Do I need to go to university? • Hacker News Board

Re: Do I need to go to university?

#171

Post by toomanybeersies » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 1:19 PM UTC

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #46

AdrianB1 wrote: post #18

I had in my teams people without any college degree or college dropouts, some gave up after one year and some close to graduation. They were good developers, the only difference I saw between college graduates and the other developers was that the college graduates were less flexible and tending to apply what they learned in college to the letter, even where it did not make sense. A few days ago I was talking to one…

I've had the opposite experience working with a mix of uni-attendees and not. Compared to their university-attended coworkers, the straight-to-industry folk were far more likely to cargo cult design patterns, languages, and frameworks.

A bit orthogonal to the actual discussion at hand, but I've become a big proponent of cargo-culting in a pragmatic fashion. I definitely ensure that everything is done in the "Rails Way" for any Ruby on Rails code, despite not necessarily agreeing with what's considered the "Rails Way" by rubocop or general rails developer consensus. If I'm doing code review for my colleagues I'll force them to refactor their changes into idiomatic Rails code, even if it's perfectly functional code. I'm less strict on JS or other languages, purely because I lack the experience to say what's the "right" or "wrong" way.

If your codebase follows a well-recognised style and pattern, it becomes a lot easier for new hires or contractors to get on their feet and start productive work than if you have some kind of brilliant idiosyncratic codebase that takes 3 months for a new hire to get their head around (as was the case when I joined my current company).

Re: Do I need to go to university?

#172

Post by chadash » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 1:21 PM UTC

motohagiography wrote: post #153

Telling people they don't "need" to go to university is an act of personal sabotage. The person giving you that advice is either an idiot, or wants to keep you in your place for other reasons. This is an urgent view. The post-hoc justifications of people who either didn't go, or people who did go but want to believe their other accomplishments are more defining - are not valuable to someone who has the means and oppo…

This is so spot on except for this:

> You don't know them because you don't get to them until 10y+ after you graduate.

I think it's actually much quicker. A degree matters most for your first few jobs after you graduate, and your first few jobs matter a lot for your career.

Re: Do I need to go to university?

#173

Post by toomanybeersies » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 1:21 PM UTC

HPsquared wrote: post #154

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some education isn't all that useful. I had a computer-something-related class in college where we were talking about how computers were getting faster. Professor: If you think computers are fast now, it'll blow your mind that back in the 60s the NSA has computers running at 1000. Me: 1000? You mean 1000 megahertz? Professor: No, 1000. Me: facepalm I'm still paying off those student loans.

"Those that can't do, teach."

And those who can't teach, research.

Re: Do I need to go to university?

#174

Post by blaser-waffle » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 1:21 PM UTC

toomanybeersies wrote: post #164

juped wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be sure to get the 4.0 GPA too - it's very nice to have for surprisingly long. Absolutely don't "challenge yourself". You can do that when you're not being graded on it.

I haven't been asked what my GPA was since I got my first graduate job (which was a follow on from my internship), which is very convenient because I graduated with a shocking GPA.

Ditto. The only people who cared about it were the Grad School applications, and the occasional (and ever-rarer) entry-level job application.

After 2 years in the field no one gives a damn. The degree is basically just a box for HR to check off.

Re: Do I need to go to university?

#175

Post by Gatsky » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 1:24 PM UTC

University seems to just be about self-edification, but it is sometimes not about that at all, and always about a whole lot more. It is clear there are too many people going to University. It has become a status symbol, driven partly by the baby boomers who just seem to like the idea of their kids going to University, and who are wealthy enough that their kids (of which I am one) are happy to swan about getting educated for 3 - 8 years. My father's experience was very different. He was actively criticised in his family for wanting to go to University, and had to get up at 4am to haul fruit crates to pay his way. His brother who went and got a job straight out of school was considered the smart one. Nevermind that the brother later went to University and became a lecturer, which comes to my next point.

When I was in University, I didn't really appreciate that it is mainly about cachet. Yes there are great experiences, you meet great people, you can be inspired, it opens your mind, you can do great work, but the thing that gets people in the door, and the thing that Universities are primarily selling, is cachet. It's interesting seeing how Covid19 interacts with this. Lots of people must be worried that their university cachet will be tainted by pandemic restrictions if they are the in the 'class of 2020'. This could be one reason for the massive number of students deferring.

So if the cachet matters to you (and your future employers), yes you should defintiely go to University, there is no substitute. There are also some jobs you can't do, or even really comprehend, unless you go to University (medicine, dentistry, civil/mechanical/electrical/aerospace/chemical/environmental engineering). In one sense these degrees are worth paying for up to a point, because it actually takes a lot of effort, facilities and equipment to offer them.

Re: Do I need to go to university?

#176

Post by koonsolo » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 1:25 PM UTC

Dumblydorr wrote: post #157

motohagiography wrote: post #153

Telling people they don't "need" to go to university is an act of personal sabotage. The person giving you that advice is either an idiot, or wants to keep you in your place for other reasons. This is an urgent view. The post-hoc justifications of people who either didn't go, or people who did go but want to believe their other accomplishments are more defining - are not valuable to someone who has the means and oppo…

I don't disagree that degrees and college education are important, but I don't think pointing to wealthy people is good evidence. Many of the wealthiest billionaires dropped out of school, didn't even go, or didn't consider it important. There are also many wealthy via inheritance. So, looking at the wealthy is not the demographic cohort that reveals the value of higher education. The reasons to attend college are mo…

> Many of the wealthiest billionaires dropped out of school

It's of course a very nice story that they "dropped out of school", but the truth is more nuanced than that. For example Bill Gates and Elon Musk had school as a backup plan in case their business would fail.

So it's not that they dropped out of school to pursue their business, they suspended their school for their business, and still had it as a backup plan. Very different! If their business wouldn't have worked, they would continue their school (which at that point was already an investment, 3 years for Bill Gates if I remember correctly).

Re: Do I need to go to university?

#177

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 1:27 PM UTC

Dumblydorr wrote: post #157

motohagiography wrote: post #153

Telling people they don't "need" to go to university is an act of personal sabotage. The person giving you that advice is either an idiot, or wants to keep you in your place for other reasons. This is an urgent view. The post-hoc justifications of people who either didn't go, or people who did go but want to believe their other accomplishments are more defining - are not valuable to someone who has the means and oppo…

I don't disagree that degrees and college education are important, but I don't think pointing to wealthy people is good evidence. Many of the wealthiest billionaires dropped out of school, didn't even go, or didn't consider it important. There are also many wealthy via inheritance. So, looking at the wealthy is not the demographic cohort that reveals the value of higher education. The reasons to attend college are mo…

[deleted]

Re: Do I need to go to university?

#178

Post by toomanybeersies » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 1:30 PM UTC

I don't regret going to university in the slightest in regards to my job as a software developer. I don't regret the $30k it cost me. Some days I do question if I should've become an electrician instead, but that was never an option for me growing up, it was more or less expected that I went to university.

University was so much more than learning how to program a computer so that I could get a job, I knew how to that that before I started. Almost none of what I learned at university I've ended up using in my career. But it was good to scratch that intellectual itch, I enjoyed learning what I learned, which is why I chose software development as a career, even if it isn't knowledge I use in everyday life. It was also an opportunity for me to move to a new city and become an independent adult and grow as a person, while meeting and socialising with people I would've never met had I stayed in my home town or even moved to a different city to attend a coding bootcamp.

Re: Do I need to go to university?

#179

Post by GoblinSlayer » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 1:36 PM UTC

sanxiyn wrote: post #82

clarry wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the important stuff? Where do I check my understanding?

I don't have a CS degree (or any degree for that matter), but I did review a CS degree program requirement and class materials. They do cover important stuffs. It's just that it doesn't take 4 years to learn them. Required classes for a CS curriculum I reviewed were: discrete math, data structure, algorithm, computer architecture, programming language, operating system.

Error analysis is important stuff and there's no easily accessible description of it, mostly because it's not a small stuff as opposed to some algorithm.

Re: Do I need to go to university?

#180

Post by toyg » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 1:39 PM UTC

VMisTheWay wrote: post #163

toyg wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think you need a degree for that sort of career shift. Just get a short training course and start building stuff and applying for jobs. University degrees are, fundamentally, a mark of status and patience: “this guy had enough money and willpower to sit through years of drudgery, so it’s safe to hire him to do the same for us”. After a few years nobody cares what the degree was actually about, particularly in…

I have projects that people consider impressive already. Here is what I've been told from various managers- >Only hire computer scientists >I don't have relevant work experience (which means taking a 60k/yr web dev job to begin my career?) >My projects are good, but I need to contribute to open source projects. The reason for the degree is to get access to high quality programming jobs rather than 60k/yr web dev. Not…

You can fix two of those with some solid effort in a high-profile FOSS project for a few months.

As for the first, you don't want to be in an environment that values credentials so strictly, imho - it poisons the air. There is always a chance they would then say "we only hire CS from Stanford/MIT" - sometimes stuff like this is just a polite way of saying "we don't think you can cut it".

> I imagine I'll learn everything about security and algorithms

Algos yeah, plenty - and I agree it's where universities really make a difference (I'm weak there too, and part of the reason for dropping out, and more recently changing career, was that I'm not really interested in that part of the job).

Security... eh. It really depends on the program.