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Do You Really Have to Go to College?

thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com

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Re: Do You Really Have to Go to College?

#21

Post by dinkumthinkum »

We sure never see this topic on HN. :) Of course you don't have to go. And of course, getting stuck working in the restaurant business until you're 40 because you started working their because it was quick money out of high school and easier than going to college is always an option too.

Now, lest anyone get the wrong idea I do not mean to imply that one path leads to the other. But also, please let's not pretend that Gates and Zuckerberg are "typical" college dropouts either. Maybe, the restaurant kids are more common than Gates type people, eh?

-- Anyway, seriously, if you are a recent HS grad and choose not to go to college and instead decide to give Devbootcamp $12,200 for an RoR course ... I'm sure they have a nice product ... But I will also like to contact you regarding the small matter of a bridge I would like to sell.

Re: Do You Really Have to Go to College?

#22

Post by dinkumthinkum »

chacham15 wrote: post #15

I understand and possible agree with the general idea, but I feel that this article takes it way overboard. If you want to talk about coding use statistics relevant to coders, not general statistics. > Furthermore, some recent college graduates are not faring too well in the job market. This is not true in my experience for coders. Go to silicon valley and therell be many startups vying to get your attention. > If yo…

Well, and what happens to all these people that have basically just learned programming from a couple blogs or a RoR bootcamp/YouTube when the market is flooded? The article very, stupidly, if I may use that term, implies that programming is a panacea to solving the "job" problem. It loves to tout silicon valley is the savior of the workforce; but isn't this also the same valley that we know and love of articles discussing extreme Logan's Run style ageism? So combine a bubble awash of programmers with very simple skills combined with the fact that humans tend to start at a certain age and increment from there, and stir in ageism and you don't seem to have a great solution to the employment problem. Just being honest about it.

Re: Do You Really Have to Go to College?

#23

Post by dinkumthinkum »

jgh wrote: post #5

What is with all of the anti-college articles that the New York Times publishes? Almost every time I see one come up it's inevitably a NYT article.

It seems a bit ironic given their audience. So they are basically advocating for a reduction in their future subscriber base. Interesting tact. :)

Re: Do You Really Have to Go to College?

#24

Post by dinkumthinkum »

contingencies wrote: post #7
busterarm wrote: post #4

Also, if you have any interest in relocating to other countries, a degree is in most cases a requirement.

Incorrect. This only applies to professionally acquired visas. To get what you want out of visa systems, as with any other system, it pays to consider some of the viable alternatives: subsidised skills areas (exceptions to professional work visa requirements), family and relationship based visas, investment visas, retirement visas, tourism visas where you are not working just receiving offshore income. Persistence is…

You said several words here but nothing really contradicted the parent. The parent is correct. Are there some difficult exceptions, sure, but these are ... exceptions. If you don't believe, see the gigantically complicated chart for getting a green card in the U.S. I guess, game, set, match?

Re: Do You Really Have to Go to College?

#25

Post by dinkumthinkum »

zanny wrote: post #20
M4v3R wrote: post #16

I was disappointed with the article, because the title led be to believe, that there is some college that will teach Go in their classes.

Many colleges in the upper level electives will let you use whatever language you want, but if the prof doesn't know it don't expect help. I was using Scala in my game programming class instead of Java like everyone else (since the projects were targeting the JVM, I couldn't assume any other environment be present, and I had done plenty of C/C++ elsewhere and wanted to try something new). I got an A, and the prof onl…

Students, and others in this industry in general, tend to make such a big deal about using the latest hyped languages. I think too much so. It's "impressive," I guess. Having a foundation in computer science means you understand that most of the concepts in these "new" languages have been well worn since the 60s, just packaged in new ways, incremental improvements. There's also something to be said, in my view, for Turing completeness. This is not anything about your story, just a related tangent.

Re: Do You Really Have to Go to College?

#26

Post by dinkumthinkum »

simonsarris wrote: post #6
radh wrote: post #2

I think this really only applies to coding and other skill-type jobs. This wouldn't work for finance, law, and other lucrative fields -- yet. I'd like to see some case studies on someone who walks into Wall Street without a degree. That'd be interesting.

Medical equipment salesman to E.F. Hutton training program to jail. Then: > With no experience, no college education, virtually no connections, and with the same casual outfit he had been wearing on the day he was taken into custody, Gardner gained a position in Dean Witter Reynolds’ stock brokerage training program. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Gardner ~~~~ "Mr. Wall Street" Sideny Weinberg began as a janitor'…

Well, and then there's this funny word, "anomaly." We all might as well cite Ramanujan as the quintessential reason why no one needs to go to college; why does anyone even bother with Gates and Zuckerberg? There just seems to be some basic statistics at work that people have difficulty grasping.

Re: Do You Really Have to Go to College?

#27

Post by jamesaguilar »

chacham15 wrote: post #15

I understand and possible agree with the general idea, but I feel that this article takes it way overboard. If you want to talk about coding use statistics relevant to coders, not general statistics. > Furthermore, some recent college graduates are not faring too well in the job market. This is not true in my experience for coders. Go to silicon valley and therell be many startups vying to get your attention. > If yo…

Also, is it really necessary for us to pretend the typical graduate is 150k in the red on tuition? I mean, if the argument is good, surely we can make it with realistic numbers.

Re: Do You Really Have to Go to College?

#28

Post by [deleted] »

ldrex wrote: post #11

That's especially true for Russia. The quality of russian university education is extremely low. Youngsters go to uni in order to avoid mandatory enlistment. Indeed, russian army is hell, composed of criminals. So, in some countries (like, Russia) you really HAVE TO go to uni.

[deleted]

Re: Do You Really Have to Go to College?

#29

Post by csomar »

The connection economy we live in today has had drastic effects on the incentives and economics of education — yet it seems that colleges haven’t really taken notice.

Obviously, Colleges didn't take notice because enrollment is still high and people still bet on their degrees.

What I think colleges should do, is not reduce their tuition, but improve their brand. It's not the degree that matters, it's the college that you graduated from. If the quality of graduates of a certain college drops significantly, this will affect the whole college graduates credibility.

If you are looking for a JOB (at a company), go and get a DEGREE. That's it. The typical path. There is no creativity in this path. If you are looking to become an ENTREPRENEUR and start businesses and stuff, I'd say give college a shot (maybe a year or two) and then drop (if you don't like it).

There are many other ways to network beside college. But I'd say, give it a shot.

Re: Do You Really Have to Go to College?

#30

Post by revuniversal »

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #21

We sure never see this topic on HN. :) Of course you don't have to go. And of course, getting stuck working in the restaurant business until you're 40 because you started working their because it was quick money out of high school and easier than going to college is always an option too. Now, lest anyone get the wrong idea I do not mean to imply that one path leads to the other. But also, please let's not pretend tha…

You can learn quite a bit from just the Internet, a bit of ambition, and a willingness to say "I don't know, but I will figure it out." Sure, there are foundational concepts that you will miss, but I haven't noticed their absence yet. Besides, if I'm missing some kind of CS knowledge I will buy the book, ask the web, and take the heat. I'm sure college is great, but is it necessary in this field, at this time? My personal experience says no. I'm not the best dev, and I have some things to learn, but so do the guys with papers.
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