Ask HN: Does college build a worth ethic?

For me college taught me an important skill -- I learned how to learn. I learned the best ways to pack data into my head and acquire new skills. College was an environment where I wasn't responsible for getting groceries, paying bills, family, etc and was able to devote maximum time to figuring stuff out.

Not sure the origin of this quote, it could be my friends, but one of his motto's is "Fail Early, Learn Often" That's what i thought of when i read the last sentence of your post. You just need to pick a path that's going to make you happy, set a goal, and start moving towards it.

If you think college is the path, do it, set a "get all A's" goal and make it happen.

I can tell you this for sure, you will never have the perfect skill level -- it won't guarantee success.

What is guaranteed is that you will make mistakes... The key is making sure to learn the lesson and keep on moving.

Good luck!

For me, college didn't do anything for my work ethic. I was like you in HS: got good grades without trying. I got to college and found that I couldn't skate by, but didn't know how to work hard. I also didn't feel very engaged.

I graduated, and got a job with a smallish (~350 people) public company. It was interesting, but again, not super engaging. I got my stuff done, but I wouldn't really say I had a good work ethic. I spent 5 years there before I finally decided to leave my comfort zone.

Then I joined a 5-month-old startup as employee 16. I was actually passionate about it. For a little over a year I did 14-16 hour days, and I didn't mind. I really loved it, and I loved the people I was working with. This is the first time that I actually realized that I even could work hard.

Of course, that story didn't end very well: I burned out, and the company itself lost its way (in my opinion, though they're still kicking and have at least released a product now). After a total of 16 months, I quit and took 5 weeks off.

Now I'm working for an older startup with around 30 people. The work is interesting, but the demands on my time aren't as great. I don't feel the pressure or desire to work quite as hard, and for now, that's fine.

I'm thinking I want to start my own company at some point, but I lack that idea that I feel like I can really be passionate about and that will drive me to want to work like a madman.

So that's it for me, at least: I have a crappy work ethic unless I all-out love what I'm doing. Maybe that's actually a good work ethic, but I just have a low tolerance for things that bore me. Who knows.

It might be possible to learn work ethic from, say, the military, but college is unstructured enough that you have to push yourself through it, unless your peers are working as hard as you are.

It sounds like you're weighing your intellectual interests in college against your interest in startups. If you're sure you want to do tech, it sounds like you live in a town where talent is sparse enough that once you have a project to pitch around, you could get paid a good amount.

However, self-discipline took some work. When you have nobody to tell you what to do, it's not easy to force yourself to work.

Getting away from my apartment has helped. During the day, I force myself away from all distractions and only focus on my current projects. You should find a way to do this.

You can't go full-out until you actually have a reason to care about your classes. Actually try to work hard on your classes, and maybe after the first semester you might find that you enjoy the work (or, as in my case, you really enjoy the feeling of pushing yourself for 72 hours straight).

College don't give you anything you ain't got inside.

What you need to do is to start doing something right now, or else you gonna waste your whole life deciding. It is better to correct your decisions on the way than to stay put in one place and rot.

It's up to you.