A CS degree is better than teaching yourself how to code?

> If the goal of a university was research it wouldn’t have any undergraduate students and it probably wouldn’t teach Master’s students either. Some external organization would educate future researchers and then they’d hire them.

What makes you think that the best way of training future researchers isn't having the current researchers train them? This is the model currently used across most universities I think. As part of my degree, I was taught entirely by people who are active researchers in their fields.

> For the huge majority of university students that means they’re at university because they need a degree to get a job.

Yes, and I'd argue this is a negative trait. People should be going to university because they want to learn a thing, not because it's a necessary hoop to jump through to work in a field (unless that field is academia). Fields that require specialist education (law/medicine/etc) already have specialist institutions that do this vocational training.

> The median college graduate might be capable of doing a Master’s degree but there is no way more than 10% of those who matriculates as university students are capable of becoming researchers if that.

But how does the university find that 10%? You presumably can't select effectively, so what better way than to run a 3-4 year program for those who are interested to see if they remain interested enough and are good enough to become a researcher. It doesn't have to have a high conversion rate to be effective.

I hear you, but I've also been around the block enough times in my career to see the awful consequences of designing some feature, breaking it into a few Agile "stories", coding it up, then unlocking an enormous reservoir of down stream complexity that only becomes apparent later... And no degree of making new stories or bugs can put a lid on it because there's no model underneath it -- its just an increasing amount of ad hoc code (however well-programmed: unit tested, peer reviewed, CI/CD-ed).

In almost all these cases, developing a simple model grounded in some kind of common CS formalism, playing with the idea, and then explicitly constructing the system around that model would have made the application much more understandable, with a lot fewer mysteries, and reliably used by the customer in much less time. Even small systems containing simple logic, with a few input and outputs, can yield extremely complex emergent behavior (Game of Life being first obvious example).

The path of my career took a rather unorthodox route, so I can see both sides of the argument here. I’m a graphic design dropout (completed two different tech schools and took art, fashion marketing, business and philosophy courses at a local community college, before going to a proper university at 21, completed a year, moved home when my father got cancer and started freelancing) who never intended to become a developer, but a developer I am (have built and managed a large-ish team of other developers and designers [~60 or so globally] and have done fairly well for myself). I can see the value of a university education, but can also see the validity of those who go a different route (whether by choice or circumstance).

What I thoroughly enjoyed about college was the depth of study with dedicated time to go into foundational principles, and meeting and working with people far more talented than I am. But would I pay for that privilege if I had to foot the bill? Probably not, or I’d choose much more frugally.

I get the feeling from a lot of the “school is unnecessary” arguments here is that to some degree we fashion ourselves as Good Will Hunting’s who can make it just fine. And there probably are actually quite a few here.

There’s a quote I love, “Money makes happy people happier and unhappy people unhappier”. I feel like the same could be said about a college education. A passionate learner will find it rewarding in ways that the average student wouldn’t, or even a bored student may squander but feel entitled to a position in life because they got a degree, but I think a passionate and humble learner will probably end up doing well no matter the route they take.

For me, the reason I even got into developing was because, ultimately, it's the act of creation and building that I enjoy, and both design and software engineering allow me to accomplish that in a way I find rewarding.

I've known folks who graduated with either a BA in graphic design or a BS in computer science, and with some of them, my self learning, both on a fundamental principle learning level and on an execution level surpasses them. But of course, I know many who are passionate about their field and just blow me out of the water. And I've known autodidacts that also blow me out of the water creatively and on a skill level. So I believe ultimately, the final mix is really a result of raw talent, hard work, and a passion for what you're learning.

I also think some of the "you must get a degree" arguments miss the value of just pure, raw dogged persistence. I've had people with masters degrees in CS tell me I'm a genius simply because I banged my head against a problem until it cracked (the problem, and my head to some degree ;). I don't say that egotistically, because I know that had I had a more formal and dedicated education, those problems would have probably resulted in less time with me banging my head against them, and the scope of problems I could apply that persistence to would be greater. But if you choose to go for a shorter route, you will have to work harder in the end, both to compensate in the eyes of those hiring, and doing your own study and learning to actually get to the level you want, and even then, being self taught really only gets you so far.

Ultimately, it really comes down to, what do you want out of this life?

I honestly can't see myself being content with only doing software engineering or design. That's both a strength and a definite weakness that I am constantly battling with.

There are some other soft aspects not really mentioned in this article or the comments that I do feel you miss when you're self taught.

One for sure is that not having a degree feeds into Imposter Syndrome. You can honestly far exceed others with dedicated degrees but no passion, yet some part of you and your experience will eat away at those accomplishments (of course, this could be purely personal, but anecdotally, I've heard it from other self-starters).

Another is that there is a danger, until you get amongst people who knock your socks off, that you'll feed into your own Dunning-Kruger effect. It's incredibly easy to absorb knowledge on your own and assume you're God's gift to insert skill here until you are surrounded by people who excel in ways that you don't and struggle in ways that you don't. But the autodidact is very often surrounded by people who aren't in their chosen field and so it's very easy to seem far more competent. I would say that this definitely is addressed by learning on the job, provided you luck out and learn on the job from truly brilliant people.

These things are definitely not solved by having a degree (I think the internet and open source have really been a boon to many in addressing the second downside as well).

The other soft skills mentioned in the article are just flat out not true inherently. I've known people with varying levels of degrees who are atrocious communicators and their spelling and writing skills are ridiculously bad, and had them literally use the fact that they have a degree as a proof that they're a-ok in those regards. Being able to communicate clearly, being able to communicate expectations and meet deadlines and promises (or summing it up, clarity of communication and integrity) are things that most colleges definitely don't require in order to pass.

Like the other comments here, this is all purely anecdotal and going off of my own experience, so if I could sum it up in a way of how would I advise a family member to go forward, in general terms? I'd tell them to get the degree, hands down, if that's an option for them.

But there are so many other factors that for them specifically, I may recommend skipping the degree altogether and get to work on building something they love.

I honestly think there is value in either course that you don't get with the other.

Agreed. The main point is that a CS degree is not a proxy for success in all things that require code. I like to keep in mind that a BS in CS only demonstrates the ability to study, memorize and be quized on your memory. Using a set of axioms to build something unique is totally different.

Why was this article even posted? Sure, this is a debatable topic, but the quality of this article is... lacking. Waste of time read, though thankfully not much.