HACKER Q&A
📣 spacebuffer

Advice for someone choosing a college path


As anyone else on here, i love computers and whenever I had to choose something to work on (hobby-wise) I always chose something that has to do with computers.

This summer I'm going to college and I am considering a bacholar in Business Administration.

Aside from a couple of math/CS courses, the curriculum has many required business related as you'd expect like: Business Intelligence, Micro & Macro economics, Finance, marketing, etc..

This goes against any of my interests as explained but I am considering it mainly because it's schedule is one of the lightest leaving me a lot of time to work on side projects on my own

My question is: would a "hacker" in the HN sense enjoy studying these courses (which to me seem to involve a lot of rigourous memorization, something that I don't like) to at least pass them or would I simply get burned out, moreover is it wise to get a degree in business/finance with CS as just a hobby in this AI-powered age?


  👤 breckenedge Accepted Answer ✓
Decide if you actually want a business degree. It may help you achieve your goal of not only working on side projects, but learning how to turn your side projects into legitimate businesses. And at many universities, you can change your major, I did it 4 times. Don’t sweat it.

👤 codingdave
> I am considering it mainly because it's schedule is one of the lightest leaving me a lot of time to work on side projects on my own

Dude, no. If you don't want to study your major in college, you've made a poor life choice. Study something you want to be involved with. Or skip college. But going to college then picking something you don't want to do, just to have an easy schedule? No. Just no.

College has the potential to be the place where you do your side projects. You can integrate them into your coursework, doubling down on the learning experience from them. You can learn new perspectives and correlate ideas from different fields to take your work directions you have not yet even imagined.

Seriously, study the topics wherein you want to be doing that work. If you treat college as a checkbox to be filled, just to say you did it, you are going to regret lost opportunities down the road when you realize how much more you could have done with it.


👤 ungreased0675
I would be hesitant to hire someone with a business administration degree for any role. Does that help your decision?