alt Hacker NewsI had excellent interactions with my instructors. I interacted with them like human beings and they understood that their limited time would be better spent with students who didn't have the same energy I did. Several professors, when asked, put me through an impromptu whiteboard quiz and said yeah, do your own thing. It's great that you participated in the process in your own way. In my case I asked if I could show up for the final tests and nothing else, because the intermediate work would have been useless, received permission, and passed.
Chip on my shoulder - no, and it's a silly label to begin with. Understanding that it's for other people who value the paper more than intrinsic understanding, yeah.
EDIT: I will concede in some way that I'm proud of not having a degree, and it does influence my thoughts on this topic. I've met some real idiots that do, and I don't consider it a serious differentiator.
Also looking up the thread - at my early jobs, I was surrounded by many people who were interested in educating me on any topic I could think of, because similarly we were all being paid for our time. The difference between that and school was the assumption that we were both motivated and capable.
1. There’s already a process for testing out of general education classes. You show up, pay $50, and pass a test. You could have saved most of your first year of tuition.
2. These classes that you blew through weren’t upper level classes. They couldn’t have been because you wouldn’t have had the prereqs to take them. If you already had some knowledge of the field and didn’t need lower level classes, you could have talked to the department about testing out of some of them.
I know you didn’t walk into an upper level class on Automata theory and come up with the proofs on the spot.
No professor would in good faith tell you to go do your own thing based on what you’re describing.
If they thought you were very smart and sincere about learning, they’d encourage you to do independent study with them, do research, work with the department to move into higher level classes, or take cross listed graduate classes.
If they thought you were kinda smart, but a huge asshole, they’d tell you to go do your own thing because they didn’t want to deal with your crap.
This is all coming from experience as someone who came into school not needing the intro classes, and someone who used to be that arrogant.