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OSSU: Path to a free, self-taught education in computer science

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Re: OSSU: Path to a free, self-taught education in computer science

#101

Post by throwawaygh »

thereddaikon wrote: post #86
ericmay wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education and certification are decoupled. The problem is employers insist on the certifications. So why bother educating yourself with the same material and not just getting the certification at the same time? It’s more profitable that way if your goal is to get a job. If you want to just learn, there are no practical barriers for most people.

Formal education and certification are definitely not decoupled. You learn at the same university that gives you the degree. While I agree with the above that having them under the same roof can cause a conflict of interest. But we also know for a fact that having them decoupled can cause serious problems as well. For one you end up with brain dumps that study for the cert and not for the subject matter. We see this…

> You learn at the same university that gives you the degree.

In the United States, this certification happens at the institutional level. Universities are either accredited by either a regional body (good) or a national body (not so good). The accreditation process requires demonstrating that you have competent faculty, that these faculty have designed a reasonable curriculum from each of your degree programs, that the courses taught as part of that curriculum cover appropriate material, and that students are at least nominally assessed.

In addition to accreditation, there's also a reputation effect among employers. We know which of the universities in our region have strong CS programs, and which ones are not so strong. And there's a reason that employers prefer CS students from places like CMU/MIT/Stanford/Berkley/UIUC/etc. The names aren't just names -- those institutions have exceptional CS programs. I'm sure a student slips through the cracks here or there, but the median student from those institutions is almost certainly going to at least have a good background in CS.

> But we also know for a fact that having them decoupled can cause serious problems as well. For one you end up with brain dumps that study for the cert and not for the subject matter. We see this for MCSE as much as the SAT.

Frankly, I think the decouple-and-test model is substantially worse than the accreditation model. Have you seen the contents of the Computer Science subject area GRE? It's from the 1980s. The AP CS exam and model curricula aren't that much better -- definitely not what I would expect out of a CS 1 student at any decent university. In fact, I can't think of a single formal exam in CS that's actually a decent signal of even basic CS knowledge, let alone engineering skill.

Re: OSSU: Path to a free, self-taught education in computer science

#102

Post by randomdata »

galoisgirl wrote: post #92
thereddaikon wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Formal education and certification are definitely not decoupled. You learn at the same university that gives you the degree. While I agree with the above that having them under the same roof can cause a conflict of interest. But we also know for a fact that having them decoupled can cause serious problems as well. For one you end up with brain dumps that study for the cert and not for the subject matter. We see this…

Well, someone has to certify the university. They wouldn't stay certified long if they just gave diplomas to anything with a pulse.

As a Canadian, the most educated nation in the world, we do pretty much give diplomas to anything with a pulse. It doesn't affect school credibility, it merely pushes people to feel like they need even higher levels of formal education to compete.

Re: OSSU: Path to a free, self-taught education in computer science

#103

Post by [deleted] »

heenrik wrote: post #40

As someone who teaches Human-Computer Interaction in a CS program, I find it odd that there are no HCI topics on that list. Especially, when they say it's a "complete education in computer science". Perhaps it's a matter of tradition etc., but some basic knowledge about HCI might be useful ;) I'm not surprised, but still, Bush, Licklider, Engelbart, Weiser, Kay, Victor etc. are all about HCI...

[deleted]

Re: OSSU: Path to a free, self-taught education in computer science

#104

Post by ericmay »

throwawaygh wrote: post #101
thereddaikon wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Formal education and certification are definitely not decoupled. You learn at the same university that gives you the degree. While I agree with the above that having them under the same roof can cause a conflict of interest. But we also know for a fact that having them decoupled can cause serious problems as well. For one you end up with brain dumps that study for the cert and not for the subject matter. We see this…

> You learn at the same university that gives you the degree. In the United States, this certification happens at the institutional level. Universities are either accredited by either a regional body (good) or a national body (not so good). The accreditation process requires demonstrating that you have competent faculty, that these faculty have designed a reasonable curriculum from each of your degree programs, that…

> In the United States, this certification happens at the institutional level. Universities are either accredited by either a regional body (good) or a national body (not so good). The accreditation process requires demonstrating that you have competent faculty, that these faculty have designed a reasonable curriculum from each of your degree programs, that the courses taught as part of that curriculum cover appropriate material, and that students are at least nominally assessed.

Yes, I'm aware of accreditation and the process. I've served on a department advisory board for about 5 years now and have seen the process via ABET first hand. I hate to disappoint you, but these accreditation agencies are box-checkers and they don't do too much other than publish some guidelines and look at course material. The university could lose the accreditation and teach the same stuff and nothing would really change for students - in a vacuum student outcomes would be exactly the same except that as you mention...

> there's also a reputation effect among employers.

This has not much to do with accreditation. CMU, MIT, Stanford, etc... could lose their accreditation and nothing would change for the university. Their reputation is far stronger than the governing body. The exceptional programs that are there exist without consideration to ABET. It's just not meaningful. If they said "we are no longer complying with ABET" (at least for engineering) it would discredit ABET and not the university. Not all universities transcend this, but I'd say most brand name ones do (Ohio State, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, etc.). I'd bet a survey of employers and students would show very little knowledge of the existence of many of these accreditation bodies. It's just a battle not worth fighting professors over, and the accreditation bodies don't look too hard because why kill the golden goose? Everybody just winks at each other. I guess think about accreditation bodies as insurance.

Anyway, that's just my take on these accreditation bodies. I'm sure some are better and some are worse.

But my main point was that education itself is decoupled from certification. The employers (as you mentioned) care about certification, but that is the degree from the prestigious university, not whether ABET says that the curriculum meets some standard. You can learn computer science or any other topic to a high degree of proficiency, but employers still care about the certification. So you might as well just get the certification if you care about education as a means to a job.

Re: OSSU: Path to a free, self-taught education in computer science

#105

Post by foolinaround »

ganafagol wrote: post #89
j45 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self directed learning is an invaluable skill for anyone, credential or not.

While that's true, most of the valuable employees have 1 top skill: communication. That's neither trained nor witnessed by having gone through 2 years of I-did-this-alone-at-home.

Does the 4 year education in college improve that skill better?

Most likely, the self-taught person is also doing some other job, etc as well. So, he is managing a tougher-than-normal schedule, and communication/planning comes into play for sure.

Re: OSSU: Path to a free, self-taught education in computer science

#106

Post by austincheney »

ganafagol wrote: post #88
austincheney wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody looks at grades unless you are a fresh graduate with nothing else to populate on a resume.

With less than 5 years of experience it's definitely a factor. If your straight Cs and B- and only have 3 years in some junior role, you're really not prio 1 interview material.

Then all my interviews (and coworkers) imply a radically different experience. Education is just one or optional lines on a resume that nobody looks at. You don't need a CS degree (or any degree at all) to be a developer.

Re: OSSU: Path to a free, self-taught education in computer science

#107

Post by zeepzeep »

actually_a_dog wrote: post #98
lrvick wrote: post #94

Was disappointed to see that an open source education project requires one to accept the terms of service of a proprietary, centralized, and privacy adverse service like Discord to be able to communicate with others. This makes it hard to recommend to others. I don't understand this trend.

In what way is Discord particularly privacy averse?

There's a feature that they scan your messages for abusive content, so it's surely not encrypted as they can read every private message

Re: OSSU: Path to a free, self-taught education in computer science

#108

Post by foolinaround »

switchb4 wrote: post #27
alexeldeib wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alienation from? The academic community? I question whether those are the folks this content targets.

Yes alienation from the academic community

that does not seem to be the primary intention of the creators.

Even if it is a side-effect, who cares?

Re: OSSU: Path to a free, self-taught education in computer science

#110

Post by ericmay »

randomdata wrote: post #102
galoisgirl wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, someone has to certify the university. They wouldn't stay certified long if they just gave diplomas to anything with a pulse.

As a Canadian, the most educated nation in the world, we do pretty much give diplomas to anything with a pulse. It doesn't affect school credibility, it merely pushes people to feel like they need even higher levels of formal education to compete.

> As a Canadian, the most educated nation in the world

> we do pretty much give diplomas to anything with a pulse

What's the metric for being the most educated nation? 'Cause ya know if it's "most diplomas per capita" or something and you freely give them out... we might want to rethink that lol.

Just something to think about I guess

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