Do You Really Have to Go to College? • Hacker News Board

Re: Do You Really Have to Go to College?

#41

Post by AutoCorrect » Mon, Mar 11, 2013, 1:42 PM UTC

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…

yeah, that piece of paper is kinda like the HS Diploma that those 80% of graduates who can't read received (NY article earlier in the week). The college degree is just as useless. How many people remember everything, or even a large portion of what they read in college? Or still remember all of the lectures? Even going to college and getting a degree is no guarantee that the person will be capable of doing the job.

Re: Do You Really Have to Go to College?

#42

Post by Arelius » Mon, Mar 11, 2013, 4:49 PM UTC

NateDad wrote: post #33

Stop with this no college crap. Here's the facts: if you have no work experience and no college education, you're not even going to get a phone interview with any software company. You're just not. None of the companies I've worked for (from tiny startups to 1000+ person software companies) would look twice at your resume. They wouldn't even get so far as printing it out so they could throw it away. You are not Mark…

Frankly, at most of the places I've worked at, you wouldn't get a phone interview with no experience, regardless of education.

Re: Do You Really Have to Go to College?

#43

Post by Arelius » Mon, Mar 11, 2013, 4:59 PM UTC

xarien wrote: post #18

I met the love of my life and the mother of my child in college. The problem with these articles and the types of comments on sites such as HN is that people neglect the fact that college is an experience, and a highly subjective one at that. Too often do technocrats forget that college isn't simply an investment, but for many, it is also a consumption good, and THAT IS OK. Sure, college isn't necessarily going to ma…

> I met the love of my life and the mother of my child in college.

And a friend of mine met the love of his life many years ago on a Bart Train. One of many who never met her in College. I guess my point is that sometimes you get lucky, and that place is in College. But the cost of college is high, and you don't know the value of the things you would do if you didn't go to college. Clearly you in particular would have lost the chance to meet the love of your life, but there is no way for somebody to know that looking forward to the choice, rather than back on the experience.

Re: Do You Really Have to Go to College?

#44

Post by Arelius » Mon, Mar 11, 2013, 5:04 PM UTC

revuniversal wrote: post #30

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 per…

Agreed. As an interviewer, I'm constantly disappointed with the skills of CS grads. Many years in industry show me that if there is anything to be learned about programming in college, it in a field other than CS.

Now, that's not strictly true, but the fact that we've accepted more non-CS grads, or non-grads than CS grads I think says something about the state of our CS education.

Re: Do You Really Have to Go to College?

#45

Post by Arelius » Mon, Mar 11, 2013, 5:06 PM UTC

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #25

zanny wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 T…

I love the serious response to a comment posed as a joke due to the poor capitalization of the original title. So much so that I feel on the fence about even pointing it out.

Re: Do You Really Have to Go to College?

#46

Post by chacham15 » Mon, Mar 11, 2013, 5:43 PM UTC

AutoCorrect wrote: post #41

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…

yeah, that piece of paper is kinda like the HS Diploma that those 80% of graduates who can't read received (NY article earlier in the week). The college degree is just as useless. How many people remember everything, or even a large portion of what they read in college? Or still remember all of the lectures? Even going to college and getting a degree is no guarantee that the person will be capable of doing the job.

What is the probability that a person without a diploma can read? You see, its a credential that means something to people who do not know the person. Even if the difference between the probability a person can read given a diploma and one without is shrinking, it still has value. Furthermore, I remember a lot of what I learned in college. What I dont fully remember, I still remember the basic concept. This aids me in a general understanding of what is possible, knowledge of possible solutions, and furthermore, if I actually need to know more detail about it it would be very fast to learn what I had forgotten (like a cache miss).

Re: Do You Really Have to Go to College?

#47

Post by avenger123 » Mon, Mar 11, 2013, 6:55 PM UTC

NateDad wrote: post #33

Stop with this no college crap. Here's the facts: if you have no work experience and no college education, you're not even going to get a phone interview with any software company. You're just not. None of the companies I've worked for (from tiny startups to 1000+ person software companies) would look twice at your resume. They wouldn't even get so far as printing it out so they could throw it away. You are not Mark…

I agree for the average person this is good advice.

I just don't think anyone needs to go to a college where they are going to have $60K-$120K tuition over the span of their degree. If you can't pay for most of the tuition in cash, then, I'm sorry, you can't afford it. And, no, being able to take out a student loan for the amount, does not mean that you can afford it. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

Go to college, find a local one that is reasonable in price. You should be able to go to a college and only have total tuition in the $20k-40k range. That's much more manageable than the $100k student loan.

Re: Do You Really Have to Go to College?

#48

Post by dinkumthinkum » Tue, Mar 12, 2013, 2:13 AM UTC

revuniversal wrote: post #30

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 per…

Well again, there are individuals but on the whole this is an issue. I suspect there are many more people without degrees that have no idea about this field than anyone really likes to admit. Is it true that there are very successful autodidacts in this field? Yes. Is it true that autodidacts represent a much smaller percentage of the population than is implied by articles like this? Yes.

It is a broad field, no one can be expected to know everything; this is true of any field. However, what is found in a few YouTubes and a devbootcamp is not, in my view, something that will carry large percentage a of people through a bubble or saturation.

These discussions are a little awkward as well because anyone that is in the pool of autodidacts is quick to defend themselves. The issue is not "Can one be in the top of the field of programming/CS without a CS degree?" This is very different question; actually I think a good foundation in computer science or mathematics would help people, greatly, in realizing that these are separate issues!

Re: Do You Really Have to Go to College?

#49

Post by dinkumthinkum » Tue, Mar 12, 2013, 2:35 AM UTC

Arelius wrote: post #45

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 T…

I love the serious response to a comment posed as a joke due to the poor capitalization of the original title. So much so that I feel on the fence about even pointing it out.

Well, nerds can find interesting discussions in almost anything. :)

Re: Do You Really Have to Go to College?

#50

Post by dinkumthinkum » Tue, Mar 12, 2013, 2:40 AM UTC

gkarthik92 wrote: post #14

I'm from India and I personally feel that India is not yet ready to accept non college graduates. No one acknowledges a non college graduate here. College in India is pretty much mandatory. In such an environment even though college education doesn't make a very big practical difference, it is important for one to go to college to achieve some kind of a footing for future ventures, either a job or a start up. Althoug…

Well, India has a real cultural issue with regard to education. There's just something odd about the idea that a child or young teenager that does not get the very top grades in sort of a "scary" educational system being basically a loser at life. There seems to be very little room for people to either reinvent themselves at, even, 16, let alone in their 20s.