A Guide for Adults Going to College

Could be that older people are less flexible. I mean, I've been a professional software developer on the forefront of new tech development for about 40 years. I can't seem to do anything else but learn new tech as it comes along and churn out successful products, so I guess I'm rigidly set in my ways.

It helps that I work remotely. Very few see my grey beard and get the chance to see how inflexible I am because of my age, so I get the respect due a younger person.

Those 100+ person classes are the biggest wastes of time though. You can self-organize around a book in a Facebook group and watch any top ivy league professor lecture through it.

The only reason to pay for college, the only value they have, is in the experience of the professors and what they can offer you one on one. Everything else is replicated outside the walls with far less effort than the cost of university.

Oxford and Cambridge. Probably a few other old unis in the UK.

I also went back as an adult. I felt like the semesters were too short if anything. The types in-depth projects we did in upper division classes needed 15 week semesters.

Even without the long projects, the vast majority of students in my CS and math classes couldn't have handled 2x the information. The shorter summer versions of hard classes always had a much higher fail rate.

At my university you could also take up to 21 hours if you had a good GPA, and you could go during the summer. If you could handle this, you could complete most degrees in 2.5 years.

I also didn't feel like my school treated me like a child, and 90% of my professors were fantastic.

When I had a class that covered a topic I was already familiar with, I used the opportunity to get even more familiar it with by tutoring, working on harder projects, and picking the professor's brain. I also took harder theoretical classes at every opportunity.

I worked as a programmer for almost a decade before i went back for CS, and I only had 2 classes that I thought were a waste of time (both practical non-theory classes taught by the same guy).

There's a problem with society, in the west, but I'll speak to the US specifically. My wife just received her Masters degree. Her and I have family that act as if life is hopeless. All ages. We tell them, "the schools aren't closed". The wishing upon a star has to stop with people. Take action. It's a culture in decline, and seeing how the school system directs my wife to not instill discipline in children, combined with the intrinsic low-wage push from capitalism without unions or worker's cooperatives, the entire US workforce will be eaten alive by the Indians and Chinese. It's almost guaranteed to continue, and has already happened.

A quick example on that, her school system (one of the largest in the nation) instructs her to let the kids who don't want to listen to a book to roll around, yell, play. Then she's to pull them aside later on and teach them one-on-one, while the rest are napping. That's not only disruptive, but it's not feasible. I think this culture change (it was not this way when I was in elementary in the 1980s), has doomed generations to wandering around the streets aimlessly. Possibly using drugs as so many are today, as immigrants come in and completely obliterate them from the job market. I'm not an immigrant but I say, let the strong survive and weaker cultures, like ours is becoming, collapse into mediocrity. The lucky ones who get the opportunity to turn it around later in life will be looking at "the guide for adults going to college" today, 1 year from now, 5 years from now, 50 years from now. My wife and I believe that you can't really learn without a baseline of discipline. There's enough distractions as it is and bad families to fight against.

Kids need guidance. They don't actually know anything. The people who let their kid choose a hamburger vs hot dog vs grilled cheese for 15 minutes in a fast food joint? That's a small example of the problem. A child doesn't know what he's even picking, or what he even likes. You give him something, you very strongly encourage him finish his food, and next time he may have a better idea on what he wants. That's a long-lost art of parenting in the west. Everyone treats children like they're 35 years old. Unless it's about going outside and playing, where they could truly learn about choices and consequences.

Second point, on the the "formal education is obsolete" crowd. I needed a bachelors degree and truly enjoyed the directed-learning experience, otherwise I'm self-taught. People like to say they're all self-taught, but people who also do school, do both. There's not additional real-world experience that you gleam because you don't go to school. It's nice to get evidence for your learning as well (a degree) and directed-learning is incredibly valuable, you're exposed to things that the vast majority won't expose themselves to otherwise. People who call for the end of traditional education because Youtube or websites exist are just wishing upon a star that things get easier.

Further on formal education, community college is amazing. I also have an Associate of Applied Science degree. In fact, if I were to do it all over again, I would likely pick electrician/HVAC/plumbing/welding for my AA/AS and get a BA in Education or BS in CompSci, to really cover being employable. I've spent a lifetime programming, and truly benefited from some online sources as well, especially Pluralsight, though most instructors there are well-vetted professionals, many authors there are not the best in designing coursework. Purposefully checking into algorithms and some of the math behind it all was also helpful. That's where lack of an education background causes one to fall apart, people online do not know about how to educate, and you don't know what you don't know to even look into, and why traditional directed education is as relevant as ever.

A third thing people miss, if you care about the best learning experience. Many people seek a degree to get a job, it doesn't earn you a job or even make you employable, it earns you credibility. I wouldn't go to school unless you have a thirst for learning, because to put it to work in a beyond mediocre fashion, will require continuous learning.