Completing a computer science degree on Coursera

- If it's about gaining a deep understanding of the topic involved for the pursuit of knowledge, it's science or engineering.

- If it's about manipulating people, it's politics.

You still need a bachelor's to gain admission to that.

There are other options for online CS bachelor's programs (WGU is the most famous).

> Nowadays I wouldn't recommend anyone to get a tech degree in a university unless it's a world class one. And even then, I would focus on networking and finding like-minded people rather than necessarily getting good grades.

I am a teenager and I am currently going to college. I am not going into a world class one college but its a decent college.

I think that you might be right in terms of pretty much everything in tech is on-the-job learning, but the rationale behind going to a bachelor's college is that as someone else has said here: you all are treated equally and companies come to select you. So you are competing in a much smaller pool and are able to stand out much more.

Also, I get 4 years to do what I do best so much so that I did it these 2 years as well, I just can't resist myself because I have tried to do so I just love tinkering with computers and this also puts me up to an comparatively decent advantage.

Sure, there might be some rote-learning and some things which are a bit theoretical but they might also be practical. I was learning on my own a month ago IIRC about what the 7 layers are and I am probably going to read some on my own time before going to college the book of "networking a top down approach"

This has given me 4 years to do the things that I like, the job market right now is a bit not too good but reading books about history of the dot com bubble etc. I feel decently confident that its very cyclical. Just reading the book of "how the internet happened" made me realize all the similarities with things happening right now. Every 20 years, a new generation happens and we forget the old things which have happened (IMO).

That being said, I am unsure about 11 years of the free time at the same time but honestly, it really just depends upon your subjective nature and personal preference and for someone genuinely interested within research... it could be an interesting path. I am open to every opportunity that comes in front of me and wish to try my best :-D

> Nowadays I wouldn't recommend anyone to get a tech degree in a university unless it's a world class one. And even then, I would focus on networking and finding like-minded people rather than necessarily getting good grades.

Networking is a multiplier. You realize the ability of multiplier because you have the base-line. Were you able to form the base-line because of the time spent within those 11 years, partially yes, and other comes from your natural interests and curiosity judging from the fact that you are on Hackernews for the sake of it itself.

Would a person with the strongest of networks but failing to have the baselines of (technical & managerial?) tastes/intellect and just this feeling of learning be able to do something with networking. Absolutely, people are using these top grade colleges as just a way to network and so there is a lot of froth/hype in the market. Theo Baker (a 22 year old journalist who lived in stanford) has written a book about it ("How to rule the world")

I still think that its interesting that they get to become the startup owner at such an young age and there are benefits but also tradeoffs and realizing both of these is important and making the decision wisely is important. I do envy them in some sense as well but also not so, its nuanced! and I wish them all success hopefully :-D (and I think one should keep the options open), If an opportunity comes for me to open an startup say even within college and upon proper careful thinking I get the answer to be a serious yes, I will try to follow that as well :-D

but my main point is that after a particular point in life: the multiplier feels much more important than baseline but before that, the baseline is just as important if not more, so I will try to get good grades hopefully if interests align with the subjects which I think they do.

From my understanding of the world, the world is nuanced and complicated so there isn't one size fits all so its best to keep your options around and do what you feel rationally so but rationality can also only go so far so it also depends a bit on the emotions involved and many other factors but we can't also think infinitely in recursion for everything so we need to have good instincts and ability to think deeply when needed and basically being adaptable to the situation thus me suggesting that there might not be one size fits all.

These are the talks that I have had with myself over the conflict that I myself had over going to college or not and some reasons behind going to do so, so I do realize my bias in that and I am not entirely an unbiased source but perhaps a truthful source. It so much depends on the situation of the person to decide if they should go to college or not and all factors involved imo.

Have a nice day if someone has read it till here and take care! :-D

You already have a lot of replies here and the comment is provably divisive. I'll toss in that while only you can judge whether it was truly a waste of time, a lot of that factors in how you used it. If it benefited you in interview material understanding, increased the probability that you could extend your network with someone, or other somewhat intangible signals then I'd say it wasn't as much of a waste as you say.

I have no degree and that is arguably worse and there are exceedingly fewer people with my background in technology on the coast. On the other hand, I spent a lot of my career writing applications that solved Software Operations problems. I spent a lot of time working in small teams rather than huge ones, I often did not have product or project support. I used to loathe that chapter of my career because of how toilsome it was in my memory. Lately I've come to appreciate it a lot more because I am much more self reliant and I often have the skills and familiarity to run much larger teams as a tenured engineer.

Long way of saying, the value of an experience or thing is often not immediately realized or appreciated.

Same experience. "Is school worth it" is divisive because it speaks to people's investment and value system. I too have a full and successful career in software without any degree largely for the same reason you mentioned: I learned the hard way and continued to show up.

Earned experience is objectively valuable. The problem is people don't want to be fools so "working hard" looks suspect when you see plenty of people do well because of network and social aspects.

When it comes to school, there's obvious value in the social/status/network aspects and debatable value in the actual content, but what I find most discussion worthy is how one's background shapes mentality toward "putting in the work" when there's no explicit reward for said work.

The simple difference is that school promises you results. One at least leaves with a paper that's supposed to be worth something. Doing anything else, provides no such guarantees.