Tim Cook explains why you don’t need a college degree to be successful

Personal experience on this. My degree (physics) was nearly completely orthogonal to my career (software engineer).

But I have no doubt it helped me get not just my first job, but also subsequent ones, probably due to 'his code/tech talk could be better, but he seems smart and has a physics doctorate from a prestigious institution'.

Think software hiring+quality would be much better if we had an apprecticeship culture, instead of based on perceived prestige from excelling at University.

I've met a disturbing amount of employers who love coding schools because they provide underpaid code monkeys.

IMO, things must change if we are to survive future obstacles.

tl;dr: This advice is unhelpful in reality if hiring/recruiting/mentoring practices do not change. There are many talented people without degrees, but I feel that current practices throw hay on the needle pile. In the end, companies care about the bottom line––anything else is in support thereof.

--rant-- I am currently at a large university in the bay area. The competition is pretty tough. "CS" is a heavily impacted major and many schools have instituted gpa caps (while simultaneously espousing that equity and equality are of utmost importance).

So what are we all competing for exactly? I am not sure. I do not like the system; as it stands now it often feels like we are all competing for some sort of raffle ticket that we can then go door to door––company to company––asking "did I win," "did I win?" Many of my peers are confused as to why I dislike a system that we are benefiting from. My answer is that it seems off––something just doesn't feel right.

Companies save time and money, by not only feeding off of university pipelines, but also avoiding many smaller schools. I can understand the rationale. They seek skills––algorithmic and programming ability––perhaps also the ability to adhere to a factory environment.

I can see the rigor gap between my coursework and that of my friends at various other universities. I witness many talented students who struggle to find internships. I also see many students with tons of algorithmic ability, but cannot begin on a project of their own or contribute elsewhere.

I find it very odd that people (Tim or whoever) talk about not needing a 4-year degree, while possessing a 4-year degree. Likewise, as others have noticed, where are all of the mentoring programs?

To tell younger students that they do not need a 4-year degree is misguided if not negligent if not dangerous (that is under the assumption hiring/mentoring practices do not change).

I believe part of the problem is that Computer Science (or Software Engineer) has become the new "doctor"––except that you're out of the pipe in four years.

But of course, this (Tim's words) is just lip-service. What Cook and others actually mean may be two things––(1) they want talented people, period (2) they want to pacify those they will reject.

I agree with motohagiography, "there is no incentive for people with an education to criticize it." If I drop out and criticize the system, I'd probably be seen as "a sore loser." If I stay I am a cog.

I'd love if what Tim and others said was a truthful representation of reality. But the fact still remains, the fancy school name on my resume gets far more looks than a lesser-known school––what would it get if no school were listed? Hmmm, don't know. I do know that my linkedin profile got way more traffic when my school changed...

Lastly, I feel like Computer Science (and the degrees offered under this title) are meant to pipeline someone into a masters--->phd and not necessarily software engineering. You might be able to say that CS is a superset of software engineering, but even this is somewhat wrong.

I've been doing some soul searching lately and I'd appreciate advice. I see everyone in my community working so hard; for all the work to culminate in selling people things, ads, and maintaining the freemium-universe we live in seems... kind of dark. I know this isn't entirely the case, but yeah. --rant over--

Elison and Dell were nowhere near 1% types. Dell started Dell with money he earned selling newspapers and dropped out once it was making 6 figures while still operating from his dorm room. Ellison came from a messed up family situation, dropped out to work odd jobs, and ended up teaching himself programming dropped out and worked odd jobs before teaching himself to code.

Of course the environment changes over time. And so trying to create a business selling computers from your dorm room or moving to California planning to teach yourself to code and then [something] is probably not likely to work out so well. But I think the moral of these stories is often one of creativity and drive. Now teaching oneself programming is trite. When Ellison did so in the 70s, it was something extremely uncommon to do which meant it had vastly more value.

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In reality, I think our opinions are going to be driven by our experiences. In contrast to your experience, I've only ever even mentioned my degree for exactly one job. And that job very much did not require a degree. Since then I've found endless opportunity in spite of the fact I'm pretty much the embodiment of anti-networking: dumb phone, no social media, etc. But I enjoy development. Create one product that's impressive and useful, and it's like the world just opens up to you. A lesson I rather wished I'd learned about 15 years ago. But hey, something I can pass on to my kids - perhaps not so different than one William Gates who enlisted in the army right at school, served in WW2, went to college on the GI bill, and eventually had a somewhat more well known William.

In any case, it's always made me question the value of the degree. I came from a very poor family which means that sheet of paper had quite the price attached to it. And that was before prices really went into lala land.

What difference does that make? They aren't being asked for their opinions about the job market in the '80s. They're giving their opinion of this stuff as it exists today. But they also haven't had to look for a job in a quarter of a century and don't personally vet hires unless they're at the senior mgmt level.