home
table of contents
humor
Math & Computers
July 2003
email

Twenty reasons why hackers do not graduate from cs

  1. A hacker is interested in pushing the edge of the envelope; CS curricula are designed to keep you well within its limits.
  2. Any one who is willing to sacrifice hack time to passing courses lacks true hacker dedication.
  3. CS courses teach you what can be done with a computer; hackers make computers do things that can’t be done.
  4. CS majors prepare you for a profitable career in software; hackers could care less about profitable careers.
  5. The principle value of a college degree is to demonstrate to prospective employers that you can complete a long term project under external discipline; hackers are not amenable to external discipline.
  6. To graduate from college you must accept [appear to accept] external values supplied by your academic institution of choice; hackers have their own set of values.
  7. Colleges will waste your time with courses that are irrelevant to hacking; a good hacker will not be diverted by irrelevancies.
  8. Hacking is the spirit of play taken to the limit; college is work undertaken in the preparation for a lifetime of work.
  9. College professors are not hackers.
  10. Colleges are mundane environments that do not appreciate the true beauty of hacking.
  11. Dungeons and Dragons is not in the core curriculum.
  12. Colleges expect you to have a social life.
  13. Colleges are filled with non-hackers.
  14. Colleges have courses at odd times like daylight hours.
  15. Colleges conduct their courses in obscure, non-hackish languages like English.
  16. A hacker has a true sense of values; another hour at the terminal is much more important than passing a test.
  17. Computer Science courses do not teach you how to find really neat holes in the operating system and how to exploit them.
  18. Mel didn’t have a college degree.
  19. Computer Science is filled with boring stuff that mostly doesn’t have any thing to do with hacking.
  20. Richard Stallman doesn’t have a CS degree.


This page was last updated July 1, 2003.

home
table of contents
humor
Math & Computers
July 2003
email