I'm an engineering student at the university of waterloo, and your story is quite a common one for our software engineering and computer science students. UW has a really coop-heavy program, you do 6 coops, 4 months each, over your degree, so very often in 2nd, 3rd year on coop 3 or 4, students will get picked up by microsoft or tesla or google and never come back. the money is good enough, they have the skills, there's really nothing left for them to gain from school so they stop going. It just really reaffirms that university is not about the piece of paper at the end, its about what you learn and who you meet, and if you've learned what you need and met who you can its time to move on. glad you dont regret your decision :)

TLDR Don't drop out unless you've found success in something else.

I *still* have predicament dreams where I'm still in college and college is conflicting with my business and I have to make the decision to drop out or let business suffer. Its an extremely difficult choice... one that I apparently still struggle with in my 30s. xD

I have a math master degree and work in a data science team for ~2 years now. Mostly because of your videos (and programming expert) I grew into a mostly Python software engineering role there. You are truly my hero Tim and you helped me learn so much!

I decided at 37 to finally get my computer science degree, so opposite side of the spectrum here. It takes guts to stray from a safely paved path. So congrats to the both of us, and I wish you all the best! I've learned a lot from you already, will continue to follow your work!

You're close to 1M. Congratulations in advance! You've done a lot for the community. 😊

If people can find success outside of college, I think that's amazing. For me, I'll be finishing my CS degree in a couple weeks and it feels amazing!

Ain’t even start the video but good luck with your journey

Well done, Tim! Your story is super impressive. 💪 And for what it’s worth, as I had told you back when you made the decision to drop out, I think you made the right decision. 🤝

You've gone way beyond a degree now. You have skills, profile, communication talent and you've built a successful business.

Your tutorials on Selenium and Beuatiful Soup helped me a lot to do my web scraping side project which landed me an internship this summer. I would have never done it if it wasn't for u. or maybe would have but in so much more time and with so much more pain, that s the cool thing about your vids, you make everything look simple and straightforward in no time. Keep going man! Road to 1 MIL!

Tim, really proud of you and appreciate your hard work during those years since I am an old subscriber and watched this channel growing all the way through. Hope you become even bigger, your videos and vibe are really unique, I am glad you found what brings sense to your life and keep doing it! It is really grateful that you watch your subscribers improving their skills by watching your videos. I think your work makes more value for people than the average person with a degree does and that is amazing😊

Man, I remember my first trimester at uni doing computer science, I was doing really bad. So, I searched how to be a good cs student. I saw your video on the topic. Man it changed my whole outlook on how I was going about my degree. Last trimester I got HDs (high distinction) which is the best grade you can get in Melbourne in all the units for that trimester. Thanks a lot.

Tim, you were the first youtuber i watched when I started taking programming seriously. Though the concepts were very weird, I gradually fell in love with programming. It has officially been a year since I started watching you and man, I'm still surprising myself of how much of a programmer I am today. Thank you for making the sacrifices to continue to educate the world because programming IS the future and we need to teach the youth, young.

Cheers !! I’m graduating this spring and your tutorial have taught me more than all myclasses combined. Thank you

i would love more story time with Tim! lol. happy to see you at this level in your career. you should be damn proud of yourself! getting close to that 1mil subscriber mark i see. ;)

Love your content Tim. I personally would love to hear more from you about the perspective of taking the non-conventional route to work in programming. I am 38 and learning Python and ML. Since you already have connections in the industry, it would be nice to bring content on how to work as freelance (with no CS degree) particularly in the Machine Learning field (you already spoke about making money with Python which was awesome).

I used to be a Computer Science major but I found out that I enjoyed my math classes a lot more but struggled with the hardcore programming in CS so I switched to Computational Mathematics. It has coding but way less intense than CS and more of an emphasis on math which I find myself way better at. But nowadays you can learn a lot of skills not just through university system and I didn't like how CS was taught in the school setting.

Your videos made me land on a software engineering career from a mechanical engineering job. Cant thank you enough man. Keep rocking !!

Love you channel i learn alot from it. wish you all the best in all you do thank you for your hard work!!!!!

To get a job nowadays can be done without having a diploma, precisely in your case, you have created this trust with the recruiters through the time you have invested on this channel. I didn't have this perspective 5 years ago, but now I totally agree and I wish you a very good continuation in your career.

hey Tim. Just wanna say thank you! you helped me learn Python OOP and it served me well in my career

Way to go Tim , well I m not a student and been in the software industry for sometime now , but ever since I found your channel , I got to know so much about programming and fallen in love with programming , and I could feel my enthusiasm has heightened Thank you so much for doing this Tim. Keep rocking

Thank you so much Tim! Because of your channel, you had helped me learn alot in programming!

Hi Tim your videos are great and I have learned a lot from them. Many times watching your videos motivates me with new ideas for different projects. Having said that, I would like to add that the education system with computer science is a bit outdated and I think many of us have experienced events similar to yours. Where we learn more by studying on our own and we are also more productive developing software or teaching others outside our house of study. You are not the only one who has been in a situation like this, even Zurkeberg graduated 8 years after he had already consolidated his company. So I encourage you with your knowledge and experience you will move forward and get great results

I got my computer science degree last week. You are one of the youtubers I have to thank in helping me prepare for my classes and exams. I honestly learned more from you and other people on youtube than I did from my classes

Tim, you're the teacher everyone wanted in school but never got. I never could have even found where to start when I decided to start learning cs until someone showed me you channel. You're a truly intelligent and skilled person, we're lucky you created this channel.

Thanks bro, you are very inspiring. Been here since 10k wen u taught kivy! . Thank you again tim!

Love your channel and your presentation style! Keep up the great work.👍

Guys in a nutshell: Do'nt drop college, unless you are a smart guy you can and if you can you will notice things that make you think you can drop. You don't just wake up in the morning and after this video and says fuck it I'm out

Love this kind of content! Hope to see more of it!

follow you from the very first day!!!! and witness the growth up of your channel et the contents and your delivery still that interesting and useful like those first days. Keep going and cheers your efforts

I am in Canada as well - I hear you about the degree is the thing to get. Well done making your own decisions about all these things!

You made a wise decision that keeps leading all of us in the right direction! 💫

Wow. Congratulations on the success of the channel. I think you were only around 100k last time I checked this out. Inspiring and well deserved. Cheers!

I like these types of videos, I would be glad if you posted more videos like this

I'm currently taking data science courses online and I can relate to your situation. I thought about dropping out of the program myself but I might miss some important stuff.

Tim, I'm curious: when you said you were taking a break (4 months IIRC) had you already made your decision or were you still considering?

I did drop out a couple of years ago and I am starting again in September. In the Netherlands it's just really hard to land a job in software development without a degree.

Please make more videos like this Tim !! very informative:)))

I want to ask you/ others in similar field what your courses are like. My classes teach mostly about concepts, theories, techniques, but not a whole lot of actual programming stuffs, and i dont even have time to learn some programming myself because of assignments and other non-engineering related filler classes. Surprised me that you already have an internship in your 2nd year. Looking at the job requirements often makes me depressed because i dont meet most of the programming prerequisite despite studying in some kind of information engineering programme.

Very proud of you Tim. You're so young and you've realized so many of big dreams. All the best.

Thanks for sharing, Tim! Totally agree with your decision to drop out. I did a career change into SWE and went back to school for a degree, and if I had it to do over, I'd just go the self-taught route to be honest. Thanks for the video!

Very informative and inspirational , glad it worked out well for you

gl with whatever ur doing

your work is great, no matter what... Many people get their degrees to make their parents happy (noble cause also), plus with all you know now, it would be actually fun to complete those courses, even online, for a lot less $$, plus it can be tax deductible if used for your company (at least in the US) I have a Computer Engineering degree, and I can tell you that most people learn more at work than in college. But that extra experience is also valuable, it expands your brain, and you meet people that can be great partners for life.... BTW I'm 61 and still learning languages for Data Science and ML, Python is my fav now...thanks for your videos! Best of luck, and Congrats for the 1MM!

Proud of you for taking such a bold decision. It's a preconcieved notion that degree does everything and guarantees you a job, but how it actually is that degree just gives you opportunities and you need to have the technical skill required to land in a job(which you are already qualified for). And yeah these kind of videos get you closer to your audience so i think it might be a good idea to continue this. Good luck Tim!!!

Hey Tim, I definetly enjoyed this medium, it was nice tohear about your personal experiences :-)

Thanks for sharing your experience. Think a lot of people could ger inspired from your journey

Dropped out of computer engineering the same time as you But I’ve been able to learn more stuffs on my own School felt like everything was about exams And I felt I wasn’t getting my monies worth had to drop out

I have a degree in electrical engineering but work as a software developer. My main qualifications were from my internships and research projects that I took up. None of the companies ever cared to ask about my degree or results

Tim, you have what you deserve... and that is the gratitude of thousands of people (like me) that you helped by doing your tutorials, opinion videos, and everything you do in general. Because of your hard work, you are an example for others. I'm going to college in Canada, but I will finish because my work permit depends on me completing my studies :) but it has been a good experience so far. I could not commit to a 4 or 5-year program, so I decided to go to college that is 2.5 years instead. I already know much of what they teach, so staying there for too long would not be so useful. I prefer to work on new things and not get rusty.

I love you, thank you for sharing your python tricks, that will helped me a lot in my python interviews!!!

Thank you for all Tim, it is always nice to hear some stories like this and get some inspiration

I Dopped out of Physics BSC after i found out about ML, AI and DEEEPLEARNING.. i was just super fascinated by it and i knew i had the mind for it. i'm happy i found a passion for work.. i learnt almost everything from Tim and Udemy.

I was shook for a second when I saw the title. I just finished my first year and seeing someone as good as you drop out worried me but I guess the title baited me in lol

Thank you for sharing your story. You are so mature.

wow very interesting story. I was just going through some videos yesterday on what people thought of CS degrees. I am a network engineer and just finishing up a masters but getting into programming to automate some of my work. That's awesome that you set yourself up to buy a home and now can support yourself with youtube. That seems like a short time to go and learn all of that you do. What are your resources for making your coding videos and where you learned to code?

congrats on the progress you've made, best of luck going forward, and thanks for the help over the years! i hope you've insured your hands lol

Did you continue learning more advanced computer science stuff on your own after dropping out? like did you teach yourself the stuff you would've learned if you stayed in college or was that not that important to the work you were interested in?

I think it’s awesome you moved back in with your folks to save up for a home. Amazing mate - love the channel

I would go back and complete the 1.5 years. The degree might not be able to provide you with what you want now, but you might want something in the future, and won't have the ability or time to do it, when you will need it. With that being said, you have a talent for teaching, and when I am stuck and need a quick tutorial on KZfaq, I look specifically for a few KZfaqrs' videos, and you are one of them. I really hope you get that degree.

You are an inspiration! Can you make some video or live stream, where you may give some career advice based on relevant job roles? P.s. I wanna watch all your videos but it's gonna take long. I hope I'm able to grasp all the knowledge!

Congratulations bro, I'm just starting the journey and God bless you.

Strongly considering doing the same, so you putting this video on the day of my breaking point is kinda ironic 🤣 But I'm still only in my first year, so I'll hold out a bit longer. Thank you!

You are doing great, I graduated from College couple days ago here in Canada, to be honest you don't need to go to school at all if you want to be programmer or software engineer. Everything is out there in You Tube.

Cant wait to see you hit 1m subscribers. You are awesome.

Nice to hear your story.

I went the traditional route for the most part and got a computer science degree. However, during the time that I was going to school, I found jobs in my field. I started working as a QA (someone who manually tests code after a new feature or bug has been fixed), then worked my way into a QA Automation (where you write automated tests -- so you actually get to write code) but still offer a lot of manual support as needed for regular QAs, some really simple software freelance work up until I got my first full-time position as an associate software engineer. While going to school is a great way to learn and get better qualified for a job, a lot of my path has included a lot of getting actual work experience in my field while going to school. The point being that on-the-job training is really essential (in my opinion) to really learn the field and to build up a resume to get hired easier. A college degree is not the only way to get into a software engineering job. It's possible to work your way into that field by starting out as a QA, and working your way up to it. It may require you to change jobs multiple times (the company you may not have all the opportunities to move up -- and I changed jobs multiple times while I was working into positions that eventually led me to be a software engineer). If you don't do college, learning is still essential. And while coding bootcamps can help give someone a jump start into learning something, most of the time, you'll probably not get a job right out of a coding bootcamp. Even after college, you still need to be always learning. Computer science is very technical, and some people want to get into it because it's glamorized and realize they hate it because they hate working at a very technical level. The best software engineers I've worked with are those who are typically working on side projects at home and who are always learning. They're the ones that move up. I've also interviewed software engineer candidates who are fresh graduates with a degree but who have not spent a lot of time outside of the time learning in school or on the job who have not done well at all. I've also interviewed candidates with no degree or who did a coding bootcamp who knew their stuff, had great initiative and who were greater employees later on. The point is, don't just get a college degree because it's "guaranteed." It's a great way to learn and show potential employers that you've learned the skills needed to start doing the job. However, I'm against going to extremely high end colleges both because they're way too expensive with not enough payout (it's a horrible money choice) and because they have the mentality that you should spend all your time working on massive class projects when your time would really be much better spent going to a simple college close to home for much cheaper and getting work experience on the side. Dream colleges (or Ivy League, or whatever other prestigious college is being pushed) are just a way to take massive amounts of money on vague promises of elite wealth. Long story short, you don't need college to be a software engineer, but you absolutely need to really love writing, debugging, and reading through code, and need to spend plenty of time on your own learning (even if you've been in the field 20 years), and being able to prove to potential employers you have these skills (either through building a website, youtube channel, github, etc) or by working your way up from QA into software engineering.

I love your videos and hope you make a advance stuff in c++

I do like these kind of videos, would love to see some about how working at microsoft was like Also, would like to see some videos on android and ios app development Maybe also, podcast style discussions with other developers - their journeys, their productivity tricks, their learning tricks and maybe even some of their coding styles/procees/tricks

Good luck. In my country you don't really have much options. I'm from a third world country. The best thing you can do here is definitely get a degree.

Well said - completely different situation for me but I dropped out of uni after only 2 semesters in favour of a career in the army. 7 years later, I left and now have a nice government job that leverages my experience and knowledge gained through my previous career. You never know what doors experience can open and a lot of people focus so much on knowledge that they have a tough time gaining experience.

I like seeing talk-videos like this with you

You're one f the smartest people I know and I feel so fortunate to have come across this channel

bro you are an inspiration, you leaerning skills are very advance ,moreover your video making skill is really good too , i would also love to make videos like you and i will be proud of myself when i do that,

I barley graduated this past semester with my CS degree. I honestly struggled a lot and never liked it. I had several thoguths of dropping out but never did.

I graduated a Uni with a degree in linguistics, but I had kinda poor attendance, because I started working between my 2nd and 3rd years there, and what I found out actually pleasantly surprised me: it turns out most of the professors absolutely don't mind you teaching yourself whatever program you have; in fact, a lot of them showed a great deal of curiosity as to the quality of the knowledge you acquired on your own, and what's even better is that they actually showed a great deal of respect after finding out that yes I can in fact learn on my own, and be quite good at it. That does translate into work, but do expect a higher degree of scrutiny from employers, because like professors couldn't gauge my progress steadily through the year i.e. didn't have a basis for their expectations, so did not potential employers have any proof of me knowing my IT stuff they could trust. Do keep in mind that fact absolutely will screw up your chances a bit, and some won't even bother to try and find out, but there absolutely are employers willing to take such risks and they absolutely will respect you for being a self-made specialist. People do have a respect for people achieving proficiency against the odds.

A lot of tech hiring managers only hire or promote people with a college degree. There are tons of articles telling people go to a tech boot camp instead of colleges/universities. Well they didn't tell you the whole story. For the long run, it might take you much longer to get the same level as a college graduated level. It seems like a lot of money for the tuition now but with a tech job you can make it back in one or two years. I'm a hiring manager and it's a must to hire only people with a college degree not boot camps.

I am actually at this point of deciding to drop out on my electrical engineering program, I spent 4 years on the program and I am still in 3 years level. I live in Mali(West-Africa) where we don't have enough opportunity in tech as in US or any kind of places but I am about to try it out. I am thinking about getting to computer science, precisely machine learning and AI, probably not the easiest one to get into but I will give it a try and I am also flexible for other path like web dev which sounds quiet easy to start. I am taking online courses and bootcamp to skill up. Making the decision to drop out when you have already spent some years on this thing is really hard but it really worth trying, as success doesn't stand on a single path. I also have a KZfaq channel, which doesn't grow up enough, and I am also doing freelancing stuffs. If it doesn't work out you can go back to get your degree but that the default case and if it works out you can still get your degree going on if you still need it. That last thought kind of ensure you that you will not be completely loss. And again my college education is not the best one, although I can have access to some of the best out there online which is actually firing me up to try. Thank you 🙏😊so much for sharing your experience.

Fascinating story Tim! The way you teach and behave on here wouldn’t have suggested to me you dropped out. You are one of the few good “tech” channels with actual coding and teaching. I studied EE and I had a LOT of software classes too. Microcontrollers do need (lowlevel) code. But frankly I hardly learned anything new in those 3 years that I didn’t already know from my years of software cracking and creating phone phreaking gadgets. It kept me out of the army draft 😂 long enough for it to get abolished 😂And tradeschool EE is considered a “lower level” education just like college and university in Canada. And weirdly enough, I think I’m more skilled that most university graduates. At least have a far more pragmatic approach to solving problems and getting stuff done.

I really enjoy this guy videos; he was my youtube channel while I was deployed in the desert Thank you for making my 6 months a little less stressful.

I've known this channel since you made the original pygame tutorial series... been a long time with a lot of improvement. Love the content and glad to know you're fully commited to it.

you did a good job on making a youtube channel, i would be upset i had written only an export to pdf/html feature -- especially if i were talented. this reads more of a justification of your actions rather than account for what an average individual would have. either or, good on you for communication -- if you're an engineer, get hyped to build things, imo, do the degree, do the math, and innovate

Hi Tim, I really enjoyed this style of video. I'm majoring in biology and minoring in computer science. I was feeling quite discouraged sometime ago because the free resources online seemed better than what I was being offered at university, and I was seeing really how little course information applied to my job, etc. But I've decided to complete the minor because I think it will provide a little bit of credibility.

Keep it up Tim!!! :) hugs from Chile :D

Dang that really surprises me, good job man.

It works out because you have another passion for making videos. It's a blessing to discover your calling. Most people run through the course of their lives without ever find out their true passion. You did great.

i like your perspective Tim but you have a successful KZfaq channel and have a lot of weight with your name where as i do not most people here do not and probably wouldn't get the same opportunity's , il continue the academic route and see how things go for me :)

This was me a couple years ago. I got lucky and landed an internship which landed me a full time job. The boss didn't care if I had a degree or not he just saw that my work ethic and skills was good. I learned more in a week at that job than an entire semester of a class. I plan on finishing my last year sometime in the future but right now I'm better off without school breathing down my neck.

I really love your videos. I started also to watch your Machine Learning Videos. Can you also do a Cython Tutorial? :)

All the best for your future brother

I spent my 3 years in compsci repeating classes on semester break, and got randomly placed in internships outside my expertive I really hate. When everyone wants to work in banks or popular startups, I used to have this goal to learn Unity 2D and pixel art, work in an indie game studio and maybe publish my own games on Steam, but at this point I'll be lucky to have the will to graduate before unaliving myself

Sir u are doing very well! Keep going

This was great insight Tim. I'm currently in a similar situation myself and this gave me some food for thought. Haha I actually went to school with you. Don't know if you remember me but I lived in Thompson. 🍃

I dropped out of design college, worked for a few years and then went back to university to do computer science. Nearly at the end, just gotta wrap up my project and a couple of exams and then done. I almost gave up a few times but it's opened up a lot of new areas to me. Was it hard, yes. Was it worth it? I think so. Would I do it again? I really don't know. Thanks for all the videos, I often referred to you when I was stuck...and I was stuck a lot!

Thank you! 😘 this is realy inspiring

Generally speaking I would say that dropping out of uni can be a good idea if there is a legit reason for doing so. In your case, Tim, there was certainly a legit reason to do so. I started a CS education in 2020, and since then I have started my own company in the software development field. I found myself working from the morning to the evening every day on my startup and quickly realized that there was not enough time for me to continue my education if I wanted to make my company work. The thing is, as long as you are doing something productive that you are enjoying, dropping out of school is fine in my opinion. The time you spent in school is not wasted time, it’s time spent learning things and making connections. For me this is just the beginning of my journey, and it is entirely possible that I will go back to university and complete my education, but I am certain I will not feel like I have wasted any time no matter what happens, as long as I always feel like what I’m doing is productive.

Great video! Thanks for sharing and giving us an update on how you feel. *Question*: Do you think that going into the degree was the right choice at the time? Sort of like diversifying your portfolio until it became more clear which path was best for you (completing the degree or pursuing your business etc. full time)? Or (if you were to do it over again) would you have preferred to avoid it altogether?

Hi Tim, I dropped out too and you are absolutely right about it. In many cases a college degree is a waste of time and money and there are many places to learn about Computer Science, like your Channel. As long as you are doing what you like that's what matters and it's great that you make a living of it.