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College was my biggest mistake

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Re: College was my biggest mistake

#61

Post by sillysaurus »

ulyssesgrant wrote: post #56
sillysaurus wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am well versed in theory and know how computers work down to the semiconductor level. (An aside: I am eternally grateful to Feynman for his wonderful book on that subject.) Incidentally, I dropped out of high school my Junior year after I landed a programming internship at a local game studio. I have a GED. I would say I'm capable of being put to work on any software project in any domain and in short order attain…

Like many people have said, this is very anecdotal. Not all drop outs are as motivated or as capable as you seem to be. At the same time, neither are all college graduates. However, graduating from a top 5 cs program will at least ensure that you have learned a good deal of information from a wide variety of topics in computer science.

Graduating from a top 5 cs program will at least ensure that you have learned a good deal of information from a wide variety of topics in computer science.

As will books: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/315/books/list.html

It's been my experience that the most capable members of a team have all shared a passion for learning combined with open mind. The fact that the top schools tend to select for those traits have led people to conflate credentials with excellence.

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#62

Post by slurgfest »

marknutter wrote: post #38
suresk wrote: post #24

Not getting a CS education was my biggest mistake. I got most of a Finance degree, then dropped out when I ran out of money and found out people would pay decent money to a relatively inexperienced programmer. I'm happy with the way things have turned out for me career-wise - I think I'm a pretty competent developer and have a decent income and good future prospects - but I feel like there are opportunities that I'm…

I'm fine with anti-college sentiment as long as it's not anti-learning sentiment. College and structured, traditional, classroom based learning works for some people and it slows others down. All of the material learn in a CS degree can't be learned independently outside of college. Any benefit college gives to a person is going to be subjective and highly anecdotal, like "professor interaction" or being around like-…

I don't know that anyone says it is the "only" way. The real claim is that college offers a significant advantage which it would be foolish to turn down.

Hard to say how most High School students would be able to accurately gauge that college would be useless for them ahead of time, except if they already couldn't handle academics.

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#63

Post by drivebyacct2 »

I'm so tired of these articles from people that didn't even make it in college who are so proud to proclaim what a waste college is. Or that having skills means getting a job.

I knew rails and linux and a half a dozen other things and had built a product for a client before graduating highschool. I also lived in the middle of no-where in the Midwest.

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#64

Post by ek »

I am currently receiving an education in computer science with the intent to pursue a Ph.D. following graduation. I grow somewhat tired of all this anti-college talk - at the bike shop a while back, the worker asked what I was majoring in, I told him CS, and he asked if getting a college degree was really worth it, as if he thought it wasn't. Yes, it's worth it if what you plan to do is go to grad school or enter academia. It's worth it because it's the only feasible way to do this. It's worth it because my current presence on a university campus gives me opportunities for research and for invaluable interactions with faculty and fellow students.

I understand that the backlash is mostly driven by the observation that increasingly, people are pursuing expensive college degrees only to end up working at Starbucks, simply because they have been made to believe that it is in some way "the thing to do". But college is still worth it and a good idea for a great many types of people, not the least of which are programmers (as distinct from computer scientists). An education in CS is almost certainly one of the best things someone who hopes to be a programmer can obtain.

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#65

Post by GFKjunior »

sunwooz wrote: post #21
hotshothenry wrote: post #16

I feel like everything I read nowadays on this topic has had the tone of "don't go to college it's a waste of time" etc etc. While I agree it's definitely not for everybody, I don't agree with it being a waste of time or that nobody should go to school (even if you're not pursue a career a law/medicine/etc). I have self-taught myself everything I've learned in software engineering, beginning in middle school when I p…

I believe that going to college is worth it if you're being selectively taught by the top 1%. The rest of the 99%? Forget about it-- you can learn more with an internet connection.

Yes I came in to say something similar. I would of absolutely loved to attend MIT or Stanford but went a shoddy 3rd tier state school. All this talk about research opportunities and connections with renown professors does not apply to students in universities not in the top ~50. Modern universities are extended high schools with more parties and social events than actual studying.

I think if you can get into a Carnegie Melon or Harvard then you should definitely attend, but there are over 2500 universities in the US. I, like many others, did not have any direction in high school and ended up attending a local state school where most of the professors were grad students more preoccupied with their own course load than with their students being able to understand the material.

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#66

Post by tkahn6 »

enjo wrote: post #26
tkahn6 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, most people who didn't go to college can't write a blog post like yours. I'm fairly certain this has more to do with the average type of person that doesn't go to college rather than any causal link between Freshman Composition and good writing skills.

Do you really believe that a collegiate level composition class doesn't improve writing skills at least a little bit?

That's somewhat of a straw man. I have no doubt it improves writing skills at least a little bit on average. I contend that it doesn't make a difference in any absolute sense.

I received AP credit and thus passed out of Freshman Composition so my experience is slightly different. In my AP class, everyone's writing skills improved but no one who was a bad writer became a good writer.

If you ask any author the most effective way to become a better writer they'll tell you to read. Most people don't like to read and thus (I believe there is a causal link here) most people are bad writers. It takes much more than two semesters of Freshman Comp. to radically improve ones writing skills. Quality writing is something that you internalize over many years.

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#68

Post by dinkumthinkum »

marknutter wrote: post #52
scottjad wrote: post #27

Classes didn’t hold my attention- I could teach myself more in an afternoon than I would learn in a 10-week class. If this were true then you would have spent four afternoons learning Calculus, Business, Communications, and Databases, and another four afternoons showing up for the finals, and you would have gotten a 3.0 instead of a 0.3.

Provide those subjects could hold his/her attention, which is really the qualifier there. OP taught themselves rails and bootstrapped themselves into a $70k+ job in a matter of months. I'd say that took as much effort as passing a few introductory courses in your average public college.

Yeah but that's probably just a purely theoretical concept; let's be honest. It's like saying "I could be Einstein or Newton if I just found physics interesting." It's just kind of self-serving. I don't think learning RoR to get a $60K job is that much effort. There are many "programmers" that make six figures that don't know anything ... and then this is like something is unique to our industry and may not hold for so long. I mean, good for him, no ill will, but let's be honest.

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#69

Post by scoith »

Lol! "I could teach myself more in an afternoon than I would learn in a 10-week class." Really genius? "Calculus B: F" Any it says repeated! Why didn't you take five afternoons and graduate then?

It is a well-known fact that becoming a "high-level" web programmer doesn't require brains or a degree. Now this post makes it clear that, even such people who miserably fail to get a degree can write PHP programs and Javascript.

Re: College was my biggest mistake

#70

Post by gorloth »

chasing wrote: post #15

Sorry -- I don't like these kinds of posts. They just incite the same sort of college-vs-no-college debate I've heard a million times. I think there's some kind of "hacker" pride that makes people act as if not attending college is "bucking the system" or circumventing some dumb thing the Man tells you that you have to do in order to succeed. It's not. One size doesn't fit all. If not going to college works better --…

I completely agree with the sentiment about high college costs, the state school I went to cost ~44k for all four years, add in various scholarships (some of which I got as I'm pretty sure I was the only person to apply for them) and internships and I graduated college with no debt and more money than I started. Going to college does not necessitate taking on crushing debt, it just requires some extra legwork and picking a school that more fits your budget.
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