Re: classes, college, etc.

[Robert <http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert>]

I'd like to also mention the reasons that I ended up going to The
Evergreen State College after graduating from high school in Sudbury,
Ma, in case it's helpful at all.

I had a college admissions counselor in high school.  She gave me various
advice about tests to take, etc.  I ended up applying to Brandeis and
Worcestor Polytechnic Institute initially.  I got into Brandeis, not into
WPI.  My counselor told me that Brandeis may not be appropriate for me
given my grades and classes I took.  I had settled in my mind to go
anyway, but my former teacher gave me two things.  First, he imparted wise
advice that one of the purposes of college is to get as far away from one's
parents as possible.  Second, he gave me an article about Evergreen.

His advice seemed sensible at the time.  I didn't exactly understand the
motivations nor the implications, but I went with it.

The article about Evergreen was very striking to me at the time.  By this
point, this very same teacher (Brian) had presented me with various ideas
and got me to read books about freedom, anarchism, societal norms, and
economics.  It was the "freedom" part which a place like Evergreen which I
found compelling, especially after reading Brian's copy of "Summerhill".

This was all a bit risky since it was far away, I had never visited the
college, and I had to pay out-of-state tuition.  I went with it, anyway.
I barely even knew what the state of their computer department was.  It
turned out to work out, and am really happy that I went there rather than
Brandeis.  (I probably studied a lot more mathematics because their
computer science was not very well-developed.  I think that was OK.)  I
also got to do a lot of non-computer/liberal arts kind of stuff, which I
continually appreciate.

Anyway, my primary advice to you is to understand what your values are and
act based on those.  There's no way to predict the future, so it's better
to go with the here-and-now and make decisions based upon simpler things.
(This isn't to say that you should never think about the future, but it
should only be part of one's overall planning.  For example, only looking
at the return-on-investment with respect to college should not be the sole
determiner.)  Your values form a framework.

 > From: Robert <http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert>
 > Date: Sun, 29 Dec 2013 09:11:43 -0800
 >
 > Some of your below colleges are listed with a high return-on-investment.
 > I included links below.
 > 
 >  > From: Alex  <http://www.gmail.com/~alex.>
 >  > Date: Sat, 28 Dec 2013 21:44:10 -0500
 >  >
 >  > The colleges I have on my list are:
 >  > -Amherst college
 > 
 > http://www.forbes.com/pictures/eede45fjgi/19-amherst-college/
 > 
 >  > -Champlain college
 >  > -Cornell university
 > 
 > http://www.forbes.com/pictures/eede45fjgi/39-cornell-university/
 > 
 >  > -Hampshire college
 >  > -University of ma amherst
 > 
 > http://www.onlinecollegesdatabase.org/50-public-colleges-with-the-best-lifetime-roi
 > http://www.affordablecollegesonline.org/affordable-colleges-with-high-returns/
 > 
 >  > -Middlebury college
 > 
 > http://www.forbes.com/pictures/eede45fjgi/33-middlebury-college/
 > 
 >  > -Vermont technical college
 >  > -University of Vermont
 >  > -Worcester polytechnic institute
 > 
 > http://www.payscale.com/data-packages/college-roi-2013/college-roi-2013-schools-by-major/computer-science
 > 
 >  > I'm taking statistics this semester.
 > 
 > Make sure you get to learn about maximum likelihood estimation.
 > 
 >  > I've had an account on khan academy for a while now. I haven't really
 >  > dealt with any of the programming lessons - I went to a class in
 >  > school for that. However, I do look at some of the vector and matrix
 >  > lessons sometimes.
 > 
 > Awesome.
 > 
 >  > On Dec 27, 2013, at 13:22, http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert (Robert) wrote:
 >  > > Alexander -
 >  > >
 >  > > Your mom tells me that you are applying to colleges.  Which ones were you
 >  > > considering?
 >  > >
 >  > > Also, did you take a statistics course?  I personally have found that my
 >  > > college stats course was useful, but wished I had pursued it further than
 >  > > I did -- I think it's important class.
 >  > >
 >  > > I was listening to a radio program about the Khan Academy.  They said that
 >  > > they were going to start offering computer science topics.  I just looked
 >  > > and didn't see anything about turing machines and halting problem, which,
 >  > > along with discrete mathematics, is core to computer science
 >  > > understanding.  They do seem to have other regular mathematics courses, if
 >  > > you're interested.  (Linear algebra is good, especially if it talks about
 >  > > singular value decomposition -- my class didn't get this far.)