I finally got a college degree and it only took a decade
I would have never expected it, but I finally graduated with a college degree, in economics? Now why would an entrepreneur do such thing?
I would have never expected it, but I finally graduated with a college degree, in economics? Now why would an entrepreneur do such thing?
Why did I do it?
- To get a job: No
- Expand my knowledge? Kind of
- Increase my resume rep? Plausible
- Lost cost fallacy? Definitely
Regardless here's my story behind why I finished a degree, and why I chose economics out of all things when I am a developer.
My College Path
In 2011 I graduated from high school with pretty good grades, I think I had a 3.8 GPA going out so was able to secure a full ride scholarship for 4 years at the University of Utah (or 1 year out of state :D), nice!
I originally wanted to do business, but I was also interested in computer science so I decided to go both paths to see what I liked more. Within the first semester of CS, we were already making games, websites, and I felt like a full on developer within only a few months of work. Where as for business, we were studying the things like how Aristotle affected business thought in modern days, how boring. So I decided to go all in on computer science.
Back in 2012ish, CS was super competitive at our school and required a 3.5 in all the pre-major courses, and they were pretty tough. Calc 1 and 2, Physics, a few CS courses etc. I knew this going in, so I did my best to make the grades.
At the end of my sophomore year, I had around a 3.6 in my pre-major classes, and just needed to pass a Data Structure and Algorithms with an A- or higher to make the cut. I will admit, this class was tough at our school, I barely made the grade. I still to this day remember trying to implement things like merge sort by hand, in only a few days, and in Java, ugh.
I pass the final, and I'm sitting at an A-. Nice! However... grades get released and I have an F and an email from my professor to come in and talk to him. It must be a mistake!
Almost getting expelled:
At the end of the semester is when all the CS professors run plagiarism checks on all previous assignments and mine was flagged. That's odd, I never plagiarize, how did this happen? Lo and behold, one of my study partners copied my code without me realizing, and we had an identical comment one 1 line of code, out of almost a hundred files and tens of thousands of lines of code. But alas, it was concrete proof one of us cheated. My professor told me "Look I know you didn't cheat, you did well on all the exams etc etc, but this is still a breach of ethics, if the other student admits to the fault, we will let you pass the class with a C- and not expel you. The other student admitted to his doings, and got expelled from the University, and I barely passed the class.
The Aftermath
This was extremely disheartening, because of this C-, I didn't get into the major as I got lowered to a 3.3 in my premajor classes. To top it all off the class could only be repeated once a year, so I pretty much had a year of limbo of trying to figure out something else to do until I can attempt the class again.
This might have been a blessing in disguise because I ended up getting a job as a part time systems administrator, started my first company, and ultimately just dropped out of college all together.
The Pandemic
This happened almost a decade ago, I don't really regret my decision to drop out, but it did suck I had like 4 years of school down the drain with nothing to show for it. In 2020 when the pandemic hit, I got a notice from my academic advisor that they were opening all classes remotely, and for in state tuition. Interesting.... I took the bait and re-enrolled into college.
One catch was the CS program was not available online, only a few select majors were available, one being Economics. Being a math nerd, and into economics I thought what the hell and went for it. I was still running our current start up so I took it super slow, just a class or two a semester for the last 3 years until this last summer 2022 where I realized if I moved back to salt lake and did things in person, I could pump out 6 classes in 2 months due to the shortened summer schedule. Going back to Utah after being gone for so long was actually really fun, and I was able to pass all my classes without much issue.
Thoughts on Economics
Economics ended up being a really interesting topic compared to some of the other major I tested over the years, I feel its almost a business degree but on a more macro level. I learned a lot about unit economics and overall how modern theories try to explain how capitalism works. My main take away from the degree is that economics is very reactionary and very much unsolved. People try to explain why a free market economy is so powerful, how it should behave, how to try influence it without messing it up too much (not sure if its possible), and overall trying to provide a reason the decision makers why there are certain market failures. Now that I am back and we are experiencing highly volatile markets in 2022, I can say that we were talking about this these exact scenarious for almost 3 years now.
Favorite classes
- Health Economics - This was epic to take during a pandemic, this studied the affect health policies have on economies. Ironic to take when they had just shut down the economy due to covid.
- Multinational Firms - This class was like a speed run of all of economics but how international firms and countries work together to create comparative advantages and thoughts that go into economic policy.
- Law and Economics - This was actually done in unison with the law college and went over the rational behind certain laws and how law makers must take into economics for decisions. This was really interesting to see the justifications for things like property rights, patent laws, and spending. The court cases in particular cases we studied in particular were great in the absurd situations people found themselves in and how the courts decided to rule on them, many times in ways that are counterintuitive until you consider economics.
- History of Economic Doctrine - The class that goes through all of the history of economics from the mercantilism period up until neoclassical economics, and all the critiques for and against them. Spoiler alert, neoclassical economics is pretty busted but its the best we have so far. I think this was my favorite overall, it kind of deconstructed everything we had learned up until that point about macro and micro economics, and brought on a lot of unique discussions.
Class Transcript
In the end I ended up getting a Bachelors of Science in Economics, with a minor in computer science.
Future Plans
I don't think ill get much use out of an economic degree directly but it definitely has changed my perspective on a lot of things within our economy and in particular my businesss. For example, we always used to measure KPI's but it never really click for me until I was forced to so much data analysis in microeconomics studying the plethora of models they use in it.
One major change I have had since going back to school, is really focusing on self development and learning again. In particular more structured learning. I have been reading a lot more, taking more courses online, the spark is back baby!
I am also slightly pondering continuing my education path. There is something about being back in a strictly academic environment, being on a massive university campus with so many talented individuals that was a great experience. I'm sure I could get this from joining a talented corporation instead of grinding it out on my own, but that seems even less likely to me than going to graduate school.
I also did meet with some great advisors offered by the University just trying to excel students lives. For example I met our current legal counsel through the University, I met with the MBA director and CS a advisor to just explore different routes I could pursue in the future. I was influenced so much I actually got letters of recommendation before leaving, but ive kind of lost that flame. Maybe down the road ill consider.
Two cool programs I am considering:
Masters of Business Creation
Thad Kelling
This is an MBA but they study your existing business and see how they can help you scale. They are offering almost full ride scholarships right now to entrepreneurs who get in as it just launched. Its cool to see University catering towards entrepreneurs like this.
Masters in Computer Science / Artificial Intelligence
This is an obvious route for me, I am just very interested in AI and I really don't think I will get a breadth of knowledge studying it myself. A structured education really makes you step outside of your comfort zone and dive deep into topics you would most likely otherwise ignore. This program is super cheap as well.
That is all folks.