Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

College for all? Experts say not necessarily

finance.yahoo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 37 posts

Re: College for all? Experts say not necessarily

#21

Post by ImFatYoureFat »

The problem if that there aren't very many alternatives that are as "secure" as going to college. Bachelors to grad school or the work force is a easily defined route and is proven to provide most people with the long term financial security they desire.

The solution should be to integrate alternate forms of education and preparing for the job market (ie starting your own business or apprenticing for a job) into the college track.

I know there are several pretty glaring differences, but ultimately what are the difference in goal between being a founder in a company and say getting a "Masters in Entrepreneurship".

On a separate note, I know the family of the girl in the article. GO BRUINS!!!

Re: College for all? Experts say not necessarily

#23

Post by hugh3 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #9

Worked in Silicon Valley all my life. The degree meant nothing. Worked with lots of guys with no degree, doing the same job. All that mattered was skills.

Perhaps programming is an atypical example, though? Without wanting to offend anyone, could I suggest that programming is a profession more like a skilled craftsman such as a carpenter or a plumber than anything which would have traditionally required a degree?

For the most part it requires a great deal of skill and expertise, but not necessarily so much education. Practice is the most important thing, the amount of actual book-learning you need is quite small. This is why twelve-year-olds who have read a few books are quite capable of becoming halfway decent programmers; and I'm sure a lot of us here were once those twelve-year-olds.

I'm not quite sure how to distinguish between jobs that require skills and those which require education, but I do know that a doctor or lawyer needs years of filling their head with facts about a particular field of expertise before they can start producing useful work, whereas a programmer doesn't.

Re: College for all? Experts say not necessarily

#24

Post by petercooper »

Not everyone can or must be successful in high flying, well paid career terms. People of all skills levels are needed by an economy. The UK government's goal of > 50% university attendance always struck me as insidious. The option should be there, but we shouldn't encourage people who are perfectly happy to not go and who have other non-academic or non-career related goals in life (you'd think being a house mom or dad were a curse, a failure, or something..)

Re: College for all? Experts say not necessarily

#25

Post by hugh3 »

SamAtt wrote: post #16
InclinedPlane wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, a 4 year degree has become more and more a requirement for a lot of jobs, regardless of talent and skills. Increasing credentialism of this sort will just lower the value of having a degree and also make it more necessary for every professional to have a 4 year degree (which is expensive even at the cheapest colleges). None of this is good.

I think you're missing the point. I don't think anyone is against education or certification of some kind. The problem is the quality of it. Academia is insular and has adopted the extremely broad mandate of "making better citizens" which has resulted in a lot of degree programs that are utterly useless. There was a post on HN just a few days ago from someone who was about to get a CS degree and who felt they had no…

Academia is insular and has adopted the extremely broad mandate of "making better citizens" which has resulted in a lot of degree programs that are utterly useless.

Perhaps, though academia has been specialising in the teaching of mostly-useless knowledge since at least the days of ancient Rome, so it's not likely to be a transient phenomenon.

Re: College for all? Experts say not necessarily

#26

Post by xenophanes »

hugh3 wrote: post #20
xenophanes wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average 18 yo considering college doesn't have bills yet. IMO they should aim for the life they want, and do their best to make it work out, not sacrifice 4 years to make a semi-OK possible future work out more smoothly. BTW if you're going to take semi-lame jobs, you only have to get hired a few times in your life. Optimizing the job search part isn't a great use of time -- even if no college doubles your lifeti…

On the other hand, two thirds of 18yos don't know what kind of life they want. And of those that do, two thirds will probably have completely changed their minds by the time they're 25. Some people are incredibly driven towards a particular set of goals, but the majority of people just sorta drift through life figuring things out as they go.

If you don't know what kind of life you want, how does college help? It pushes you to pick a major, and to pursue a lifestyle where attending college was not a waste of time and money.

And college is extraordinarily boring if you aren't already strongly interested in what you're studying. To get a good value out of college at minimum you need some initiative, and some understanding of what you want to get out of it. You need goals or you will just drift through completely pointlessly -- as many people do.

Of course one can try a variety of things at college. But one can do that outside of college too. Shrug.

Re: College for all? Experts say not necessarily

#27

Post by hugh3 »

xenophanes wrote: post #26
hugh3 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, two thirds of 18yos don't know what kind of life they want. And of those that do, two thirds will probably have completely changed their minds by the time they're 25. Some people are incredibly driven towards a particular set of goals, but the majority of people just sorta drift through life figuring things out as they go.

If you don't know what kind of life you want, how does college help? It pushes you to pick a major, and to pursue a lifestyle where attending college was not a waste of time and money. And college is extraordinarily boring if you aren't already strongly interested in what you're studying. To get a good value out of college at minimum you need some initiative, and some understanding of what you want to get out of it.…

Oh, I never said that going to college would help, I'm just saying that your "aim for the kind of life you want" advice isn't helpful to most school-leavers.

I'd agree that if a kid leaves school and doesn't know what he wants to do then going to university may not be the best option at all. Taking a few years off to do something else is a great idea and shouldn't be stigmatized as much as it is.

Heck, if you really want to shake up the education industry then perhaps it should be compulsory: have a university that won't let you in until you demonstrate that you've spent eighteen months in the workforce doing something impressive.

Re: College for all? Experts say not necessarily

#28

Post by awt »

hugh3 wrote: post #23
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #9

Worked in Silicon Valley all my life. The degree meant nothing. Worked with lots of guys with no degree, doing the same job. All that mattered was skills.

Perhaps programming is an atypical example, though? Without wanting to offend anyone, could I suggest that programming is a profession more like a skilled craftsman such as a carpenter or a plumber than anything which would have traditionally required a degree? For the most part it requires a great deal of skill and expertise, but not necessarily so much education . Practice is the most important thing, the amount of…

An interesting book on this topic is 'Shop-class as Soulcraft.'

There may be some virtuoso programmers that can write astounding software without any prior experience. However, there are aspects that take most people years to learn, due to the time it takes to release a project and see it's failings. This is different from learning physics, philosophy, or the academic aspects of law and medicine which can be learned in a classroom setting. However, the practical aspects of law and medicine cannot be learned without years of experience in the field.

So yes, to be able to start practicing software the required body of knowledge is much smaller than medicine or law -- however this is somewhat artificial. There is monopoly control over licensing for doctors and lawyers. If there were monopoly control over licensing for programmers, they might have to spend years in the classroom before practicing as well. I believe that apprentices could start practicing medicine and law much earlier in their careers and learn the facts they need along the way. This would be a lot more affordable for students, but it would lower the wages of lawyers and doctors, so it's probably not going to happen.

Re: College for all? Experts say not necessarily

#29

Post by awt »

pwhelan wrote: post #13

Shop Class as Soulcraft is an excellent, excellent book about this. PhD who worked as a motorcycle mechanic. A lot of white collar work is requires no real thought only the ability to concentrate. I think this is why so many people hate their jobs.

Just read this book myself. For a while after reading it I was hell-bent on becoming a motorcycle mechanic. However, I've come to realize there are a lot of aspects of programming that are similar to the work the author says is involved in being a Mechanic.

Re: College for all? Experts say not necessarily

#30

Post by araneae »

hugh3 wrote: post #23
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #9

Worked in Silicon Valley all my life. The degree meant nothing. Worked with lots of guys with no degree, doing the same job. All that mattered was skills.

Perhaps programming is an atypical example, though? Without wanting to offend anyone, could I suggest that programming is a profession more like a skilled craftsman such as a carpenter or a plumber than anything which would have traditionally required a degree? For the most part it requires a great deal of skill and expertise, but not necessarily so much education . Practice is the most important thing, the amount of…

The two professions you mentioned (doctor and lawyer) are graduate degrees.

And no, it's not true just of programming. I'm currently working a job that I would get paid more for with an Associate's in the field... my four years of Ivy League education is totally worthless.

Basically, the only use of a 4 year degree is a stepping stool to a professional degree. For the vast majority of folks, it's completely useless.

Post reply on HN