I dropped out of college at age 19 and never had a formal education in computer science. I went on to find work at several prominent startups and ended up founding two companies that went through Y Combinator. (I’m still working on my second one here if you’d like to check it out).
Now when I tell people this, most often the response I get is positive. I get the feeling that people think I’m particularly intelligent or hardworking because I didn’t need a formal education and still got by alright. When people hear that you’ve dropped out of college, there are immediate parallels drawn to others such as Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, etc.
But in reality, the reason why I dropped out of college was a reason far from dignified.
I dropped out of college because I didn’t get high enough grades in Calculus III.
It’s a long story for another time, but essentially because my grade for Calculus III was only a 3.4 (89%), I wasn’t considered a strong enough candidate when I applied for the highly competitive computer science program at the University of Washington and was rejected.
I remember how lost in limbo I felt. It was the first time in my life where I felt like the set path in front of me just vanished. Either I change my major into something less desirable or take a break to try to find real world experience. However, without any form of CS education, I struggled to find any company that would take me in as an intern. The only place that was crazy enough to give me a chance was a startup and that was how I got my first in.
Earlier this week, I was riding the bus reflecting upon my past 5 years of life out of college. For a single academic course that so heavily influenced my path in life, how much calculus have I ended up using?
In my case as an iOS and web stack developer, I can confidently say that I have used 0 calculus up until this point. [1]
I know that programming isn’t exactly all of what the study of computer science has to offer and that there are subsets of programming where calculus may be used every single day. But for someone who just wants to program web apps and not work with three–dimensional ray tracing, calculus is a huge hurdle that greatly hurts instead of helps.
I can’t help but think how much I lucked out by managing to find my own way even though the path I was on closed in front of me. If I wasn’t so fortunate to have lived in Seattle (a city with a strong tech community), I probably wouldn’t have found an internship.
The thing is, most of us don’t live in these tech hubs. Most of us don’t have any alternative paths. When the door slams in front of you due to one poor grade and you’re rejected from your school, you’ll probably want to give up. I know it’s not this way just for programmers but it’s the same deal for many other engineers of different disciplines as well.
Global economies around the world are clamoring to inspire younger students to study STEM. According to the US Department of Commerce:
Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) workers drive our nation’s innovation and competitiveness by generating new ideas, new companies and new industries.
If STEM workers drive progress and calculus is what gets in the way of more STEM workers, this means that calculus is at the opposite end of progress.
Calculus, linear algebra and differential equations inhibit our nation’s innovation and competitiveness by preventing new ideas, new companies and new industries.
Footnotes:
[1] I may have used some high level concepts here and there, but nothing practical. Even with that, those high level concepts were from calculus I and II — derivative and integral calculus. Calculus III was about calculus in 3 dimensions. I definitely have never called on that knowledge.
