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victor.raum
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As you can guess by the post's title, I have a seemingly crazy question. But before I get to the meat of my query, it might be useful to any potentially helpful readers if I gave a bit of context about myself, academically speaking. And also it's late, and I'm a bit too out of steam to do anything productive, and I just really feel like writing about myself all of a sudden. So here it goes!
When I was 14 I dropped out of high school due to a desire to independently study software programming after having been introduced to it by a family fiend who worked at IBM. I suppose one could call what I did during that period "homeschooling" since it was nonstop reading (specifically about C, Perl, and UNIX), but it wasn't really "schooling" in that there was no formal structure to the way I spent my time. I wasn't totally inside a bubble though, and I got much help from adults by attending tech conferences and lecture events a few times every month, via which I also found some unpaid (but still very productive) internships.
At 16 I started a full blow software career with a well paid internship, though I don't feel the need to go very deep into the details of that here. For the next two years that progressed very smoothly into an eventual full time job. Raises, health benefits, and a well developed résumé all eventually materialized.
Then at 18 a very enjoyable turn of events occurred. I started to study 3D graphics programming, and I got the idea stuck in my head that I wanted to exercise my programming skills by writing a solar system simulation, or something of a similar nature. I popped down to the local book store and when I opened what looked like a respectable physics textbook all of those mysterious looking integral signs and d/dt's gave me a good slap in the face. I realized I was pretty stuck, and I didn't quite know where to look for help. So, I took the income I had from my software job and hired a student at Cooper Union to tutor me in calculus, for a very modest price. A few simple lessons totally got me going, and before I knew it I had my simulation up and running. That ancient old thing is still sitting here on YouTube actually: (It was posted in 2009, but it's actually from around 2007). Ahh, nostalgia.
From that point on I was happily wedded to calculus and physics, with an eye toward computational applications given my previous skill set. I kept going with my job, and continued to study my newly found interests independently. When I was close to 20 I decided to give college a try. I quit my job, and soon after my 21st birthday I found myself sitting in Chemistry and Calculus II courses at Sarah Lawrence College here in New York. I wasn't in physics because after an interview with the physics professor there I had the first year requirement waived and was instead scheduled to take Electromagnetism and Light the spring semester.
However, I never made it to the spring semester. I found the whole regime of assigned reading and forced homework very counterproductive. When I did the math it turned out that I was paying over $100 per lecture session (and it was on my dime, since my folks aren't exactly swimming in green). As a result of realizing the financial reality of the situation, every time I walked out of a lecture where the professor did a less than thrilling job I was left with the unpleasant thought of "wow, I just paid over $100 for that!" I should give credit where it is due though. Some professors really were up to par, and some were even well above! But the majority of them weren't worth the $100/session, not by a large margin. I soon left, got a refund for what money I could, and successfully begged my way back into the job I had quit just a few months previous. I was quickly able to pay of the few thousand dollars that I had taken out in student loans.
Though I didn't stay, the whole experience was overall worth having, and it proved to be miles in quality above anything I had experience in my high school; though it was still nonetheless not what I was looking for in an education. Not to mention, I did find a nice girl while I was there as well. We like to joke that given the price of the 5 months of tuition, she really did cost me quite a pretty penny![Stick Out Tongue :-p :-p](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
Now, as for the question as per the post's title. I'm pretty intent on giving grad school a shot. I recently visited the campus at Columbia on an whim to browse around their science library, and while I was there I took a stroll around the physics building as well. I started up a conversation with a man I met there. He was probably in his late 40's or early 50's. I think he was a professor, though I'm not completely sure. I asked him if the school would consider taking a failed academic wannabe like myself directly into a graduate program despite the lack of an undergrad degree, perhaps provided that I totally aced the GREs, had a portfolio of interesting computational work to show off, and maybe hired a tutor with good accreditations to vouch for me. He smiled and gave me the impression that it might be hard, but that it wasn't impossible. He also mentioned that he even knew someone who had gotten into grad school specifically at Columbia via a shady back-door route not much unlike the one I was suggesting.
So, I'm here on these friendly forums in search for some input on the matter. I plan to go down to Columbia's graduate admissions department next week to inquire about my situation. But I know from my experiences trying to get into undergrad programs that when you're in a seldom seen situation such as mine every damned person in admissions will give you a different story about what the rules and requirements are, and even the directors will give you inconsistent stories if you inquire today and then again 4 months from now.
So, does anyone have any interesting or perhaps even help comments to throw my way?
I suppose you can also feel free to tell me that I'm crazy. I'm open to some criticism or dozes of cold reality. But as a guy with no high school diploma who has gotten himself several "4 year degree required" jobs, and also as a guy without SAT scores or even so much as a high school report card who has gotten himself into a respectable undergrad program, I'm going to tend not to listen to blatant detractors unless they have a very compelling and well articulated point to make ;-)
When I was 14 I dropped out of high school due to a desire to independently study software programming after having been introduced to it by a family fiend who worked at IBM. I suppose one could call what I did during that period "homeschooling" since it was nonstop reading (specifically about C, Perl, and UNIX), but it wasn't really "schooling" in that there was no formal structure to the way I spent my time. I wasn't totally inside a bubble though, and I got much help from adults by attending tech conferences and lecture events a few times every month, via which I also found some unpaid (but still very productive) internships.
At 16 I started a full blow software career with a well paid internship, though I don't feel the need to go very deep into the details of that here. For the next two years that progressed very smoothly into an eventual full time job. Raises, health benefits, and a well developed résumé all eventually materialized.
Then at 18 a very enjoyable turn of events occurred. I started to study 3D graphics programming, and I got the idea stuck in my head that I wanted to exercise my programming skills by writing a solar system simulation, or something of a similar nature. I popped down to the local book store and when I opened what looked like a respectable physics textbook all of those mysterious looking integral signs and d/dt's gave me a good slap in the face. I realized I was pretty stuck, and I didn't quite know where to look for help. So, I took the income I had from my software job and hired a student at Cooper Union to tutor me in calculus, for a very modest price. A few simple lessons totally got me going, and before I knew it I had my simulation up and running. That ancient old thing is still sitting here on YouTube actually: (It was posted in 2009, but it's actually from around 2007). Ahh, nostalgia.
From that point on I was happily wedded to calculus and physics, with an eye toward computational applications given my previous skill set. I kept going with my job, and continued to study my newly found interests independently. When I was close to 20 I decided to give college a try. I quit my job, and soon after my 21st birthday I found myself sitting in Chemistry and Calculus II courses at Sarah Lawrence College here in New York. I wasn't in physics because after an interview with the physics professor there I had the first year requirement waived and was instead scheduled to take Electromagnetism and Light the spring semester.
However, I never made it to the spring semester. I found the whole regime of assigned reading and forced homework very counterproductive. When I did the math it turned out that I was paying over $100 per lecture session (and it was on my dime, since my folks aren't exactly swimming in green). As a result of realizing the financial reality of the situation, every time I walked out of a lecture where the professor did a less than thrilling job I was left with the unpleasant thought of "wow, I just paid over $100 for that!" I should give credit where it is due though. Some professors really were up to par, and some were even well above! But the majority of them weren't worth the $100/session, not by a large margin. I soon left, got a refund for what money I could, and successfully begged my way back into the job I had quit just a few months previous. I was quickly able to pay of the few thousand dollars that I had taken out in student loans.
Though I didn't stay, the whole experience was overall worth having, and it proved to be miles in quality above anything I had experience in my high school; though it was still nonetheless not what I was looking for in an education. Not to mention, I did find a nice girl while I was there as well. We like to joke that given the price of the 5 months of tuition, she really did cost me quite a pretty penny
Now, as for the question as per the post's title. I'm pretty intent on giving grad school a shot. I recently visited the campus at Columbia on an whim to browse around their science library, and while I was there I took a stroll around the physics building as well. I started up a conversation with a man I met there. He was probably in his late 40's or early 50's. I think he was a professor, though I'm not completely sure. I asked him if the school would consider taking a failed academic wannabe like myself directly into a graduate program despite the lack of an undergrad degree, perhaps provided that I totally aced the GREs, had a portfolio of interesting computational work to show off, and maybe hired a tutor with good accreditations to vouch for me. He smiled and gave me the impression that it might be hard, but that it wasn't impossible. He also mentioned that he even knew someone who had gotten into grad school specifically at Columbia via a shady back-door route not much unlike the one I was suggesting.
So, I'm here on these friendly forums in search for some input on the matter. I plan to go down to Columbia's graduate admissions department next week to inquire about my situation. But I know from my experiences trying to get into undergrad programs that when you're in a seldom seen situation such as mine every damned person in admissions will give you a different story about what the rules and requirements are, and even the directors will give you inconsistent stories if you inquire today and then again 4 months from now.
So, does anyone have any interesting or perhaps even help comments to throw my way?
I suppose you can also feel free to tell me that I'm crazy. I'm open to some criticism or dozes of cold reality. But as a guy with no high school diploma who has gotten himself several "4 year degree required" jobs, and also as a guy without SAT scores or even so much as a high school report card who has gotten himself into a respectable undergrad program, I'm going to tend not to listen to blatant detractors unless they have a very compelling and well articulated point to make ;-)
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