Hmm, that post does not reflect my college experience at all. For one, none of my tests are about memorization or rote learning--all of them are either open book or allow you a page or two of notes and all require critical and a thorough understanding of the material. In fact, a bunch of my tests actually introduced new material in the questions--the first time I learned about tries was on a midterm! The question explained what they are and how they work; I just had to implement them.

My classes also encourage creative thinking. Most of the projects are open-ended to some degree, and some are almost entirely free. The lectures (at least for the more advanced courses) tend to be more interactive and involve thinking as much as listening to the professor.

The people I've met are also different--nobody cares too much about grades and everybody has side projects and interests outside of classes. Also, quite a lot of them are absurdly smart and exactly the sort of people I would like to work with in the future.

And the courses I've taken do provide value: I have a much better breadth in various subjects than I would had I covered the same material on my own. Also, I have done a bunch of cool stuff I would not have done on my own, like designing a simple processor. I would never have thought to do it on my own, but it has really helped me to understand how computers work.

Also, there are resources (like graduate courses) for getting more depth in topics I'm interested in. I think I would learn more from talking about papers and developments with a group (basically how some graduate courses work) than I would just by reading the same papers on my own. It also provides more structure and organization, so I don't have to curate what to learn about myself.

So really, I think you may have had an unfortunate experience with college, but your criticisms are not entirely universal. College may not be for everybody, but I think it's the right choice for plenty of people.

Yeah my experience sucked at this school (school wise, the social experience is awesome haha), but i've been at two other universities before this and while my experience there was better, something was missing.

I had side projects too. I think the side projects should be curriculum.

College may not be for everybody, but i think it is the right choice for some people.

But i found out that outside of school, there are even smarter people than me as well which is awesome. I won't bound myself to 4 walls and roof away from home for education.