into the same situation.
The problem isn't the hours or the motivation - it's not really a problem of juggling. It's the fact that you've made a commitment to your business, and now you're making a new commitment to your education. When the day comes - and it will come - when you need to pick one or the other, figure out now how you'll choose. A day will come when the business needs you and an exam is coming up. Will you let your staff solve the crisis without your intervention, or will you blow off the exam. Regardless of what you choose, you need to be okay with your choice the next day. These are things to figure out now. If you do this, and stick to it, you'll probably be okay. Juggling implies that you can run and do one, then run and do the other. You *will* hit a day that you can only do one and not the other. Be ready for that day.
If your business doesn't require you to have the degree (that is, you're getting the degree for you) then make the business your first priority. That'll mean that you fail an exam or a class here and there. Be prepared for that, and be okay with that. If you aren't, you'll find yourself overtaxing yourself and the result often is that you fail to meet any of your commitments.
This advise is pretty flexible. Got a family? Care about them? That's your commitment. They win over school as well.
It works in reverse. Got a commitment to Everquest? You have to choose between being a kick-ass Everquester or a person with a degree. At top universities about 15% of students stick to their gaming commitment and get kicked out. Trust me, I do it all the time. We work with students with jobs and families and medical conditions to help them through. The students that refuse to treat their addictions, we cut them loose. Sorry to say, but we don't want to be a $30k/yr gaming club.
Last bit of advice. Don't focus on Princeton or Stanford or MIT. They're not geared towards flexibility. That't not to say it can't be done, but it's much harder. Look for a large, state university that's got a strong continuing education program. You won't get the top school cache (which really doesn't matter anyway) but you'll get a good solid education. They'll be more understanding of your competing commitments, they'll have better course schedules (evening classes, etc.) and they'll have more frequent offerings of courses so you can stay on track.
Good luck.